missing the point
2020-May-29, Friday 12:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mellowtiggerWhat a difference a few hours can make. Yesterday's post seems almost naive now.
Minneapolis and St. Paul burned.
The looting spread to my neighborhood too. The discount store was looted around 2:30am behind the laundromat that I use.
I'm typing now as I watch the live broadcast of Governor Walz this morning. I notice the profound absence of the central demand:
As I hear the reporters question Walz, they ask nothing about this central issue! Instead, they're trying to assign blame for slow deployment of armed authority, when it should be clear to everyone that policing is solely a local responsibility, and they were the very source of these protests in the first place. Our military is not an internal police force. It should never be. The question these reporters should be asking (repeatedly), is:
I think that Mayor Frey was correct to withhold the police force as a catalyst to even greater mayhem than we saw last night. Even when people were protesting peacefully, the police behaved badly.
There even seems to be some evidence that police themselves might have instigated the rioting by breaking windows around the protest crowd with the familiar (from Occupy days) "false flag" operation.
I understand and approve the anger on display. I agree with Mayor Frey's assessment that lives are more important than property. I've said exactly so several times, including on this very blog: "Stuff is replaceable, but people are not."
I am safe but concerned. I will continue to avoid scenes that I suspect to be dangerous. I will continue to support the outrage that police officers killed a man on video, and they still are not arrested, again. Destroying useful infrastructure is usually a very stupid thing to do, but policing must change. It must.
Minneapolis and St. Paul burned.
The looting spread to my neighborhood too. The discount store was looted around 2:30am behind the laundromat that I use.
I'm typing now as I watch the live broadcast of Governor Walz this morning. I notice the profound absence of the central demand:
Arrest the people who killed George Floyd.
As I hear the reporters question Walz, they ask nothing about this central issue! Instead, they're trying to assign blame for slow deployment of armed authority, when it should be clear to everyone that policing is solely a local responsibility, and they were the very source of these protests in the first place. Our military is not an internal police force. It should never be. The question these reporters should be asking (repeatedly), is:
I think that Mayor Frey was correct to withhold the police force as a catalyst to even greater mayhem than we saw last night. Even when people were protesting peacefully, the police behaved badly.
https://twitter.com/stribrooks/status/1266186985041022976
(video of police driving by protesters and macing them)
(video of police driving by protesters and macing them)
There even seems to be some evidence that police themselves might have instigated the rioting by breaking windows around the protest crowd with the familiar (from Occupy days) "false flag" operation.
https://twitter.com/SheGotTh1s/status/1266102723793035264
(video of masked white man breaking windows...)
https://twitter.com/k3lese/status/1265871849310900226
(... while peaceful protesters intervene)
(video of masked white man breaking windows...)
https://twitter.com/k3lese/status/1265871849310900226
(... while peaceful protesters intervene)
I understand and approve the anger on display. I agree with Mayor Frey's assessment that lives are more important than property. I've said exactly so several times, including on this very blog: "Stuff is replaceable, but people are not."
I am safe but concerned. I will continue to avoid scenes that I suspect to be dangerous. I will continue to support the outrage that police officers killed a man on video, and they still are not arrested, again. Destroying useful infrastructure is usually a very stupid thing to do, but policing must change. It must.