Little Was Changed By The First Round of The Civil Wars Of 2020

June 5, 2020

The first round of the civil wars of 2020 seems to be over. It did not change much.

Unjustifiable police violence against one man was documented on video. This enabled the issue to spread. Protest, first local then nationwide and even internationally, followed. The police reacted to it with more unjustifiable police violence. This was again documented on video - one collection of these now has 282 entries – and spread further.

The police did not exclude the media from its attacks as it usually does. It even seemed to especially target these. That again amplified the echo of its violence.

Thus the police and its supporters have lost the argument.

In parallel to the protests some looting happened. President Trump and many other 'law and order' people saw the violence against property as a more important issue that the police violence against people – especially against people of color.

Trump reacted by calling up the military and a myriad of federal police forces to 'dominate the battlespace' of Washington DC and other cities.

They cleared a peace- and lawful demonstration from Lafayette Square near the White House for a photo-op. The move was illegal but will likely have no legal consequences.

Five well known retired 4-star generals, Dempsey, Kelly, Mullen, Mattis, Allen, protested against the proposed abuse of the military. The active commander of pacific air forces, a 4-star African-American, published a moving video with his thoughts on the issue. On this the military is not on Trump's side.

Thus Trump and his supporters have lost the argument.

That the police and Trump lost their arguments unfortunately does not mean that anything within the U.S. will change.

The military will not correct the issues the situation exposed. Political corruption at the federal as well as the local level is bipartisan and too engrained:

Cuomo, his party and New York’s legislative leaders have raked in more than $1 million from police unions as they have refused to enact a bill proponents say would deter police violence.

Opposition candidate Joe Biden responded to the issue of institutionalized racism with a dog whistle comment: Joe Biden says '10-15%' of Americans 'are just not very good people'. Well of course not. Some 13% of U.S. citizens are black. Given Biden's racist history – supporting segregation, writing the crime bill, lying about marching with the civil rights movement etc. – it is highly unlikely that he chose that range by chance. There is zero evidence that he would change a thing.

The protests will soon die down. But the divide within the U.S. public will only deepen. Trump voters will call themselves the 'Trump Army' and wear the camouflage 'Keep America Great' hat to fight the 'Liberal MOB'. Liberals will respond with pro-black gestures but without follow up actions. Writing 'black lives matter' on a DC street or changing the name of a place does nothing for blacks when the police can continue as before. Racist attacks in the U.S. will only increase.

What has changed is the public image of the U.S. throughout the world. Years of careful branding and propaganda have been put to waste. No U.S. ambassador can now express concerns about police violence in a foreign country without being laughed at. The U.S. has been put on crisis watch and in my estimate will stay there for quite a while.

The current economic situation makes it certain that the civil war continues. The next round is likely to be more violent. The empire is sinking in front of our eyes.

Posted by b on June 5, 2020 at 18:17 UTC | Permalink

Comments

FOXNN pinned violence on the protesters
Both FOX and CNN were able to blame the protesters for the violence regardless of whatever the police did. FOX had a bizzare talking point that gained traction in the St. John’s Church photo op, ‘tear gas was never used, only smoke and pepper spray’. The FOX hosts and posters who repeat this make it sound like smoke and pepper pellets are used in high end Spa’s and tear gas is like a chlorine attack. Pepper pellets are an irritant as is smoke and tear gas is non-lethal.
Trump pretends we are great and we pretend to believe him
(A play on the great Soviet era joke, ‘we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us’. I wonder if there are going to be any consequences to the people outside the U.S. seeing us for who we actually are vs the delusional self-image that we in the U.S. cling to. Maybe we are a strong enough bully that we can forever coerce countries like Liberia into doing our bidding.
Personally, I think it’s our military that will crack first when they see the locals hating them while hearing the BS from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy types. But maybe our officers will keep them penned up in bases isolated in U.S. bases with only the occasional foray turning them into beasts. We produced two psycopaths who are now serving in Congress who served in the military, Tom Cotton and Green Beret Michael Waltz
So either, the good people in the military will crack or the people in the U.S. will notice that our soldiers coming back are deranged. BTW I’m not morally judging our soldiers, I am saying that there are consequences to using them poorly. Something has got to give eventually.

Posted by: Christian J Chuba | Jun 5 2020 18:45 utc | 1

I understand that the French have an adage that states: The more things change, the more they remain the same.

Posted by: GeorgeV | Jun 5 2020 18:46 utc | 2

thanks b… it is a watershed moment in usa history and highlights how the exceptional nation is not so exceptional anymore, if it ever was….
but it seems to me the world has to grapple with how so much of the institutions created after ww2 no longer serve the world, but instead serve the 1%… for this, although much of it is centered in the usa, it is not about the usa, so much as other countries recognizing the real need for change and leadership in the face of increasing instability and chaos… if we make it thru the environmental holocaust we have collectively set in motion here, we will be lucky… it is no longer about the economy but about the world surviving thru these misplaced and misguided priorities that are constantly pushed on us – neoliberalism being at the top of the list…

Posted by: james | Jun 5 2020 18:49 utc | 3

NOAA predict many hurricanes this summer. 2 already formed prior to the official start of the season, one is on it way to the US already now. I can imagine one of these has got to land somewhere in the USA as a Cat 4 or 5 eventually. Let’s see Trump try blame that on China, Obama or the Democrats. For sure it won’t be global warming to be blamed. The Media won’t want to miss a second of it.
If anyone thought Trump has already had his Katrina moment, they may want to hold their breath a little longer. When entire counties of poor black people will be faced with the inevitably inept Federal response, the mix of neglect, looting and the National Guard will make for an interesting cocktail of human misery.
https://www.noaa.gov/media-release/busy-atlantic-hurricane-season-predicted-for-2020

Posted by: Et Tu | Jun 5 2020 18:51 utc | 4

What’s happening in the US is, without irony, a color revolution.
While Trump is a narcissistic, megalomaniac, the Democrats and the rest of the DC establishment (including the military) are using the weakest sections of society to mobilize opinion against Trump for the election. Obama, in a medium article and in a video, reiterated that the federal government cannot hope to solve the crisis at the ground level and that the crucial changes have to come at the local level. In the video he says: (from https://youtu.be/PmpeRG8Gkow

8:40 The report Obama commissioned while in office to recommend reforms to prevent police violence] demonstrated something that is critical for us today. Most of the reforms we need to see to prevent the type of violence and injustice system we’ve seen need to take place at the local level. The reform has to take place in more than 19,000 American municipalities, more than 18,000 local enforcement jurisdictions….we need to be clear where change is going to happen. It is mayors, country executives that appoint most police chiefs and negotiate collective bargaining agreements with police unions and that determines police practices in local communities. It’s DAs and State’s Attorney’s that typically decide whether or not to investigate police misconduct. And those are all elected officials.

Many of these jurisdictions are Democrat controlled, including Minneapolis where the Floyd incident happened. But of course Obama’s measured advice falls on the wayside by all parties who are not on a battle for federal power.
Meanwhile news that’s getting buried is the investigation into the Russiagate hoax by the Senate Judiciary where essentially the man who appointed Mueller, the DOJ’s Rosenstein has all but admitted there was nothing to investigate even back in January 2017.
The tactics being used then by the neoliberal Dems are very similar to the ones successfully used in Europe to overthrow governments through mob action. One can argue that perhaps Trump deserves it, but on the other hand it’s not clear whether the Democrats and Biden deserve power either.
Except more dirty fighting as the election draws nearer.

Posted by: Ludwig | Jun 5 2020 19:01 utc | 5

I would love to see an end to global private finance centered empire but I am only going to hold my breath for the good stuff.
I continue to posit that much of the financial crisis/class war was pre-existent and is being enhanced/sold as pandemic response rather than another tithe to the elite and increased social control.
It is not good enough for Trump to have his ass handed to him because it is the, behind the scenes, elite owners/leaders that need to be geo-politically neutered.
Will global private finance rise through the ashes of what is considered to be a purely American empire? Too soon to tell but interesting to watch.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jun 5 2020 19:02 utc | 6

I note that The Saker adopted my take that what’s occurring is an Insurrection based on the failure of the Social Contract.
A few days ago, I linked to this article Tom at ICH provided because of the photo it contained–a side-by-side comparison of Colin Kapernick on his knee and the photo of Derek Chauvin killing Mr. Floyd with his knee. You’ll need to scroll down the page just a bit to see what I’m writing about–I wish b would post it as an update to this article! There’s no doubt in my mind that the killer cop chose that pose and manner of killing Mr. Floyd explicitly to send a message–indeed, all 4 cops’s behavior show their premeditation and their message. And IMO, African-Americans and their allies responded using the only language the State ever hears from the public. This Twitter thread discusses the need to abolish the non-legal doctrine generated by activist judges of “qualified immunity” that cops use to get away with most of their crimes, along with other suggestions. That doctrine is why those 4 cops are so confidant in their actions. And it’s that doctrine people are rioting against whether they know it or not.
I wrote about the real looters yesterday and it continues today. Hudson’s latest interview transcript again details the who, how, and why.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 5 2020 19:06 utc | 7

Sorry b
“No U.S. ambassador can now express concerns about police violence in a foreign country without being laughed at.”
This has been going on for decades. The police violence is nothing new. The US will still interfere in others affairs, and nobody will be laughing

Posted by: Blue Dotterel | Jun 5 2020 19:28 utc | 8

Some arguments were lost but not the war.
One thing has changed, the US has stepped closer toward an authoritarian oligarchy wet dream. It is an incremental process and the goalposts have again been moved forward. The richest and most powerful have made huge gains while the masses bleat and bleed and meaningless headlines throw empty words into the air; “Defund the Police!” indeed. Our leaders have gotten away with even more illegalities without consequence, as you noted.
Civil asset forfeitures, beatings/brutality, surveillance, militarization, injustice, etc. will only be enhanced going forward.
Biden? A decrepit, mendacious, weak, incoherent and corrupt campaign. An utterly vacuous and irrelevant effort displayed for show only as the Democrats move in lockstep with the Republicans on major issues such as military spending, bailing out the rich, covering up corruption, etc.
The US economy, LOL. The stock market is again exploding with vigorous bloat belying reality (DOW 35K EOY2020). The illusions of prosperity and peace are well painted domestically if not internationally. The idiot-in-chief is certainly gloating about today’s economic news. And the old bugaboo inflation is still being held at bay with newly relieved pressure on payrolls/benefits, energy, etc. Where else is the newly available government-printed money to go but into the stock market?
After all we’re gold rush rich and ready to spend, enjoy the “tinkle down” economy while you can:
https://www.denverpost.com/2020/06/04/federal-financial-support-economic-loss-pandemic/
COVID, old news. Step over the dead and move on.
Is a new uneasy calm setting in before a new and bigger storm? We’ll see.

Posted by: snow_watcher | Jun 5 2020 19:29 utc | 9

The case for ‘This Was A Civil War’, or could have been, or will be is half the story, a partial analysis.
Like the Syrian War was a civil war, except it was paid for and equipped by the regions major powers and the US and Israel.
If Syria had been a civil war, it would have lasted 3 months, not 9 years.
The US won’t have a civil war. The issue in the streets is Liberalism’s effort to use anarchy (like the West uses Islamic Sunni Terrorism). It’s a technique of destabilization.
There won’t be a race war or a civil war. There may be a war to retake the Republic from the Deep State, from the Liberal Cult, from the Shadow Government and corrupt Congress.
The war to come would be a revolution to re-establish the Rule of Law, the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, a war to stop separatist states from breaking from the Federal Union, maybe a war to reestablish the borders of the nation.
Understand what was going on in the streets. Who was doing what, not what you think was happening and why.

Posted by: Red Ryder | Jun 5 2020 19:31 utc | 10

Having fails in Syria, Afghanistan Yemen, Venezuela and Iran, This pathetic weak minded coward now turns on the most vonrable in his own society!
All that in a pandemic. It was pre-planed that way.
You won’t be seeing an election haveing failed else where, Trump is right now staging a coop in his own country.

Posted by: Mark2 | Jun 5 2020 19:34 utc | 11

The Spin keeps whirling:
“Jim Cramer: Coronavirus Pandemic Triggered ‘One of the Greatest Wealth Transfers in History.'”
NO!!!
What’s occurred is the biggest act of FRAUD in history, dwarfing the previous FRAUD of 2007-09, and those that came before. What the FRAUD enabled was the transfer of assets and a mountain of debt.
BigLie Media continues doing its job led by the biggest liars of all–the financial press.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 5 2020 19:38 utc | 12

Several related points:
1. Trump and Barr are trying to depict all the demonstrators as terrorists, and police are reportably interrogating people about their politics. This is a fascist dynamic, and extends Trump’s rantings about “socialists” for the past year. Quintessential fascist. Trump also has had his finger on the martial law trigger. But, it is now clear that high ranking military officials would oppose him. The state therefore is not under his control. That is good insofar as it limits Trump’s slide towards dictatorship. Of course, it also points to the power of the national security apparatus vis a vis the elected branches of the state.
2. We also need to dwell on the uprising. It has been a groundswell of rage against the police amongst black people and white youth. There would be millions more on the streets if a pandemic wasn’t on. This mass fury at the police is new and important. Defund the police is now a common refrain. Thousands of people have now seen the true nature of the coercive branches of the state. Radicalization will rightly follow.
3. Obama stepped in again, trying to recuperate the rage into the deadend Democratic Party through moralistic exhortations to “vote.” The protests will quiet down, but the systemic issues will remain and the Democrats just want to return to business as usual. They are wrong. The trajectory of the US political economy, at home and abroad, is towards decline and turmoil.
4. The rush to reopen will accelerate the crisis when a second wave of covid 19 is triggered. The end of extended unemployment benefits, the increase of evictions, the loss of healthcare for millions, etc., will open another vector of struggle, especially as workers are sacrificed for the stock market.
5. We should thus expect a collision of counter-hegemonic vectors, including the black liberation movement, white youth, and unemployed workers to emerge throughout the summer.
This is the beginning of the next American revolution, and it will be a multi racial working class one — but it will need political direction and organization outside the Democratic Party. The work of building that political formation is the urgent task of the present.

Posted by: Prof K | Jun 5 2020 19:39 utc | 13

Follow the money.
Many people here is talking as if the world was an abstract battleground of ideas/ideologies.
But the reality is that the USG has just torched circa USD 10 trn just to keep the status quo somewhat intact (with a 13% unemployment rate and a -52% GDP non-annualized). If it was a boxing match, the USA would be the fighter on the ropes with a lot of minutes still left on the round’s clock.
This episode of History is still not over. Not even close. Interesting times.

Posted by: vk | Jun 5 2020 19:39 utc | 14

Two websites reported a cop was put on fire, ( I went back to the sites, but they were unreachable) also those sites said certain private parties were busy shutting down Internet access to the websites that have any narrative about Floyd.. anyone know anything about either of these.?
Discussion about cop training thing is needed. who trained those cops, how many more like them are on the force or in service to a county, city or state.. .. something has produced killer attitudes in some cops<= it is the source of the attitude that needs to be discovered. and understood..

Posted by: snake | Jun 5 2020 19:41 utc | 15

I disagree when he says there were a ‘few violent protests’, the majority were violent, the problem is the MSM are not publishing them, wanting to keep up the farce that these are peacheful protests. What about the discovery that weapons such as piles of bricks hidden behind fake construction site signs, weapons, pipe bombs, pipes, etcetc are all hidden in areas close to the pre-planned protest sites, there are videos of these; these protests and this violence has been planned for a very long time.
Has anyone seen the videos of the actual riots in NY and Santa Monica at the least? Dozens and dozens of stores were smashed open and completely looted, we are talking about Bloomingdales/Rolex/Chanel/Dior/Foot Locker/Best Buy/GAP/Louie Viutton/GUCCI and the list is long. It was so serious in downtown NYC that every single store in uptown NY, all along 57th Street and from Madison all down 5th Avenue and on to the West Side is completely boarded up, completely. Does anyone show these videos? When has anyone seen NY like this? Santa Monica was just looted there are videos that the whole length of stores are destroyed.
So you are saying the military or national guard should NOT be called? COME ON!!!! So where are the protections to the legal taxpayers, to the normal law abiding public who just want to earn a living?
OF COURSE the national guard and military should be called and put a stop to this immediately.
This entire thing is a complete farce. You cannot see it? This is just an extension of the Covid lockdown hoax, anything to prolong the destruction of the economy, the unemployment, the chaos, this will extend until the elections–next they will say the riots caused another outbreak of covid and they need another 3 month lockdown, they will support that with fake numbers just like they did the first time. Wait and see.

Posted by: anne | Jun 5 2020 19:42 utc | 16

I think your characterization of the situation as an “argument” is a little off base and causing some misunderstandings. There is no argument about whether the treatment of George Floyd was appropriate behavior from police. Both sides (protesters and Trump/his supporters) agree it was not. There is no argument about whether police brutality in the US is a problem. Both sides agree that it is. The problem is that excising it from the system is extremely difficult. In the US, police are heavily unionized and firing an officer is a tedious and lengthy process, even with documented misconduct. Beyond that, cops cover for each other out of friendship and reciprocity. There is no way for Trump or anyone else to pass a law that would eliminate police violence, although hopefully the magnitude of the protests will show cops how much shit they can get into if they don’t act appropriately. Agree that the propaganda and branding of the US is fading away, a good thing in my mind!
On the other hand, large-scale protests and especially rioting/looting are a show of force by the activists. It is not about an argument, it is about a demonstration of power to the police. Game theory is clear: if your opponent makes a show of force and you don’t respond, that is weakness that invites further attacks. Trump’s comments about “dominating” the protesters are getting at this angle. I agree with your point that this caused even further brutality, but saying “therefore Trump and his allies lost the argument” is off base. Regardless of what those individuals you listed said, it seems to me that this aim was successful – rioting/looting is much reduced since a few days ago – although only time will tell. If the rioting/looting does die down, that will be a win for Trump, not a loss, regardless of what methods were used. Victory is victory and humans, as tribal animals, pick up on power cues very easily.

Posted by: sabre | Jun 5 2020 19:49 utc | 17

A small OT to snow_watcher about COVID-19 since it still has the potential to be a bigger storm and continues growing; the first two charts on this ECDC summary are not cumulative but instead reported new cases and deaths each day. According to those numbers the amount of new deaths has stabilized but with the continued slow increase of new COVID-19 cases this most likely only points to under-counting (reasonable enough, testing dead people isn’t much of a priority in a crisis), errors, and/or fudged reports.
To me the big question is what happens when people get reinfected multiple times, will we again see superficially “healthy” people suddenly dropping dead wherever they might be like “we” did a hundred years ago? As far as I know nobody knows (and I don’t say that to blame anyone, it’s difficult to try to figure out new diseases).

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Jun 5 2020 19:54 utc | 18

End of the Empire!
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xlQL0cG3xc0/XtgSEaBnunI/AAAAAAABgno/pdv9PmGMrVortvKurhSgoeoBMCu-NRxGQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/imperium1216.JPG

Posted by: heresy101 | Jun 5 2020 20:01 utc | 19

@ Posted by: snake | Jun 5 2020 19:41 utc | 15
Cop killers are not a thing in the USA. They are essentially sacred cows: no American, right-wing or left-wing, would gratuitously murder or beat a cop.
Right-wingers are sticking to the narrative that it was a personal vendetta between the cop and Floyd, not a racial issue. The argument goes that Floyd was a serial criminal, with a long file of past arrests and fines. In one of these crimes, said cop was hosed, hence the revenge.
If this narrative is correct, then the protesters are even more with the reason than before.
See, the problem here is that the cop didn’t kill Floyd alone. He killed it with three other cops. In other words, he had to “convince”, successfully, three other cops to go out at broad daylight to murder a petty criminal.
Think about it: if you are in a situation where four cops on duty, under broad daylight, can casually go and kill a random person for pure personal reasons, then you must agree the system is rotten. Corruption must be everywhere in the US police.
Worst: the method they used to kill Floyd is sanctioned by the institution. It was possibly learnt from the Israeli Army (IDF). The cop immediately realized the new authorized protocol to immobilize criminals could kill, and they immediately begun to use it to kill people they wanted to. This means State-sanctioned license to kill. This compromise the whole system.
So, I don’t know why the American right-wing insist on this narrative. I think it must be sheer stupidity.
Others insist on the pro-kulak (pro-peitite-bourgeoisie) argument that private property is more sacred than life, therefore looters are fair game. At least this argument clearly delineates the class divisions in the country.
What I find amazing is that no side in the USA even blinked when the Congress authorized spending USD 10 trillion to keep the system afloat. It’s like if this never happened, or like if it was a normal thing. This is money fetishism at its maximum level.

Posted by: vk | Jun 5 2020 20:02 utc | 20

Oblamblam’s pontificating makes me retch. He is working to downplay expectations: “Oh, it’s so hard to make changes with 19,000 police agencies… whatever are we gonna do???” How convenient to forget that it was 50 years of federal funding for cop payrolls, cop equipment, cop training, cop policies, and “Fusion Centers” to coordinate those 19,000 agencies that all knew what day to put out the bricks and attack journalists with impunity.
When a few states resisted raising the alcohol age back to 21, the feds threatened to cut off funding. Instant obedience, as always. Cops are killers because that’s what they are trained to do, that’s what they are told to do, and they are more than willing to follow orders. It’s right there in the name: Police Force.
There is no reforming police forces. Those institutions must be completely dismantled. People need Peace Officers, not Law Enforcement (there’s that word again) Officers. There will be no Police Force changes until after the whole stinking tower of corruption falls over.
At the rate the Empire is crumbling, we might not have long to wait…

Posted by: Trailer Trash | Jun 5 2020 20:04 utc | 21

Snake @ 15
Regarding this specialised training, it was plain to see at the ‘North Dakota pipeline protest. That was dictator Trump in the making ! But America slept on. Similar training was going on within the prison for profit industry plus the 3strikes criminal law policy. Big demonstrations
It was all there for those who had eyes.
On the net the methodical take down of nearly all the good actavist sites.
Two years ago you could search and get a access to those sites now their buried by algarthyms.
It was all there In plain site.

Posted by: Matk2 | Jun 5 2020 20:06 utc | 22

Bit much… that weirdly naive optimistic streak of ‘b’ having a gloat?
More information and less circle jerking please. As of there haven’t been hot conflicts going on during almost half a year of media blackout???????

Posted by: Rae | Jun 5 2020 20:07 utc | 23

Vandalism and looting are by products of the protest. If they are reduced it will be seen as a victory for law and order and Trump will take personal credit.
I don’t see any signs of the Empire shrinking just yet. The protests were against police brutality not foreign involvement. There is obviously a division domestically but are any US bases closing? Has anybody left NATO? Is there any less Russia and China bashing in the media? Have sanctions against Iran and Venezuela been lifted?

Posted by: dh | Jun 5 2020 20:07 utc | 24

b,
I’m sorry but you again miss the mark when you discuss American politics.
Any kind of popular revolt against economic terrorism and plundering instituted by the elite and protected by a dimwitted police force was snatched right before our eyes even before we could react to the George Floyd, highly-publicized snuff film.
The second the well-funded and local controlled-opposition groups BLM and Antifa seized on the opportunity to declare this a racial matter, it purposefully alienated over 50% of the U.S. population, what we call the middlebrow, the middle class, or the independent citizen. The independent generally votes dem or repub but is not a partisan and detests domestic violence and is completely ignorant to the depth of neoliberal indoctrination which is taking place in our college system and increasingly, in our primary schools. It is generally conservative in nature.
You can see what I am getting at, here. For those broadcasting their anger from the streets and decrying this situation as racist in nature, they are either ignorant to the need to appeal to this citizen listed above or are purposefully sabotaging any effort to bring them on board.
This is why I have made the comment in prior discussions that blacks need to get their house in order.
1) They need to distance themselves from BLM and Antifa and decry unequivocally the violence on the street
2) They need to distance themselves from neoliberal infiltrators and other guilt-ridden white liberals
3) They need to realize that police brutality is a problem which affects all colors in America and is the result of a culture of death being exported in our FP and being brought home from years of policing hostile forces and incurring grave psychological damage and alienation to our troops; there are several videos online available of whites being murdered by police in similar fashion as George Floyd; Why these videos were unable to crack the national spotlight is very telling
4) By doing the above, they need to also appeal to each other to end inner-city violence being perpetrated against themselves; this will require a depth of focus and intensity that can not be achieved by constantly pointing to external forces as sole contributors to their current plight; do not trust the white but do not lay at their feet every ill that beguiles you
5) They need to realize that any appeal to our institutions for reparations or handouts will result in further entrenchment of resentment from us whites to blacks and will continually result in further alienation
6) Black elites in this country need to abandon popular cultural outlets such as music, acting, and sports; These pillars of entertainment and culture are chief proponents of neoliberalism and will never lift a finger to truly help America rid itself of our anational elite which is the only thing that can bring back local control
Under the multicultural and neoliberal reality all of us Americans find ourselves in, it becomes necessary to trace back the origins or where it went wrong and, by doing so, attempt to limit to the best of our ability institutionalized evils that can not help but exist under our shared history.
Many in here are arguing for greater central control to somehow correct these evils, but I will continue to argue that no such solution can be brought which is reasonable to Americans who will fight and spill blood for their liberty. You may scoff at such a notion, but I am warning you, you do so at your own peril and will be judged harshly for inciting blacks and minorities further down self-defeating and destructive avenues.
Where are the black leaders, the poets, and the thinkers to help them during these destitute times?

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Jun 5 2020 20:07 utc | 25

Alex S. Vitale’s writes in The End of Policing (2017, Verso), “Our entire criminal justice system has become a gigantic revenge factory. Three-strikes laws, sex-offender registries, the death penalty, and abolishing parole are about retribution, not safety. Whole segments of our society have been deemed always-already guilty. This is not justice; it is oppression. Real justice would look to restore people and communities, to rebuild trust and social cohesion, to offer people a way forward, to reduce the social forces that drive crime, and to treat both victims and perpetrators as full human beings. Our police and larger criminal justice system not only fail at this but rarely see it as even related to their mission.” The book is available as a free download at Verso’s website, along with Police: A Field Guide (an “illustrated survival manual for encounters with cops).

Posted by: gwilliard | Jun 5 2020 20:12 utc | 26

More history, heh. Black lives Matter – the youtubie is labelled as such, though at the time that was not could not be a title.
James Baldwin at Cambridge U, 1965. 24 mins. (See the short shots of the uncomfortable blank-faced UK audience. Also his statements about the Southern White ppl being repressed, too poor…)
https://youtu.be/Vbj0oZYucKs
Also interesting. Canadian TV, 60s, Jimmy on the Black Experience in America. 8 mins.
https://youtu.be/YPaBXcEVpOE

Posted by: Noirette | Jun 5 2020 20:19 utc | 27

The empire doesn’t follow this logic B..The destabilization caused by the lootings is just useful now for the yankes establishment..Probably the “true protests” were the one made in the first days after the murder..then the libdem cartel blew on fire and took the scene and all has been driven again into the duopoly left vs right so nothing will change for sure..Divide et impera..only false hopes for the working class.

Posted by: LuBa | Jun 5 2020 20:22 utc | 28

>no American, right-wing or left-wing, would gratuitously murder
>or beat a cop.
That’s because everyone here understands they would be signing their own death warrant. The police have no limits when it comes to revenge for attacks on their own people, including the “lock-down” of the entire city of Boston for one cop-killing marathon bomber found hiding in a boat. (He was found by a resident, not the cops.)

Posted by: Trailer Trash | Jun 5 2020 20:24 utc | 29

snake @15–
That incident took place in Mexico.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 5 2020 20:30 utc | 30

All this is right out of the Adolf Hitler play book. Well you’re still shock he’ll move on Mexico and Canada. Whilst Israel will move on Palistine and surrounding country’s! It won’t be pretty!
You have 3 choice’s join him, fight him or run to the hills, either way we’re going to wind up dead.
Me? ‘I can’t breath’
PS that was me @ 22
Big hands small key pad

Posted by: Mark2 | Jun 5 2020 20:30 utc | 31

Snake @ 15:
UK online newspaper Morning Star had a recent article stating that the Minnesota state police department received training from Israeli paramilitary forces in 2012 at the Israeli consulate in Minneapolis.
The kneeing technique that Derek Chauvin used on George Floyd that caused Floyd’s death is one used by the IDF and other Israeli security forces on Palestinians. The article could not say though if Chauvin had attended the training in 2012.
You will need to search for the article on DuckDuckGo or some other search engine. I’m on my smartphone at present and find linking to another online article hard.

Posted by: Jen | Jun 5 2020 20:33 utc | 32

Some might call this Urban Renewal:
“D.C. Mayor Bowser has ‘Black Lives Matter’ painted on street leading to White House: The act was intended to honor protesters who had peacefully assembled earlier this week.”
Check out the pic and short video.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 5 2020 20:46 utc | 33

Sunny Runny Burger @18
Thanks. Dealing with COVID-19 is a complex conundrum in today’s world with many competing and contradictory “opinions” thrown about. As it continues spreading almost 400K dead worldwide (110K dead US), give or take, as you noted with detection and reporting issues.
I’ve landed on trying to stick with the science and following reasonable efforts at containment while treatments are investigated. Wearing a mask while shopping for example, is not a hardship and probably helps reduce infection rates.
Re-infection has not been one of my top concerns so far as I’ve only seen brief and inconclusive (if not outright dismissive) mention on the topic. Immunity post-infection is ingrained in my thinking about diseases. I’ll keep my eyes open on that.
On the other hand frequent reports of serious incapacity and long term damage to survivors after having been infected by the virus keep me on my toes almost as much as the fatalities. While some reports have highlighted this troubling aspect it doesn’t seem like this gets as much attention as it should.
The economic and societal ramifications resulting from containment efforts are a serious challenge and at the heart of much unrest today, I’d even argue there’s been an element of “blowing off some steam” with these protests and riots.
While my “…uneasy calm, bigger storm…” statement was meant to encompass the entirety of my comment including the economy, etc. I appreciate your COVID focus. I did not mean to imply that ‘b’ and others here have brushed COVID aside as no longer an issue warranting attention, far from it, it underlies and exacerbates troubling times for now and likely in the future. My comment about COVID being dismissed was more an at large commentary as the “let’s get back to work, sacrifices must be made” mindset takes hold.

Posted by: snow_watcher | Jun 5 2020 21:04 utc | 34

So, social media platforms are being used by Soros funded groups like Antifa and Black Lives Matter to organize and to get out their orders, but when those that wanted to promote rallies about the unconstitutionality of stay-at-home orders and the lockdowns and shutdowns , or god forbid question vaccine safety , Facebook and Twitter censors or threatens to block accounts.
Pretty clears whats happening

Posted by: Kay Fabe | Jun 5 2020 21:10 utc | 35

Looks like the bigwigs of Minneapolis Police have realized the shit could quickly regurgitate upwards to them and are quickly acting to cover their trail:
Minneapolis to ban the use of chokeholds in response to George Floyd’s death

Posted by: vk | Jun 5 2020 21:15 utc | 36

===> Blue Dotterel @ 8
This has been going on for decades. The police violence is nothing new. The US will still interfere in others affairs, and nobody will be laughing
The China based WeChat, the equivalent of Facebook, has a Channels section now loaded with multiple videos of US domestic violence..
It is presented without comment, but no comment is needed..
WeChat viewers will form their own opinions, particularly following the sponsored HKG violence..
This widespread distaste for disorder will lead to popular support for Chinas defenses against Chaos
US can no longer expect easy passage from China for its adventurism

Posted by: David KNZ | Jun 5 2020 21:17 utc | 37

Shadowstats reports on the supposedly great jobs report:
“The Happy News – May 2020 Headline Unemployment Dropped to 13.4% from 14.7%, While Payrolls Jumped by 2.5 Million versus a revised plunge of 20.7 (-20.7) Million [previously 20.5 (-20.5)] Million / Not So Happy, That News Was Not Particularly Credible, Given: Major Prior-Period Downside Revisions; Unusually Low Response Levels; Revised Methodologies and Seasonal Adjustments; Counting 4.9 Million May Unemployed as “Employed” (the Third Month of Acknowledged Misreporting); and details Running Meaningfully Counter to New Claims, Irrespective of Definitional Conflicts / May 30th Week New Claims Showed Economy Still in Contraction / May Money Supply Annual Growth Continued Surging to Record Highs.”
IMO, the genuine rate of unemployment within the Outlaw US Empire is unknown as the data’s been doctored so much as to be completely unreliable. IMO, the actual number is closer to 50%, but is much less when the black and grey job markets are included. As I showed yesterday, M2 money supply continues to skyrocket while the velocity of that supply continues to slow further–the Looters are hoarding their booty is what that illustrates.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 5 2020 21:20 utc | 38

China has its increasingly phony baloney “One country, two systems” is a constitutional principle of the People’s Republic of China describing the governance of Hong Kong and Macau, since they have become the Special Administrative Regions (SARs) of China in 1997 and 1999 respectively.”
The US has its increasingly clearly-seen “One Party-Two Names” system so it doesnʻt “much” matter which party is governing an area because it is only “One Party” the party of US capitalism. The “two” are merely slightly different tendencies [abortion, guns, and degree of cruelty shown the politically weak, being the only significant [I wonʻt quarrel much with someone disputing ʻsignificantʻ. Noticeable perhaps is a more accurate term] differences of a unified core of policies of repression and overt/covert racism.

Posted by: stevelaudig | Jun 5 2020 21:52 utc | 39

A friend of mine who is an academic in the area of constitutional law and public policy at UC Berkeley said in a discussion group the other day that the George Floyd murder constituted a tipping point not a revolution in the societal attitude toward police violence.
He contended that the increasing availability of video evidence of police brutality to all members of the public and especially to blacks had seen a steady increase in pressure upon politicians to rethink the nature of police enforcement methods and the immunity of police. This event and the obvious indifference of the officer as he knelt on the victim and the complete disinterest of his fellow officers in intervening in support of the victim and the incontrovertible nature of the video changed the narrative.
This is the first time in my memory that a large number of police chiefs and police unions in the USA broke the blue line and publicly called out the officers for their behavior.
Of course the head of the POA in Minneapolis, Bob Kroll, responded by sending a letter https://twitter.com/StribJany/status/1267471624397361162 to his membership blaming the politicians and rioters for the events and designating Floyd as having a “violent criminal history” which history would have no bearing on his behavior that day while apparently zoned on fentanyl.
Kroll also has a history of encouraging his fellow officers to attend Killology trainings (not sanctioned by the Minneapolis PD). Killology training being a course which has been characterized as increasing the tendency to police violence. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/02/dave-grossman-training-police-militarization/
Given that the recent events have already caused a number of cities and jurisdictions around the USA to rethink their police budgeting, it will be pivotal to any policing reform initiatives that police budgets in the US be linked to policing reform and accountability and that, as police union contracts come up for renewal in the next several years, that politicians grow some backbone an insist on changes to police oversight and accountability.
The Minneapolis PD union contract expired on Dec. 31 2019, it will be instructive to see the nature of the next one.

Posted by: lone plateau | Jun 5 2020 21:55 utc | 40

b:
Trump reacted by calling up the military and a myriad of federal police forces to ‘dominate the battlespace’ of Washington DC and other cities.
Trump did NOT call up the military in any US city out side of Washington DC, which is a district, so not a state, controlled by the federal government.
Nor are federal police out on the streets in the protests outside of Washington DC.
Right, there are quite possibly special forces units acting as agent provocateurs–sort of akin to the US Army sniper team that was the back-up when the Memphis PD killed MLK in 1968.
Right, that Biden line is racist dog whistle crap. Telling many people to “vote Trump or stay home in November”.

Posted by: Jay | Jun 5 2020 22:00 utc | 41

Biden has played an important role in the militarisation of policing and in the growth of the incarceration system: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/politics/2014/08/militarization-police-force-ferguson-congress

Posted by: Tuyzentfloot | Jun 5 2020 22:05 utc | 42

I don’t see the riots as meaning a lot – it is just Ferguson continued.
I do see the blaming as a key issue. If Trump can pin the blame on Antifa (no need to be true) the election becomes a walkover.
From Russia collusion to Impeachment to Ukrainegate (all big defeats for Dems) we know would have Riots added to the list of treasonable offences.
As to actual conspiracy theories – the US is collapsing, cock-up theory is more than enough explanation.

Posted by: Michael Droy | Jun 5 2020 22:06 utc | 43

Strategic violence and looting were pre-planned as justification for crackdowns.
dh @ 24: Vandalism and looting are by products of the protest. If they are reduced it will be seen as a victory for law and order and Trump will take personal credit.
I disagree: vandalism and looting were initiated and encouraged by hired agent provocateurs. They delivered bricks to strategic locations and they dispatched saboteurs to break windows — remember, at least one with an umbrella was caught on video. Where is the investigation into these crimes? Don’t expect one, because it was part of the plot.

Posted by: norecovery | Jun 5 2020 22:11 utc | 44

When a Trudeau Photo-Op fails…
Protesters Shout: ‘Stand Up To Trump!’ as PM attends an anti-racism rally on Parliament Hill
https://twitter.com/PnPCBC/status/1268989469803380742

Posted by: John Gilberts | Jun 5 2020 22:21 utc | 45

“..vandalism and looting were initiated and encouraged by hired agent provocateurs. ”
No doubt there will have been a few instances of this. But, on the whole, both are not only the natural result of crowds getting angry but, most importantly, the only way of getting the attention of those running the media.
Over the past few years there have been many occasions-videotaped for the most part- in which the police acted even more egregiously than this case in Minneapolis. And there have been many large protest marches around this and other issues. The media has deliberately refrained from covering them and people have rediscovered the truth that to get attention violence and noise and controversy is necessary.
I am much more optimistic than b. I think that considerable advances have been made in the past few weeks. I also think that the automatic assumption that the Democrats benefit from this is wrong: Cornell West got it right when he pointed out that during the Obama Administration, with dark skinned sellouts scattered throughout the government, and successive black Attorneys General, things were worse. The President shed crocodile tears, a few hypocritical sentiments were exchanged and the Black Misleadership Class thrust their mouths back into the troughs provided for them and kept filled so long as the masses are kept quiet.
These are early days yet, but there are shelves full of shoes left to drop: credit card bills, student loans, unpaid unemployment money, rent and mortgage arrears. Congress appears to be content to let these matters take care of themselves, confident that Wall St will spread the wealth it just received-Trickle Down theory again.
And then there is the virus which is killing disproportionately the poor, the marginal and the uncovered by healthcare masses. What is going to happen on the medicare issue? It isn’t going to go away and neither party dares address it. Will the sick occupy the hospitals and doctors offices? They should.
And then there is Foreign Policy: this would not be a good time for the United States to go to war. No doubt there are plenty of fools in Washington who think otherwise and are urging Trump to get up a war to rally the country around. But that is unlikely to work..
The possibilities are endless and they all spell Trouble for Uncle Sam.

Posted by: bevin | Jun 5 2020 22:31 utc | 46

I want to hear a discussion of who exactly were the military units in DC with no insignia. Some say that they were drawn from the ranks of the prison guard union. That’s the only mildly declarative statement on the matter that I have heard do far.
But who were they en masse? Is this Blackwater? Does anyone know? Is there any plausible link to anything reliable on the matter?

Posted by: Norogene | Jun 5 2020 22:38 utc | 47

Nobody seems to be talking about this aspect of the events (certainly not the MSM), so I’m curious if anyone there in the outside world is aware of this… conspiracy theory, I guess.
Damn near the entire law enforcement ‘community’ in Minneapolis was angered at the perceived outrage directed at one of their own – and cops in general – by the public at large. How angry did this make Minneapolis law enforcement? Angry enough to toss the ‘guilty’ neighborhoods to the dogs. If you don’t valorize cops 24×7, then we’ll just disappear for a while. See how much you like that, ungrateful citizen/potential terrorist!
During the initial protests, the Minneapolis Police Department ‘abandoned’ the 3rd Precinct Police Station to what was apparently a handful of skateboard punk protesters throwing rocks. Protesters across the street were changing, but not being violent in any way and couldn’t have ‘overrun’ the station house. There were many police coming or going from the fenced-in garage and parking lot out back. Nothing much to burn in the brick building, and it had a sprinkler system even if something inside did catch fire. The cops had plenty in their usual bag of non-lethal tricks: tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets. Yet they seemed to have no desire to engage and push the crowd back. At least nothing like the enthusiasm they showed for sweeping residential neighborhoods for curfew violators outside of their front doors.
It seemed obvious to some of us here in the city that they abandoned the station intentionally to punish the ungrateful locals. Don’t like our use of force? Question our judgement in public? OK, then we’ll just throw a little temper tantrum and leave. Good luck! Embargo on. Who runs Bartertown? We’ll be at the main station downtown or somewhere else, but we sure won’t be anywhere in the 3rd Precinct. Don’t bother calling Emergency 911 because even if someone eventually answers, they’ll tell you nobody can respond. Sorry! And since we’re going on an unofficial, secret police strike, the fire department isn’t going to respond either. Too dangerous with all the rioting and looting (that we’re letting happen on purpose).
You may have seen video of the actual peaceful protests, themselve. There were walls of cops with riot batons, tear gas and rubber bullets standing around – it’s not like there was a shortage of cops or vehicles. But almost as if on cue, they all disappeared at the tail end of the marches when it was getting dark and the various criminals and agitators were sure to come out. Target was looted and later burnt in the middle of the day. Minneapolis will never release all the 911 calls they 1) didn’t answer at all, or 2) told the callers that response times would be longer than usual because of the riots. In truth, they just never showed up AT ALL. Same for all the other places that were torched. Funny how they were all businesses in areas the police would want to ‘punish’ for failure to worship cops. Not sure if that was just by chance or planned, but it couldn’t have been more obvious.
It’s Yemen and Syria all over again, but instead of destroying basic infrastructure, you destroy all basic commercial services the residents use. They have water and electricity, but they’re not getting groceries, prescriptions or a haircut without taking a bus half-way across town. Are these nutjobs trying to regime-change Minneapolis? Lock the peons down with curfew, starve them a few weeks and deny them emergency services. That way they’ll get mad and demnad the overthrow of the Democrats that run the place! Maybe political party regime change is a bit over the top, but the message is still clear: Worship and obey, tax slaves, or mass punishment. We’re the only ones that can protect you!
Civil war? That sounds awful! American leaders prefer to think of this as domestic full-spectrum dominance and controlling the jackboot narrative. Don’t like a jackboot on your neck? Then we’ll soften you up by disappearing, letting ‘someone’ destroy your neighborhood, then arresting you when you violate the curfew. Stop resisting citizen – we’re trying to save you. You’ll beg to have cops and soldiers show back up so save your ass!

Posted by: PavewayIV | Jun 5 2020 22:40 utc | 48

Where are the poets? asks nemesis calling.
Well at the LRB today one of thenmm Claude McKay is quoted:
” If we must die – let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die – oh, let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honour us though dead!
O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!
“Many scholars date the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance from the original publication of ‘If We Must Die’ in the radical journal, the Liberator, in 1919.”
We might note too that McKay was calling-in the midst of appalling race riots directed against Blacks and part of the reaction against socialism and syndicalism- not for peaceful protest but for fighting back.

Posted by: bevin | Jun 5 2020 22:40 utc | 49

@44 So you don’t give the vandals and looters any credit for acting on their own initiative? Isn’t that a bit elitist?
Probably some were encouraged by the umbrella guy but it seems to me a lot of them saw an opportunity and took it.

Posted by: dh | Jun 5 2020 22:42 utc | 50

@NemesisCalling | Jun 5 2020 20:07 utc | 25
I couldn’t hear your argument due the incessant dog whistling in your post. We don’t need your closeted racism in this forum.
Your understanding of BLM and antifa is limited at best. BLM nor antifa are groups or organizations. They are ideas that spawn direct action. They are movements that appear organically whenever and wherever they are needed. To say that BLM and antifa are “well-funded” is to completely and totally miss the mark. There is no group to fund. These are reactions to police violence and fascism. Antifa is not something that goes out and loots stores or plans violence. Antifa is a human response to fascists in the streets. There are no membership lists, pledges, dues or anything of that sort. When the fascists show up, so do the antifascists. Most of the time this antifascism manifests in the form of research and doxxing of fascists. Fighting fascists in the street is a last resort. When the fascist go home so does antifa. BLM is an autonomous movement for racial justice. Like antifa, there is no membership lists or organization to fund. When the state kills black folk BLM emerges. Both movemtrns are based on a an anarchistic principal of no leaders.
Nemesis, please take the time to research the subjects of your posts before actually writing about them. Oh yeah, take your racist viewpoint somewhere else. We don’t need that in this forum.

Posted by: anonymous | Jun 5 2020 22:49 utc | 51

@50 — Credit? Elitist? Twisted logic. Who supplied the bricks?

Posted by: norecovery | Jun 5 2020 22:58 utc | 52

@norecovery | Jun 5 2020 22:58 utc | 52
Lots of claims being made. No evidence to back it up. Speculation is all I hear. Speculation with no evidence is idiocy.

Posted by: anonymous | Jun 5 2020 23:03 utc | 53

@52 I think I see where you’re coming from. People see a brick and can’t help themselves. They throw it through a window and their friends start grabbing free stuff. They’ve all been tricked. It’s not even theft really because the store is insured.

Posted by: dh | Jun 5 2020 23:05 utc | 54

Americans can keep deluding themselves with racial and institutionalist terminology.
But it won’t fool its enemies:
Death of George Floyd reveals US military’s dark history of bloody suppression

Again, capitalism and racism, the deep-rooted conflicts in this superpower, have surfaced.

Bold is in the original (that’s the only bold part of the article).
China can see right through the USA, like an MRI machine through a human body. That’s why it is where it is now.

Posted by: vk | Jun 5 2020 23:19 utc | 55

For those who do not believe in karma….
Washington DC in full conversion to Mordor…
https://twitter.com/HelenaVillarRT/status/1268743016153579520

Posted by: H.Schmatz | Jun 5 2020 23:22 utc | 56

PavewayIV @48–
The 3rd Precinct Station was built using funds that were initially appropriated to fund the building of several schools in that district; the community protested but to no affect. That it was burnt down isn’t at all surprising.
Would you agree that Trump and many in his administration committed Treason in their conscious decision to follow a Do Nothing Policy in the face of COVID-19 as several damning timelines prove beyond reasonable doubt? That such a policy was being carried out and was entirely overt to the public might just enrage said public to react in the manner we’ve seen as any spark would do. And what of the ten million thrown out of their homes when Obama refused to arrest and indict the fraudulent banksters and the further millions battered by the never ending recession that fraud caused; how many of those millions were awaiting an opportunity to vent? My contention is the elite through the government they control have broken the social contract such that it’s now beyond repair and only a reordering bringing about a new social contract will solve the issue.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 5 2020 23:26 utc | 57

Posted by: Et Tu | Jun 5 2020 18:51 utc | 4 When entire counties of poor black people will be faced with the inevitably inept Federal response, the mix of neglect, looting and the National Guard will make for an interesting cocktail of human misery.
That was my exact thought when I noticed the hurricane report the other day.
Add the impact of the pandemic and the riots on top of a destructive hurricane, and things could go south in a hurry. Bring in the National Guard to help with the hurricane impact, and then a riot starts, and we could have another Kent State. We missed another Kent State by chance over the last five days. Sooner or later we will get a Kent State.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hackr | Jun 5 2020 23:34 utc | 58

@ 57 karlof1.. thanks for that info in response to paveways comment… i personally think trump has bungled covid and he is bungling floyds death too… but there is a hard core part of the usa that don’t care what it looks like to an outsider like me, let alone how it looks to someone who doesn’t agree with what is happening in the usa.. and often this same group are devoted trump fans who see trump as essentially a good to great leader! they love the mantra – make america great again, and are unwilling or unable to see what a package of bullshit looks like when it is staring them square in the face.. a good example of this is over at pat langs in the comment section.. if you want to read twisted logic, that is the place to go!

Posted by: james | Jun 5 2020 23:34 utc | 59

>The empire is sinking in front of our eyes.< Yawn. The real sinking has been going on for decades with sending industrial production and tech know-how overseas. Most of the "violence" is due to police covert operations encouraging violence which will alienate mainstream Americans from joining protests. BTW, you should be aware that the NSA has all these antifa etc. networks mapped out and could round up these people in about 3 days, if and when they want to - apparently they don't want to, which is interesting.

Posted by: Xeno | Jun 5 2020 23:37 utc | 60

@54 — Don’t try to distort my meaning. My point is, I think the violence and looting were fomented by the same sinister forces that have directed the pandemic and the Fed looting to enrich the .01% once again. They knew from past experience what would happen when deprived, oppressed people take to the streets in protest of racial and economic injustice, and they used all sorts of covert tactics to encourage and support the vandalism and looting. I think it was integral to the plot.

Posted by: norecovery | Jun 5 2020 23:37 utc | 61

More on the Bureau of Prisons cops who were deployed in Washington.
A dangerous new factor in an uneasy moment: Unidentified law enforcement officers

The point isn’t necessarily that the lack of identification offered by the men in Washington is intended to facilitate abuse. It’s that it hampers accountability, intentionally or not, which itself makes abuse more likely to go unchecked. Officers of the law are accountable to the public, something that’s harder to achieve if you don’t know who they are.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hackr | Jun 5 2020 23:38 utc | 62

More on thos B.O.P cops…
Bill Barr and the Justice Department Send In Their Own Troops

“We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers,” Mattis wrote in a statement published in The Atlantic. “The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values….”
Mattis went on to criticize Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and J.C.S. Chairman Mark Milley for appearing alongside Trump during the president’s Monday stroll (“a bizarre photo-op,” as Mattis described it) from Lafayette Park to St. John’s Episcopal Church. “We must reject any thinking of our cities as a ‘battlespace’ that our uniformed military is called upon to ‘dominate,” Mattis intoned. “At home, we should use our military only when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state governors. Militarizing our response, as we witnessed in Washington, D.C., sets up a conflict— a false conflict—between the military and civilian society.”
Writing in Foreign Policy, Allen followed suit, in a pointed response to Cotton. “Right now, the last thing the country needs — and, frankly, the U.S. military needs —is the appearance of U.S. soldiers carrying out the president’s intent by descending on American citizens,” he wrote.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hackr | Jun 5 2020 23:43 utc | 63

@16 anne – I live in Venice CA, about three blocks from the border with Santa Monica. On Sunday a police officer was shot in the parking lot of the Whole Food and 99 cent store. I don’t shop at Whole Foods. I go to the 99 cent store. (99 cent store is a discount market – with quite good produce, too!) out of both economics and principle. okay. Helicopters, sirens, et all. Later on that day the CVS pharmacy down the street at Rose and Main was looted. Then the usual weekend mayhem out here in Venice. worse than usual, but whatever.
The shops are all boarded up with plywood and “BLM” slogans on them along gentrified Abbot Kinney. I saw some thuggish guys with a baseball bat strolling along the street Sunday afternoon as I ventured out on a bike ride. A car had its rear window smashed in half a block before. everything is still boarded up. all along Rose too.
to add to the absurdity, the medical marijuana place on Lincoln Blvd was looted. Yippee.
This is all so stupid. Where did corona virus go? Impeachment, what? Epstien? huh… Las Vegas mass shooting? what do you mean? Syria? uh… Hunter Biden? who?
Total joke. It is all a bunch of lies. Fortunately, it has all sickened me so much that I no longer obsessively visit this site. I don’t like this stuff anymore. I am trying to avoid ZeroHedge as well. And the other blogroll places. It doesn’t matter. I don’t care. I don’t vote. I don’t protest. I honestly could care less.
It is a color revolution. I forget who… the new poster, blue dotterel, who got all up in my grill for saying that a while back. whatever. I like snowy plovers and I hope you are safe in your New Zealand home. FO. pretty sick of it all.
So that’s the report from the Westside of LA. I can’t wait for the attacks from all the smartypants who have taken over MoA. Maybe I will look at comments if Jen posts. MoA has changed. Too bad. or maybe I have. Too bad. whatever. it all sucks.
And, completely off topic, Miss Lacy, I hope you enjoyed the book I recommended.

Posted by: lex talionis | Jun 5 2020 23:44 utc | 64

anonymous @53 — There’s plenty of evidence, a couple of examples I mentioned and those mentioned by other posters. One has to piece together the whole puzzle with the bits that are available because most of the dirty tricks are hidden. That is not ‘speculation’ but deduction.

Posted by: norecovery | Jun 5 2020 23:48 utc | 65

@54 I’m not distorting your meaning. It’s very clear. You think the vandals and looters have been manipulated by sinister forces. Presumably the ones who covered their faces were the instigators and the rest were innocent bystanders who just happened to be in the area and got sucked in. I’m sure they can all justify it.
I just think there was a certain amount of free choice and individual initiative involved. Sorry if you don’t agree.

Posted by: dh | Jun 5 2020 23:49 utc | 66

Further commentary on the military involvement in the protests by well-known commentator on military affairs Andrew Bacevich.
Trump Is Deploying Troops Against Americans, and Military Leaders Are Abetting Him

Together, Trump and Milley have brought the nation precariously close to a Bonus March moment, which ought to give pause to anyone who cares about the integrity of the armed forces. The Bonus Marchers were destitute veterans of World War I who in 1932 descended in droves on the capital, hoping to persuade Congress to advance the payment date on bonuses scheduled for disbursement in 1945. The Great Depression persuaded veterans that they ought to receive the money now, not later. When President Herbert Hoover and the Congress disagreed, some 10,000 Bonus Marchers and family members stayed on, establishing an encampment alongside the Anacostia River.
While peaceful, they were not peaceful enough for the president. Persuaded that a Bolshevik-inspired insurrection was brewing, a panicked Hoover ordered regular army units stationed near Washington to suppress the uprising before it could materialize. Under the personal direction of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the army did just that, employing tanks and tear gas and putting the torch to the “Hooverville” that the Bonus Marchers had erected. The “Battle of Anacostia Flats” thereby ended in a decisive victory. It also badly sullied the reputation of the United States Army.

My note: When the unemployment benefits stop coming, maybe the next march will be called the “Stimulus Check March”. Maybe Kamala Harris’ bill for $2,000 a month to every American for the duration of the pandemic/economic crisis is the only thing that might prevent that.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hackr | Jun 5 2020 23:50 utc | 67

James @59–
If you watched the Wilkerson interview I linked to on several occasions, you’ll recall he said (paraphrased) Trump made policy by acting as an anti-leader. You’ll also recall the long timeline Anti-Spin posted a few days ago. I asked if he would send it to me; he did along with another one even more detailed. IMO, the people have long had a sense of crisis beyond COVID-19, and they are several. Was the Floyd execution a false flag to direct that angst elsewhere as some posit? It was a much different time, but prior to the downfall of the British Empire, there was the detailed immorality described by Dickens followed a generation later by the sarcastic roasting meted out by Gilbert & Sullivan. Our time differs but not by as much as one might think.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 5 2020 23:56 utc | 68

@ Posted by: lex talionis | Jun 5 2020 23:44 utc | 63
Didn’t small and medium businesses receive a hefty USD 560 billion bailout from the government? The working class is just taking that money back.
Also, don’t small and medium business owners have insurance? Or are they pretending insurance won’t cover for the damage of the riots?

Posted by: vk | Jun 5 2020 23:59 utc | 69

hi vk@67
I don’t know. The woman who runs the corner store by me said she hasn’t gotten anything. She has been allowed to stay open.
I haven’t seen the 1200 I was supposed to get. Thank god I haven’t needed it.
I am not a business owner, so I can’t answer any your question regarding insurance. But one would presume that they have insurance. I don’t know how insurance deals with riots. They might be like force majure kind of stuff. I really don’t buy any of the bailout stuff. but as I said, I am not a business owner.
it is super depressing, though. but expected. what goes around comes around.
thank you

Posted by: lex talionis | Jun 6 2020 0:11 utc | 70

Posted by: gwilliard | Jun 5 2020 20:12 utc | 26 The book is available as a free download at Verso’s website, along with Police: A Field Guide (an “illustrated survival manual for encounters with cops).
Both books appear to be available, but not free at Versobooks.
However, here is an interview with Vitale at The Nation yesterday:
‘Starve the Beast’: A Q&A With Alex S. Vitale on Defunding the Police

Zachary Siegel: In the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, caught on camera and watched by millions of people, does the cycle of police violence ever feel like déjà vu to you—repeating what’s happened with other incidents of police brutality you’ve followed?
Alex S. Vitale: All the time. And that’s one of the motivations for writing the book. Watching over a period of about 20 years, we see a continuous pattern of high profile police abuse incidents that stimulate these localized, powerful uprisings that then turn into demands to indict this officer, disband this unit, or hire a few more black police officers. And then the movement falls apart and nothing changes. I thought it was important to try to lay out a program for making radical changes in policing that might actually reduce the problems that it’s producing for those who are most heavily policed.
I wanted to provide this deeper analysis that said that we’re not going to fix these problems by jailing a couple of killer cops or giving them body cameras or making them take implicit bias training. Instead, we need to directly challenge the scope and power of policing. We need to take their budgets away, take their toys away, take their authority away in as many dimensions as we can.
After six years of attempted police reforms, we have nothing to show for it. Even if some of these reforms were capable of working in theory, police leaders refuse to properly implement them. The only leverage that remains is to starve the beast. That is a language they can understand, and it has the benefit of reducing their scope and power at the same time.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Jun 6 2020 0:16 utc | 71

OH, mate…It´s possible we are going to like post-pandemic world…In the end, Daniel Estulin is going to be right and not just be a Trumpist white nationalist by saying that Trump is just a covenience partner…

Oriana Pawlyk
@Oriana0214
President Trump has directed the Pentagon to remove thousands of U.S. troops from Germany by September, amid sharp strains in U.S. relations with Berlin, including over the European country’s level of military spending. https://wsj.com/articles/trump-directs-u-s-troop-reduction-in-germany-11591375651
via @WSJ

https://twitter.com/Oriana0214/status/1268955693584912384
If Washigton DC is becoming “Mordor”, could we, the EU, become the “Fellowship of the Ring”?
Who would “Frodo”? Heiko Maas?

Posted by: H.Schmatz | Jun 6 2020 0:23 utc | 72

Tried posting this article which was apparently being reprinted by some other site that this site was not accepting as a link…so here’s the article directly from the nation. It’s about the military involvement in protests by the well-known military commentator Andrew Bacevich.
Trump Is Deploying Troops Against Americans, and Military Leaders Are Abetting Him

Together, Trump and Milley have brought the nation precariously close to a Bonus March moment, which ought to give pause to anyone who cares about the integrity of the armed forces. The Bonus Marchers were destitute veterans of World War I who in 1932 descended in droves on the capital, hoping to persuade Congress to advance the payment date on bonuses scheduled for disbursement in 1945. The Great Depression persuaded veterans that they ought to receive the money now, not later. When President Herbert Hoover and the Congress disagreed, some 10,000 Bonus Marchers and family members stayed on, establishing an encampment alongside the Anacostia River.
While peaceful, they were not peaceful enough for the president. Persuaded that a Bolshevik-inspired insurrection was brewing, a panicked Hoover ordered regular army units stationed near Washington to suppress the uprising before it could materialize. Under the personal direction of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the army did just that, employing tanks and tear gas and putting the torch to the “Hooverville” that the Bonus Marchers had erected. The “Battle of Anacostia Flats” thereby ended in a decisive victory. It also badly sullied the reputation of the United States Army.

My note: I think the next time there is a march, it will be called the “Stimulus Check March”. I think Kamala Harris’ bill to give every American adult $2,000 a month until the pandemic/economic crisis is over is the only thing that could prevent that.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Jun 6 2020 0:27 utc | 73

I both agree and disagree with b on this one. “Little changed” doesn’t do justice to what just happened (and continues).
My analogy: the ground shook and foundations were weakened but not big building fell.
See my recap from the previous thread for more.
The establishment response is a combination of 1) attempting to undermine the legitimacy of the protests, 2) scare-mongering about the the effort to reign-in the police state, and 3) a bi-partisan effort to channel protester grievances into the political process where it can be publicly smothered. Notice the constant refrain that Floyd’s death and is mere police brutality and that blacks alone are responsible for their problems. NemesisCalling | Jun5 20:07 @25 offers a prime example of this:

… blacks need to get their house in order… They need to distance themselves from BLM and Antifa [allies, and] … They need to realize that police brutality is a problem which affects all colors in America …
Where are the black leaders …

By “black leaders”, I suppose Nemesis means what Black Agenda Report calls the black misleadership class – politicians and ‘community organizers’ that have been compromised by the establishment. They’ve been “leading” the black community into a ditch for thirty years (which few care about until some outrage sparks protests).
I feel that it’s important that we not ignore this part of Nemesis’ comment:

I am warning you, you do so at your own peril and will be judged harshly for inciting blacks and minorities further down self-defeating and destructive avenues.

Why is support for justice – whether led by “black and minorities” an “incitement”? And why is their struggle presumed to be “self-defeating and destructive”? History shows that Movements for societal change are ALWAYS depicted in this way by the establishment and potential supporters of those Movements are ALWAYS warned off.
<> <> <> <> <>
Is anyone surprised that just as the establishment made “police brutality” the core issue, we saw white police officers being inexplicably brutal to protesters? In one particularly memorable incident (which went ‘viral’), a heavyset white officer (apparently a former Marine), violently shoved a thin young woman named Dounya Zayer to the ground in NYC. A Newsweek reporter just happened to be there to record it. The officer and his commanding officer continue walking after the shove, ignoring the young woman’s distress.
Strangely, the young woman (20 or 21 years of age) has social media accounts that are relatively recent. Her Twitter account started only in May 2020, and her Instagram has only 104 posts – containing vapid images, many being of herself in various uninteresting poses.
When she gave a statement to the police demanding that NYPD be held accountable, she was accompanied by a women (her mother?) with an Islamic head dress. Dounya is an women’s name in Islamic communities. In Islam, dunyā (Arabic: دُنْيا‎ ) refers to the temporal world and its earthly concerns and possessions, as opposed to the hereafter (ʾākhirah). As a girls name, “Dounya” is considered to mean “Earth”. Other than European-based Islamic communities, the name is most popular in Morocco, Lebanon, and Turkey.
I haven’t found much information about Zayer as a surname. As a US surname, it appears to be very rare. However, “Zayer” is also a Quranic name (for boys):

Zayer is another spelling of the boy name Zayir. They are the same name and have the same meaning and pronunciation. Both spellings are acceptable.
Zayir is an Arabic name for boys that means “roaring lion” if derived from the Z-HAMZ-R root. It can also be a simplified version of Zaa’ir, derived from the Z-W-R root, which means “one visits [someone]”.

If fully derived from Islam, her name would be a combination of: Earth/Earthly + Visiting. A cute cover-name?
Here is globintel.com report about the NYPD officer (Note: I can’t verify the accuracy of the report).
A mysterious Arabic woman. A former Marine (where did he serve?). And Newsweek. Nothing to see here?
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jun 6 2020 0:39 utc | 74

No U.S. ambassador can now express concerns about police violence in a foreign country without being laughed at.

Well, the massive movement of Yellow Vests and the French police atrocities against the protesters did not stop the French authorities in all seriousness from expressing(!) concern over the modest actions of the Russian police to pacify clownish and deliberately unrest in the Russian capital during the local elections to the Moscow City Duma last year.
Many Western politicians have long had serious brain problems. It’s the same as a pocket thief who put his hand for money in a neighbor’s cloak will advise you (or even demand) to never steal. So I have no doubt that the US ambassadors will continue to express concern and even demand(!) something from the authorities of other countries.
These ambassadors (and other officials) will not even understand how pathetic and funny they look at the same time.

Posted by: alaff | Jun 6 2020 0:50 utc | 75

@ 66 karlof1… i didn’t watch the link you shared… i did however watch the documentary you shared – the 4 horseman.. i just can’t keep up with it all, but i try…
@ 72 jackrabbit.. thanks for stating all that…

Posted by: james | Jun 6 2020 0:51 utc | 76

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jun 6 2020 0:39 utc | 72
Not sure what you’re reaching for here. Jimmy Dore showed that video. He researched the officer involved and his commanding officer and posted the information in his video.
I can think of all sorts of reasons why the woman is just recently on social media – among other things, it’s called “coincidence.” As for her name, what’s the “mystery”? As for her “vapid images”, hah, that’s what ninety percent of Instagram and Facebook consist of.
Are you suggesting that the issue of “police brutality” is just a *deliberately introduced* distraction from all the other issues US society has? That might be a valid point *if* you had any really overwhelming statistic evidence to back that up. All I see is speculation. As someone said above, and as I’ve said many times, speculation without evidence is idiocy.
I *could* be persuaded that a deliberate police murder to instigate riots to deflect from the pandemic/economic crisis (I now link those two into one crisis) *could* have been planned by the Trump administration, or the Deep State, or the “elites”. But I need more direct evidence such as official documents, leaked phone calls, hacked emails – in other words, *something*.
Right now, Occam’s Razor applies: this was “just another police murder” that pissed everyone off, and the government bungled the response just like they bungled the pandemic response which in turn caused the economic crisis which in turn was based on the last X decades of *deliberate* economic looting.
So I don’t see any “mystery” or any *more* conspiracy than was already obvious.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Jun 6 2020 1:02 utc | 77

it is much too simplistic and lazy for our host to reduce things to property vs. life, as this part of the post seems to indicate:
I’m going to fix this for readers by replacing PROPERTY with a different word, LIVELIHOOD.
it’s weird I should have to spell this out, but some people have their LIVELIHOOD tied to their property and store inventory. these people don’t always have names like TARGET and WALMART. is it shocking that they should oppose the destruction of their ability to provide for themselves and their families?
if that doesn’t cut through the obvious anti-American bias out host is exhibiting here, let me provide another example.
let’s say you have cultivated a virtual property, online. one of the attractions of this property is the cast of characters who stop by and provide content (free of charge). you expand this property and even begin soliciting some form of rent from those who enjoy the free service.
let’s say this property is threatened by outside forces who seek to disrupt the quality of the service you provide. you resist this attack on your property by eliminating those who are trying to disrupt the functioning of the property you have cultivated.
I would do as b does and defend my property.
but I would be remiss in my self-appointed role as skeptic if I did not point out that the reason this common sense is not being applied by our host is because there is an agenda behind the simplistic, divisive framing of property vs. life.

Posted by: lizard | Jun 6 2020 1:07 utc | 78

somehow I didn’t include b’s quote, which I was responding to.
here is the quote from b’s post:

President Trump and many other ‘law and order’ people saw the violence against property as a more important issue that the police violence against people – especially against people of color.

Posted by: lizard | Jun 6 2020 1:10 utc | 79

Let me expand on my comment to Jackrabbit at 75…
I am quite aware that one of the consistent patterns of states is to deliberately stimulate and then co-opt resistance to its policies and stage-manage that resistance by infiltration and other means.
That was done to an incredible degree in the anarchist uprisings in Europe in the late nineteenth century. I have some months back read a considerable amount about that. In particular there were several police officials in France, England and elsewhere who managed incredible counter-espionage operations against the anarchist movement, which in concert with police and military oppression in those countries, pretty much neutered the anarchist movement to the point where it ultimately fell apart.
But that doesn’t mean that *every* expression of resistance and *every* incident of police violence or protest event is necessarily *staged* for the benefit of the public.
The state *does* want to continually, either overtly or covertly, impress upon the public that it has a monopoly on violence and that the public had better bow down before its authority. This is akin to that statement by a Bush official that occasionally the US has to pick up some small country and throw it against a wall just to show the world who’s boss.
So I can understand how events such as the pandemic response or the protests are used by the state to re-emphasize its authority and advance its control and limitation of the so-called “rights” of the population.
But again, that doesn’t mean that such oppression prevents *legitimate* resistance outbreaks from time to time, or that *everything* that happens in such outbreaks is somehow a “conspiracy.”
As I’ve said before, there are “legitimate conspiracies” and “bogus conspiracies.” There are “levels” of conspiracy. I like a good conspiracy theory as much or more than the next guy (probably way more). But while I’m prepared to entertain the notion that 9/11 was a conspiracy to either initiate or allow those attacks to occur to justify foreign military interventions, I am not prepared to entertain the notion that Trump is a lizard alien, as David Icke might suggest. “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”, as they say.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Jun 6 2020 1:22 utc | 80

Posted by: vk # 67
“Also, don’t small and medium business owners have insurance? Or are they pretending insurance won’t cover for the damage of the riots?”
They won’t have to pretend. Damages from civil disturbances are specifically excluded from policies. A kind of act of god occurrence, beyond anyone’s control, that also wasn’t an accidental event. The owner’s of the buildings may have some limited recourse, however the commercial businesses are likely toast.

Posted by: aye, myself & me | Jun 6 2020 1:33 utc | 81

@ lizard… i share b’s anti american attitude… it seems if the property is in some far away land where the locals aren’t affected in any direct way, it is inconsequential, but when it hits home it is a different matter… then all of a sudden all the smart bombs and etc dropped on others countries is just a small footnote to the bigger deal here of someone’s property being affected… of course this ”law and order” lingo is right in line with the ”democracy and freedom” lingo… all these cheap logos don’t add up to a hill of beans when the chips are down… the poor are getting poorer, the disenfranchised remain disenfranchised, the sick continue on without recourse to any medical help and all along wall st. and the corporations get bailed out time and time again… something is wrong with the picture… so, you can claim b demeans the true nature of what is taking place today, but at what point do you think that all the talk of creating a better world -for iraqis, or americans – is just one big load of shit??
if people – regardless of colour – but most likely all from a more economically disadvantaged position – want to express their outrage via a protest, what other avenue do they have today? they sure as hell aren’t going to see any redeeming characters on the election ballot, now or ever… all they can do is dream about something better and realize they are being ripped off while they are dreaming of a better tomorrow… i am sure many americans are fairly anti american too.. not the ones that voted with their feet to leave the country, or the ones who would like to but are not in a position to – the ones who are in the streets demanding something better then what they see and hear on display regularly from their so called leaders… when a country screws it’s people, or enough of its people on a big enough basis – you see what we are seeing now… claiming someone holds anti-american attitudes is just another distraction you can throw onto the pile here..

Posted by: james | Jun 6 2020 1:55 utc | 82

Australia is not a bunya nut republic and has all the solutions.
Now say that ten times and you will understand.
They stole that policy from the USA.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jun 6 2020 2:22 utc | 83

Los Angeles Proposes $150 Million Cut in LAPD Budget, Money to be Spent on Social Programs

Some members of Black Lives Matter and other anti-police activist groups, in conjunction with continuing protests over police brutality and officer-involved shootings, have been calling for even more sweeping reductions in LAPD funding. As part of their goal of defunding police, they want a 90% cut in the police budget

Works for me – as long as I, an ex-felon, could also be legally allowed to buy a gun and body armor. As it stands, I’m next to defenseless – no matter what the cops budget is.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Jun 6 2020 2:22 utc | 84

OK, let’s try that post again…
Los Angeles Proposes $150 Million Cut in LAPD Budget, Money to be Spent on Social Programs

Some members of Black Lives Matter and other anti-police activist groups, in conjunction with continuing protests over police brutality and officer-involved shootings, have been calling for even more sweeping reductions in LAPD funding. As part of their goal of defunding police, they want a 90% cut in the police budget.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Jun 6 2020 2:26 utc | 85

#NoRightsMatter: US Postal Service, Law Enforcement Team Up To Seize ‘Black Lives Matter’ Facemasks

This was multiple levels of fucked up, both in terms of what happened and who was involved. It’s not clear which law enforcement agency seized the masks but it all started with the US Postal Service’s “inspection” unit (USPIS), which apparently flagged the items as somehow illegal and/or dangerous.
The masks Rene Quinonez of Oakland’s Movement Ink created never made it any further than the postal depot. The only thing unusual about the face masks — millions of which have traversed the country unmolested in recent months — were the slogans they bore.

Now that’s a “conspiracy” I can believe in.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Jun 6 2020 2:29 utc | 86

Sorry about the double post…the site was apparently just *really* slow in posting 81…

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Jun 6 2020 2:30 utc | 87

Christian J Chuba @ 1 — “tear gas was never used, only smoke and pepper spray”, said FOX and CNN.
That may be so there, but elsewhere, those three chemical warfare agents were used. Liberally. Unsparingly. Mercilessly.
This collapsing Citadel of Democracy must be in dire straits to wash dirty linen for the rest of the world to see.
Henceforth, the rest of the world will not be able to hide a chuckle to hear this Great Shining Beacon Of Pure Democracy lecture us on how to be a “normal nation” like them.
Meanwhile, certain unidentified Israelis are dancing in the streets to see how their “training” of US cops has been so “effective” at subduing the palestinians…. ooops, american citizens.

Posted by: kiwiklown | Jun 6 2020 2:35 utc | 88

PavewayIV #48
That is my take too. Police contrived violence, then after dark – police controlled absence to allow opportunists and revenge takers, Then police controlled violence on the new days peace demonstration, further withdrawal from target business districts that evening.
Social sabotage by uniformed militia.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jun 6 2020 2:40 utc | 89

Here is the great black mind we should be paying attention to but I suppose queue up Frantz Fanon and Jean Paul Sartre, a politically-able yet sadly quite dim mind, especially when it comes to reading Heidegger, which evidently was his prime inspiration for “Being and Nothingness”, and a (shocking!) repentant messianist at the end of his life.

“I am not tragically colored,” she wrote in 1928. “I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a low-down dirty deal and whose feelings are all hurt about it.”

and,

“Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company!”

and,

she became outspoken about politics in ways that damaged her reputation among left-leaning black intellectuals. In 1951 she contributed an essay to American Legion Magazine: “Why the Negro Won’t Buy Communism.” In 1955 Hurston criticized the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision, which is usually considered a heroic blow against Jim Crow laws. And perhaps it was. Yet Hurston was troubled by its implication that the proper education of black children requires the presence of white children.

As another said above, it really is too bad that a genuine national debate about police violence was quickly shooed away in exchange for my “muh racism.” LOL!

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Jun 6 2020 2:54 utc | 90

RSH
I’m not suggesting anything more than this:

1) Newsweek has already proven to be significantly compromised, even more than most MSM, as described by Caitlin Johnstone (via Consortium News):

Newsweek has long been a reliable guard dog and attack dog for the US-centralized empire, with examples of stories that its editors did permit to go to print including an article by an actual, current military intelligence officerexplaining why U.S. prosecution of Julian Assange is a good thing, fawning puff pieces on the White Helmets, and despicable smear jobs on Tulsi Gabbard.
The outlet will occasionally print oppositional-looking articles like this one by Ian Wilkie questioning the establishment Syria narrative, but not without immediately turning around and publishing an attack on Wilkie’s piece by Eliot Higgins, a former Atlantic Council Senior Fellow who is the cofounder of the NED-funded imperial narrative management firm Bellingcat. Newsweek also recently published an article attacking Tucker Carlson for publicizing the OPCW scandal, basing its criticisms on a bogus Bellingcat article …

Moon of Alabama: Media Suppressed Evidence Of The OPCW’s ‘Chemical Attack’ Manipulations – There Is Now More Of It (Lots of good info in the comments)
MintpressNews: Inside Journalist Tareq Haddad’s Spectacular Departure from Newsweek
Many young people with strong beliefs (which would cause them to join protests) have social media accounts before 20-21 and if someone establishes an account because they just got famous accidentally, I doubt that they make a priority of posting pics of themselves in numerous dumb/meaningless poses – especially as they fail to share more pertinent info about themselves (does she live in NYC? a suburb? or was she visiting? what was her upbringing? what is her experience with racism? etc.). And anyone would post material NOT JUST ABOUT THE INCIDENT but the Movement that they are now famous for having been injured for.
Why would police officers make a special effort to act like thugs when they are in the spotlight?

As a result of such actions, we now have the “Defund the Police” Movement.
But there’s another possibility: Police could be helping the Minneapolis police officer to build a case of policing as resulting in some sort of mental illness. An insanity defense. But that’s another, “conspiracy theory” that RSH will no doubt pan. And Newsweek’s amazingly convenient positioning is still suspicious.

In September 2016, after the 9-11 ceremony in NYC, a “nobody” from Eastern Europe got a pic of Hillary Clinton being “dragged” into a van. He was from eastern Europe. The media had no interest in the photographer that got this ‘scoop’.
In this shoving incident, the media seem to have no interest in the background of the woman involved or in how police thug behavior help to change the narrative from racism to police brutality – just as MSM was began arguing for the same shift in emphasis(!). Such a change is convenient because one sparks demonstrations while the other sparks establishing commissions (that are likely to make only minor changes).

I can’t say with any certainty that these add-up to a conspiracy. And I haven’t said that. I’ve just said that it’s suspicious.
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jun 6 2020 3:29 utc | 91

>anyone who cares about the integrity of the armed forces
Why should I want the armed forces to “have integrity”? I want them to put down their guns and go home. That would be the end of the Empire, and the rest of the world could breathe a bit easier.

Posted by: Trailer Trash | Jun 6 2020 3:33 utc | 92

NemesisCalling | Jun6 2:54 @ 87
Nemesis trots out his ‘black friend’ in the form of a book that supports the neoliberal ideology (atomization of society via focus on the individual) that he pretends to hate.
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jun 6 2020 3:34 utc | 93

We should be under no illusion: if the Empire views US cities as part of a global ‘battlespace’ then they will engage in false flags to gain an advantage.
Just because US Generals decried the President’s view of US cities as a ‘battlespace’ doesn’t mean that USA/Empire isn’t/won’t treat it that way.
There’s every reason to believe that USA will do everything it can to prevent “the homefront” from causing them difficulty like it did in the 1960’s.
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jun 6 2020 3:43 utc | 94

psychohistorian @ 6 “…. the financial crisis/class war was pre-existent…. being enhanced/sold as pandemic response rather than another tithe to the elite and increased social control…. It is not good enough for Trump to have his ass handed to him because it is the, behind the scenes, elite owners/leaders that need to be geo-politically neutered….”
The Pandemic Pandemonium was the Magician’s obfuscating hand of distraction, while the Other Hand was robbing the Treasury. Financial collapse was well underway by October 2019. Covid19 obfuscates the pain from economic collapse ( we ain’t seen nuthin’ yet ). Covid19 hides the making whole of the owner-elite class using trillions of USDs freely-printed ( that is why the lockdown is over ).
I agree this is not about Trump’s Ass, and not even about Baleful Biden nor Obnoxious Obama nor Hateful Hillary. This is about the Man Behind The Curtain, that greedy gathering who desire to be owners of the whole of humanity, to eat other peoples’ lunches. They are the ones who need to be neutered to stop this war on humanity.
And what about the Curtain that hides the owner-elite class, those spineless liars-for-hire? those useful idiots? those 17 intel agencies? No worry… they will change their tunes when they see the winds shift.

Posted by: kiwiklown | Jun 6 2020 3:45 utc | 95

@james,
I’m sure you and many others will happily celebrate a US civil war. it’s what we got coming, right?
the problem is the supranational elite don’t care where their cruelty lands. they don’t recognize borders, and there are metrics to achieve, populations to depopulate dontchya know.
the reason I write mostly about local stuff at my blog is because that is what I know, and that is where I think I can have the most impact. if I started hyper-focusing on Germany from this side of the pond, opining on how well they are integrating immigrants, for example, wouldn’t you think that maybe there was an agenda at play?

Posted by: lizard | Jun 6 2020 4:10 utc | 96

All in all, the great Wall Street Heist of 2020 came off with only a few scratches. Yea, so some consumables were stolen. Let the peasants burn their own communities. Private finance rules the waves, while people can’t avert their gaze from skin colour and violence. The worst part of it is all those people who profess to care about actual lives, when in their own private lives they are supremely selfish and violent, and live a life based on the continued exploitation of innumerable lives across the planet. Every tweet employing the use of Coltan butchered from the heart of the Congo. Hypocrisy from top to bottom, from the Looter in Chief to the Looter on the street. Pirate nation. The Wild West. Clothed in underpants stitched by little brown fingers in Bangladesh.

Posted by: Jezabeel | Jun 6 2020 4:30 utc | 97

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jun 6 2020 3:29 utc | 88
“1) Newsweek has already proven to be significantly compromised…”
I can believe that. Does this mean that *everything* Newsweek does is compromised? Including a Newsweek cameraman covering a protest? Other than your “suspicions” about a woman’s name and her social media accounts, what actual evidence is there that the incident was staged? What evidence is there that the Newsweek cameraman was pre-positioned?
“Many young people with strong beliefs (which would cause them to join protests) have social media accounts before 20-21”
And many probably don’t.
“and if someone establishes an account because they just got famous accidentally, I doubt that they make a priority of posting pics of themselves in numerous dumb/meaningless poses”
Do we know that was the case – that she just established the Instagram account after the incident? You said ” relatively recent. Her Twitter account started only in May 2020, and her Instagram has only 104 posts”. She posted 104 posts in the last three or four days? That might be suspicious – if they weren’t all pics of the protests. I don’t have an Instagram account, so I can’t see hers – are there any posts from *before* the last 3-4 days? If she posted pics *before* the riots started, then your suspicions are unfounded. If she started the account *after* the incident and *only* posted pics *not* of the incident or the protests, then perhaps it would be suspicious – but even then perhaps she’s one of these people who intends to capitalize on her new-found fame – which would have nothing to do with any “conspiracy” with the cops.
Apparently, according to her twitter feed, people have accused her of spitting at the cops. She has denied this. But let’s say she did. Perhaps *she* is the one who staged the incident in order to either 1) gain notoriety from the incident, or 2) promote her own agenda? Neither would argue for the incident being staged by the police or Newsweek.
” – especially as they fail to share more pertinent info about themselves (does she live in NYC? a suburb? or was she visiting? what was her upbringing? what is her experience with racism? etc.).”
They might – if their posts were primarily about the incident. The incident occurred a couple days ago. How much of her life do you expect her to reveal or concentrate on when the incident is the one that made her establish the account? I had a Twitter account for six years – revealed almost nothing about myself; posted 50,000 tweets mostly on foreign policy and computer security, most of them were retweets.
“And anyone would post material NOT JUST ABOUT THE INCIDENT but the Movement that they are now famous for having been injured for.”
That’s speculative. Looking at her twitter account – which I can see was just started – she seems to discuss the whole issue.
“Why would police officers make a special effort to act like thugs when they are in the spotlight?”
Precisely for the same reason Chauvin killed Floyd right out in the open – because they can. If that’s not *obvious* by now, I don’t know what to tell you.
“As a result of such actions, we now have the “Defund the Police” Movement.”
Oh – is *that* your real complaint?
“But there’s another possibility: Police could be helping the Minneapolis police officer to build a case of policing as resulting in some sort of mental illness. An insanity defense. But that’s another, “conspiracy theory” that RSH will no doubt pan.”
You bet your ass I’ll pan that one. What about a New York incident is supposed to help Chauvin rig an “insanity” plea? Not to mention the four other cops charged? Are you suggesting that the over 200-odd lists of police violence in these protests are all organized to help Chauvin claim “insanity” as a result of pressures being a cop? Oh, hell, no.
“And Newsweek’s amazingly convenient positioning is still suspicious.”
Speculative. Zero evidence. All these protests are being covered by every news media. I’m not at all surprised that Newsweek’s cameraman caught a good story. For one thing, if the woman was the instigator, she might well have looked for a cameraman to be in front of before making her move. Anything is possible.
“In September 2016, after the 9-11 ceremony in NYC, a “nobody” from Eastern Europe got a pic of Hillary Clinton being “dragged” into a van. He was from eastern Europe. The media had no interest in the photographer that got this ‘scoop’.”
Have no idea what you’re talking about, or how that relates in any way to this. Post a link to something explaining as to why that is relevant.
“In this shoving incident, the media seem to have no interest in the background of the woman involved or in how police thug behavior help to change the narrative from racism to police brutality – just as MSM was began arguing for the same shift in emphasis(!). Such a change is convenient because one sparks demonstrations while the other sparks establishing commissions (that are likely to make only minor changes).”
Nope. That’s reaching. You’re saying that the police establishment in the US decided to *demonstrate* police brutality in these protests just to shift the narrative from racism to a “defund the police” movement – which is the *last* thing the police establishment wants. That it *may* result in “commissions that do nothing” is quite possible, as Vitale (mentioned above in this thread) says is the usual outcome. That being the *intended* result I view as extremely unlikely. Occam’s Razor has to be invoked again.
“I can’t say with any certainty that these add-up to a conspiracy. And I haven’t said that. I’ve just said that it’s suspicious.”
And I disagree. Your speculations have all the earmarks of “conspiracy thinking” – which, as I said before, adds up to “speculation without evidence.” None of your points amount to actual “evidence” – even circumstantial evidence. There are no proven “means” short of establishing that the Newsweek cameraman (or the woman) was pre-positioned, your “motivation” for the cops’ behavior is speculative and reaching, and the “opportunity” was so wide-spread that singling out this one incident makes no sense.
Short of any more credible evidence, we’ll have to agree to disagree.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Jun 6 2020 4:32 utc | 98

The Covid-19 Threat to Protesters Who Get Arrested and Jailed

According to an analysis from the Associated Press published May 31, more than 9,300 people across the U.S. have been arrested in relation to the protests. On June 4, the New York Times reported over 2,000 arrests in New York alone: Some had no masks, others no access to soap.

The Marshall Project, an organization supporting independent journalism on criminal justice, has been tracking coronavirus cases in U.S. prisons since the beginning of the pandemic. It reports that by June 2, “at least 40,656 people in prison had tested positive for the illness, an 18% increase from six days before.”

A report released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in mid-May, acknowledging its data was incomplete, showed that nearly 5,000 prisoners and 2,000 staff members had contracted Covid-19 across the U.S., and 103 people had died.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Jun 6 2020 4:43 utc | 99

How the Protests Have Changed the Pandemic
Mass demonstrations in all fifty states have upended reopening timetables and altered the meaning of the antiviral fight.

Even before the protests, confirmed coronavirus cases were holding steady or increasing in many parts of the country—including in cities such as Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and Atlanta, which saw some of the largest protests. Last week, Minnesota recorded its highest single-day COVID-19 death toll to date. The state’s health commissioner, Jan Malcolm, warned that the protests would “very predictably accelerate the spread” of the coronavirus; the mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms, advised demonstrators that they “probably need to go get a COVID test this week.” Howard Markel, a physician and medical historian at the University of Michigan, told me that he is sympathetic to the demands of the protesters but deeply concerned about viral risk. “As a historian, I’m uncomfortable predicting the future,” he said. “But, as a doctor, I believe these protests will lead to a spike in cases. The only question is how large the spike will be.”
The close proximity of protesters creates obvious concerns, but, from an infectious-disease standpoint, that’s just the beginning. What starts as a socially distanced endeavor may quickly devolve as events unfold. Demonstrators exert themselves as they march, shout, and push against barricades. “You watch these protests and often people are being corralled together with sawhorses,” Markel said. “They’re yelling, screaming, and, of course, droplets are flying everywhere.” Though most protests have been peaceful, some have entailed violent encounters with law enforcement. “Now consider the dispersal tactics used by police: tear gas and pepper spray,” Markel continued. “They make you cry, they cause your nose and mouth to secrete mucus—all of which exacerbates spread of the virus.” Tear gas can collect on masks, making them unbearable to wear. Some protesters are arrested and taken to jail, where rates of viral transmission are astronomical. Others wait at crowded bus stops or take the subway home, where the virus spreads to friends, neighbors, and family members.

My note: If you want a “conspiracy theory”, how about the notion that the riots were engineered to *maximize* the effects of the pandemic, both on the disease front and the economic front? Because that’s almost certainly what *is* going to happen.
Note: I *do not* believe that is the case. Occam’s Razor still applies: that the riots were the completely expected result of a blatant police killing of yet another black man. But it makes as much sense as theories that the riots were engineered to do anything else, or that the pandemic was engineered to deflect from an upcoming economy crash, or help Trump win the election, or help Trump lose the election.
A lot of people like to take events that happen as proving that they were *intended* to happen. That’s the basis of conspiracy thinking, after all. It’s a bad case of “deja vu”.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Jun 6 2020 4:55 utc | 100

Back to Main