[RD] George Floyd and protesting while black

[Zardnaar]

Most of that 800 billion doesn't go to combat related stuff, the national guard are part-time soldiers who break easy, and the government isn't going to use nuclear weapons to suppress a rebellion.

EDIT: And maybe if people would actually take the time to study a little bit of military history, they could learn a thing or two about asymmetrical warfare.

Even if you win what are you gonna do? You would have multiple wrecked cities, millions dead, wrecked cities and that was in 1865.

USA is still in debt, you can honor that debt or default and turn your country into a war ravaged Zimbabwe.

If you're a progressive you need to put tax up just to rebuild the country in a devastated tax base. If you're a conservative you now have to occupy bthe biggest cities in the country, still in debt and you're probably not going to be able to extract tax and you're out numbered to boot.

You've also probably got an insurgency, plenty of guns and ammo in the country unaccounted for and odds are the next crop of leaders won't be much better than the last ones.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Very little about CHAZ/CHOP was violent except for keeping police out (to a point)

Haven't there been 4 or 5 shootings with at least 3 people killed? How far is it plausible to push the "largely peaceful" label?

 

[Zardnaar]

Haven't there been 4 or 5 shootings with at least 3 people killed? How far is it plausible to push the "largely peaceful" label?

Directly tied to the protests? People get shot and killed daily in USA.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I meant in the CHOP/CHAZ/DAVE zone thing.

 

[Commodore]

You would have multiple wrecked cities, millions dead, wrecked cities and that was in 1865.

Total dead from our civil war was around 600,000 so I'm not sure where you are getting this "millions dead in 1865" thing.

is still in debt, you can honor that debt or default and turn your country into a war ravaged Zimbabwe.

If you're a progressive you need to put tax up just to rebuild the country in a devastated tax base. If you're a conservative you now have to occupy bthe biggest cities in the country, still in debt and you're probably not going to be able to extract tax and you're out numbered to boot.

You've also probably got an insurgency, plenty of guns and ammo in the country unaccounted for and odds are the next crop of leaders won't be much better than the last ones.

Yeah, it's gonna be hard, but it can be done. The Soviet Union became a global superpower in just three decades after their revolution and subsequent civil war and they were starting from a much worse point than any potential revolutionary government in the US would.

And plus, we aren't necessarily talking about full on revolution here. Limited violence can extract the desired changes or at least a compromise. To go back to the Whiskey Rebellion example: That rebellion didn't come close to overthrowing the government, nor did it even win the one tiny skirmish it had with government forces. However, the fact that the rebellion took place at all did convince the government to lower the tax in question.

So you see? Rebels don't even have to win on the battlefield to get what they want, they just have fight and display a willingness to keep fighting and causing trouble and eventually the government will come to the negotiating table because even if they are winning all the battles, the fact that any fighting is taking place at all is a political defeat for them.

 

[Zardnaar]

Total dead from our civil war was around 600,000 so I'm not sure where you are getting this "millions dead in 1865" thing.



Yeah, it's gonna be hard, but it can be done. The Soviet Union became a global superpower in just three decades after their revolution and subsequent civil war and they were starting from a much worse point than any potential revolutionary government in the US would.

And plus, we aren't necessarily talking about full on revolution here. Limited violence can extract the desired changes or at least a compromise. To go back to the Whiskey Rebellion example: That rebellion didn't come close to overthrowing the government, nor did it even win the one tiny skirmish it had with government forces. However, the fact that the rebellion took place at all did convince the government to lower the tax in question.

So you see? Rebels don't even have to win on the battlefield to get what they want, they just have fight and display a willingness to keep fighting and causing trouble and eventually the government will come to the negotiating table because even if they are winning all the battles, the fact that any fighting is taking place at all is a political defeat for them.

Yeah that didn't come out right.
Any major conflict would kill millions these days.

Having a tax strike would probably be more effective. A handful of blue states refuse to pay tax en masse and yeah.

Boston Tea Party 2.0.

Pay me to run your country for you Mr Pupp erm President when you win.

 

[red_elk]

The way I see it, the protests will wind down in a month or two. But since the causes are still there, they are likely to reoccur in future. These ones were OWS 2.0.

 

[Commodore]

Having a tax strike would probably be more effective. A handful of blue states refuse to pay tax en masse and yeah.

Problem with that is the modern age we live in. With everything being digitized, things like taxes being taken out of people's paychecks are handled automatically. And since the federal government can access your bank account, they'll just extract the money from there if you find some way to stop the automatic withholdings from your wages.

 

[Zardnaar]

Problem with that is the modern age we live in. With everything being digitized, things like taxes being taken out of people's paychecks are handled automatically. And since the federal government can access your bank account, they'll just extract the money from there if you find some way to stop the automatic withholdings from your wages.

Point. Beer O clock join me?

 

[Commodore]

Point. Beer O clock join me?

It's 7:30am here and I'm at work so I'll have to pass. I appreciate the offer though.

 

[Zardnaar]

It's 7:30am here and I'm at work so I'll have to pass. I appreciate the offer though.

As I said beer O clock.

Actually out. Took two weeks to drink 12 haven't restocked.

 

[Socrates99]

I meant in the CHOP/CHAZ/DAVE zone thing.

The point was saying there were 4 shootings in CHOP isnt much different from saying there were 4 shootings in "X" US City. Cops or no cops, that's just 'Murica.

 

[Commodore]

The point was saying there were 4 shootings in CHOP isnt much different from saying there were 4 shootings in "X" US City. Cops or no cops, that's just 'Murica.

I think 4 shootings in, what, three weeks is actually a much lower rate than some extremely heavily policed neighborhoods.

 

[El_Machinae]

EDIT: And maybe if people would actually take the time to study a little bit of military history, they could learn a thing or two about asymmetrical warfare.

It's not a war, it's a political movement. All the legal tools already exist to get the changes made

 

[Manfred Belheim]

The point was saying there were 4 shootings in CHOP isnt much different from saying there were 4 shootings in "X" US City. Cops or no cops, that's just 'Murica.

It's not a city though. Look at it on a map, it's tiny. 6 "city blocks" at it's height, whatever that means. And 3 people have been shot to death there inside a month, with others shot and injured. That's pretty exceptional even for America.

I think 4 shootings in, what, three weeks is actually a much lower rate than some extremely heavily policed neighborhoods.

I wonder how it compares to exactly the same area at any other typical 3 week period prior to this?

 

[Sommerswerd]

Georgia man slammed to the ground, wrist broken by police officer in a mistaken identity arrest.

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Body camera video shows Antonio Arnelo Smith handing his driver's license to a Black police officer and answering questions cooperatively before a white officer walks up behind him, wraps him in a bear hug and slams him face-first to the ground.

“Oh my God, you broke my wrist!” the 46-year-old Black man screams as two more white Valdosta officers arrive, holding him down and handcuffing him following the takedown. One eventually tells Smith he's being arrested on an outstanding warrant, and is immediately corrected by the first officer: They've got the wrong man.

Clutching his wrist and whimpering, Smith was let go without charges after the violent encounter on Feb. 8 in Valdosta, Georgia, near the Florida state line.

 

[GenMarshall]

The way I see it, the protests will wind down in a month or two. But since the causes are still there, they are likely to reoccur in future. These ones were OWS 2.0.

Outcome of the November 2020 Presidential Elections: Hold my Beer.

 

[Commodore]

It's not a war, it's a political movement. All the legal tools already exist to get the changes made

Okay, but I keep seeing people say that all the peaceful methods have failed and violence might be the only way to effect change. Yet when I tell those people to get out there and fight, all of a sudden they come up with all these excuses as to why they can't fight or why it won't work.

I guess I'm at the point where when I see someone talking about fighting back my response is going to be "nut up or shut up". If you are going to talk about violent resistance, then you better be willing to get out there and fight. If you aren't willing to fight, then you shouldn't say one word advocating for violent resistance.

As for the autonomous zone thing: They had to know in the back of their minds that the police weren't going to stay away forever. One of their stated goals was to show that a neighborhood could function without the police. How did they plan on achieving that goal if they just let the police swoop right in and retake the neighborhood with out any resistance? They also had to know that it was going to take a lot more than just locking arms or going limp to keep them out. That indicates to me that they had no plan to keep this thing going. And if they didn't bother to come up with a plan, then that means they weren't serious about their effort. It also lends credibility to the claims that this was just a bunch of bored college kids looking for something to do.

I wonder how it compares to exactly the same area at any other typical 3 week period prior to this?

Well some neighborhoods in some cities experience double digit number of shootings in a single weekend quite frequently. Those are usually high crime neighborhoods with heavy police presence. So at the very least this would seem to indicate police presence doesn't deter people from committing crimes. And if the police can't prevent crime, then why do we give them so much money and military equipment? Seems like we could slash their budgets bigly and still get along just fine.

 

[Crezth]

Haven't there been 4 or 5 shootings with at least 3 people killed? How far is it plausible to push the "largely peaceful" label?

Yeah but it wasn’t like they were rioting or even aggressively expanding. And the communities that feel the need to expel the police are obviously reacting to the police killing or maiming members of those communities for protesting. My only point, really, is that CHOP is a pretty tame response compared to what could have been. Since 1992 was brought up, if we are to compare cases the army might be brought in to quell the population, you have massive spreading riots on the one hand and a few city blocks of a community banding together to keep out the police on the other. If the government is to get into the habit of using the army to crush people who want the government police out of their lives and set about doing so in the most restrained and defensive manner imaginable, well, pretty soon people won’t see the point in restraint.

 

[El_Machinae]

Okay, but I keep seeing people say that all the peaceful methods have failed and violence might be the only way to effect change. Yet when I tell those people to get out there and fight, all of a sudden they come up with all these excuses as to why they can't fight or why it won't work.

There will be orders of magnitude difference between cathartic violence and generic resistance, in so far as those two motivate political change. It's extremely unlikely that asymmetric warfare can be wielded in a way that is useful to anybody.

You made your career noticing how useless asymmetric warfare was in enacting political change, so I'm not really sure what your motivation is here other than bloodlust