Jacob Blake (1991- ) is an unarmed Black American man in Kenosha, Wisconsin who was shot in the back seven times by the police – right in front of three of his sons, ages 3, 5 and 8. In broad daylight, in front of loads of witnesses, on a Sunday afternoon (August 23rd 2020). After a barbecue. Kenosha erupted in protest and flames. It is at the northern end of metropolitan Chicago.
The city of Kenosha declared a state of emergency and a curfew.
The governor called in the National Guard (state militia).
Blake himself, by some miracle, is still alive, but he is still hospitalized. He is the father of six. His sister, Dior Lei Blake:
“Stop the fake news, my brother is still fighting , all we need is prayers 🙏🏽”
The video, taken from across the street from a second-floor window, shows Blake walking around his car with two White-looking police officers following behind him – with guns drawn! Blake does not appear to be armed or even to be threatening them. When he tries to get into his car, one police officer tries to pull him back, pulling on his shirt, and, at the same time, shoots him repeatedly in the back! At point-blank range. The second officer also appears to shoot. You can hear seven separate shots.
One witness heard the police tell Blake to drop a knife – but saw no knife. And, in any case, Blake was calmly walking away from the police, not attacking them or charging at them.
Chyna Smith, another witness said Blake had just had a barbecue for his son’s birthday:
“He was just bbq for his son bday they shot an unarmed black man in front of his sons.”
Justin Blake, his uncle:
“He had a tank top and shorts on. He had no weapon. He was going back to the car because the children needed to be checked on.”
Neighbours say Blake was trying to break up an argument between two women. The police arrived – and tasered Blake. And then shot him.
The police department says:
“At 5:11 p.m. Kenosha Police Officers were sent to the 2800 block of 40th Street for a domestic incident and were involved in an officer involved shooting.
“Officers provided immediate aid to the person. The person was transported via Flight for Life to Froedtert Hospital, Milwaukee. The person is in serious condition.”
The police union:
“the video currently circulating does not capture all the intricacies of a highly dynamic incident”
It is hard to see it as anything but attempted murder. Blake did not seem to be an apparent danger to anyone. Possibly he was disobeying police commands, but that is hardly a capital crime. Fox News said he has a criminal record, but again, that is no excuse. The police are not judge, jury and executioner. They are given guns to protect life, not to destroy it.
The two police officers have neither been named nor arrested. They are on paid leave.
The Wisconsin Department of Justice is looking into it.
– Abagond, 2020.
Update (August 26th): Blake is paralysed from the waist down according to his father. The riots in Kenosha have become way worse with three people shot last night, two of them dead. There is video of White men with rifles. They do not seem to be protesters or police.
Update (August 29th): The police officer who shot Blake in the back has been identified as Rusten Sheskey. Also, Blake is no longer handcuffed to his hospital bed nor his room guarded by a cop – not because he is paralysed but because the warrants for his arrest have been dropped.
Update (April 13th 2021): Rusten Sheskey, the officer who shot Blake in the back seven times, has been cleared of all wrongdoing and is now back at work. According to police, an investigation by an outside agency, reviewed by an independent expert and the county district attorney, found that Sheskey “acted within the law and was consistent with training.” Now you know.
See also:
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Abagond 
murder = n. the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another. That’s a totally appropriate word, since I’m sure those cops thought to themselves, what happened in Minneapolis was great, let’s kill a black man today and get fired, accused of murder and have our city burn down!
Serious question, if a guy who may or may not be armed repeatedly, after many warnings, refuses to listen to police instructions to stop/submit to arrest, at what point should police be able to take physical action? Do they need to let the guy go? Do they need to see the barrel of the gun before they shoot (what if he is ignoring the officers yelling at him to reach into his car for a kleenex)?
What if instituting rules like that (no police shooting unless opponent is physically attacking them with a gun) emboldened criminals so many more deaths actually resulted (primarily deaths of young black men)? Would those black lives matter?
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@BIff
Since this man is currently alive, I’ll grant you that murder is an inappropriate word choice. However, the definition you cite includes the word “premeditated” which is not necessarily included in the legal definition of murder in all jurisdictions.
As to your serious question, I offer you my sincere response: If one isn’t willing to put their life on the line to protect their fellow man, then one should not become a police officer. So, yes, there should be a clear and present danger to the officers or others before deadly force is justified. Barring that, pursuit or delayed arrest is always a viable option. Here was a known man, in the presence of family and friends. If he fled, then it would not have been too difficult for officers to either follow at reasonable speeds or if pursuit became dangerous, then ascertain the identity from bystanders and locate and arrest later. Simply ignoring commands in the absence of any other visible threat to life does not warrant deadly force. We don’t even accept slapping kids when they don’t listen as being an appropriate response anymore, so shooting people for ignoring you seems pretty extreme.
As to your “what if”… yes, those lives would matter. However, I don’t believe we should proactively kill actual people now in order to prevent the possibility emboldening hypothetical criminals in a “what if” scenario.
Do you carry a firearm? I ask because I’m curious about your personal threshold for use of deadly force. I have been in many verbal and physical altercations with people that were never aware I was armed and, in some instances, I would have been clearly justified in using deadly force.
It just seems like too many officers have lost sight of the fact that in the absence of immediate threat to life, time is on their side. They’re so fond of telling people to let the system work, and yet they too frequently decide that there’s no time to let the system work if they don’t bring the situation to an immediate resolution. Too much power-hungry pride. I just see Eric Cartman riding his big wheel yelling “Respect my authority!”
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Same story, different date. I pray and hope this man survives. I pray also for his young, innocent children who had to see their hero gunned down in front of their eyes.
This is not murder since the victim is still alive. Please, let’s not go there if we don’t have to.
As for biff’s question, you don’t take fatal action because a person isn’t stopping. Ditto for failing to submit to an arrest. By the way, in this case, we don’t know that an arrest was being made. According to all witnesses and the governor, he’d done nothing to be arrested for. Regardless, you don’t shoot a person– seven times in the back– because they aren’t listening to you. Yes, police need to see the barrel of a gun before they shoot. You know why? Because without seeing a gun (or other weapon), police are shooting an unarmed person when they decide to open fire.
Not to mention, in this case, they could have easily shot one of his children who were in close proximity. Any officer worth his salt will tell you you don’t shoot at close range when other civilians may be injured — especially when the officer or the public is not being threatened. No need to institute rules like that because those already are the rules.
A key loophole, however, is why police are able to ignore common sense and humanity in circumventing those rules. That is, they are able to say they felt afraid. Kid playing in the park with a toy gun… they felt afraid and so shot a child less than two seconds after arriving at the scene. Man walking around Walmart with a b.b. gun he picked up off the shelf there while talking on his phone… they felt afraid and so shot within seconds of storming the aisle. Man reaching for his license during a traffic stop– who was a licensed gun owner and assured the officer he was complying– shot in cold blood in front of his wife and child who were in the car with him because the officer felt afraid. I can sit her all day and cite case after case where people were no threat to police, yet police killed them and got away with it because of that loophole. The rules say you have to see a weapon and believe the cop or the public are in immediate danger… that is, unless you’re “afraid” and then all bets are off.
And don’t get it twisted. All Black lives matter. We’re not dealing with what ifs, we are dealing with what is. At this time, police are needlessly gunning Black women, children and men down. They are doing it despite their rules which say not to shoot unless you see a weapon and/or the public is in danger. Arguing what ifs when these rules are clearly being broken and a man has just been shot IN THE BACK SEVEN TIMES only emboldens the police to keep killing Black women, men and children. It’s almost like Black lives don’t matter to people who automatically and repeatedly side with the police because “what if”.
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I hate @Biff. What the hell is wrong with people like Biff trying to explain away the shooting/handicapping/murder of any person bc they didn’t listen to you? It is alright to give a person a life or death sentence? Who are they? Judge Jury Executioner? Not even the jury, just Judge and Executioner. Shove your reasoning up your silly inhumane ass.
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OMO, the cops are different from a private individual in terms of thresholds for force, because they potentially get held responsible if they don’t take down dangerous guys (who then go on to hurt or kill other people–and they had info that this guy was very dangerous). They are taught not to let people resisting arrest get in their cars and get weapons or drive away (or use their car as a deadly weapon) Thank you, Rhonda.
Thinking about it. Maybe we just need more dogs? Everyone likes dogs and no one calls them “racist”,
Police: K9 Dozer Helps Subdue Man Who Pulled Gun at Bar
by Racine County Eye
September 22nd, 2015
Racine police say K9 Dozer had to help officers take a man into custody when the man refused to go quietly into custody after he pulled a gun at a local bar.
Jacob Blake, 24, of Racine, was charged Monday in Racine County Circuit Court with one felony count of resisting arrest, causing a soft tissue injury to a police officer and one misdemeanor count each of carrying a concealed weapon, carrying a firearm while intoxicated, endangering safety, use of a dangerous weapon, and disorderly conduct. If convicted, he will face up to 8-1/2 years in prison and/or up to $50,000 in fines.
According to the criminal complaint, Blake and two women were at the Brass Monkey tavern, 1436 Junction Avenue, Saturday when Blake got into an argument with another patron and pulled a black handgun. Blake pointed the gun at the other man, and the magazine fell to the floor. The bartender told Blake to leave, and he did but then pointed the gun through the window at patrons inside the bar before walking south on Junction Avenue.
Police say they encountered a woman walking on Junction who was in the bar with Blake, but she said she didn’t know what happened and that her friends left without her in a silver SUV. A few moments later, officers were advised that a silver SUV was traveling north on Junction with a male subject driving who matched the description of Blake, and they initiated a traffic stop in the 1200 block of Racine Avenue.
Believing the driver was armed, police conducted a high risk traffic stop, the complaint reads, and ordered Blake to put his hands out the window of the vehicle. Instead, Blake exited the SUV and started walking toward officers and ignored commands to get down on the ground. Officers forced Blake to the ground and ordered him to put his hands behind his back. When Blake refused to comply, K9 Dozer was deployed to force the defendant into compliance.
While police were at the hospital with Blake so he could be treated for the wound he obtained from K9 Dozer …
Blake was searched and police say he had a holster on his hip but no gun. A subsequent search of the SUV turned up a black handgun on the floor behind the driver’s seat.
Apparently, Blake had a long rap sheet and an existing warrant for arrest on sexual assault/domestic violence charges.. so the cops felt this guy potentially posed a threat (had previously carried a gun in his vehicle and attacked an officer).
Since getting only big strong male cops (who could take guys down) would be impermissible (sexist), they need more dogs.. everyone loves dogs. BLM should do a joint protest with animal rights groups to make this happen.
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And the killings of black men continues unabated.
R.I.P.
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Michael Barker, sorry you got the wrong info. Blake is alive and in stable condition, though he might end up being paralyzed from the waist down.
Abagond calls it “murder”, which is (i) unlawful (ii) premeditated (iii) killing. He managed to go 0 for 3 on that one. It’s called a strike out. Won’t stop Kenosha from being burned to the ground though and probably others dying as a result… White guy with a gun stopped looters from coming into a residential area nearby. This is waking a lot of people up thankfully.
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I said:
Since Blake was alive at the time of writing of the post, a point I made clear, I obviously meant ATTEMPTED murder. I have corrected the post. Sorry.
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@Biff
“the cops are different from a private individual in terms of thresholds for force”
Yep. Knew that.. asked you anyway. Call it curiosity.
“because they potentially get held responsible if they don’t take down dangerous guys”
So, damned if they kill ’em, damned if they don’t. If only immunity from prosecution worked for NOT killing people as well as it works for killing them.
“and they had info that this guy was very dangerous”
They did? So, they had identified him and run his record prior to taking lethal action? I hadn’t read that. I’d gladly accept a source on that if you have one because I didn’t even see that on Fox News.
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@ biff
Are you an USA police officer?
Just a question…a naive and innocent question…
You know a lot about them. And you care about them, their judgments in split-second, dangerous situations, in the midst of dangerous animals… I mean, ferocious and dangerous criminals.
Final solution…
Just a question.
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I’m not seeing “a long rap sheet.”
I’m seeing the drunk-and-waving-a-firearm arrest from five years ago, two child support payment disputes that were dismissed in court, and the recent domestic violence incident.
Not perfect, to be sure — but nothing that suggests “a very dangerous” guy or a hardened criminal.
Family says he works as a security guard, and there’s at least one photo of him in his uniform circulating on social media.
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@biff
Do you look up the backgrounds on the officers involved in the killings of unarmed Black men and women? Have you researched the backgrounds of officers Luke Courtier and Rusten Sheskey yet? Is that even something you think to do?
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“Blake was trying to break up an argument between two women. The police arrived – and tasered Blake.”
Soooo, the police are called. They arrived on the scene where Blake was acting as peacemaker. He was attempting to end an argument between two women. The police take aim and taser the peacemaker.
No questions. No de-escalation protocol. Just deadly violence as a first resort.
Tasers are lethal weapons. Deaths as the result of police Taser use has been responsible for over 1,000 deaths in the USA.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-taser-deaths-insight/as-death-toll-keeps-rising-u-s-communities-start-rethinking-taser-use-idUSKCN1PT0YT
When you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
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I’ve been a lurker on this site for a while. So I just thought I’d chime in because this is an every week occurrence.
What needs to happen is that :
POLICE VIOLENCE IS A HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION
When other countries shoot their citizens. The USA is quick to call that a human rights violation but when white supremacist do the same to unarmed black people then that’s proper police procedure and self defence.
The police are the enforcement arm of white supremacy and law enforcement has been infested by white supremacists and nothing been done to root them out.
That’s why all the madness and rioting on the streets is happening.
There are white supremacist beat cops, sergeants, captains, police chiefs and prosecutors who are using sheriff departments as havens and nests were white supremacist can be hired to kill black ppl and the white supremacist district attorney will back them up on it.
White supremacists are terrorists and they should be punished.
…
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@Biff. My statement is still true though. Not all shootings get reported in the national media.
This one happened within ten miles of where I live.
https://www.pasadenastarnews.com/videos-show-anthony-mcclain-shot-while-running-from-pasadena-police-they-say-he-had-gun
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In a different part of the world, the cops would not have made it out of the neighborhood alive.
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You can trust the police to escalate any situation. It’s often a mistake to call them. I’ve read that they’re often trained – sometimes by private companies ran by ex-military types – from a soldier’s perspective and develop an adversarial view of the public.
Ironically, their focus on their own personal safety among violent enemy combatants means that citizens probably have more reason to fear the police than vice versa. If citizens are, in 2020, starting to view the police as adversaries then probably they’re just finally catching on to the force’s attitude towards them.
According to FBI statistics, 89 police officers died in the line of duty in 2019. Delving deeper, we see that 48 died as a result of “felonious acts” and 41 died in accidents. So 48 police officers were killed because of criminal activity by a citizen.
https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-releases-2019-statistics-on-law-enforcement-officers-killed-in-the-line-of-duty
However the number I’ve seen for American citizens shot and killed by police in that same year (2019) is 933. That’s almost 20 times the number of police officers killed as a result of a “felonious act”.
Yet the narrative is that police are correct to be circumspect, even trigger-happy, around ordinary citizens but the average citizen should be calm, cooperative and not the least bit nervous around police. The police force has weaponized fear.
So I already know what the argument is going to be in the case of this man, Jacob Blake, who was shot in the back and could be paralyzed if he survives. They are going to say they were afraid he was going into his vehicle to retrieve a weapon and that the shooting was justified. An active imagination is all it takes to be in the “right”.
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@ Origin
“One witness heard the police tell Blake to drop a knife – but saw no knife.”
When I read this in the post, I’m reminded that when the police are about to commit “felonious acts” that they will later “testi-lie” about in court (if it gets that far) they seek to establish cause by claiming their victim had a weapon.
Then they claim they “feared for their lives”, even though they are the ones bristling with lethal weaponry. They will continue to do this as long as they enjoy impunity for their actions.
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Update (August 26th): Blake is paralysed from the waist down according to his father. The riots in Kenosha have become way worse with three people shot last night, two of them dead. There is video of White men with rifles. They do not seem to be protesters or police.
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Unarmed Black folks getting shot. Trump threatening us with fear in his campaign rallies. We are supposed to love America but it doesn’t love us and we still try to have hope. I still remember Dylan Roof shooting nine Black people in church and he’s unrepentant. But many white people feel Blake deserved to be shot and George Floyd deserved to have a foot on his neck, and Breonna Taylor doesn’t deserve justice, even though she was shot in her bed.
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You don’t have to be perfect or a Boy Scout or a saint to deserve not to be shot.
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@Abagond
Kyle Rittenhouse 17 years old
from Antioch, IL shoots a man in the head with an AR-15 & kills him in Kenosha. He also shot 2 more people killing 2.
Evades street justice by running toward cops with an AR-15
AND the Police just let him go
Update: https://twitter.com/kirkacevedo/status/1298616591328804865
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Enter Kyle Rittenhouse into the mix. 17year old shooter in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He has Dylan Roof vibes. The cops actually gave him water and thanked him for being at the scene after he shot and killed two people.
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Yes, when it comes to escalation @Origin is correct. His words remind me of what just happened to Meg Thee Stallion and why she didn’t tell police she was shot. Some of you may not know Meg or what I’m referring to, so let me backtrack.
Meg is a rapper who got into an argument with another rapper named Tory Lanez. She alleges that Lanez shot her in both of her feet as she was walking away from their exchange. Police were called and she chose not to tell them she’d been shot for fear that, if they knew a gun was on the scene, it might end badly for all involved. Since she’s come clean with her version of events, social media has erupted with thoughts and opinions regarding domestic violence, the vulnerability of Black women and our persistent loyalty in protecting others. But what has struck me the most is the fact that she didn’t feel she could count on the very people who, by profession, are supposed to protect her– the police.
I’ve been in a similar situation. Not shot, but injured in other ways and when police pulled up I was afraid to reach out to them for fear of them escalating the situation. While I was already a victim, I knew I could be further victimized by police if the two White men in blue didn’t see my humanity. This happened more than 30 years ago and to know that nothing has changed and that my people still don’t feel like we can rely on police to protect us is quite telling.
I don’t mean to derail the conversation Abagond has started, but Origin’s words hit home. Where others feel a sense of protection when police are near, we often feel the exact opposite. The fact that this man, a peacemaker, was tased and then shot in the back seven times is just another incident that will underscore the fear many of us have when dealing with the boys in blue.
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@ Mary
Phew! The US is so lucky that people like Rittenhouse and Roof never join the police force!
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@LaLa Lives Online: You know I was just thinking about that this morning. I truly get why Meg Thee Stallion, did what she did. Especially since she had been shot, there was a gun in the limousine and the cops most certainly would have shot all of them. Black folks can’t trust cops not to shoot them. I am so convinced of this.
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@abagond
“Phew! The US is so lucky that people like Rittenhouse and Roof never join the police force!”
I actually muttered OMG out loud. The sarcasm made it hit home just how messed up the situation is.
@Lala Lives Online
Thanks, I didn’t know the details of the Meg Thee Stallion situation. You definitely think twice about calling the police because you don’t want to make a bad situation worse or make a manageable situation into a disaster. We hesitate for the same reason racist white people jump at the chance to sic them on black folks.
My mind actually went back to the shooting and killing of Atatiana Jefferson. A non-emergency “welfare call” from a neighbor who thought it strange that her front door was open at 2:30 AM precipitated the whole thing. Police came quietly and were creeping around outside and when she grabbed her gun and went to investigate (from inside the house) she was shot through a window.
It just seems that the police approach to everything creates tense situations that raise the risk of fatal violence occurring. Then they get to say that the situation they created justified their decision to shoot. As Afrofem said, they know they have “qualified immunity” so they act with impunity.
@Afrofem
“Testi-lie” is the correct term indeed. It’s like how they shout “stop resisting” after they have you pinned and unable to move to stage the scene for brutal beatings.
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This has been discussed on other threads, but I feel compelled to repeat this obvious fact: the police are not set up to protect Black people. Quite the opposite.
When they occupy Black neighborhoods and harass the residents, they are doing their jobs.
When they shelter murderers like Kyle Rittenhouse, they are doing their jobs.
When police provocateurs break windows during peaceful protests and the media blames “evil BLM”, for “violence, looting and burning our cities, they are doing their jobs.
When they beat or kill Black people who are already in surrender postures or restrained with handcuffs, they are doing their jobs.
Another commenter and I discussed the purpose of the police in 2017. The comment can be found at:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2017/05/16/unarmed-black-americans-killed-by-police-in-2017/comment-page-1/#comment-381124
The White population has always lived in fear of Black people. Our African ancestors never truly submitted to slavery. Black people have always resisted enslavement and oppression.
I didn’t realize how long and how deep that resistance ran until I read a series of history books over the past two years. Two that stand out are: Red, White and Black by Gary B. Nash and This Species of Property by Leslie Howard Owens. Both books cover the entire colonial period. Owens book goes up to pre-Civil War period.
I was struck by how The White Power Structure continues to treat Black people like they are errant slaves instead of full citizens of the country. Those habits began in response to our ancestors resistance and have been entrenched in policy and practices up to the today.
Even the silly “Broken Record” arguments White commenters and trolls repeat are based in habits and practices from slavery. From the Crime Statistics Argument to the White Inventor Argument and beyond, nearly all of the specious, but refutable arguments are based on White fear and tradition.
I can only hope the day comes soon that Black people stop calling the police and take care of their own community security needs. Protecting Black people is not what the police are designed to do in the USA.
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@ Afrofem
I thinking the very same thing this afternoon. I wonder why…
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Why isn’t Biff here saying that Kyle Rittenhouse is a thug? /s
Let’s not forget Biff wrote this comment upthread just yesterday:
I’ve already seen a few people on social media trying to argue that Rittenhouse shot in self-defense because he was being chased in the video. Well, sure, he was being chased by protesters trying to disarm him because he was shooting people.
You can see in the video that one of the men Rittenhouse killed, right before he’s shot, he’s trying to hit Rittenhouse with a skateboard.
These are brave people, trying to subdue an armed killer with nothing but their fists and skateboards.
It also looks like once Rittenhouse gets back onto his feet and starts walking away, he turns backwards and begins shooting indiscriminately into the crowd. That’s not self-defense.
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@ Solitaire
Maybe because Rittenhouse is biff 😉
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“Why isn’t Biff here saying that Kyle Rittenhouse is a thug? /s”
Good point. So let’s take a look.
His prior criminal history,
In 2018, he has a charge for disobeying officers.
2016
Case Number: 2016CM000410
Case Type: MISDEMEANOR
Classification: MISDEMEANOR CLASS A
Counts: 1
Crime Type: MISDEMEANOR
Degree Of Offense: MISD. A
Crime County: ROCK
Offense Code: 941.20(1)(B)
Offense Date: 01/29/2016
Offense Description: OPERATE FIREARM WHILE INTOXICATED
Charges Filed Date: 03/01/2016
County: ROCK
Plea: NOT GUILTY
Disposition: CHARGE DISMISSED BUT READ IN
Disposition Date: 10/04/2016
Status: CLOSED
DISORDERLY CONDUCT
2016
Case Number: 2016CM000410
Case Type: MISDEMEANOR
Classification: MISDEMEANOR CLASS B
Counts: 1
Crime Type: MISDEMEANOR
Degree Of Offense: MISD. B
Crime County: ROCK
Offense Code: 947.01(1)
Offense Date: 01/29/2016
Offense Description: DISORDERLY CONDUCT
Charges Filed Date: 03/01/2016
County: ROCK
Plea: NO CONTEST
Disposition: GUILTY DUE TO NO CONTEST PLEA
Disposition Date: 10/04/2016
Status: CLOSED
POSSESSION OF THC
2016
Case Number: 2016CM000410
Case Type: MISDEMEANOR
Classification: MISDEMEANOR
Counts: 1
Crime Type: MISDEMEANOR
Degree Of Offense: MISD. U
Crime County: ROCK
Offense Code: 961.41(3G)(E)
Offense Date: 01/29/2016
Offense Description: POSSESSION OF THC
Charges Filed Date: 03/01/2016
County: ROCK
Plea: NOT GUILTY
Disposition: CHARGE DISMISSED BUT READ IN
Disposition Date: 10/04/2016
Status: CLOSED
POSSESS DRUG PARAPHERNALIA
2016
Case Number: 2016CM000410
Case Type: MISDEMEANOR
Classification: MISDEMEANOR
Counts: 1
Crime Type: MISDEMEANOR
Degree Of Offense: MISD. U
Crime County: ROCK
Offense Code: 961.573(1)
Offense Date: 01/29/2016
Offense Description: POSSESS DRUG PARAPHERNALIA
Charges Filed Date: 03/01/2016
County: ROCK
Plea: NOT GUILTY
Disposition: CHARGE DISMISSED BUT READ IN
Disposition Date: 10/04/2016
Status: CLOSED
FAILURE TO OBEY TRAFFIC OFFICE…
2018
Case Number: 2018TR011432
Classification: FORFEITURE U
Counts: 1
Offense Code: 346.04(2)
Offense Date: 08/09/2018
Offense Description: FAILURE TO OBEY TRAFFIC OFFICER/SIGNAL
Charges Filed Date: 08/13/2018
Plea: NO CONTEST
Disposition: GUILTY DUE TO NO CONTEST PLEA
Disposition Date: 09/18/20
He appears to be a criminal.
But that doesn’t stop people for calling him a “patriot” and a hero. In fact their is a GoFundMe account for his legal fees.
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@ MJB
No offense, but I think you may have pulled up the wrong guy’s record. News reports say Rittenhouse is only 17, so he would have been only 13 or 14 in 2016. If it were him, usually juvenile records are kept under seal, plus he should’ve been charged with driving under age and without a license. Also, his hometown of Antioch, IL is in Lake County, not Rock County (Wisconsin?)
However, he is a psycopath. I just finished watching the video of the first shooting, where he goes back to look at the man he shot, stands hovering over the people trying to give first aid, then calls someone on his cell phone to tell them he thinks he just killed someone.
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@Solitare
Good point. I will see where I found that source.
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Where I got the info:
David Earl Williams III is an aspiring politician according to his web page. He ran for office but was defeated. I posted the info from his FB page but he doesn’t name his source.
(https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=3252946604785392&id=404792672934147)
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Edit: insert this link.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=3252946604785392&id=404792672934147
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Biff’s favorite Fox News personality Tucker Carlson went on air to support Kyle Rittenhouse:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/aug/26/tucker-carlson-kenosha-shooting-teen-kyle-rittenhouse
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https://streamable.com/icla4v
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:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EgZGIFhWAAEm6Vg?format=jpg
Awwwww sheeeeeet
Tucker really went mask off here. The Tucker Carlson white power Hour was totally on brand tonight
Complaining about him won’t get rid of him. Ppl need to deluge his program’s sponsors with enraged letters and emails, threatening boycotts.
Fox worship the bottom line and if their chosen political propaganda hurts more than he helps, they might even utterly flabbergast us all and change their tune and ditch him,
.
The problem is that there’s no contact info for Tucker Carlson’s reps on IMDB. Not one. I’ve never seen that before. Whoever reps him takes that commission doesn’t want anyone to know.
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Here’s what I really don’t get.
You guys support (what you think are) the “mostly peaceful” principles of BLM. You don’t think it’s communist and intent on destroying the nuclear family and the American dream, but instead about racial justice.
OK, then… Why, why, why support these White Antifa punks?! They are the ones starting most of this stuff, lighting the fires, breaking the windows and encouraging looting. They are avowedly pro-communist, and they are trained like a military. They use any method to achieve their goals of overthrowing government.
They are riding in almost immediately en masse with blocked license plates and military gear and using BLM as their pawns–encouraging them to loot and riot, instead of showing the power of peaceful protests like MLK did.
Why, why, why, do you want to defend a bunch of entitled White Antifa goons who chase down a 17 year old trying to protect a town (because the cops aren’t showing up) from burning down and attack him? He was beaten with a skateboard and one of the guys attacking him had a gun..
He didn’t kill any black people or set out with the intent to do so.. comparing him to Dylan Roof is insane and totally dishonest. He acted in self defense according to multiple eye witness testimonials and videos.
On the other hand, if he goes down, Trump has a better chance of winning and maybe the collapse happens sooner…
For many normal people watching all this, with the MSM insisting on calling it “mostly peaceful protests” while cities are burning and are overrun with armed Antifa goons, the lies they tell are becoming more obvious.
Don’t let arrogant little White Antifa punks be your puppet masters. You guys are better than that.
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@ biff
#1. How do you know it was Antifa?
#2. Even supposing it was Antifa, why in the world are you blaming them for the violence and painting them as the big threat when it was an actual Trump supporter who was doing the shooting and killing?
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@ Biff
“They are the ones starting most of this stuff, lighting the fires, breaking the windows and encouraging looting.”
Yes, and people here were complaining about that a couple months ago on the threads about the George Floyd protests. This isn’t ground-breaking news, although it also isn’t clear how many of these white troublemakers are actually Antifa.
“They are avowedly pro-communist, and they are trained like a military. They use any method to achieve their goals of overthrowing government.”
Source, please.
“They are riding in almost immediately en masse with blocked license plates and military gear”
Source, please. Also, the first man Kyle Rittenhouse killed was from Kenosha; he wasn’t “riding in” from anywhere.
The second man Kyle Rittenhouse killed was from Silver Lake, Wisconsin, a small town on the outskirts of Kenosha.
You know who wasn’t local? Kyle Rittenhouse, from Antioch, Illinois. Why was he even there?
Why was he breaking the Kenosha curfew? Why did he have a gun and ammunition that under Illinois law he may not have had the legal right to own? And that under Wisconsin law he probably did not have had a legal right to open carry?
“and using BLM as their pawns–encouraging them to loot and riot”
Once again, you portray black people as being pawns to whites and unable to think for themselves. There are many videos from the last couple months of black protesters trying to stop whites from looting and vandalizing.
“goons who chase down a 17 year old”
He was being chased because he had just killed a man by shooting him in the head.
“trying to protect a town (because the cops aren’t showing up)”
The cops were there; it’s in the footage.
“He was beaten with a skateboard”
Because he had just killed a man by shooting him in the head. They were trying to subdue him because he was an armed murderer.
“and one of the guys attacking him had a gun..”
Proof, please. I’ve seen this rumor online but I haven’t seen any proof.
And if that guy had a gun, why didn’t he shoot Kyle Rittenhouse who had just murdered a man in cold blood? If he had, he would’ve been the proverbial “good guy with a gun” who took down a psychopath before he could kill again.
“He acted in self defense according to multiple eye witness testimonials and videos.”
Links, please, especially to the eyewitness testimony.
If Kyle Rittenhouse is such a good guy, why didn’t he immediately provide first aid to the first man he shot?
He even had a medical kit with him. You can see it slung across one shoulder, and there’s other footage from an earlier video that same night of Kyle explaining that he has his medical kit.
If Kyle Rittenhouse is such a good guy, why does he stand over the man’s dying form holding his rifle as others rush to provide aid?
Why does he then call someone up on the phone and say he just killed someone as he begins to flee the scene of his crime?
If Kyle Rittenhouse is such a good guy, and if he was acting in justifiable self-defense, why didn’t he give himself up to the authorities after the first shooting, instead of running away and killing again?
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@ Abagond
“Maybe because Rittenhouse is biff 😉”
I think Biff is Blake Neff 😎
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@ biff
Antifa has not killed anyone in the US in the past 25 years:
(https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/27/us-rightwing-extremists-attacks-deaths-database-leftwing-antifa)
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Ok, so he had a warrant. Clearly he seems to avoid confrontation with the police, it seems from his ‘jacket’ as presented online, fled the scene, left the scene. I don’t think the patrolmen knew much about him in this instance. And damn if someone didn’t post on fb (para.) if you have to cosign the police for shooting this guy because he had a warrant, you’re probably a little racist. Enough said. Overkill, again.
And honestly, all these videos of the riots, i just saw one of a white cop getting hit on the head with a brick, and dropping to the ground, with the crowd jeering, like i’ve had something similar happen, it made me feel some type of way. And that’s confusing, it didn’t seem to be a ‘white’ thing, and the amount of times i’ve been arrested etc, i shouldn’t feel a thing. And the looting? Wow, let’s go rob a jewlery store en masse over this injustice? Talk about an asymtotic limit, no future in that… It’s all just a hot mess. Just crowd vs. crowd with no leaders, as the mayors and governors basically bow out it’s like the FOP vs. the disenfranchised. Just static noise and bloodsport distracting everything to the point of helplessness.
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We now know that Jacob Blake was not there to break up a fight. The police were called there by his ex because he was not supposed to be at her house and he has stolen her keys. We now know because Jacob admitted it that he was armed with a knife. We now know through the dispatch audio that it was confirmed that there was an active felony arrest warrant for Jacob Blake.
https://madison365.com/kenohsa-police-opened-fire-less-than-5-minutes-after-being-called-scanner-audio/
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/wisconsin-doj-reveals-new-details-surrounding-jacob-blakes-shooting-by-kenosha-police/2329213/%3famp
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I am sad for the victims who were killed and hurt by the domestic terrorist Kyle Rittenhouse.
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Shout out to and much respect to the Milwaukee Bucks for refusing to play in support of Jacob Blake. Black Lives Matter ✊🏿
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The NBA season will be cancelled because of racism not COVID-19.✊🏿
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@eick74
Thank you for providing links. I had asked Biff for sources that could have provided him with the “information” he was sharing and I looked myself and had come up empty.
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Racism is a pandemic that never ends.
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All of sudden cops have perfect training on how to deescalate situations as long as the suspects are white. All of sudden their guns don’t work.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLClu1R4ImA)
(https://youtu.be/7Do9WCYYAd8)
P.S
By the way Abagond. How do you post images in here ? Is there a way you can edit your posts ?
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It does appear that one of the men chasing Rittenhouse after the first murder had a handgun. I’ve now seen a screenshot of the video where the pursuer does have something in his hand that appears to be a gun. I think but am not entirely sure that this is the man Rittenhouse wounded.
I’m still not buying self-defense because by that point Rittenhouse had already murdered someone. A fleeing killer does not get to claim self-defense for injuring and killing citizens trying to apprehend him.
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the rittenhouse kid idk kinda lik he shouldnt a been there with his rifle out
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i can see it now it started with the origina covid 19 relaxation of policing and since annd including florance and normandie it is hands off looters like cant see that yet little pockets of anarchy you know im not a policeman to know why theey shoot in crowds at the park on sundays latey but its not like that at the protests you gotta admit its still time leftt
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A 17-year-old boy was charged with murder in the first degree after opening fire on three anarchist rioters in two seperate incidents.
The accused, Kyle Rittenhouse, is from Antioch, Illinois, just 21 miles from Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Rittenhouse traveled to Kenosha with his AR-15 in order to protect small business owners and citizens who were being victimized after being abandoned by their state government and police.
Footage obtained by anti-extremism watchdog AntifaWatch shows the first shooting. In the video, a masked man named Joseph D. Rosenbaum is shown chasing Rittenhouse and throwing what some have claimed may have been an improvised explosive, but this has not yet been confirmed. Rittenhouse then shot Rosenbaum in the head as he charged and tried to take his rifle, an injury the attacker later died of.
Earlier in the night, Rosenbaum, who is Jewish, was shown violently antagonizing the armed men, shouting “Shoot me, Nigga!”
After Rosenbaum was shot, a mob of anarchists pursued Rittenhouse as he attempted to flee. The young man then fell to the ground as the “antifa” members began attacking him. Rittenhouse opened fire against two of the attackers, one who was armed with a handgun.
One member of the gang, Anthony W. Huber, died after being shot in the chest. The armed assailant, Gaige Paul Grosskreutz, suffered a gruesome gunshot wound to the arm but survived.
The media has jumped into action to paint Rittenhouse as a white supremacist domestic terrorist and the anarchists who were shot as innocent “peaceful protesters.” But the facts bring this narrative into question.
Joseph Don Rosenbaum
According to public records, Joseph “Jojo” Rosenbaum has a long history of violence.
Rosenbaum was convicted in Arizona in 2002 for committing an act of sexual misconduct with a child.
According to his entry in the sex offender registry, he was a level 3 offender, meaning he was at a high risk of reoffending and a general danger to his surroundings.
Arizona Department of Corrections records reveal that Rosenbaum spent 12 1/2 years in prison after being convicted of two counts of 3rd degree sexual misconduct against a minor and one count of interfering with a monitoring device. For sexual misconduct with a minor to reach the level of class 3 felony, the victim must be under the age of 15.
More telling is Rosenbaum’s 42 seperate disciplinary infractions while incarcerated. including numerous assaults, committing sex acts and stalking, manufacturing a weapon, and arson. He was then released in 2016.
According to records from the Wisconsin Circuit Court, Rosenbaum had pending charges for battery as domestic abuse filed just last month.
Anthony W. Huber
Anthony M. Huber, the second anarchist who died at the scene, is promoted as a hero by for-profit “charity” business Go Fund Me. His girlfriend has raised almost $70,000 in his name.
Public records show that Huber was in fact a violent criminal with a history of abusing his loved ones.
In 2012, Huber pled guilty to false imprisonment with a dangerous weapon and strangulation as domestic abuse. He appears to have violated the terms of his probation in 2016 and was sentenced to two years in state prison, most of it with time served. Huber was arrested again in 2018 for battery.
The woman fundraising in his name, Hannah J Gittings, currently has a warrant out for her arrest for refusing a breathalyzer while driving drunk and driving with a revoked license.
Gaige Paul Grosskreutz
Gaige P. Grosskreutz, a pistol wielding anarchist in his 40s who was shot in the arm while attacking the teenaged Rittenhouse, was charged with felony burglary and theft in 2013. He violated his probation just 4 months later. He has another arrest from 2017.
It is unclear from public records if Grosskreutz was ever convicted of a felony. If so, his possession of a firearm is a serious offense that could net him 10 years in prison.
According to a media puff piece, Grosskreutz was a professional activist with Milwaukee based “People’s Revolution,” a more extreme breakaway from the Black Lives Matter NGO.
Virtually no mainstream media reporting on this incident has mentioned any of this information when reporting on GrossKreutz, Rosenbaum or Huber.
The strong anti-social and violent streak exemplified by these individuals — who were active participants in a violent riot and clear instigators in the shootings –is common among the rank-and-file of “antifa.”
Journalists hired by elite media may side with them against a 17-year-old boy engaging in self-defense, but it remains to be seen if America will.
https://www.unz.com/estriker/kenosha-all-three-anarchist-rioters-shot-have-violent-criminal-histories/
Article doesn’t mention that Grosskreutz was wearing a scarf with a Satanic symbol on it…
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FYI: Biff used Unz Review as his source, an alt-right propaganda website.
According to Media Bias/Fact Check:
Source:(https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-unz-report/)
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abagond:
mediabiasfactcheck.com and most so called “fact check” sites peddle left-wing propaganda and outright lies. If you believe CNN is being honest when their reporter is in front of massive fires in Kenosha saying they are “fiery, but mostly peaceful protests” then you that’s the site for you. You cited the Guardian upthread, which is a left-wing propaganda site. It’s no coincidence that most of those sites have gotten rid of reader comments on the site (Unz and most right wing sites have them) because they don’t want their lies revealed–they also beg for money on their site because people are abandoning the lying leftwing press in droves. There have been literally hundreds (if not already thousands) of additional lives (including markedly increased crime in places like Chicago and NY) lost due to the protests/riots/looting and increased unrest. Yet the Guardian pretends Antifa and their goons aren’t responsible for any of it, even as they literally start fires and encourage assaults on the police… Those are obvious lies. STOP LYING
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@biff
They are not fans of CNN either:
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/cnn/
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@ biff
Nor am I a fan of CNN:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2017/07/13/cnn/
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@abagond @biff
I agree with Abagond that unz.com is often a dubious source of information but it would appear the article posted by Biff is at least partially if not wholly correct regarding the criminal history of the three shooting victims of Kyle Rittenhouse. I did searches by matching names and publicly available ages. Also Mr Rosenbaum’s photo in the database below matches the photograph posted in recent articles, confirming his identity.
First person shot (deceased)
Joseph Don Rosenbaum age 36
The most serious convictions of the three victims were for Joseph Rosenbaum a registered sex offender with a 12 year stint in prison.
https://inmatedatasearch.azcorrections.gov/PrintInmate.aspx?ID=172556
Second person shot(deceased)
Anthony Huber age 26
Anthony Huber had multiple felony convictions including domestic abuse battery, and false imprisonment.
https://wcca.wicourts.gov/caseDetail.html?caseNo=2018CM000509&countyNo=30&index=0&mode=details
https://wcca.wicourts.gov/caseDetail.html?caseNo=2012CF001346&countyNo=30&index=0&mode=details
Third person shot (suffered wound to the arm, was pictured with a hand gun.)
Gaige Paul Grosskreutz Age 26
Gaige Paul Grosskreutz has had some run-ins with the law but appears to have never been convicted of a felony, at least in Wisconsin. His most serious conviction was possession of firearm while intoxicated, a class A misdemeanor (I am guessing plead down from a felony).
https://wcca.wicourts.gov/caseDetail.html?caseNo=2016CM001014&countyNo=40&index=0&isAdvanced=true&mode=details
https://wcca.wicourts.gov/caseDetail.html?caseNo=2019FO000471&countyNo=2&index=0&isAdvanced=true&mode=details
https://wcca.wicourts.gov/caseDetail.html?caseNo=2019FO000470&countyNo=2&index=0&isAdvanced=true&mode=details
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@abagond @biff
Kyle Rittenhouse
Was he legally carrying a rifle? Open carry in Wisconsin is legal for people 18 and above without a felony conviction but since he was 17 it would appear he was legally allowed to the rifle. Also the legality of protecting a business which one has no affiliation is certainly in question and may have lead to the 1st degree murder charges.
https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/crime/2020/08/26/wisconsin-open-carry-law-kyle-rittenhouse-legally-have-gun-kenosha-protest-shooting-17-year-old/3444231001/
First shooting Joseph Don Rosenbaum.
YouTube video of the first shooting – (I do not agree with the YouTuber’s comments)
YouTube video of the first shooting – (I do not agree with the YouTuber’s comments as we do not have all the facts)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKus9Euv7UI)
In the video I saw leading up to the first shooting Mr Rosenbaum was chasing Mr. Rittenhouse (We don’t know why but I suspect this may be critical to his defense). It appears Mr. Rosenbaum may have thrown a flaming object towards Mr. Rittenhouse – Another person who appeared to following Mr. Rittenhouse fired a gun (You can hear the gun and see the muzzle flash). Per the Daily Beast witnesses stated Mr. Rosenbaum caught up with Mr. Rittenhouse and was attempting to take the gun from him (And the first video seems to reflect this) Mr Rosenbaum ended up being shot by Mr. Rittenhouse.
YouTube video compilations of the shootings – (I do not agree with the YouTuber’s comments as we do not have all the facts)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neUnhYO2Ehc&bpctr=1598605814)
During the second incident multiple people surrounded Mr. Rittenhouse, kicked him, struck in the head, and then Anthony Huber hit Mr. Rittenhouse with a skateboard and was in turn was shot once in the chest by Mr. Rittenhouse.
Gaige Paul Grosskreutz then appeared to try to disarm and/or attack Mr. Rittenhouse (He was armed with a pistol but it is unclear if he had the gun in his hand when he approached Mr. Rittenhouse, there is a photo of the aftermath where Grosskreutz holds the gun with his wounded arm).
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This sentence:
Open carry in Wisconsin is legal for people 18 and above without a felony conviction but since he was 17 it would appear he was legally allowed to the rifle.
Should read:
Open carry in Wisconsin is legal for people 18 and above without a felony conviction, but since Kyle Rittenhouse is 17 it would appear he was NOT legally allowed to carry the rifle.
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@Biff
Thank you for the additional information about the “anarchists criminals” that were shot by the the armed, under-aged, wanna-be “security” kid from out of town. Why is it you can state clearly that none of them were affiliated with BLM (you stated one was part of a more extreme offshoot… i.e. not BLM) and yet you still associate their actions with BLM in your mind? In this case, your source seems to indicate that this entire shooting incident had nothing to do with BLM other than the protest being a convenient setting for these “extremists”.
Personally, I think these groups know that people like you will ascribe the results of their actions to Black Lives Matter. I think that’s their entire point. It’s playing well in the Right-leaning media anyway.
P.S. My use of anarchist, criminals and security are in quotes because they’re referencing the opinions of media sources and not verifiable fact. My use of extremist is in quotes because, while I believe a child bringing an AR-15 to a protest is extreme, only one of the people involved has been associated with a radical group (according to your source).
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They handcuffed Jacob Blake to his hospital bed and he’s paralyzed.🤬🤬🤬🤬😡🥺
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Out of all of the video of the Rittenhouse incident so far, the piece of footage that shows police responding to gunshots and rolling up on a kid running away with an assault rifle. I just cannot help but see a flowchart in my head:
{Responding to shots fired at a protest}
{Encounter person fleeing with AR15}
A) Is he White?
– Use the PA to ask him if anyone is injured and let him pass.
B) Is he Black?
– Burst out of the vehicle, weapons drawn and take him down immediately.
I know option B is a hypothetical. But, there’s not a person on Earth who can convince me it would have gone down any other way. Honestly, engaging an armed man fleeing a shooting scene is not an unreasonable response (Not a Tamir Rice kind of engagement.. I’m talking about trying to arrest him alive like they do in Upper Gwynedd Township if you shoot at the cops). Asking that fleeing man if everyone is OK is the absurd option here.
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For everyone who has asked why a young man having killed several people and with a gun in his hands is taken unscathed by the police whereas another unarmed man is summarily killed without a plausible apparent reason, let me lead you to a past circa 75 years ago when soldiers of a ‘barbarian’ army (called Nazi troops) after defeat and surrendering to American troops have received after that a more cavalier-like attitude that also contrasted with a gross, apartheid-like attitude said American soldiers had vis-a-vis their fellow comrades in arms who happened to be Black.
Any semblance between the two situations is mere coincidence… of course!
Remember the past. See, https://time.com/5872361/wwii-german-pows-civil-rights/
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I am saddened by the deaths of the victims of Kyle Rittenhouse. May they Rest In Peace.🕊🙏🏿
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About the supposed flaming object thrown by Joseph Rosenbaum — in the same video where he says “shoot me” he can be seen carrying a plastic shopping bag, which at one point he puts down on the ground and then picks up again. This bag is most likely the object he throws at Rittenhouse. What was in the bag is as yet unknown, as far as I’m aware. It’s also unclear to me whether the “flames” that some people believe to see are real or the flashes of streetlights playing on a plastic bag flying through the air in blurry nighttime footage.
Biff’s source is wrong about Rosenbaum being “a masked man” as he is clearly unmasked in the video of the confrontation immediately prior to the chase and his death.
Even taking into account the arrest records of the men Rittenhouse shot, does anyone besides Biff think Rittenhouse was in serious danger for his life? If he hadn’t been armed, would he have been beaten to death with skateboards on the street? Or would he, as in so many other cases during the protests, been protected by other demonstrators and at most been roughed up some?
Would Rittenhouse have even been chased if he hadn’t been armed with an AR-15? We still don’t know what provoked the first chase, whether Rittenhouse said or did something that he would not have said or done if he had been in the same situation unarmed.
There’s also a very valid question of whether he could have extricated himself from the situation without using his weapon, especially at the time of the first killing. Was Rittenhouse really in so much danger he had no choice but to kill in self-defense? Or did he shoot before using other options because he had a gun at the ready and he panicked?
Finally, I think it is essential to note that a few years ago, in an incident where an unarmed 17-year-old high school student was being pursued by an older armed man with an arrest record, Biff argued long and hard that Trayvon Martin deserved to be killed.
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@ Open Minded Observer
Exactly. Even if the white armed teen approaching the police vehicles turned out not to be the shooter, he should have been detained right there until the police sorted out what happened.
In many ways, that is the most shocking and most telling piece of footage.
@ Biff
What’s your excuse for the police, Biff? Why did they let a guy carrying an AR-15 walk away from the scene of multiple gunfire?
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Another thought on what I wrote above:
“Or did he shoot before using other options because he had a gun at the ready and he panicked?”
Or maybe “panic” is not the right word. Maybe he was so quick to shoot because he felt that he was justified due to the far-right militia rhetoric he’d been hearing. “You loot, we shoot” and so forth.
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@ v8driver
“Just crowd vs. crowd with no leaders, as the mayors and governors basically bow out it’s like the FOP vs. the disenfranchised.”
Good point.
Your comment upthread echoes an article I read a couple of weeks ago. The article pointed out that Americans have awakened form five decades of sleep. While they were snoozing, their rights were stripped away, their living standards slid into a pit and a surveillance police state was built around them. Kind of like Rip Van Winkle meets Gulliver’s Travels—only the Lilliputians have guns, drones and teargas.
The author argued that newly awakened Americans face two primary ways of dealing with the current nightmare, civil war or civil chaos. According to the author:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/08/what-will-the-real-american-resistance-look-like-chaotic-rebellion-or-organized-general-strikes.html
v8driver, like you I’m concerned that Americans will allow themselves to descend into, “…the alternative, a five-way civil war with armed cops permanently stationed in the streets and skirmishes everywhere.” As you so plainly put it, “crowd vs. crowd”.
In that scenario, the “FOP” (Fraternal Order of Police) are the big winners, plus the people they really serve. Not to mention gun toting rightwing paramilitary types who thrive on violence and chaos.
[Thanks Abagond for that Guardian link!]
Leaderless resistance is not an effective long term strategy. I totally understand why groups adopt that form. However, organized, effective resistance requires real leadership. Maybe that’s why the Powers That Be went after unions first. They were training grounds for organized, focused leaders. The leaders we need now.
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Update: The police officer who shot Blake in the back has been identified as Rusten Sheksey. Also, Blake is no longer handcuffed to his hospital bed nor his room guarded by a cop – not because he is paralysed but because the warrants for his arrest have been dropped.
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@ Afrofem
“Leaderless resistance is not an effective long term strategy. I totally understand why groups adopt that form. However, organized, effective resistance requires real leadership.”
I’m of mixed feelings about this. Leaders make themselves visible and therefore vulnerable. Too many have been assassinated. Yet there does need to be more organization, and for that leaders seem necessary. I wonder if there is a way to have invisible leadership? People who organize and train others, but who do not have a visible public profile?
Recently Biff questioned why the current demonstrations are not “showing the power of peaceful protests like MLK did.” As I said in a different thread not long ago, I think it’s important to remember that the civil rights marchers went through rigorous training in nonviolent resistance, both the philosophy and practical techniques. I believe at least some of the people leading those training sessions had their roots in the organized labor movement. If I do remember that correctly, it would dovetail with your observation above about the unions.
It is also important to remember that despite such rigorous training and the strong emphasis on nonviolence, neither MLK nor Gandhi could prevent some of their followers from turning away from the path of nonviolence. Neither MLK nor Gandhi could ensure that there would be no riots, no violence, no destruction.
And I really want to know how Biff and people like him think the peaceful protesters can both obey the Kenosha curfew and be on the streets at night to stop the rioters.
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@Solitaire
I’m of mixed feelings about this. Leaders make themselves visible and therefore vulnerable. Too many have been assassinated.
I had the same thought that the advantage of the lack of an obvious leader is a greater agility and amorphousness in the face of inevitable resistance. I actually think ideologies are more powerful than leaders but they are often created by leaders for their movements (and often survive them after they are assassinated).
Recently Biff questioned why the current demonstrations are not “showing the power of peaceful protests like MLK did.” As I said in a different thread not long ago, I think it’s important to remember that the civil rights marchers went through rigorous training in nonviolent resistance, both the philosophy and practical techniques.
It is also questionable whether non-violence is entirely effective without the credible threat of violence or confrontation as an alternative. The violence will typically not be threatened by the non-violent movement, but by other groups that are simultaneously exploring other ways to combat oppression.
I often consider that Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam were active at the same time as MLK. However the NOI’s message was one of self-reliance and victory over one’s enemies not reconciliation. To those white people perennial concerned about black uprising, Christian MLK must have been made to seem even more appealing by the existence of the NOI.
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i was at 46th st. the L stop, sorry little rubber portable kybd, the other day with a guy from work,, we were both taking transit to go to job 2 for the day so the dude buys me a smoothie we shooting the shit 5 shots like i think 1330 un real innocent bystanders are getting shot its like something must be done this rittenhouse wtf anyway
like the transportation center inn camden nj is a grreat example of how stupid this is all getting, ppl are steting up their littl e homeless places like wwith a view to permanancy? the bs is rampant
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~
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abagond:
Comparing your so called “fact check” website’s treatment of CNN, “tends to be properly sourced with minimal failed fact checks.” to their treatment of Unz, “extreme right wing bias, promotion of propaganda and hate, as well as utilizing poor sources” is ridiculous. If any of you have time, please read Unz’s “American Pravda” series. The whole point by Unz (a Harvard grad and successful entrepreneur, who happens to generally be pro immigration) is showing how the US media is not much better than Soviet style Pravda in terms of “propaganda”… not sure how a relatively small dissident blog gets accused of promoting “propaganda”, which generally comes from those in power.. once again, pure projection.
Lemmy:
Some respectable research there.
OMO:
Antifa is by nature a very extreme organization. BLM’s leadership is extreme. Not all of their rank and file is, but they are not taking steps to kick out Antifa and the extremists, and the results have been predictable in city after city. Therefore, they can’t plead ignorance and they share responsibility for all of this.
They should be obeying the curfew and disavowing those who don’t, so the police and national guard can take down the bad apples
Solitaire:
You make some reasonable points. The first shooting victim could have been carrying a bottle in a plastic bag.
The police knew Rittenhouse. He had come to defend people and businesses and to take care of the injured. During the day, he was working to scrub away BLM graffiti. He was the one who called 911 after the first shooting. I know you think it’s crazy that the cops would favor guys like that to the anarchists and looters trying to get rid of the police and burn and destroy.. but yeah, they believed he was a good guy. Should they have questioned him more, probably, but contrast that with first degree murder charges, despite a lot of contrary evidence and video footage, just for political expediency.
Look for the Daily Caller interview. Rittenhouse had a medical kit, which is why he was wearing gloves. He talks about his reasons for coming to town. Later in the video, he’s seen asking a bunch of dangerous looking people (somewhat naively) if they need medical help and some apparent rioters get upset and say “weren’t you the guy telling me to get off of the car?”, and he retreats rather than confronting them.
That interviewer for the Daily Caller was a direct witness. He came on Tucker Carlson today. He heard gunshots before Rittenhouse shot and saw Rosenbaum charge Rittenhouse and try to grab his gun before Rittenhouse shot him. You can call him biased, but the reporter was the guy who took off his own shirt and used it to try and stop the bleeding. He personally carried Rosenbaum to the hospital across the street. He also grilled Rittenhouse earlier in the interview about whether he was an EMT, maybe suspecting he was too young to be a medic (Rittenhouse said he is a lifeguard). He seems like a genuinely good kid… and there are a LOT of people in the right who are seeing the evidence and very supportive of him taking a stand.
Re: comparing Rittenhouse to Trayvon Martin, you guys really don’t get it.. Conservatives like me favor those who are upholding law and order–trying to do what’s best for society. Officer David Dorn (the black police officer murdered defending a business) elicited a lot of sympathy on our side. If there was a White Antifa goon who had killed him, we’d want him to fry. Meanwhile, you guys support blacks regardless of how they misbehave, just because of their skin color. There is recent footage out there of BLM protesters going through DC shouting, who do we support? Black criminals! I kid you not.. it’s ridiculous..
So Blake may be a child rapist who was wanted on domestic violence charges, separate from the domestic violence call against him the police were responding to, who had a knife and would not submit to arrest even after being tazed, but you guys are still outraged that a cop shot him as he continually resisted arrest and tried to get into his vehicle, where he could either grab a gun (as he had in a previous encounter with police) or use the car as a weapon.. If the dude were White and we knew those facts about him, no one would care. Yes, the numbers say Whites are actually more likely to get killed in police interactions.
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@ Biff
“The police knew Rittenhouse.”
The police on the scene that night barely knew him, if at all. Rittenhouse was not from Kenosha, nor was he from Wisconsin. The police-affiliated youth organization Rittenhouse used to belong to was in Illinois, and therefore Wisconsin police would not have been involved in those activities.
The most interaction any of the police arriving at the shooting scene could have ever had with Rittenhouse would have been brief moments earlier that day, such as when they threw him a water bottle, where he was one of a crowd. To the best of my knowledge, there is no proof any of the police on the scene knew Rittenhouse personally. To the best of my knowledge, there is no proof that any of the police who let him leave the scene of multiple gunshots fired were the same as those who had briefly interacted with him earlier that day.
“He had come to defend people and businesses and to take care of the injured.”
He should not have been there. He was breaking curfew. He was not there in any official capacity.
“He was the one who called 911 after the first shooting.”
I need to see proof of that. I’ve looked online and all I see are unsubstantiated rumors. The official criminal complaint says that the call Rittenhouse placed directly after killing Joseph Rosenbaum was to a friend of his, Dominic Black. It also says Black confirmed in a police interview that Rittenhouse called him and said he had just shot someone.
(https://heavy.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Complaint-Criminal_1-Rittenhouse-Kyle-H-2020CF000983-Rittenhouse-Kyle-H._3753097_1.pdf)
“I know you think it’s crazy that the cops would favor guys like that”
He had just killed two unarmed men.
“Should they have questioned him more, probably”
He shouldn’t have been allowed to leave the scene, even if they “believed” him to be a good guy — which it appears to be entirely conjecture on your part that any of the responding officers had interacted with him earlier or recognized him from the militia group.
“The first shooting victim could have been carrying a bottle in a plastic bag.”
The official criminal complaint linked to above describes the thrown object as a plastic bag, nothing else.
“Look for the Daily Caller interview. Rittenhouse had a medical kit, which is why he was wearing gloves.”
I asked you specific questions about that medical kit a couple days ago, in this comment here:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2020/08/25/jacob-blake/#comment-471007
So obviously I don’t need you to inform me about it. I also notice that you never answered my questions about that medical kit. You don’t fully read the replies to your comments, apparently.
“[T]he Daily Caller …. reporter was the guy who took off his own shirt and used it to try and stop the bleeding. He personally carried Rosenbaum to the hospital across the street.”
That information simply adds more weight to my questions from my earlier comment which you never answered.
I asked you:
“If Kyle Rittenhouse is such a good guy, why didn’t he immediately provide first aid to the first man he shot?
“He even had a medical kit with him. You can see it slung across one shoulder, and there’s other footage from an earlier video that same night of Kyle explaining that he has his medical kit.
“If Kyle Rittenhouse is such a good guy, why does he stand over the man’s dying form holding his rifle as others rush to provide aid?”
Now it turns out the first person to provide aid was someone who had interviewed Rittenhouse earlier and shared similar political views. If Rittenhouse had stayed and helped with the first aid, that reporter could have vouched for Rittenhouse to any protesters if necessary. He would have had an ally there.
Rittenhouse was also the only person in the earliest videos with a medical kit. He alone had the necessary supplies, but he didn’t open up the kit and go to work. He didn’t even leave the kit with the Daily Caller reporter, which he could have done if he’d felt it wasn’t safe for him to stay on the scene.
But Rittenhouse doesn’t feel so scared that he takes off immediately. Instead he stands there gawking and then calls up his friend Dominic Black to tell him what he’d done.
If Rittenhouse is such a good guy, why didn’t he immediately provide first aid or at the very least give his kit to the Daily Caller reporter and the other people who quickly arrived to try to administer first aid?
“He seems like a genuinely good kid…”
He killed two people.
He did not attempt to provide first aid to either of the individuals he killed, nor the one he wounded.
He fled the scenes of both killings.
When the cops began to drive past him, he could have been insistent about surrendering, or he could have found other officers to surrender to. Instead he drove back home, across state lines.
Is that what a genuinely good kid does?
Does cleaning up graffiti make someone such a good kid that it cancels out killing two people?
“Re: comparing Rittenhouse to Trayvon Martin, you guys really don’t get it..”
You’re right, I shouldn’t compare Kyle Rittenhouse to Trayvon Martin.
Unlike Rittenhouse, Martin wasn’t breaking a citywide curfew.
Unlike Rittenhouse, Martin had a legitimate reason for being in the state, city, and neighborhood where he was.
Unlike Rittenhouse, Martin wasn’t armed with an AR-15 or any other gun or weapon.
Unlike Rittenhouse, Martin wasn’t being chased because he had just shot someone multiple times, including a fatal headshot at close range, and then proceeded to flee the scene.
“Conservatives like me favor those who are upholding law and order”
If these militia groups want to uphold law and order, they shouldn’t be allowing armed 17-year-old kids to join them when that violates Wisconsin state law. They should be doing a much better job vetting who they allow to be there and screen out young kids with insufficient firearms training and an inability to keep their cool.
“but you guys are still outraged that a cop shot him as he continually resisted arrest and tried to get into his vehicle”
Seven times in the back at point-blank range. Officer had his hands on him and could have taken him to the ground instead.
“If the dude were White and we knew those facts about him, no one would care.”
That’s bull. People do care. I would care. I’ve written about several different cases concerning white victims of police violence on this blog in the past.
“Yes, the numbers say Whites are actually more likely to get killed in police interactions.”
Not per capita. You’ve been told this before. You appear to have a difficult time understanding what that means re statistical analysis, seeing how you repeatedly make the same mistake concerning international covid-19 numbers.
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Solitaire:
The Daily Caller Interviewer said on Tucker that he, sensing someone next to him, but not knowing it was Rittenhouse himself because he was focused on the dying guy in front of him asked the person to call 911. Rittenhouse may have called his friend instead (seems he got the gun from his friend, so he didn’t transport it over state lines, according to his attorney). I have no way of knowing.
Based on what happened to Rittenhouse and subsequent video evidence showing all the people chasing him, I think it’s reasonable to believe he feared for his life from the other Antifa goons who saw their comrade fallen. He was attacked by a guy who brought a skateboard as a weapon and one with a handgun (so not unarmed at all). One interviewer couldn’t have protected him from that mob if he wanted to. Also, after seeing this guy’s head wounds, Rittenhouse would have probably realized that his little kit wouldn’t have done much good and the guy was a goner…
I just think it’s likely the police realized he was with the defenders, and might have recognized him from his help earlier in the day, not that they knew him personally.
You’re saying the militia was breaking the curfew so they weren’t on the side of law and order.. that’s funny it’s so brazenly ridiculous.. obviously they wouldn’t have been necessary if the rioters weren’t already there breaking the curfew and the police hadn’t failed to stop all the rioting and looting previously (being restrained by left wing politicians in charge).
This guy has a pretty good self defense claim, and at least one witness who will back him on that, as well as video evidence. He was there trying to help, not loot and destroy like the other side. You choose to favor those who were trying to loot and destroy and attacked him who most people would think are scum based on their convictions and associations. We’ll see what the jury says. Arguing with you over specific details is not particularly helpful, especially when I’ve got several other people to respond to.
According to government statistics, blacks commit more than half the homicides in the US, despite being around 13 percent of the population and they are about 8 times as likely to kill someone as a non-black in the US. So don’t talk to me about “per capita”. Since when have responsible people in the black community, like you talented tenth folks purport to be, said we should first work on our own community to reign in this lawlessness. I’d say it’s been about 60 years… since then you’ve been told by the media that it’s all White peoples’ fault, and despite having Dems and SJWs in charge of all the major cities for decades you just can’t seem to stop the invisible “systemic racism”. Even having black mayors or a black president doesn’t seem to help. Having black cops does help because even though they kill more people (mostly black), you don’t care about those black lives or riot about them before all the facts are known.
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@ Solitaire
Those are valid observations. I will respond later in the day.
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Hmm. You can always tell when biff has nothing factual to say, he whirls into Broken Record mode. Going around and around with the same refuted arguments/rants about the inherent “criminality” of Black folk.
Another White commenter played that song in 2017 and got this response:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2017/05/16/unarmed-black-americans-killed-by-police-in-2017/comment-page-1/#comment-395157
All points still stand.
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@Afrofem
Isn’t the “black criminality” argument quite the farce? After defining away the monumental crimes through which their forebears built their system and by which they maintain it, they proceed to define any form of resistance as crime, or any adaptation to harsh social conditions as innate traits. It is akin to describing the desire to escape chattel slavery as a mental illness (drapetomania, as hypothesized by Samuel A. Cartwright).
As I say, many whites are poster representatives of a people drunk on their own byproducts (Those being the lies they tell themselves sustain their desired cultural self-image.) They love the taste, and they’re determined to force-feed it to everyone. Nothing delights them more than when we eat it and go “yummy”. That’s why they love to put the non-whites who do so on parade. [For a partly that’s supposedly against “identity politics”, the RNC was filled with people reminding us just how white they aren’t as they support Trump’s reelection.]
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@ biff
Yet you call the people Rittenhouse shot at “Antifa goons”. You still have not actually proved that. Both you and Unz review seem to assume it because it fits your own narrative.
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@ Biff
“Rittenhouse may have called his friend instead …. I have no way of knowing.”
Yes, you do. I linked to the official criminal complaint with the police description of the events and the charges against him. The shooting happened at approximately 11:45 p.m. and Rittenhouse placed the call to his friend at 11:46 p.m.
“seems he got the gun from his friend, so he didn’t transport it over state lines, according to his attorney”
So Rittenhouse wasn’t the legal owner of the gun! I’m not sure why you think that makes anything better. He may not have transported it over state lines, but he didn’t legally own it, either. Sounds like the friend may be looking at charges, too, especially if it turns out that Rittenhouse doesn’t have a valid Illinois gun permit.
Under Wisconsin law, individuals under the age of 18 cannot legally possess or carry a firearm unless they are hunting or target practicing under adult supervision (with the sole exception of military). This is yet another instance where Rittenhouse was breaking the law.
“One interviewer couldn’t have protected him from that mob if he wanted to.”
There was no mob at 11:46 p.m. in the video. If Rittenhouse had immediately taken off his gun, gotten down on his knees, opened his medical kit, and started assisting in first aid, who coming onto the scene would’ve even known right away that he was the shooter, especially since the shooting happened behind vehicles that blocked a clear view?
Plus he would have been working to save the wounded man, which generally if a shooter does that, people immediately assume the shooting was unintentional, that the gun discharged accidentally. He and the reporter could have even told the demonstrators that, whether true or not.
You just assume “the mob” was going to kill him right there in revenge, but I see people trying to capture a fleeing shooter. No one was chasing him when he first ran away from the car lot. No one was threatening him when he first ran away from the car lot. It’s only after he flees the scene that people begin to chase him.
If he had stayed at the car lot and made a good-faith effort to save the wounded man’s life and shown emotional distress over the shooting, most likely no one would have touched him before the police arrived, at which point he should have turned himself in.
“Also, after seeing this guy’s head wounds, Rittenhouse would have probably realized that his little kit wouldn’t have done much good and the guy was a goner…”
Because Rittenhouse was a trained medic and could accurately evaluate … oh, wait, he lied about that part, didn’t he?
And yet the Daily Caller reporter and several other people worked to try to save the guy, instead of giving him up as a goner.
At the very least Rittenhouse would’ve had sterile gauze bandages in his little kit, which would have been medically preferable to a sweaty t-shirt.
“I just think it’s likely the police realized he was with the defenders, and might have recognized him from his help earlier in the day, not that they knew him personally.”
Which means absolutely nothing. They don’t know he’s “a good guy” based on that alone. They let the killer walk out of their sights and away from the crime scene with the murder weapon — why? Because he scrubbed off some graffiti earlier that day???
“You’re saying the militia was breaking the curfew so they weren’t on the side of law and order..”
That’s not what I said, although they were breaking curfew. I said Rittenhouse was breaking curfew. I said that the militia were negligent in not screening more carefully. Rittenhouse was breaking other laws. He wasn’t old enough to open carry in Wisconsin. He didn’t own the AR-15. He also wasn’t very familiar with the gun, which obviously presented a potential hazard.
My point was, if these militia members want to enforce law and order, they need tighter rules within their own ranks so they don’t end up with teenage wannabees who are breaking gun laws and disregarding basic gun safety rules. You know, they “should first work on [their] own community to reign [sic; s.b. rein] in this lawlessness.”
“like you talented tenth folks purport to be”
I have never claimed to be part of the “talented tenth” nor do I in any fashion consider myself such.
“Having black cops does help because even though they kill more people (mostly black), you don’t care about those black lives or riot about them before all the facts are known.”
You mean like the black cops who killed Freddie Gray? Yeah, there were major protests over that.
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abagond:
The criminal records of these guys speak for themselves, as does the fact that the survivor had a scarf with a Satanic symbol and was specifically affiliated with a radical socialist group. I don’t know why you guys are interested in defending these wicked men.
Solitaire, the jury and the American public can decide what they think of Rittenhouse and whether he should get first degree murder for acting in self defense and not personally stopping to help the guy who had attacked him when there were many others who would probably (and very quickly did actually) attack him and try to get his gun, as Rosenbaum did. Maybe those 17 year olds who signed up to fight the Nazis in WWII were terrible people too for lying about their age
I don’t even remember much being made out of the identity of the cops involved in Freddie Gray’s death, I couldn’t tell you who they were, but a big deal was made of the White cops involved in the deaths of the Gentle Giant, Fentanyl Floyd and now Child Abuser and Domestic Assaulter Blake.
The more I try to reason with you all, the more I come to understand we have a very different understanding of good and evil. You think maybe destroying Western Civilization, because of the profound sense of jealousy you feel, will yield something better, despite all the observed failures of communism and its ilk. You believe Satan may just be misunderstood. I guess you’ll get to find out someday.
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Now we’re back to Qanon conspiracy theories about devil worship, smh.
“You think maybe destroying Western Civilization, because of the profound sense of jealousy you feel”
You lost me on this one, Biff. Could you please explain to me what this jealousy is that I supposedly feel?
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@ biff
Yes, because you have a racist double standard. Just like the Kenosha police. The very root of the problem. You guys are still stuck in the 1920s, if not the 1850s.
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https://www.wisconsinwatch.org/2015/08/child-gun-laws-in-wisconsin-2/
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abagond, you can’t point to any of the scenarios I’ve commented on where if the races were swapped out, but otherwise EXACTLY the same, my views would differ. I wouldn’t have much sympathy for a White Blake (with Blake’s record) continually resisting arrest, despite being tased and told to drop his knife, instead ignored black police officers and trying to reach into his vehicle for something. So “racist double standard” is a provable lie.
Maybe if the new morality is WAP whoredom for young girls and SJWs running around major cities chanting, “Who do we protect?, black criminals!” ( https://twitter.com/mrandyngo/status/1294107924910837761 ) then I’m stuck in the past…
Solitaire, you don’t feel you can claim ownership of Western Civilization, no matter how much Whites bend over backwards to give you a place at the table, so you’d rather burn it down, even though deep down you know it will make things worse for everyone.
I said before I don’t really follow Q. So accusing me of spreading Qanon conspiracy theories is baseless. “Conspiracy theory” is a garbage word first popularized by the FBI to deflect any criticism from the official story of JFK’s death (lone gunman, happened to get killed by a guy who happened to get killed). If you don’t believe that, congrats, you’re a conspiracy theorist! If you do believe it, congrats, you’re an idiot!
I get that you don’t believe in the Devil, probably not in God either (at least the one described in the Bible). So, again I say, you’ll get to see if you’re right someday.
How many of the rioters and looters in Kenosha got charged with felonies for their destruction of a city and injury of many innocent people? Probably like in other places with liberal mayors very few. Yet you want to charge a guy for loaning his friend a few months under 18 a gun to protect himself as he protected the city in the face of unprecedented destruction? I admire the chutzpah.. and think that would be great. It would help more normies wake up to the situation and likely boost President Trump’s chances even more.
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Abagond, can I post a photo in the comments? If I can, can you tell me how? Thx…
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I seem to remember a man with previous legal troubles who stalked, fought with and ultimately shot an unarmed 17 y.o.
For some reason the “blot” of a record did not stop him from gaining a lot of support, crowd-sourcing money and beating the charges related to his killing of the teenager.
Yet if you’re an unarmed black person with any previous run-in with the law, summary execution is justified in any subsequent interaction with police.
That’s totally the way normal, logical and completely non-racist people think.
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@ Biff
“Yet you want to charge a guy for loaning his friend a few months under 18 a gun”
I don’t believe I ever said I wanted that. I was simply pointing out that he could indeed be charged under Wisconsin law, and the potential penalties he could face for breaking that law.
“Solitaire, you don’t feel you can claim ownership of Western Civilization, no matter how much Whites bend over backwards to give you a place at the table, so you’d rather burn it down, even though deep down you know it will make things worse for everyone.”
How very interesting. I don’t feel like I’ve expressed these sentiments you’ve ascribed to me — not just on this one thread, but nowhere on this entire blog.
However, everyone has their blind spots concerning their own selves, and I of course am not excluded from this, being human. Could you give me an example of something I’ve said that causes you to believe I feel this way?
I’m genuinely interested in seeing what it is I’ve written that has brought you to make these conclusions. Perhaps I’ve subconsciously expressed these feelings of jealousy, inferiority, and hatred that you’ve seen in me.
Could you help me out by pointing to at least one example, please?
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@ Deb @ Keith Essien
You cannot upload an image, but if you put the image’s URL on a line by itself, WordPress will embed it.
For example:
which was:
(https://abagond.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/couple-lunch-date-standards-475.jpg)
but WITHOUT the parentheses. Parentheses tell WordPress NOT to embed content.
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@ biff
Oh please. By your loosey-goosey standard of logic, proving it is a cinch:
#1. Biff supports Trump
#2. The Klan supports Trump
#3. Therefore Biff is racist like the Klan.
Was this not how you proved BLM are Satanists? And why you tar BLM, Blacks, Democrats and so on with the most extreme actions or statements made by any of their members? You did it just now:
Likewise with your statements about Black criminality.
The world does not work like that. It is believable only to those who do not belong to said groups and know little about them.
There is a name for this kind of thinking: prejudice. That is what you suffer from.
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2010/08/10/prejudice/
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@ Solitaire
I do not remember this either.
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Origin:
I’ve dealt with this before. I would not support a White Trayvon, with his suspension for graffiti, stolen jewelry and burglary tools, mj pipe at school and purple drank ingredients (also ‘Yu ain’t tell me yu swung on a bus driver,’ his cousin tweeted to Travyon’s account five days before he was killed)., attacking a neighborhood watch guy (a so-called “White Hispanic”, even though he’s obviously also part black) who was following him with a legitimate concern. I’d support a black Rittenhouse who gunned down Antifa goons who attacked him while he was defending businesses against rioters/looters…. are you kidding? the right would go crazy to support that and Trump would have praised him…
no racist double standard.
abagond:
I merely point out that the positions espoused by the current Democratic party are observably evil. There’s nothing racist about that.
“Likewise with your statements about Black criminality. The world does not work like that.” abagond, individually, people should be judged as individuals, but overall the numbers don’t lie.
I don’t claim that most BLM folks are literal Satan worshippers, or even most Antifa people, but being anti-God (and anti Western Civ.) is part of their belief system, so it’s not surprising that some are carrying around literally Satanic paraphernalia.
Solitaire:
Your posts show you are being willfully ignorant (I know you’re not stupid), intentionally missing the forest for the trees. You support the rioters and looters destroying cities and civilization instead of those defending them. You’re not the only one. Abagond is supporting for 2024 President former bartender Sandy Cortez, who was literally recruited by a radical group, the “Justice Democrats” and serves as their mouthpiece/figurehead. The Green New Deal they champion would blow up the economy (how can you tell climate change activists don’t really care about the environment?–besides the fact that they always fly around in private jets–they never focus on China, the number 1 polluter, whom the US could easily influence to be cleaner through trade policies, because it’s not politically expedient to do so). Many people on my side have wondered if Sandy could be a literal saboteur for our side, because she’s so ridiculous.. but luckily coronavirus, which has killed less than 10,000 people in the US who didn’t have some other major condition ( https://www.facebook.com/1566405890/posts/10224050038749877/?extid=gr0T716wo2v3tjFm&d=n ) has already gotten rid of most air travel and messed up the economy on Trump’s watch, just in time for the election… mission accomplished there I guess. Yet abagond wants to tell me about how the world works… nice.
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Hey, Fam…I just got back from a weeklong road trip to my sister-in-law’s house in Minnesota with the husband, one of my sons, and his lady. We’d driven up for a surprise (mask-wearing, tables 6 ft.-apart, outside in the yard) birthday party for my nephew on Saturday, 8/22 (the last time we’d all been together was for my mother-in-law’s funeral 12/2019).
For some time now, I’ve needed a break from the Belly of the Beast, all the gloom and doom of Covid, all the politricksters lying, stupid folk fighting NOT to have to wear masks, as well as the ubiquitous amount of Black lives being snuffed out by cops on the regular.
We spent a beautiful Sunday at my niece’s on a pontoon boat on the lake all day and I felt all the tension just drain away. Monday, we went to the George Floyd Memorial (during one of our marathon phone calls after his murder, I’d told my nephew I wanted to see it). It felt like someone was squeezing my heart as we walked through the closed-off part of the neighborhood from the Cup Foods. This is what I saw first:
When we reached the end, the stark visualization of the nationwide numbers of Black deaths felt like somebody had kicked me in the gut. My son put his arms around me and said, “Mom, it happened again.” He told me about the Jacob Blake video in Kenosha, just across the state line from where were. I’d slept so hard and peacefully the night before, I hadn’t heard yet because I’d watched no TV, nor been online. He wanted to show it to me, but — I.just.couldn’t. Instead, I walked down to the end of the trail of names to here:
Standing in that makeshift cemetery with all those headstones again listing the names, dates of birth & death with the actual ages over the dash) — I thought about Jacob Blake, his children in the car watching him get shot and how George Floyd’s very public death hadn’t stopped the jackbooted thugs’ reign of terror on our communities — and I just started to shake my head and cry.
I knew they’d quickly be turning to “dirtying” him up, saying the cop was “in fear for his life,” only putting the cops involved on administrative leave with pay, “pending investigation” (despite) the video and — I knew they’d blame him for his own murder. And they have.
Then, to add insult to injury on Tuesday night, here comes 17 year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, open-carrying against Wisconsin law when the protests broke out — killing two people an injuring one. I was enraged, as I saw cops pretty much give him the Dylan Roof treatment (I was living in Charleston when he murdered those nine people at Mother Emmanuel) as he walked toward them with his long gun slung over his shoulder. Only thing missing was an offer to get him a damned burger. So much for trying to get away from it all.
We cannot allow this to continue, Family. We’ve got to keep raising these issues by whatever means necessary and available. By the time we got home on Thursday, my son and I’d decided to collaborate on an Instagram podcast, incorporating the race dialogues I used to hold in Key West, with the one he and his brother now have for the younguns discussing culture, politics, music, laws, etc. I have to do something — or I’ll lose my damned mind.
(P.S. Abagond, if the URLs don’t work, just delete them, thanks)
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@ Biff
I asked you for a specific quote from my own words, not your general assessment (or misconstruing) of my posts — nor your opinions about environmental activists, the coronavirus, and a U.S. representative.
In particular, I asked you for a specific quote in which I expressed one or more of the following things you attributed to me:
⚬ that I “don’t feel [I] can claim ownership of Western Civilization”
⚬ that I am jealous of white people
⚬ that I want to burn society down due to feelings of inferiority
I would also like to understand what you mean by “no matter how much Whites bend over backwards to give you a place at the table” as it applies to me specifically.
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@biff
“Grosskreutz was wearing a scarf with a Satanic symbol”
Really irrelevant (And I would guess more likely a Wiccan symbol) as freedom of religion is covered by the first amendment which as I understand it, you support.
However what I do think is relevant is that Grosskreutz had pulled a pistol and was pointing it at Rittenhouse when he got shot. (And supposedly admitted in a posting that he planned on “emptying his clip ” into Rittenhouse but froze at the last moment.
In regards to the claim Rittenhouse was an active shooter who had to be disarmed by any means necessary the evidence does not back it up – He only people who assault him or who planned to shot him and tried to surrender to police in the aftermath. (He did later turn himself in Antioc).
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@ biff
You see Black criminality and protest as some kind of threat – while repeatedly giving White gun violence a pass (Kenosha police, Rittenhouse, Zimmerman).
I think it is evident to everyone but you that you cherry pick numbers, that you only believe the numbers that back up what you already believe.
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@ biff
When you say “Western civilization” what do you mean? Does it include Russia? Latin America? Black people? Israel? Gaza? Any part of Africa?
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@Biff
“ I would not support a White Trayvon, with his suspension for graffiti, stolen jewelry and burglary tools, mj pipe at school and purple drank ingredients (also ‘Yu ain’t tell me yu swung on a bus driver,’ his cousin tweeted to Travyon’s account five days before he was killed).”
Which of those things did Zimmerman use to determine Trayvon was “suspicious” and required a call to 911 and continued pursuit?
You’ve pushed that narrative before and I had even left you a comment in the appropriate thread: https://abagond.wordpress.com/2012/03/27/the-thuggification-of-trayvon-martin/#comment-436490
The simple fact is, were Trayvon White, the entire incident never would have happened. So, go ahead and say you wouldn’t support a White Trayvon. Nobody will ever be able to call your bluff because White kids are never put in a position to have to defend themselves against an overzealous neighborhood watchman.
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Deb:
My first reaction to your post was empathy. I can tell you and your family were moved quite a bit by all of this. Then that quickly gave way to sadness and anger, because it’s all built on lies.
–There are like 10 cases of unarmed black men killed by police annually, and in most cases, there were severe mitigating factors if not justification for what the cops did.
–In Floyd’s case, Floyd had consumed 3 times as much Fentanyl as necessary to kill himself, along with other drugs, as was complaining about not being able to breathe long before he was subdued. He continuously resisted arrest. The Democratic PTB withheld the full video they had for months (it only came out after a leak) while cities burned. Why not give everyone the full picture ASAP?
–In Blake’s case, the police went to help a (black) woman who called for assistance after Blake was trying to take her keys/car. He has a history of violence and violence against women (including statutory rape). He also has a history of violently resisting arrest and threatening people with guns. He also actually had a knife on him, which video clearly shows and the cops told him to drop. He was tased twice as the police used non-lethal force with no success. The public never knew about all that before the riots happened. Why not?
–White men are more likely to get killed in police interactions than black men (this finding was stunning for a black former Harvard prof, who then got trashed by the establishment for following where the data led him like a good scientist).
–Black cops are at least as likely to kill black men as White cops are (and studies actually show more likely).
–police killing of unarmed people has been going down in recent years, making major progress.
So the “science” there’s no racial problem in killing by cops and the situation is getting better!
But it doesn’t matter how much I say all of this, because you guys want to be sad and angry and have something that unites your side.. even if they are all provable lies… but ask yourself, most black men aren’t criminals? Why are all the ones who get killed by cops criminals who can be accused of doing bad things.
Would you tell your boys that if they are unarmed they are hundreds of times more likely to be killed by another black man than a cop?
Re: comparing Rittenhouse to Roof, it’s ridiculous as he killed 0 black people. why do you instinctively support the Antifa thugs who attacked him? Were you shocked and saddened when a member of Patriot Prayer was subsequently shot in the back twice and killed at a gas station in Portand by Antifa snipers (who then ran off) for no reason other than that they had identified him as a Trump supporter?
Solitaire, my comment is not just about “you specifically” and you continue to miss the forest for the trees.
Lemmy, your research is good. He had a scarf or mask with 2 Baphomet symbols on them, which are Satanic. Yes, legally irrelevant, but goes to the type of person that would seek out, purchase and wear that at a “protest”.
abagond, I realize no facts or citations could convince you to change your mind on these issues. Blacks certainly had some part in Western civilization. As an example of bending over backwards, My kids could tell you more black inventors than Whites, as they spend a month learning about them in school, with no specific time designated for Whites.
OMO, you’re right that white kids rarely go into primarily Black neighborhoods looking for houses to break into.
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@ Biff
“Solitaire, my comment is not just about ‘you specifically’”
Except that it was about me specifically. Whether or not you meant it to also include others, you most definitely included me in that comment.
You said to me that I felt a certain way and thought a certain way:
“Solitaire, you don’t feel you can claim ownership of Western Civilization, no matter how much Whites bend over backwards to give you a place at the table, so you’d rather burn it down, even though deep down you know it will make things worse for everyone.”
You also said:
“Solitaire:… You support the rioters and looters.”
I actually don’t. I think it’s a terrible tactic and harms the cause. But I don’t believe that people should be killed for destroying property. This is why I said above that your misconstruing my posts.
Here’s the reason why I want to focus for a moment on what you call trees: I feel like your comments to me above came out of left field. I feel like you have a preconceived notion about a certain population, and that you projected this notion onto me without any consideration of whether it actually reflected who I am as a person and what I really believe.
Recently in this thread you said to Abagond, “people should be judged as individuals” — but I don’t believe you judged me as an individual. I’m giving you an opportunity to prove that you in fact did by showing me what I personally have said which indicates:
⚬ that I “don’t feel [I] can claim ownership of Western Civilization”
⚬ that I am jealous of white people
⚬ that I want to burn society down due to feelings of inferiority
You can take or leave this opportunity. But if you leave it, then the obvious conclusion I must draw is that you’re projecting a racist stereotype onto me.
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@Biff,
“you’re right that white kids rarely go into primarily Black neighborhoods looking for houses to break into.”
That’s not what I said because that’s not what Trayvon was doing in that neighborhood (not necessarily a White neighborhood by your own assertion that Zimmerman was not White). But, thank you for confirming that you believe it was his race alone that made him “suspicious” enough for Zimmerman to pursue to the point of provocation.
I now see that even you don’t believe your statement about a “White Trayvon” because it’s a total fallacy. Since a White kid cannot become a Black kid and therefore would never be involved in a similar altercation with a man who thinks like you and Zimmerman.
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@Biff
“White men are more likely to get killed in police interactions than black men ”
…and more likely to win the lottery… buy more cars… eat more cheese… own more land… more likely to have kids with autism…
Seriously, if you use raw numbers instead of percentage of population, it’s just nonsense. There are way more White people in the US. So, more of them are killed than Black people. I’ll try to explain this in basic terms:
If you have 10 people and 2 of them are Black and 6 of them are White, and two are “other”, you could kill 3 White people and all 2 of the Black people but, still say White people are more likely to die according to your standard. In other words, you could murder 100% of all Black people in the US and 1 more White person than that and people like you would still be trying to convince us Whites were more likely to die.
In real life, with real statistics that normalize for population, White people are killed at rate lower than their percentage of population and Black people are killed at a rate well above their percentage of population. Don’t take my word for it… many studies have been done and they all show the same outcome.
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@Biff
“Would you tell your boys…”
If you actually knew anyone raising Black boys, not in passing, but actually knew them and spent time with them and their children in public spaces, you’d know exactly what they’re told and you’d have seen first-hand why.
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@Biff
“There are like 10 cases of unarmed black men killed by police annually,”
Shot and killed… Shot by on-duty police working for agencies that report statistics. “Killed” would include people like George Floyd, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland, etc… The number used in the talking point you’re referring to would be 14 for 2019 (vs 25 for Whites). That’s 0.00001% of Whites and 0.000032% of the Black population. That’s using US Census population and racial percentage numbers along with the interactive fatal force database at the Washington Post. I did the math myself so, I recomend doing your own.. but, by my count, unarmed Black people are 3x more likely to be shot dead by the police as unarmed White people. Again, that still doesn’t include death by other means, nor does it include all police agencies.
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@ Open Minded Observer
I subscribe to your analysis but I wonder why the cited commentator, supposedly White, doesn’t get that the Police should even not kill civilians, whatever their background, except in extreme circumstances*. The killing of civilians by the USA Police doesn’t stand comparatively to what happens in other “”civilized” countries (aka, European countries). It is too high!
Is the USA a civilized country or not!
*Maybe, just maybe, cited commentator is only playing the devil’s advocate or making dark humor! One never know!
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Solitaire:
There’s no racial stereotyping going on. I don’t even know what race you are. There are plenty of Whites who support the rioters/looters more than those defending the cities and want to destroy nuclear families and tradition. I’m sure no one here would admit to supporting rioting and looting, but you are sympathetic to the “protesters” and don’t use your voice to shut them down and say the Marxist anti-family, highly political BLM is at fault for inciting this and shouldn’t be involved (why not get a bi-partisan group that doesn’t contribute all its donations to the Democrats?) Everyone is interested in continuing to lower deaths by police, which had been falling quite a bit.
OMO:
I’ve said repeatedly that the numbers show Whites are more likely to get killed by blacks factoring in NUMBER OF INTERACTIONS WITH THE POLICE. Blacks commit more than half of the murders in the country and nearly half of the robberies and violent crime, so it’s not surprising that they interact with police more. It’s certainly not evidence of racism by the police. You better believe that police are scared of losing their jobs and having their life’s ruined by killing black men. OTOH, killing a white felon who actively resists arrest and doesn’t submit to tasering is very safe for them, because no one cares.
munubantu:
I hate to say it, but I have seen you seldom add anything productive to these discussions.
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@munubantu
“Is the USA a civilized country or not!”
Be easy on us… we’re young yet. We have much to learn.
Regarding cited commentator and your comment about only killing under extreme circumstances… well, he believes that killing is justified as long as it is possible to investigate the victim afterward and discover past criminal behavior. Perhaps he believes that God guides the hand of the executioner and directs it at the sinner regardless of current circumstance. Like you said, One never knows.
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@Biff
“I’ve said repeatedly that the numbers show Whites are more likely to get killed by blacks”
Yes, and you’ve been wrong every time.
Based on the FBI stats, a white person has a ~11 in a million chance of being murdered by a White person but, only a ~2 in a million chance of being murdered by a Black person. To draw the conclusion you have, one must actually do the same kind of normalization I previously did. Except that doesn’t work when comparing what one race does to another. Stating that a higher percentage of the Black population commits murder against White people vs the percentage of White people that commit murder against Black people might be accurate (I didn’t do that math). But, that’s not the same as saying White people are more likely to be killed by a Black person, which is in fact false.
Again, this is all public information so, don’t take my word for it. Do you own math. Lord knows I won’t convince you so, you’ll either take it upon yourself to learn the truth or you’ll simply continue taking someone else’s opinion as truth since it fits your narrative. However, rest assured, you’re more likely to be killed by a White person if you’re White.
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@Biff…“Deb:
My first reaction to your post was empathy. I can tell you and your family were moved quite a bit by all of this. Then that quickly gave way to sadness and anger, because it’s all built on lies.
Appreciate your empathetic first reaction — you’re responsible for your turn to sadness and anger, as well as the reasons why you did. I’ve got wa-a-a-y more years behind me than I do ahead of me and I refuse to waste even a single minute of what time I have left, engaging in any of your back-and-forths on either my, or my people’s lived experiences which, you apparently know nothing about.
As for your, “Would you tell your boys that if they are unarmed they are hundreds of times more likely to be killed by another black man than a cop?” question. No need for me to add anything to Open Minded Observer’s comment to you on that one, so ditto this :
“Re: comparing Rittenhouse to Roof, it’s ridiculous as he killed 0 black people. why do you instinctively support the Antifa thugs who attacked him? Were you shocked and saddened when a member of Patriot Prayer was subsequently shot in the back twice and killed at a gas station in Portand by Antifa snipers (who then ran off) for no reason other than that they had identified him as a Trump supporter?
What is ridiculous is you obviously didn’t read what I said, so let me refresh your memory:
My comparison to Roof was the TREATMENT he received after murdering two people and injuring one — nothing about Black people. Like Roof, Rittenhouse got away to another state (Rittenhouse, after walking right past cops who were allegedly heard saying, “We’re glad you guys are here.”) and once caught were treated exponentially better than ANYONE, particularly a Black person, who’d just murdered some folk.
Regarding the Patriot Prayer member’s death — apples and oranges. I’m neither shocked, nor saddened that someone is dead, who came to a peaceful protest about Black death and whose leader, “Gibson told the AP he was present late Saturday in Portland when a caravan of about 600 Trump supporters drove through the city, sparking clashes in the streets with Black Lives Matter demonstrators.”
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/patriot-prayer-joey-bishop-portland-killed
Seems to me “sparking clashes” could inevitably lead to that kind of violence — but that’s just me.
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From Heather Cox Richardson, a historian:
(https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-29-2020)
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@ Solitaire
[Later in the day turned into two days, sorry]
“I’m of mixed feelings about this. Leaders make themselves visible and therefore vulnerable. Too many have been assassinated. Yet there does need to be more organization, and for that leaders seem necessary. I wonder if there is a way to have invisible leadership? People who organize and train others, but who do not have a visible public profile?”
Perhaps a century ago. Not now with the state of such intrusive surveillance present in our daily lives. On the other hand…
“Invisible leadership”? There are already “invisible leaders”. The people who command American society, including the militarized police are invisible. These “invisible leaders” have systematically dismantled multiple institutions in the USA, from public education to the Postal Service over the course of decades and are unknown to members of the general public.
Their invisibility is maintained by their relationships to the media, government officials and tech companies. Their ability to hide in plain sight is contrasted with the relentless spying on ordinary people by industry fused with government.
The purpose of such deep surveillance is to identify emerging leaders who have the ability to inspire and organize masses of people who seek a different future. Once identified, emerging leaders are generally bought off, seduced into working with plutocrats, imprisoned on trumped up charges or assassinated.
Taking on the responsibility of leading the majority of people who want a fair and equitable future means embracing sacrifice—-being visible and vulnerable. I wish it was otherwise.
The night after I read your comment, I read the last chapter in bell hooks’ book, Salvation – Black People and Love. In the last chapter titled, “Loving Justice”, hooks makes her case for reintroducing what she terms, “the love ethic” into modern social justice movements. She speaks eloquently about the risks and the necessity for leaders to understand the role sacrifice plays in a struggle based on love.
Professor hooks describes the threat of a struggle based on love (as opposed to domination) to the Powers That Be:
Salvation – Black People and Love pages 213-214
I would only add to that last line, “for generations to come”.
❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍❍
Your comment about “no riots, no violence, no destruction” made me think about how the American people arrived at this juncture. We’ve endured four decades of riots, violence and destruction by people at the highest levels of society. I remember the 1992 police riot of ten thousand police protesting against Mayor Dinkins in New York lead by Rudy Giuliani cursing through a bullhorn.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2016/11/16/more-on-the-time-rudy-giuliani-helped-incite-a-riot-of-racist-cops/
I am reminded of the violence against Black survivors of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. I was still listening to Democracy Now! at the time. For months after the hurricane, Black survivors described being shot at as they crossed bridges, prisoners forced to fend for themselves in partially flooded cells, homeowners being ordered out of their houses at gunpoint by armed “private security” forces and Black families forcibly separated on evacuation buses out of NOLA.
Finally, I recall the millions of American jobs that were shipped off to Mexico and China by corporate executives seeking fatter quarterly bonuses. Many of those jobs were union jobs that paid family wages and come with a raft of benefits. Those workers livelihoods were destroyed, many lost their houses and some their pensions.
So when I read or hear someone bring up the specter of riots, violence and destruction in regard to the actions of contemporary protesters, I think of the continued riots, violence and destruction against working Americans (of all ethnicities) that has forced their backs against the wall. Many of our fellow Americans were limping along, trying to avoid the edge of a financial cliff when COVID-19 came along. Now many have fallen over the edge, screams fading into the depths.
When the Roman empire was in decline, their rulers turned to bread and circuses to distract them from the reality of their declining living standards. As the American empire declines, we get plenty of circuses in the form of reality television, hate radio and websites, celebrity gossip and video games, etc. Instead of bread, the American population is flooded with firearms.
For the people who command our society, firearms are the ultimate efficiency. It was 19th Century robber baron Jay Gould, who famously quipped: “I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.” They would make fat profits supplying both sides; counting their money on the beach in Tahiti.
I think leaders and new organizational structures rooted in the community may be the only thing that can avert that catastrophe. At least I hope so.
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@ Deb
Your comments upthread have been so poignant. Thank you for sharing them.
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@Afrofem…Thanks Darlin’!
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@ Origin
Yes, the “Black Criminality” argument is a farce. More importantly it is a massive exercise in psychological projection. People who use it are projecting their criminality, guilt and shame—their psychic garbage—onto the Black people they have harmed and continue to harm.
Africans did not go to Europe, kidnap millions of Europeans, ship them off to a third continent and force them to work for free. Nor did Africans in the Diaspora make a cottage industry of coming up with half-baked “Races of Man”
falsehoodstheories to justify enslaving and destabilizing European societies for generations.People in glass houses should not throw stones or silly arguments.
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Some witness testimony: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/08/31/witnesses-kenosha-shooting-see-kyle-rittenhouse-shoot-protest-jacob-blake/5675987002/
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OK, I typed more quickly than I should have.. should be Whites are more likely to be killed THAN blacks by police.. but still, the counterarguments were like a gag reflex… and had NOTHING to do with that core argument.. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/12/upshot/surprising-new-evidence-shows-bias-in-police-use-of-force-but-not-in-shootings.html <– this wouldn’t get published in NYT after the Trump election because they don’t publish anything that goes against the Narrative anymore. It basically shows BLM is premised on a lie.
That USAToday piece is sickening.. none of the basic facts Lemmy tracked down with basic research.. ignores videos and eye witness testimony clearly showing self defense.. doesn’t talk about Antifa thugs’ extensive criminal history, but instead talks about what kind of nice guys they were and how Kyle Rittenhouse couldn’t achieve anything because his of parents’ divorce.. nice..
but that’s MSM for you.
“Africans did not go to Europe, kidnap millions of Europeans, ship them off to a third continent and force them to work for free.” he.. about that… yeah, they don’t teach about all the White slaves because they got pretty well wiped out and it goes against the Narrative.. but yeah that statement is false if you include North African Muslims ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_slavery –hard leftist source, so they try to question some of numbers, but it’s something that was huge and happened over hundreds of years).. in contrast, the ones taken from Africa directly to North America (less than 400,000 in total) were allowed to multiply many many times over… and so their descendants lived to curse the Americans, while no one was left to curse the much crueler Muslims..
But I’ve learned you guys really don’t care about facts or numbers that challenge your world view at all.. I just hope some readers coming here could see the truth is not what the MSM is reporting…
Anyway, I’ve like doubled or tripled abagond’s comment count for a while I guess, but it has been a thankless job!
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Whoops
https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2020/08/31/at-least-46-people-shot-10-killed-in-weekend-gun-violence-in-chicago/?fbclid=IwAR3RWd72lHMeBBkjTf_-7Vn86oqQk0SbKWfi3UotIQHfOjCiL9l0bIm3BbY
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@Biff
So, if I’m understanding your response, a study of select cities that provided data to the researchers for 2000-2015 means that the national FBI database numbers for lethal use of force in 2019 no longer indicate there’s racial bias in the lethal use of force?
Did you even read the study?
A. The data in this study is not based on population. It is entirely predicated on police interaction. Every chart contained in it is conditional on police interaction. Since Black people are significantly more likely to have a police interaction in the first place, even this study could be used to show Black people, as a population, are more likely to be killed by the police.
B. It does show (this is the part you like to grab on to) that once a civilian is engaged by the police, they have about an equal chance of being fatally shot. Except in Houston, where White suspects were significantly more likely to be shot and killed. That’s the bit you’re trying to present as universal.
– If you lived in Houston between 2000 and 2015
– AND the police stopped you for something.
– AND you’re White
– You were 20% more likely to have been fatally shot.
C. This study shows bias in every single category except fatal shootings. “On non-lethal uses of force, blacks and Hispanics are more than fifty percent more likely to experience some form of force in interactions with police.”
D. Just like before, you’ve cited something that only includes fatal shootings. Numbers which would not include civilians killed by police using means. Dead is dead whether or not a firearm was used in the killing.
So, the “shocking” study you found shows that police do exhibit significant racial bias when it comes to stopping people and use of force. However, once the police stopped a civilian, they were pretty evenhanded about killing them. Don’t you think that tracks with the numbers from 2019 that I referenced? 14B vs 25W unarmed in 2019. In raw numbers, police killed more unarmed Whites. If we did the same “percentage of overall civilians stopped by police” calculations, 2019’s numbers may indicate similar even-handedness. However, that doesn’t change the fact that, as a population, Black people are 3x more likely to be killed by police and, according to this study, 20%-50% more likely to experience non-lethal use of force whenever they’re stopped by police.
But, you go on trying to dig up stats to convince me that I’m more likely to be shot and killed by police than a Black man. Who knows… if police are as scared of shooting Black people as you say they are, maybe the 2020 numbers will be your ticket. I won’t hold my breath… but then, nobody has they knee on my neck either.
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@ Biff
“There’s no racial stereotyping going on.”
That’s demonstrably false, as follows.
“I don’t even know what race you are.”
No, you don’t. But that doesn’t change the fact that you racially stereotyped me in your comments, because you specifically described me as being outside of “Western Civilization” and outside of European whiteness.
Yes, you were careful not to call me black, but you clearly positioned me as non-white, so if it turned out that I’m actually, for example, Native American or Middle Eastern, you could still use the same racist trope against me.
Let’s examine the disputed quotes again, looking specifically at the bigoted statements you made that concern my race.
You began with: “Solitaire, you don’t feel you can claim ownership of Western Civilization.”
I hate to break this to you, but I took courses in the history of Western Civilization as an undergrad, and I’ve seen the syllabi and curricula for Western Civ courses at many other institutions over the last three decades. I know those courses predominately cover the history of white people in Europe — especially Western Europe — and the subsequent diaspora of white Europeans.
When you characterized me in your statement as being unable to “claim ownership of Western Civilization,” you positioned me as non-white, clear as day. You didn’t have to state it verbatim to get that message across.
Your next assertion, “no matter how much Whites bend over backwards to give you a place at the table,” even more specifically positions me as non-white, as being outside of the white race.
Earlier you had written, “You think maybe destroying Western Civilization, because of the profound sense of jealousy you feel.” You characterized me here as being jealous of whites, of feeling inferior to whites. At this point you were tacitly accusing me of being biased against the white race.
And then in your later statement, you added this conclusion about me: “so you’d rather burn it down,” where “it” refers to the Western Civilization of white people.
Your contention is that I want to burn down Western Civilization because I “can’t lay claim to it” — i.e., I don’t belong to the Western Civilization of white people; I am outside of it, according to you.
So you’re arguing that I want to “destroy Western Civilization” and “burn it down” due to the “profound sense of jealousy [I] feel” against “Whites [who] bend over backwards to give [me] a place at the table.”
It is at this point that you portrayed me as wanting to commit cultural genocide — and perhaps full-on genocide — against whites because of their race.
You characterized me as hating white people and their civilization to such an extent as to bring about their annihilation.
You cannot find anything that I have actually said that even begins to correspond with this image you’ve created of me.
That image is based instead on your preconceptions of non-white people.
Those preconceptions are based solely on your bigoted beliefs concerning race, which means that your preconceptions are inherently racist.
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@ biff
So Black people in the US are not Americans?
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OMO:
So even though blacks commit a disproportionate amount of crime, including more than half of all murders, and therefore have more interactions with police, that must be because of White racism. Got it. I honestly can’t reason with that.
Solitaire:
You are funny. Working so hard to prove a point. Of course many White people are jealous of and hate Western civ. Many members of a certain tribe dislike a system built by Christians and with Christian values, as do many White LGBTQ++ types who can’t accept the nuclear family as a fundamental building block of civilization, and then there are White college professor/intellectual types who deep down know they add nothing productive to society, but get to be cool and edgy by advancing Marxism in its various forms (including the latest attempts to replace class with race), even though the result in real life Cuba and Venezuela.
Since you care so much about yourself personally, I skimmed through your earlier posts on this thread again, and yup–all against a heroic man who stood up to defend a city and therefore implicitly supporting the rioters/looters who were burning it down (lemmy did evenhanded research at least, even though he refused to condemn Satanism)–you also dismiss Satanism, overt and implied, as a “conspiracy theory”. So yes, it’s clear to me that you personally are supporting evil.
abagond:
Sure they are Americans, but they prefer to be hyphenated Americans when given the chance, and it doesn’t stop them from cursing Americans generally and America as a concept. The fact that most White people in the US don’t have significant slaveholder ancestry, and many more had ancestors who fought against slavery, doesn’t stop many blacks from hating/blaming White people generally.
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@ Biff
Sorry, no. When you said to me “no matter how much Whites bend over backwards to give you a place at the table,” by that statement you excluded me from the white race.
It would make no logical sense to say to a white college professor or white intellectual types or white LGBTs “no matter how much Whites bend over backwards to give you a place at the table” because they are themselves white. You are backpedaling so hard that you’re spouting inanities.
As far as “Many members of a certain tribe dislike a system built by Christians and with Christian values,” you would still only say to a Jew “no matter how much Whites bend over backwards to give you a place at the table” if you consider Jews not to belong to the white race, not even Western European Jews.
On the other hand, if you do think Western European Jews belong to the white race, it would be nonsensical to say to them “no matter how much Whites bend over backwards to give you a place at the table” instead of “no matter how much Christians bend over backwards to give you a place at the table.”
“Since you care so much about yourself personally”
You’re missing my point. I care about revealing the racism in your comments. Are you afraid to own what you said?
“you also dismiss Satanism, overt and implied, as a ‘conspiracy theory'”
No, I dismissed your “proof” that BLM is a Satanist organization as a conspiracy theory.
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@ Lemmy
“In regards to the claim Rittenhouse was an active shooter who had to be disarmed by any means necessary the evidence does not back it up – He only people who assault him or who planned to shot him”
After he shot the first man, how would any of the other people on the scene have known he was not an active shooter? He was still roaming around with his gun. If he had immediately taken his gun off and put his hands on top of his head or into the air, he would have signalled very obviously that he was not planning on shooting anyone else. He didn’t do that, and the article Deb linked to makes it clear that people on the scene were terrified as he continued to pass by them with his gun in his hands. People were not just trying to subdue him; many were hiding and cowering or trying to get away from the area because they believed he was an active shooter.
“tried to surrender to police in the aftermath.”
He didn’t try very hard. When the first group of police drove past him, he immediately left the scene and the city and the state.
“He did later turn himself in Antioc).”
He had already been identified. It was just a matter of time at that point, either wait for the cops or go ahead and turn himself in.
“A young man who allegedly killed two people in Kenosha, Wisconsin last night was identified on social media hours before charges were publicly revealed, as Twitter and YouTube users attempted to reconstruct the shootings….
“The morning after the incident, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote that Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth was reviewing video footage and believed law enforcement would soon make an arrest based on it, saying ‘I feel very confident we’ll have him in a very short time.'”
https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/26/21402632/kyle-rittenhouse-kenosha-shooting-social-media-video-identification
https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/08/26/kenosha-shooting-shots-fired-during-protest-injuries-reported/3441271001/
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@Biff
“So even though blacks commit a disproportionate amount of crime, including more than half of all murders, and therefore have more interactions with police, that must be because of White racism. Got it. I honestly can’t reason with that.”
Does the comment above indicate that you understood how the data was twisted and you may now finally see that Whites are not more likely to be killed by police (nor by Black people as you asserted earlier too). Or are you trying to change goalposts? Why they had the interactions is irrelevant to the discussion about whether or not White people are more likely to be killed by the police. The fact that the number of interactions does not correlate to population means that calculations based on interactions are not representative of the likelihood something will happen to a population.
Regarding your moved goalpost, you wouldn’t be able to reason with me on numbers of drug offenses and petty crimes because every person I hung out with in my youth committed those same crimes and had no criminal record to show for it. Their adult lives are unscathed and they’re happily wealthy and middle-class with degrees and jobs available to folks without records. You can reason with me about murder and violent crimes though. There are myriad studies that link things like poverty and neighborhood instability to both racism and crime rates. But, something tells me you wouldn’t want to have that discussion in good faith. You would have to begin that discussion with an understanding that circumstance and location have everything to do those numbers and I would argue (with studies to back me up) that skin color has a historical and direct influence on location and circumstance.
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@ biff
You are still picturing America in a White nationalist way, putting Whites at the centre of “what America is”.
From what I can tell, most Black people are not anti-American but anti-racist. They actually believe in the Declaration of Independence more than most Whites do. But you, and other conservatives, take any criticism of the racist status quo as “anti-American”, which allows you to make anti-racism seem unpatriotic and therefore a threat to the country.
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@ biff
What is Western civilization? You keep comdemning certain groups as a threat to it, but never say what it is.
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Solitaire:
What I’ve said about you is true. R word is just an insult, which you can take and shove where the sun don’t shine.
OMO:
So at least we agree that data shows that police are no more likely to shoot and kill blacks in interactions than Whites. We’ll have to agree to disagree on whether the fact that blacks are responsible for most murders and almost half of all violent crimes is a reason for them having more interactions with the police than Whites (I haven’t seen many people of any race getting busted for minor drug offenses recently–Floyd was reported for using a counterfeit bill–people who do that usually don’t do it only once–and now camera footage apparently shows that he ingested his own supply of drugs–as he had apparently done before–that’s what defense is arguing–and that is what killed him.)
abagond:
They have been at the center of the US society in the past, with 85% supermajority it could not be otherwise–they are becoming less so. You’ll have the opportunity to see whether life improves for minority communities as the White populations gets smaller and smaller. HINT: blacks are better served by keeping a White majority in the US, and you can’t name one Latin American or Asian country where blacks are treated better.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0cKuFfYnVw)
This is as good an explanation as any re: Western Civ. I know you will regard the speaker as raciss, but again I don’t care about that. By definition anyone saying Europeans are important would get that treatment from you, so it’s circular to use that as a way to discredit the idea.
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@Solitaire
How did surrendering to the mob go for Adam Laner? He was just sitting on the ground and got a kick to the head from Marquise Love.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/12466948/cops-arrest-marquise-keese-love-portland-driver-blm/
And we still don’t know what started the confrontation. All we know is Rittenhouse was being chased by protestors when somebody (not Rittenhouse) fired a shot. That caused Rittenhouse to turn around where he saw Rosenbaum coming at him. Why would he surrender to the mob when there was an unknown gunman in the area
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenosha_protests#Homicide_investigation
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@ Biff
“What I’ve said about you is true.”
Still waiting for you to quote me saying hateful jealous things about Western Civilization, or bemoaning my inability to lay claim to Western Civilization, or expressing any sense of racial inferiority.
“R word is just an insult, which you can take and shove where the sun don’t shine”
So it bothers you to be told that something you’ve said is racist, or that a thought pattern you have is based in racist stereotypes. Interesting.
Just out of curiosity, where do white Catholics and Orthodox Christians fall in your worldview? Upholders of Western Civilization or jealous haters?
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@ Brian
“All we know is Rittenhouse was being chased by protestors when somebody (not Rittenhouse) fired a shot. That caused Rittenhouse to turn around where he saw Rosenbaum coming at him. Why would he surrender to the mob when there was an unknown gunman in the area”
You need to watch the footage again. The only person chasing Rittenhouse at the beginning is Rosenbaum. The person trailing after Rosenbaum is a reporter from the Daily Caller, a conservative news publication.
In the immediate aftermath of the first shooting, Rittenhouse just stands near the body unmolested — ignored, really — as people come over to try to save Rosenbaum’s life.
It’s only after Rittenhouse calls up his friend that he begins to run away, and only after he begins to run away that protesters start to chase him.
But even if you feel he was right not to surrender in the protest zone, ask yourself this: Why didn’t he go straight to the Kenosha police headquarters to surrender? Why did he go home instead?
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Solitaire:
Just before I wrote the post you responded to, I had another a very lengthy one that apparently went “poof”, likely because I have a very poor internet connection at the moment, I stated in that post that there I felt there were two separate arguments regarding the Rittenhouse shootings one moral, the other legal. I condemn the shootings from a moral standpoint but after reviewing videos and comments from defense lawyers familiar with Wisconsin law, at least from the facts publicly available, it appears there is a good chance Rittenhouse will be found innocent of most if not all of the charges.
“After he shot the first man, how would any of the other people on the scene have known he was not an active shooter? He was still roaming around with his gun.”
I understand what the perceptions of the protesters could have been, however if the first shooting was legal (With Rosebaum as the victim) civilians would have had no right to disarm him unless he shot, attempted to shot, or threatened to shot someone else unprovoked. However he didn’t shot anyone who hadn’t attacked him, nor did he shoot anyone who attacked him but retreated.
“If he had immediately taken his gun off and put his hands on top of his head or into the air, he would have signaled very obviously that he was not planning on shooting anyone else.”
If I were Rittenhouse, I would not have surrendered to the protesters either. Especially when you can hear on the video comments like “get him”. His claim voiced through his lawyer was that the prospectors were between him and the police line – were he was heading to surrender.
“It’s only after Rittenhouse calls up his friend that he begins to run away, and only after he begins to run away that protesters start to chase him.”
The reporter that you mentioned, from the Daily Caller, told him to “get out of here” (Reference the interview he made with the Hill) implying that he was in danger. Supposedly other people were intent on cornering / flanking Rittenhouse before he shot Rosenbaum, however I would agree that is not clear on the video.
“He didn’t try very hard. When the first group of police drove past him…..”
As other posters have pointed out the absurdity of his first attempted surrender, standing in the middle of the road with his hands up with multiple people shouting in the background “he’s the shooter” yet the police response was to tell him to get out of the road and drive past him. He did successfully turn himself into the Antioch police in his home town, a 20 minute drive from Kenosha but yes in another state. I don’t think a jury will hold this against him.
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Solitaire:
I recognize it for what it is. It’s just an insult intended to derail discussions and hurt people. We now live in clown world where even not fully supporting testosterone laden transvestites in women’s sports can get people fired (see what the mob did to JK Rowling for sticking up for women for instance). If I may have thought you were likely at least partly black because you’re on a primarily black blog that has nothing to do with racism, and, as I explained repeatedly, my statements were generally applicable to people condoning (even tacitly like you) the looting and rioting. I have never made negative remarks about Catholics or Orthodox Christians here, so it’s a bizarre question. Generally, people who take their faith seriously tend to want to defend civilization and have a system in place that protects their families, even Orthodox Jews were overwhelmingly Trump supporters.
Your comment to Brian is more of the same. I don’t know what footage you’ve seen, but there’s earlier footage showing multiple people chasing Rittenhouse before any shots are fired because he was trying to put out fires they were setting. He heard a shot from behind him, and multiple witnesses have confirmed this, before turning around and seeing Rosenbaum lunging for him. His lawyer did an interview on Tucker and explained that he became aware of people (maybe off camera for the footage focusing on him) threatening him, so that’s when he left. To expect that looters and rioters would not have caused him severe bodily harm for killing one of their own, even if he had acted in self defense, is a ridiculous argument to make.
He is clearly shown with hands up and the Kenosha police just let him go, as everyone has said. The city is in a massive riot with protesters all over the place. It’s not unreasonable at all for a shaken up 17 year old acting in good faith to think OK, let me drive the 25 minutes back to my neighboring town and the police precinct I know, where there aren’t active riots in progress, to explain to them what happened (surrender implies he committed a crime, which he didn’t).
All your words indicate that you’ve already judged him to be guilty. You naturally take the side of the evil (rioters and looters breaking curfew, destroying property, burning down buildings and attacking anyone who would stand in their way) The jury can determine whether what he did was in self-defense, but the evidence strongly supports it and even a NYT piece basically indicated that. The fact that you ignore all that speaks volumes.
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@Biff
“So at least we agree that data shows that police are no more likely to shoot and kill blacks in interactions than Whites. ”
Sure. Is that now your assertion? I sincerely thought you had been asserting that Whites were more likely to be killed by police. I previously thought you had been asserting that Whites were also more likely to be killed by Black people than other White people. Again, your statements said one thing, that a member of a population based on race was more likely to have something happen to them. I suppose what you really meant to say was that the populations being discussed were sub-groups of races limited in scope to only those having had interactions with police in Houston. Forgive me or not inferring those qualifiers from your statements.
Regarding the other tangent you’re looking to agree to disagree on: Can I ask you whether you think Black people are predisposed to commit violent crime or whether you believe violent and criminal behaviors manifest in people of all races at greater frequency based on location and socioeconomic circumstance? In other words, are Black people inherently more evil that White people in your view?
I ask because you mentioned minor drug offenses “lately” as if I meant only that a minor drug offense today leads to police interactions. It does… but I think discussing your violent crime tangent is more focused. Note that a father from the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, etc… who was arrested 3x for pot, whether his own or someone else in his vehicle because the law doesn’t distinguish, would have been imprisoned. You’re very fond of pointing out breakdowns in families and having been raised by a single-mother myself, I can assure you, they do just fine. However, I wasn’t starting out in a socioeconomic hole caused by centuries of structural racism. We were starting out in the suburbs with half the proceeds from the sale of an upper-middle class home that my father could afford on his executive salary because he was on the winning side of both racial and gender wage-gaps through the 70’s and 80’s. Also, my single-mom had a college degree because her White immigrant father had no problem finding a good job and working his way up to earning a very good living so, he could afford to send her to college. Had my father, or either grandfather, been locked up for something minor, my entire story would be very different. Where I grew up would be different. My opportunities would be different. I already told you that I wasn’t necessarily the straight-and-narrow kind of kid so, if you add to that the increased scrutiny and police interactions I would have had were I Black, then I can all but guarantee you I’d have at least a felony theft record. Probably for joy riding or something but you never know what I’d have been capable of growing up in very different circumstances, even trying to succeed but always taking one step forward and getting knocked two steps back gets old quick.
Anyway, I’m not saying don’t police criminals. I am saying (as did the study you cited) that there is absolutely racial bias in policing. I’m asking you whether you believe that bias is warranted because you believe Black people are inherently more evil or whether you believe working to alleviate racial bias wherever possible and simultaneously working to reverse the damage cause by centuries of structural racism would yield a proportionate balance of police interactions?
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@solitaire
According to the New York Times, Rittenhouse was being chased a group of people, not one person. I have also watched the videos. Rosenbaum is the closest but is not the only person chasing.
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@ Lemmy
@ eick74
There are definitely other people visible in the video where Rosenbaum chases Rittenhouse, but it is not at all clear that they were chasing him as opposed to following both him and Rosenthal trying to see or film what was happening.
Certainly none of the other protesters were right on Rittenhouse’s heels. That’s very evident in the video of the immediate aftermath of the shooting. It’s also obvious from the fact that we have no eyewitness accounts of the shooting up close except for the reporter, and no footage of the shooting from close up either.
“however if the first shooting was legal (With Rosebaum as the victim) civilians would have had no right to disarm him unless he was shot, attempted to shot, or threatened to shot someone else unprovoked.”
I’m not sure this argument will stand up in court. If it does, it will set a terrible precedent where people near the scene of a shooting will have to determine whether the shooting was legal or not before they can legally try to disarm or incapacitate the shooter. You’ve basically just stripped them of their own right to self-defense.
The jury is going to have to consider several things. Wisconsin law states:
“The actor may not intentionally use force which is intended or likely to cause death or great bodily harm unless the actor reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself.”
So one question will be whether such belief was reasonable or not. Obviously different people are going to have different opinions on that question, and we will have to wait and see what evidence and arguments are presented by the lawyers on each side.
The court can consider whether “the actor had an opportunity to flee or retreat before he or she used force” under certain conditions. One is if the actor “was engaged in a criminal activity” and Rittenhouse was breaking at least one law at that moment; he was in illegal possession of a firearm.
Prosecution might also argue the existence of another criminal act — “intentionally pointing a firearm at another constitutes a violation of s. 941.20” — considering that there have already been other demonstrators saying Rittenhouse intentionally pointed his gun at themselves and at other people near them.
Another condition is that of provocation, and there’s a very good chance the court will examine whether Rittenhouse “engage[d] in unlawful conduct of a type likely to provoke others to attack him or her and thereby does provoke an attack,” in which case the validity of the self-defense argument will rest on whether “the person reasonably believes he or she has exhausted every other reasonable means to escape from or otherwise avoid death or great bodily harm at the hands of his or her assailant.”
If it turns out that Rosenbaum was chasing Rittenhouse because Rittenhouse intentionally pointed his gun at him, that could feasibly fall under both unlawful conduct and provocation by Rittenhouse, which would weaken his self-defense argument.
https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/939/III/48
“He did successfully turn himself into the Antioch police in his home town, a 20 minute drive from Kenosha but yes in another state. I don’t think a jury will hold this against him.”
It has greatly complicated matters since his lawyer is talking about fighting extradition. If Rittenhouse had gone straight to the Kenosha police station to surrender, this would not be a factor in play. Antioch may not be far away from Kenosha, but it is still across state lines which means he’ll have to be extradited, and his lawyer will try to drag that out as long as possible.
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@ Biff
“I recognize it for what it is. It’s just an insult intended to derail discussions and hurt people.”
I disagree. Everyone is racist, to some extent or another. It’s just a fact of life from growing up in a world where racial stereotypes and prejudices still exist. However, if that word triggers you, I can use other terms, like racially biased or prejudiced.
“If I may have thought you were likely at least partly black because you’re on a primarily black blog that has nothing to do with racism”
And I never said that it did. Not once, not anywhere. What I said had to do with racism was the conclusions you drew about my feelings and my beliefs based solely on that.
In general, you don’t listen to people here. You make a strawman of who you think they are, and that is who they become to you. When you take part in this blog, you are surrounded by figments of your own imagination whom you call by our names.
You’ve never asked me what I think about Western Civilization — and you don’t care, either. You don’t care what Abagond’s thoughts are on the early Church, and St. Augustine, and Origen. Or about Plutarch and Ovid and Tacitus. Or about Shakespeare and Chaucer and the Brontës.
But the not caring isn’t the problem — it’s that you believe you actually already know. You think his opinion and my opinion is that Western Civilization should be utterly destroyed. And then you accuse us of believing that.
You have never once asked, “Abagond, what aspects of Western Civilization do you value, and why?”
Not once.
“I have never made negative remarks about Catholics or Orthodox Christians here, so it’s a bizarre question.”
Not that bizarre if you’d realized it was spurred by your remarks about “a certain tribe.” It was the first indication I’d had that anti-Semitism is an arrow in your quiver. And that led me to wonder where you fall on the Protestant/Catholic divide, since some people of your ilk believe Catholics are Satanists.
“Generally, people who take their faith seriously tend to want to defend civilization and have a system in place that protects their families.”
So devout Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, would all be included in your upholders of Western Civilization?
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OMO:
That has been my main point all along, as one of the central (stated or unstated) claims of BLM seems to be that cops would not have killed X guy if he had been White (i.e., that they are thereby treating black lives as less valuable). The numbers just don’t show that. (I believe there are other studies showing that Whites may be marginally more likely to be killed by cops in interactions, but that’s not important for the central thesis–I’ve never said Whites are more likely to get killed by blacks than by other Whites, though sometimes I may have had typos/not explained well) As a White guy, if I had done what Blake did, I feel pretty sure the cops wouldn’t hesitate to blast me.
Honestly, WHY blacks exhibit great criminality is irrelevant to the BLM point. If cops are working to fight crime and end up targeting blacks (on a per capita basis) more because that’s who is committing the crime (and black neighborhoods have much higher rates of crime generally), then what they are doing is not racist. None of this means that there aren’t bad apples and racist cops out there, but there’s no empirical evidence for so-called “systemic racism” based on recent killings by police.
Re: your question about blacks being “inherently evil”, that’s not something I would ever assert about a race. God chooses people among all tribes and frequently the last (in terms of wealth and worldly knowledge) shall be first in the Kingdom. I don’t believe that most African Americans are criminals and I personally know many to be very good and responsible people.
That said, there’s obviously a genetic component to behaviors, and that manifests itself, on average, differently in different racial groups. Increased black criminality (on a population not individual basis) has been observed not just in the U.S., but pretty much everywhere in the world. In the US, we’ve had 60 years of propaganda about anti-racism and equality and, though overall criminality has decreased in some measures, particularly in the last few decades, the gap between black and White criminality has persisted. The cities under black control seem to be no better. In fact, you can’t point to any cities where blacks have less criminal behavior than Whites. You might be able to point to small groups, e.g., the Igbo or blacks with high White admixture, that perform better than other blacks, but this just goes to support a biological/genetic basis for these traits. Asians and Hispanics coming from very poor socioeconomic backgrounds haven’t had as much criminality–Hispanic populations with IQs similar to African Americans nevertheless show much less of a propensity for violent crime. We don’t pretend that all dog breeds have the same characteristics. We don’t say any dog breed is “evil”. They are what they are and they should work with what they’ve got and work to better themselves. But somehow there’s this State Religion of Equalism that refuses to consider that God could have made different populations with different characteristics, even though people have been observing these for millennia.. and even though the Bible supports this understanding (by its descriptions of different groups of people).. and the data (i.e., the science, despite the fact that scientists will lost their jobs if they publicly deny Equalism), shows that there are important differences pretty much everywhere in the world for as long as measurements have been taken and observations made..
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Solitaire:
You continuously try to bait. Your comments re: Kyle Rittenhouse show to me you are not considering evidence in good faith.
It’s not about whom I would include or exclude, it’s about what people actually choose to do. I haven’t seen the groups you mentioned on the front lines of the riots (again speaking of groups and not individuals), but neither have I seen them signing up to oppose the riots or defending buildings (probably other than their own). I can say that most on the right are eager to embrace those who will stand up against the destroyers, whatever their race or creed.
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@ Lemmy
This is from the same source and most likely why one of the criminal charges was reckless endangerment of the Daily Caller reporter:
“When a defendant successfully makes self-defense an issue, the jury must be instructed as to the state’s burden of proof regarding the nature of the crime, even if the defense is a negative defense. Wisconsin JI-Criminal 801 informs the jury that it “should consider the evidence relating to self-defense in deciding whether the defendant’s conduct created an unreasonable risk to another. If the defendant was acting lawfully in self-defense, [his] conduct did not create an unreasonable risk to another.” This instruction implies that the defendant must satisfy the jury that the defendant was acting in self-defense and removes the burden of proof from the state to show that the defendant was engaged in criminally reckless conduct.”
If prosecution can prove Rittenhouse recklessly endangered the reporter, that will seriously weaken his ability to successfully argue self-defense under Wisconsin law.
I’m not clear on how they’re planning to argue reckless endangerment, but the criminal complaint included a quote from the reporter saying that at first he thought one of the bullets had hit him in his leg. So I’m guessing at least one element of their argument will be that Rittenhouse discharged his weapon when the reporter was in his line of fire.
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@ Biff
“You continuously try to bait.”
Sigh. You’re doing it again. Have fun talking to my shadow.
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@ Lemmy
I hope that some of these examples are showing how unreasonable it would be to ask citizens in a shooter situation to come to the correct conclusion about the legality of the shooting before trying to apprehend the shooter. Not just in this case, but in any. Proving legal self-defense in any court case can take months of preparation, discovery process, subpoenas, etc. — all building up to a trial that will assuredly take several hours and in some cases days or weeks. Citizens at the scene have to make split-second decisions in what could be a life-or-death situation.
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Random (ir)rational thoughts…
A self-proclaimed normal to high IQ person (aka, self-aware White person) presented at different moments following facts:
Exhibit 1. The USA elite is made up of high-IQ people
Exhibit 2. The USA elite has or nurtures manifest leftist tendencies
Exhibit 3. Leftist tendencies (thoughts, emotions, etc) are erroneous, false, wrong, bad.
Question for all commentators on this blog: What do you make of those assertions? Are they coherent? Or mutually exclusive? Stupid? Intelligent?
From assertions (1) and (2) above it follows that the USA elite is low-IQ because it nurtures leftist tendencies which are themselves false, erroneous, etc, etc and high-IQ people certainly think properly… otherwise they could not be called intelligent, right?
But that conclusion runs opposite to the first assertion therefore… hum… a contradiction!
Or maybe assertion (3) is correct because it is believed or nurtured by intelligent people. Isn’t it?
And then, maybe the self-proclaimed normal to high-IQ thinker, who maintains this set of beliefs, is not that intelligent, because he or she can’t follow high-IQ thought processes (maybe those thought processes are beyond his or her understanding!). Am I right?
Or maybe we start with (2) and (3) and conclude that the USA elite is made up of low-IQ people! But… is not this elite a class of people where one can find easily many Nobel Prize winners? Or…
Now I’m confused!
Can somebody help me, please?
P.S.:
These thoughts were produced by a probably low-IQ brain and are not intended to be answered by other normal to low-IQ individuals… but by who believes to be very smart and comes up again and again with IQ beliefs in many threads on this blog.
Everybody is free to comment anyway…
Dear host, pardon, by this almost off-topic random, (ir)rational thoughts…
Peace!
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Solitaire said to Biff:
I approve this message.
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@ Solitaire
I was wondering that too.
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@ biff
There are plenty of cases of the police treating White KILLERS with kid gloves – and Blake did not even kill anyone. Take for example, oh, Kyle Rittenhouse himself. When the police saw him walking from the direction of a shooting WITH A GUN they did not even stop him or question him. Yet Blake they SHOT IN THE BACK SEVEN TIMES.
Robert Dear, a full-time White guy, shot SIX POLICE OFFICERS, killing one, and was STILL taken alive by the police:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2015/11/29/robert-lewis-dear/
It can be done. But with Black people, the police are like “Fuck this, let’s just shoot him”.
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@ biff
Why in the world would God give Blacks a genetic proclivity to criminality? Or is your god Satan?
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@ biff
So you give a pass to shooting someone the back seven times – but clutch your pearls at property damage? Really? Is it because Blacks are no longer property so they are worth less than property? Is this your scale of worth:
White people
White people’s property
Black people
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@ biff
Spoken like an abusive husband.
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@ biff
So anyone who is not White or not Christian is a threat to Western civilization?
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@ biff
Not quite sure what you mean by equalism, but equality before the law is in the US Constitution – while the nuclear family and Christianity are not. In fact, the Constituton even allows for the practice of Satanism. Is the US Constitution a threat to Western civilization too?
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@ munubantu
In the US the universities have been taken over by sneaky Jewish Marxists. They score even higher on IQ tests than the White Christians. Jews do not actually believe in Marxism – it is just their ploy to take over or destroy Western civilization. Out of jealousy, I suppose. Even though they score higher on IQ tests, they lack other qualities needed for Western civilization. Like being Christian. Hitler said they were monkey imitators:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2014/07/12/hitler-race-and-people/
This seems to be the underlying logic, assuming that there is one.
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bunch a *** not nice word for n00b wimps keyboard warriors bull knew how he would be treated inside worried about tear gas and your firearm idk like breonna taylor is outed? hot mess blah blah flappy
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I sometimes tease racists about the decline of “Western civilization” since this concept seems to be so central to their self-esteem. But what is funny too is that so many foundational facets of “their” civilization are not indigenous to Western Europe but came from Africa (Egypt) via the Greeks then Romans. Unsurprisingly Christianity – which many right-wingers view as the state religion – is not indigenous either. What seems to be very much “them” is the intensely acquisitive ethos. Consequently they had no problem taking the technology of statecraft from others and single-mindedly pursuing world domination.
Yet we see that despite achieving a global civilization that we are all essentially a part of by virtue of its scope, the “us vs them” conception remains. This is necessitated by the acquisitive ethos, for if there is a taker there must also always be those from whom things are taken! Therefore the “others” remain in a separate corner even after the tent has been spread over them. The constant state of economic, social, and ecological imbalance that “Western Civilization” must sustain in order to be “Western Civilization” is the threat to its own continued existence. A system can only tilt for so long before a tipping point is reached.
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abagond:
Why would God make some groups of people (on average) taller than others, more muscular than others, better runners, better swimmers, better suited for high altitudes, better suited to avoid sunburn, more extraverted (or introverted) better at math, better at lawyering? Yet differences are observable. God celebrates the diversity of the nations. But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to Him who formed it, “Why did You make me like this?”
Maybe all cops should have a limit of 2 consecutive shots or something. My point is just that the numbers don’t show that cops are any more likely to kill blacks than Whites during an interaction, and yes a White Blake definitely gets shot and very possibly killed and no one would notice if it were once, twice or seven times because it doesn’t make national news. So the Kenosha riots and subsequent death and destruction were wholly unnecessary.
Comparing American Whites to an abusive husband is rich, since a huge part of the world still wants to immigrate to the US to live with them. Do you think American blacks would generally be better served to live by themselves in their own country (as most countries have a supermajority of the same ethnicity)?
People who actively fight against Western civilization are a threat to it. Those who choose to stand up for it are not.
Equality under the law, which gives the same punishment for the same crime to perpetrators of diverse ethnic groups is very different from “Equalism”, which says it must be racism for blacks to go to prison or get expelled more than Whites on average, which demands affirmative action–one asks you to be color blind, the other says you can’t be (because you have to ensure parity of all results). Are men getting arrested more than women? Must be sexism!–if we take Equalism to its natural conclusions, we see how ridiculous it is.
Glad a high IQ thinker has already stepped up to respond to munubantu’s important questions. Abagond will tell you the government of the country has been moving to the right for a long time, so it must be that the elites are actual secret right wing activists. But yeah, university professors and other supposedly high IQ elites supporting communism more than average working people is definitely a thing, and the results of communism on a worldwide basis speak for themselves.
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@ biff
Why do White Christians like Trump so much? I don’t get it. It makes me suspect that they are not true Christians. Please explain, at least in your own case as an apparent White Christian.
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@ Biff
*”Why would God make some groups of people (on average) taller than others, more muscular than others, better runners, better swimmers, better suited for high altitudes, better suited to avoid sunburn, more extraverted (or introverted) better at math, better at lawyering? Yet differences are observable. God celebrates the diversity of the nations. But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to Him who formed it, ‘Why did You make me like this?'”
But unlike everything else you list above, criminality involves the propensity to sin. Murder and theft both are even listed in the Ten Commandments, they are such serious sins against God.
Abagond’s question wasn’t directed at God; it was directed at you.
But yes, if God intentionally created one race to be more likely to sin, and then counts those sins against them, who would be surprised if that race should ask their Creator why they were fashioned in such a way?
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@ Munubantu
Good catch.
The history of Western Civilization shows us that over and over again, conservative Christians oppose or deny the scientific discoveries of the intellectual elites.
Perhaps they are jealous that God apparently decided to give the brains to a different group of humans.
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@ Biff
Abagond asked you:
“In fact, the Constituton even allows for the practice of Satanism. Is the US Constitution a threat to Western civilization too?”
I’d also like to hear the answer.
Is the Constitution one of the high points of Western Civilization, or is it a threat to Western Civilization and a sin against God?
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abagond:
We’ve covered this before, but I’ll humor you again.
The current Dem party is now implicitly and often explicitly anti-God, i.e., evil.
–They are pro abortion, pushing for all 9 months and some even after baby comes out of the mother.
–They defend all kinds of sexual immorality that is explicitly condemned in the Bible and favor teaching kids about them.
–Their core idea of “social justice” in practice doesn’t result in that. It results in social unrest, but hasn’t actually made anyone’s lives tangibly better for decades, as the current version focuses on grievance studies and micro aggressions and is largely built on lies (see, e.g., BLM lie that police are more likely to kill blacks than whites) and the assumption of “Equalism”, which can never be realized.
–They pretend to fight for equality, but pursue polices that lead to the exact opposite, destroying the middle class and helping big business, e.g., increasing immigration, tacitly supporting illegal immigration, supporting outsourcing of jobs to China and elsewhere, and encouraging those dependent on the government to have more kids (leading to more people trapped in a poverty) while defacto not supporting middle class family formation.
–They are currently the party favoring more involvement in the Middle East (i.e., more wars) than Trump.
–Dems distrust the Church and organized religion and support many Marxist organizations (e.g., Antifa and BLM) that are at least implicitly anti-God.
–Dems attack the nuclear family.
–The globalist elites support the Dems.
I could go on..
Trump is the only one now on the other side fighting all of that, and as discussed before he’s less unethical than Biden who essentially directed federal funds to his son in deals in Ukraine and China. If there are others in the future who will stand up against that, I would support them. Voting for Trump doesn’t mean you support his past womanizing anymore than voting for Biden means you support his sexual assault of an intern or his lies and plagiarism.
Solitaire, I thought per the upthread we were done.
I’ve repeatedly said most blacks aren’t criminals. The idea that God would have to make each ethnic group exactly the same in terms of their natures or He’s not just is along the lines of how can God allow Evil in the world and still be just type stuff. It’s not my or your place to question God, so I wouldn’t try to speak on God’s behalf in terms of why He created people the way he did. All I do is observe what many many other have in many other times and places.
You’re missing my discussion of equality under the law vs. Equalism above, problem is the latter not the former (or the Constitution).
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@ biff
You are just saying Democrats are anti-Christian and evil. That does not account for why Trump is MORE popular among White Evangelicals than ACTUAL Evangelicals, like Bush II, Ted Cruz or Ben Carson.
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@ Biff
“That said, there’s obviously a genetic component to behaviors, and that manifests itself, on average, differently in different racial groups. Increased black criminality (on a population not individual basis) has been observed not just in the U.S., but pretty much everywhere in the world. In the US, we’ve had 60 years of propaganda about anti-racism and equality and, though overall criminality has decreased in some measures, particularly in the last few decades, the gap between black and White criminality has persisted. The cities under black control seem to be no better. In fact, you can’t point to any cities where blacks have less criminal behavior than Whites. You might be able to point to small groups, e.g., the Igbo or blacks with high White admixture, that perform better than other blacks, but this just goes to support a biological/genetic basis for these traits. Asians and Hispanics coming from very poor socioeconomic backgrounds haven’t had as much criminality–Hispanic populations with IQs similar to African Americans nevertheless show much less of a propensity for violent crime. We don’t pretend that all dog breeds have the same characteristics.”
You argue here that blacks have a biological/genetic propensity to criminality.
“I’ve repeatedly said most blacks aren’t criminals.”
But you’ve also repeatedly argued that blacks as a race have a genetic predisposition to criminality. You said in the first quote above, “blacks with high White admixture … perform better than other blacks,” so it would not be an unreasonable assumption that you think most African Americans aren’t criminals due to the ameliorating effects of European genetics in their racial admixture.
“The idea that God would have to make each ethnic group exactly the same in terms of their natures or He’s not just is along the lines of how can God allow Evil in the world and still be just type stuff.”
It’s one thing to say God created some people to be taller or faster. It’s an entirely different thing to say God created some people to be more likely to sin.
Sin is evil, yes? So what reason would God have to create a group of people who are more likely to sin than other groups?
In the scenario which you suggest, God is not just “allowing Evil” but designing a certain ethnic group to be more susceptible to evil than other groups. That’s not allowing evil; it’s enabling evil, increasing the likelihood of evil.
“It’s not my or your place to question God, so I wouldn’t try to speak on God’s behalf in terms of why He created people the way he did. All I do is observe what many many other have in many other times and places.”
Your observations do not correspond with modern science. There is no such thing as biological race. Human ethnic groups are not genetically analogous to dog breeds.
No one here is questioning God. They are questioning you concerning your beliefs about God.
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@ Biff
Is freedom of religion as encoded in the Constitution a sin against God?
Is freedom of religion an essential component of Western Civilization?
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@Biff
We are so very far apart. I believe that the number of police/Black civilian interactions is vastly disproportionate due to racial bias and you believe it’s justified because of genetics?!? Just so we’re clear about the study you cited, if police simply go out today and stop twice as many Black people as yesterday without killing them, then a study like yours would show an even lower percentage of killing for Black people. Likewise, if they cut the number of White people they stop in half, then we’re really getting into statistics showing White people being significantly more likely to be killed once stopped. Is it any wonder Houston was a city showing something like a 20% higher prevalence of killing Whites during an interaction?!? I’m sorry, but you simply have to look at percentage of population in this case and the FBI data shows that Black people as a population are more likely to be killed.
You say BLM’s core belief is about police killings. It’s not. At least not exclusively. In fact, BLM was born out of Trayvon Martin’s death by racist neighborhood watchman. You yourself seemed to understand that Trayvon never would have died had he been White because Zimmerman wouldn’t have found him “suspicious” enough to stalk and provoke. Protests over Ahmaud Arbery weren’t about police and there’s another example where he’d certainly be alive today had he not been suspiciously Black. Black lives don’t matter as much to you and people who think like you because you believe Black people are inherently “less than”. That’s the larger picture of what BLM is protesting.
Which brings me to why you think they’re inherently “less than”. Thank you for responding to my question about inherent evilness. This is another area where we are polar opposites. You believe that there’s a biologic component to race in a time when science has mapped the human genome and it we know that’s objectively false. Myriad books have been written on the history of the social construct of race. You cannot identify a single exclusive feature that defines a race. Certainly there are collections of features that were more prevalent in geographical regions but, even those collections of features are not consistently applied to all members of what you would consider a unique race. Your analogy with dog breeds is often cited but, scientifically wrong. Simply google race vs dog breeds and pick any paper or study you like.
Lastly, while this post is about Jacob Blake, the conversation we’ve had and certainly the BLM movement and even the protests in Kenosha aren’t really about Jacob Blake at this point. Whether an investigation reveals that some force was necessary in his specific case and whether or not a larger conversation about excessive force ensues… racism is real and the protesting is not for nothing.
I seriously could go on and on, I’ve even written papers on these topics, but I’ll stop because I can see you’re frustrated trying to explain your position. The thing is, I’ve held your positions. Certainly not with as much conviction as you seem to have, but your arguments could easily have come from my grandfather (the other one) so, I was partially raised in an environment steeped in opinions like yours. But, I try my best to be objective and I don’t formulate opinions lightly. Most of the concepts I’ve tried to get you to see are rooted in countless hours of research, including primary sources where possible. I truly feel like your opinions have been spoon fed to you and they fit your privileged worldview enough that you’ve accepted them. So, if you’re as smart as some folks here seem to think you are, how about you challenge your own opinions. If they’re valid, they’ll stand up to the same level of doubt you’ve applied to my opinions.
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abagond:
Most rank and file Republicans in 2016 had realized that their priorities did not align with those of the GOP establishment. GOPE wanted to keep selling out the middle class for globalist big business and wanted more wars. Trump became a serious candidate when he mentioned building the wall. Most countries take their border control seriously, but the US did not. Despite the vast majority of the population being opposed to an open border, the GOPE was content to play along with the Dems and allow huge amounts of illegal immigration.. Dems got more future voters, GOPE drove down wages for big business and improved overall GDP numbers (and the outlook for the wealthy) at the expense of the middle class. Trump also promised not to get into more pointless wars and to stop offshoring jobs (and even bring some jobs back). You can see by the number 2 pick that year, Cruz, who was also an outsider/iconoclast, that no one was interested in more Bush. A lot of evangelicals disliked a lot about Trump personally, but still voted for him because they felt he was better than the alternatives on policy and might begin to make real change. Anyway, that’s just my take. I’m sure you can read many pundits saying he was supported because he was raciss.
Solitaire:
Serving another God besides the Lord is a sin against God. No, freedom of religion is not strictly necessary for Western Civ. There were blasphemy laws in the past, and they exist now under a different form. For instance, now everyone who publicly disagrees with the State Religion of Equalism (e.g., saying transvestites are going against the Bible) may be cancelled and unemployable, so there’s no real freedom of religion in that very real sense currently.
I’m sure many people like yourself would think the God of the Bible was terrible (“homophobic”) for destroying Sodom and Gomorrah. Again, I don’t believe you are approaching these topics in good faith, so I don’t think its productive to engage further with you on this ATM.
OMO:
Appreciate the open discussion of your opinions (though they seem to indicate you have your mind made up now, as do most people, rather than simply being an OMO). I once entertained a lot of the positions you advocated when I was younger, but changed a lot of my thinking based on my observations and life experiences (including spending significant time outside of the US). I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree. I didn’t come to this site to get into long back and forth arguments.
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@ biff
Why do you do you keep writing “racist” as “raciss”?
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abagond: I’m just showing the word the proper respect that it deserves. To use the White pronunciation would be cultural appropriation.
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antifa.com
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@ Biff
“Again, I don’t believe you are approaching these topics in good faith, so I don’t think its productive to engage further with you on this ATM.”
Why, because you can’t answer my question about the reason you believe God created a group of people who are more likely than others to sin and do evil?
In what ways am I approaching these topics in bad faith? Disagreeing with you is not bad faith. Asking you hard questions about your assertions is not bad faith.
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@ Abagond
“So anyone who is not White or not Christian is a threat to Western civilization?”
Well, that video says “the three fundamental pillars of Western civilization” are
1) the Greco-Roman philosophical and legal legacy
2) the European Nations
3) Christianity
Furthermore, the video states: “If you take away any of those three things, the civilization that you have is not Western civilization.”
In which case, Western civilization wouldn’t begin until … sometime after Constantine??
Biff keeps dancing around your question with “anyone who defends Western civilization isn’t a threat.” It sounds as if he’s saying anyone who is not white and/or Christian will be tolerated within Western civilzation as long as they don’t want equal status with the white Christians.
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@ Biff
So the religion clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is a threat to Western Civilization? Your answer to this would appear to be yes. Is that correct?
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https://www.localmemphis.com/mobile/article/news/verify/internet-trolls-link-antifa-biden-websites/507-1b758975-8b9c-409c-abf4-6a30a2f988c8
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@ biff
In my experience, “raciss” is not the Black spelling but the proper White racist troll spelling.
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@ Solitaire
This is the sense I get too. Know your place and we will tolerate you.
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To Solitaire:
“I’m not sure this argument will stand up in court. If it does, it will set a terrible precedent where people near the scene of a shooting will have to determine whether the shooting was legal or not before they can legally try to disarm or incapacitate the shooter.”
Ok, let’s put this another way – One way to incapacitate an active shooter is by shooting him (Generally the most common method). Let’s say someone shot and killed Rittenhouse and it was later determined that he had the legal right to defend himself when he shot Rosenbaum. “Well I thought he was an active shooter” is not a good legal defense. Most likely that person would be charged with at least manslaughter or second degree murder.
I get what you are saying, but this is what I have gathered from reading a few forums and watching YouTube videos which featured defense lawyers. They could be wrong, we’ll know more when the case goes to trial.
It’s an ugly situation, given we have already had at least 3 demonstrators (Kenosha, Austin) and 1 counter demonstrator (Portland) shot and killed at demonstrations. In addition to two female demonstrators killed by vehicular homicide in Seattle.
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Another issue Black Lives Matter gets right is scrutinizing and trimming bloated police budgets. The Seattle Times ran an article about how one officer was paid just shy of half a million dollars for one year’s work. He worked that scam through a variety of loopholes put in place by the local police union. According to the article:
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/times-watchdog/how-a-seattle-patrol-officer-became-the-citys-highest-earner-paid-for-the-equivalent-of-two-years-within-the-span-of-one/
Pfffft! That comment by the spokesperson about how the Seattle Police Department (SPD) wants to implement a “technology solution” is laughable. Seattle and the region is awash with skilled developers and programmers. The police budget eats up a huge chunk of city resources, not to mention the “back door” contributions to their budget by local businesses and multinational corporations.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/corporations-supporting-black-lives-matter-quietly-funding-police/269986/
Officer Willis is hardly alone in scamming taxpayers for six figure salaries. There are a lot of officers who are paid well beyond the median gross pay for SPD employees.
Seattle City Council president, M. Lorena González, has been frustrated for years by the lack of accountability at SPD. In the article, González noted:
“I have been raising concerns about that since I was elected and the reality is that the Police Department effectively has a blank check as it relates to overtime,” she said… “We do set a budget every year, but every year it’s known that they are going to blow right through that budget.”
SPD is bristling with expensive weaponry. Most of that weaponry is used on anti-brutality protesters and SWAT adventures. Perhaps it’s time they re-purposed some of that money to systems of accountability to taxpayers.
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@ Afrofem
My apologies for not replying sooner to your comment on leadership. It was well thought-out and comprehensive.
I find myself almost entirely in agreement with everything you said.
My only suggestion is perhaps effective leadership is possible without a focus on one specific person. Perhaps organizations should try to have two to four leaders working in tandem, each of whom can speak in a voice of authority for the organization to the media and politicians, each of whom can provide structure and guidance to the organization.
Should one leader fall, the others will already be in place, already be known, already be trusted, as opposed to an understudy waiting in the wings.
I’m not sure whether this would work, but I think it could be worth a try.
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Biff: “Anyway, I’ve like doubled or tripled abagond’s comment count for a while I guess, but it has been a thankless job!”
Also Biff: “I didn’t come to this site to get into long back and forth arguments.”
He always runs off when the questions get difficult, doesn’t he?
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@ Solitaire
No worries.
The truth is any leadership structure requires sacrifice and risk. That is why few take on the challenge. No one wants to be harrassed, beaten, imprisoned or martyred. I don’t and I’m sure other sane people don’t either.
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And yet…thank goodness for the sane or somewhat insane/visionary people who step up to be ethical leaders in spite of the risks!
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https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/11/tennis/naomi-osaka-us-open-face-mask-spt-intl/index.html
Beautiful human being, this Naomi Osaka. Honoring people who have died unjustly at the hands of the ones who were supposed to protect them.
I only hope that no one of all who are full of hate and resentment do not harm her.
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Update: Rusten Sheskey, the officer who shot Blake in the back seven times, has been cleared of all wrongdoing and is now back at work. According to police, an investigation by an outside agency, reviewed by an independent expert and the county district attorney, found that Sheskey “acted within the law and was consistent with training.” Now you know.
(https://twitter.com/KenoshaPolice/status/1382066056643117057)
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