How many riots does it take...

I wonder perhaps if the cops are like the military? When I was in the army if a superior of high enough rank made a "no-no" we basically couldn't mention I or talk about it to anybody, as it might hurt the image of the unit/army/ espirit de corp/blah blah blah. We could have faced disciplinary action for doing so. I wonder if the police are in the same boat and that's why you wont hear them speak out against eachother?
In some ways, yes, I think cops absolutely are like the military. I think a lot of former servicemen go into civil service jobs, and I think some civil service exams give extra credit to veterans. For some people, going from the armed forces to law enforcement is completely natural. I knew a girl in school whose whole plan for her life was to join the Army and then become a police officer. And, disappointingly, veterans are still not smoothly reintegrated into our society, have a hard time finding a job and so on, and may be drawn to firefighting and law enforcement simply because they know some guys there and because those departments are welcoming.
 
We probably ought to start taking bets on armed rebellions, if that would begin to answer the question posed by the OP.
Start? In 1967, the governor of California signed The Mulford Act because some people were asserting their 2nd Amendment rights a little too strongly. The governor was that big-government leftist Ronald Reagan, and the guys with the (legal) guns were a couple'a good ol' boys named Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton. A year later, Eldridge Cleaver ambushed a couple of Oakland cops, and a year after that, Fred Hampton was executed by Chicago police and/or the FBI.
 
Start? In 1967, the governor of California signed The Mulford Act because some people were asserting their 2nd Amendment rights a little too strongly. The governor was that big-government leftist Ronald Reagan, and the guys with the (legal) guns were a couple'a good ol' boys named Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton. A year later, Eldridge Cleaver ambushed a couple of Oakland cops, and a year after that, Fred Hampton was executed by Chicago police and/or the FBI.

I was thinking along the lines of overthrowing local/state governments.

The governor was that big-government leftist Ronald Reagan, and the guys with the (legal) guns were a couple'a good ol' boys named Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton. A year later, Eldridge Cleaver ambushed a couple of Oakland cops, and a year after that, Fred Hampton was executed by Chicago police and/or the FBI.

It's an interesting coincidence that I happened across a blog discussing the Panthers, Bobby Seale, and Huey P. Newton just a few days ago.
 
I was thinking along the lines of overthrowing local/state governments.
Ah. Yeah. Well. Hopefully the election turnouts will continue. Not that that will solve everything, but it can solve some things. Ferguson, MO recently elected two more Black city councilors. It remains to be seen whether there will be any meaningful change to the police department or if cars and stores will be on fire again in another twenty years.

It's an interesting coincidence that I happened across a blog discussing the Panthers, Bobby Seale, and Huey P. Newton just a few days ago.
Sadly, they and Malcolm X are becoming relevant to current events, again.



Link to video.
 
Ferguson, MO recently elected two more Black city councilors.

I don't see how electing more black politicians is supposed to solve anything. I mean, look at all the black politicians that have been elected at every level of government and still nothing has changed. Hell, we even have a black president and to hear black people tell it, they are worse off than they have been since the Civil Rights Movement.

Now what that tells me is that simply electing more black politicians isn't going to solve anything since the black politicians that have been elected so far have shown little to no interest in changing or opposing the status quo.
 
I don't see how electing more black politicians is supposed to solve anything. I mean, look at all the black politicians that have been elected at every level of government and still nothing has changed. Hell, we even have a black president and to hear black people tell it, they are worse off than they have been since the Civil Rights Movement.

Now what that tells me is that simply electing more black politicians isn't going to solve anything since the black politicians that have been elected so far have shown little to no interest in changing or opposing the status quo.

Doesn't seem to be working in Baltimore.

11164785_998566593487691_653532371352223360_n.jpg
 
Now what that tells me is that simply electing more black politicians isn't going to solve anything since the black politicians that have been elected so far have shown little to no interest in changing or opposing the status quo.

It's notable that the ones who are quite vocal about changing the status quo can't get elected in the first place. I'm thinking of people like Al Sharpton.
 
Doesn't seem to be working in Baltimore.

11164785_998566593487691_653532371352223360_n.jpg

Does the make you see how silly it is to claim that Christians are persecuted in the United States? Or that some how atheists are the reason the United States is so screwed up?

Doesn't Baltimore have a significant Christian population? You would think it would be more peaceful than it is.
 
Does the make you see how silly it is to claim that Christians are persecuted in the United States? Or that some how atheists are the reason the United States is so screwed up?

Doesn't Baltimore have a significant Christian population? You would think it would be more peaceful than it is.

Again, there is a lot more in being a Christian than actually just claiming to be one.

But you knew that.
 
Again, there is a lot more in being a Christian than actually just claiming to be one.

But you knew that.

I'm confident that he did know that. The question is though; how many self proclaimed Christians know that? And why the real Christians put up with them is another good question.
 
Again, there is a lot more in being a Christian than actually just claiming to be one.

But you knew that.

Yeah, given the Sodomy level of poverty that is allowed to go on in Baltimore, I have come to the conclusion there are very few real Christians around anymore.
 
I'm confident that he did know that. The question is though; how many self proclaimed Christians know that? And why the real Christians put up with them is another good question.

I can answer that how many question. The answer is all of them. After they die.

Yeah, given the Sodomy level of poverty that is allowed to go on in Baltimore, I have come to the conclusion there are very few real Christians around anymore.

Narrow is the path.
 
Doesn't seem to be working in Baltimore.

11164785_998566593487691_653532371352223360_n.jpg

Interesting graphic. Racism in this day might look a lot like using strawmen to claim racism doesn't exist. Unfortunately I'm not culturally attuned enough to tell the relative proportion of racism in bringing up that he was a criminal, and implying he was deserving of death, from the usual background of American lust for punitive vengeance.

Bunch of unchristian sentiments to be sure. Christians seem to be a largely hypothetical bunch more easily able to exist on the internet than in practice.
 
I don't see how electing more black politicians is supposed to solve anything. I mean, look at all the black politicians that have been elected at every level of government and still nothing has changed. Hell, we even have a black president and to hear black people tell it, they are worse off than they have been since the Civil Rights Movement.
Right, like I said, it remains to be seen whether there will be any meaningful change to the police department or if cars and stores will be on fire again in another twenty years. I think a City Council that more closely represents the population (one of the new officials is also a woman) is a good start, but only a start.

As for whether the situation is worse now than it's been since the '60s, lots of people of all ethnicities think a lot of things are worse than they were, and they're often wrong. Crime, for example, is lower in a lot of American cities than it was years or decades ago. Lots of people are more worried about their kids than ever, yet their kids are generally safer than ever. The best theory for this misunderstanding that I've heard is that because our media access is 24/7, and we get stories from all over the country and world more easily than we used to, stories of mayhem and danger are more frequent even if the events are less frequent.

But I think the exposure all this violence is getting, all these rocks that are finally getting turned over, is ultimately a good thing. The proliferation of video cameras and the ability to make those videos viewable by much of the planet might be the best thing to happen for civil rights since The Civil Rights Movement.

Now what that tells me is that simply electing more black politicians isn't going to solve anything since the black politicians that have been elected so far have shown little to no interest in changing or opposing the status quo.
Except the State's Attorney for Baltimore (who's black) filed charges against the officers there, and the mayor (also black) invited the Justice Department to conduct a "pattern or practice" investigation on her own police department. Unless that happens all the time and I just haven't heard about it, I'd call that change and opposition to the status quo (because I do believe that the excessive force used by these officers happens all the time and I just don't hear about it). Under Eric Holder, our first black Attorney General, the Justice Department launched official investigations into at least 21 local police departments (it was up to 17 as of September 2011, before Ferguson, Albuquerque, Cleveland and Baltimore). I can't find with a quick Google search how many such investigations were conducted prior to Holder taking office, but there were some; the federal law allowing the DOJ to do this was passed in 1994, and the first police department to come under federal oversight, Pittsburgh's, was in 1997.

The question is whether this all represents genuine, lasting change, and isn't just a dog & pony show to placate the angry masses until they get distracted and move onto the next thing. If that's what it is, I expect we'll be having this conversation again in another 20 years. I guess Pittsburgh is nearly ripe for seeing where things stand 20 years after one of these federal investigations, if I felt like doing the research. Does anyone here live in Pittsburgh? Do the police there still kick the crap out of people?

I think the fact that much of Baltimore's police department is black highlights what I've believed all along, that it's not "a few bad apples", but that our whole law enforcement system is badly screwed up. I'm sure there are plenty of white police officers who are well-intentioned and well-behaved and who say nothing when one of their colleagues throws a black kid up against the car without probable cause.

And whether you believe the problems with law enforcement are issues of race, or class, or violence, or unchecked authority, it would be foolish to think that black people can't contribute to or participate in a racist infrastructure. That's what "Uncle Tom" means, which is not a new term (Merriam-Webster says the first known use was 1922). We also have "coconut" and "Oreo", and probably others. I've always heard that some American slave owners appointed slaves to be overseers, probably rewarding them with better food and housing for their families, and of course giving them authority over the other slaves.
 
Interesting graphic. Racism in this day might look a lot like using strawmen to claim racism doesn't exist. Unfortunately I'm not culturally attuned enough to tell the relative proportion of racism in bringing up that he was a criminal, and implying he was deserving of death, from the usual background of American lust for punitive vengeance.

Bunch of unchristian sentiments to be sure. Christians seem to be a largely hypothetical bunch more easily able to exist on the internet than in practice.
I'm sure that lots of self-described Christians don't put their words into practice, but I'm equally sure they're no different in that regard than other people. And there certainly are a lot of examples of Christian charity around here, with all the hospitals founded by them. There used to be a whole network of non-profit healthcare centers called Caritas Cristi, with hospitals with names like Cardinal Cushing, St. Elizabeth's, Good Samaritan, etc. Naturally, after the recent economic crash, the network was bought by a decidedly non-Christian private equity firm (appropriately named for the 3-headed 'Hound of Hell') and turned into a for-profit system.
 
Again, there is a lot more in being a Christian than actually just claiming to be one.

But you knew that.

There is a lot more in being black than actually just claiming to be one, or even just looking like one.
 
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