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Is America burning? (Black Lives Matter protests, civil unrest and riots 2020)

treelover said:
Great post, but how does it differ from the events of 68 and the Humphrey vs Nixon Presendential battle, were Nixon mobilised the 'silent majority' to vote for him, or isn't there a S/M now?
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Took a while to reply because I wanted to give a decent answer. I'm not old enough to have any firsthand knowledge of '68, but I've read a few things about the '68 election. I mean, 1968 was its own thing - RFK was assassinated, MLK was assassinated, segregation was just beginning to end. Many events that have no parallels today, just as the situation today has many aspects that have no parallels in 1968 - the internet in general and the economic situation being some I could name.

In 1968 you have like 3 television channels and maybe you read the newspaper. The rest of your information came from personal experiences which are colored by your location and social group. I think a lot more people back then took their information from single, mass channels and it caused a majority to have unified opinions about national policy. This is... not the case today. I don't think I need to really write a huge amount explaining the internet's impact on socialization, but in the context of America it had the effect of breaking down the information gap that comes about as a result of the physical isolation of America from other continents. We're connected to people we would never have met before, and we can glimpse the full variety of opinions about issues at a glance. On the negative side, it becomes easier to manipulate information (by third parties; maybe not by states) and fradulently push political narratives. To put it simply, the establishment had better control of what Americans knew about the world, the war, the protests, etc in 1968. A lot of people of course didn't buy the general narrative of the media in 1968, but in 2020 the mass narrative is much, much weaker and is in constant competition with many others.

In 1968 the United States was absolutely dominating economically. GDP is a stupid measure, but I'm too lazy to make this comprehensive, so I'll mention that US GDP at the time was about equal to all of Europe plus the Soviet Union (getting numbers on Soviet GDP is hard so this sum may be bullshit, but regardless, America was really fucking economically powerful at the time). This wealth was also distributed more evenly than it was today (the US has always been an oligarchy, but it's gotten much worse since then.) That means the average (white) person was making money, might have had a house paid off, etc; they were doing well. I've read a huge amount about life in 1968 and almost nowhere does anyone mention being worried about making rent or getting a job or paying off student loans or medical bills. The poor are always out there, but Americans could pretty easily look at their lifestyles and know that they were better off than any country on earth. What is there to protest about? Just beat communism and we won't have to send people to die in jungles anymore, then we can all drive cars around, high five, and say "america number one" while having it actually be true. It seemed obvious that American capitalism was providing the goods, so may as well stay the course, right?

Today, the US is in a very, very different position. There is no Cold War, and no equivalent (China is not equivalent. I just bought like ten things from there. Americans were not buying products made in the USSR in 1968, they were thinking about whether or not to nuke them). This is a multipolar world. And with the Internet, it's easier to look at other countries and say "Hey, shit, I wish we had that. Why don't we have that? That looks like a better life." I sure as hell look at the NHS that way. Lots and lots and lots of Americans do now. I remember reading a discussion online where a European didn't know what a "deductible" was, and I wished I didn't know what it was. Seeing other countries with better functioning democracies, better healthcare, equal or more effective industry, affordable housing, etc, you realize that there's political improvements to be made. Some idiots will close their eyes and cram their fingers in their ears and yell "lalala America is the best place to live in the world, everyone wishes they were Americans", or they ignore any mention of a foreign country with a better way and call it "america bashing", and some people are just old and used to USA = #1 and refuse to believe otherwise. But Americans are really starting to notice that their lives could be better because there are other countries that seem to be doing better, and you can watch a video on your phone if you want proof.

What's kind of interesting to me is that "economic memory" seems to be very weak in America, it's still not widely understood just how cheap college and housing were 40-50 years ago and what that meant for poorer people's quality of life. My life would be very, very different if renting an apartment was like $80 a month. When I realized this gap in housing costs for the first time, it changed my whole view of the '60s in America. It would have been fucking easy to smoke weed and read political theory and go out to protests and just pick up a job whereever on occasion and get enough money to travel around for months back then. And if you did work and save for a few years you could own a house outright. That was genuinely possible back then, and it isn't now for most. Those who did come of age in the '60s sometimes still believe that this is easily achievable, but it really isn't for most professions and areas. You can't get a job that will pay off a house in a few years unless you have a postgraduate degree; even then you've got a tough road. Americans my age have been working like crazy to survive for years. Nobody I know owns a house, though I know people who got mortgages, then lost their jobs and had to short sell, leaving them in debt. In 1968 they had just passed LBJ's great society programs, which included rent subsidies, medicaid and medicare, and they all applied FAR more broadly to the population than the extremely restrictive social assistance programs the US has today. All that stuff you have to pay for now, and it's eaten away at the financially stable silent majority sorts.

Electorally, Trump doesn't have and has never had a "silent majority", he has only ever had a hardcore minority of support and votes in the right places to make it into the white house despite losing the popular vote by three million. He has a majority in more rural areas but they aren't silent in the least. Though I do see that the popular vote was close in '68, Nixon won that by ~500,000 votes. I would imagine at a personal level Nixon was much more respected than Trump, because I think he could probably speak coherent sentences and not pointlessly antagonize people at every opportunity. These are all just some of the differences that would lead to there really not being a similar "silent majority" today.
 
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Gimigimi said:
Took a while to reply because I wanted to give a decent answer. I'm not old enough to have any firsthand knowledge of '68, but I've read a few things about the '68 election. I mean, 1968 was its own thing - RFK was assassinated, MLK was assassinated, segregation was just beginning to end. Many events that have no parallels today, just as the situation today has many aspects that have no parallels in 1968 - the internet in general and the economic situation being some I could name.

In 1968 you have like 3 television channels and maybe you read the newspaper. The rest of your information came from personal experiences which are colored by your location and social group. I think a lot more people back then took their information from single, mass channels and it caused a majority to have unified opinions about national policy. This is... not the case today. I don't think I need to really write a huge amount explaining the internet's impact on socialization, but in the context of America it had the effect of breaking down the information gap that comes about as a result of the physical isolation of America from other continents. We're connected to people we would never have met before, and we can glimpse the full variety of opinions about issues at a glance. On the negative side, it becomes easier to manipulate information (by third parties; maybe not by states) and fradulently push political narratives. To put it simply, the establishment had better control of what Americans knew about the world, the war, the protests, etc in 1968. A lot of people of course didn't buy the general narrative of the media in 1968, but in 2020 the mass narrative is much, much weaker and is in constant competition with many others.

In 1968 the United States was absolutely dominating economically. GDP is a stupid measure, but I'm too lazy to make this comprehensive, so I'll mention that US GDP at the time was about equal to all of Europe plus the Soviet Union (getting numbers on Soviet GDP is hard so this sum may be bullshit, but regardless, America was really fucking economically powerful at the time). This wealth was also distributed more evenly than it was today (the US has always been an oligarchy, but it's gotten much worse since then.) That means the average (white) person was making money, might have had a house paid off, etc; they were doing well. I've read a huge amount about life in 1968 and almost nowhere does anyone mention being worried about making rent or getting a job or paying off student loans or medical bills. The poor are always out there, but Americans could pretty easily look at their lifestyles and know that they were better off than any country on earth. What is there to protest about? Just beat communism and we won't have to send people to die in jungles anymore, then we can all drive cars around, high five, and say "america number one" while having it actually be true. It seemed obvious that American capitalism was providing the goods, so may as well stay the course, right?

Today, the US is in a very, very different position. There is no Cold War, and no equivalent (China is not equivalent. I just bought like ten things from there. Americans were not buying products made in the USSR in 1968, they were thinking about whether or not to nuke them). This is a multipolar world. And with the Internet, it's easier to look at other countries and say "Hey, shit, I wish we had that. Why don't we have that? That looks like a better life." I sure as hell look at the NHS that way. Lots and lots and lots of Americans do now. I remember reading a discussion online where a European didn't know what a "deductible" was, and I wished I didn't know what it was. Seeing other countries with better functioning democracies, better healthcare, equal or more effective industry, affordable housing, etc, you realize that there's political improvements to be made. Some idiots will close their eyes and cram their fingers in their ears and yell "lalala America is the best place to live in the world, everyone wishes they were Americans", or they ignore any mention of a foreign country with a better way and call it "america bashing", and some people are just old and used to USA = #1 and refuse to believe otherwise. But Americans are really starting to notice that their lives could be better because there are other countries that seem to be doing better, and you can watch a video on your phone if you want proof.

What's kind of interesting to me is that "economic memory" seems to be very weak in America, it's still not widely understood just how cheap college and housing were 40-50 years ago and what that meant for poorer people's quality of life. My life would be very, very different if renting an apartment was like $80 a month. When I realized this gap in housing costs for the first time, it changed my whole view of the '60s in America. It would have been fucking easy to smoke weed and read political theory and go out to protests and just pick up a job whereever on occasion and get enough money to travel around for months back then. And if you did work and save for a few years you could own a house outright. That was genuinely possible back then, and it isn't now for most. Those who did come of age in the '60s sometimes still believe that this is easily achievable, but it really isn't for most professions and areas. You can't get a job that will pay off a house in a few years unless you have a postgraduate degree; even then you've got a tough road. Americans my age have been working like crazy to survive for years. Nobody I know owns a house, though I know people who got mortgages, then lost their jobs and had to short sell, leaving them in debt. In 1968 they had just passed LBJ's great society programs, which included rent subsidies, medicaid and medicare, and they all applied FAR more broadly to the population than the extremely restrictive social assistance programs the US has today. All that stuff you have to pay for now, and it's eaten away at the financially stable silent majority sorts.

Electorally, Trump doesn't have and has never had a "silent majority", he has only ever had a hardcore minority of support and votes in the right places to make it into the white house despite losing the popular vote by three million. He has a majority in more rural areas but they aren't silent in the least. Though I do see that the popular vote was close in '68, Nixon won that by ~500,000 votes. I would imagine at a personal level Nixon was much more respected than Trump, because I think he could probably speak coherent sentences and not pointlessly antagonize people at every opportunity. These are all just some of the differences that would lead to there really not being a similar "silent majority" today.
Click to expand...
What was there to protest about in 1968? Housing and college were cheap then? Doubtless college was cheaper in 1945 but still utterly out of reach for a vast number of people, so much so that the gi bill with its (as I understand) free college for veterans made a vast difference to a huge number of people. But really, what was there to protest about in 1968? Not to mention the utter shit you post about the poor and about housing. I am astonished you claim that's a decent answer to poor treelover's post
 
Mattym said:
It's quite long- so I flicked to 1 hr 20 mins in. Any particular bits of the beasting which I need to hear? Or should `I just continue through it?
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Loads of callers, some more eloquent, some more (enjoyably) abusive. Most making similar points though, listen to any bit and you'll get the gist.

Interesting points I remember though...

54% of LA budget goes to police.
Big push (by the sound of it) for a People's Budget which defunds them.
Police still pushing for budget increases.
 
teqniq said:
Who are these guys then? No-one seems to know (read thread).

Click to expand...


Dunno, could be from any one of a number of federal agencies, does it matter though? Probably some sub-unit of the FBI, maybe HRT as looks like their kit, or maybe the ATF. Who cares? Not some conspiracy grouping though.
 
LynnDoyleCooper said:
Dunno, could be from any one of a number of federal agencies, does it matter though? Probably some sub-unit of the FBI, maybe HRT as looks like their kit, or maybe the ATF. Who cares? Not some conspiracy grouping though.
Click to expand...

I think being able to identify who is 'policing' you matters.

It matters on an individual level; i.e. with regard to the rights of individual citizens and the responsibilities of individual officers.

It matters organisationally; i.e. with regard to what body/bodies needs to be held to account.

It matters politically; i.e. who authorised and paid for their use.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice
 
OK, I agree it kind of matters in that way, although I'd say whether it's the FBI, ATF, or some local SWAT doesn't really make much difference really.

What's happening though is all these photos are provoking all sorts of bonkers conspiracy theories about agent provocateurs, militias, PMCs, etc. and leading people down rabbit holes of nonsense that's a bit politically destructive.
 
LynnDoyleCooper said:
OK, I agree it kind of matters in that way, although I'd say whether it's the FBI, ATF, or some local SWAT doesn't really make much difference really.

What's happening though is all these photos are provoking all sorts of bonkers conspiracy theories about agent provocateurs, militias, PMCs, etc. and leading people down rabbit holes of nonsense that's a bit politically destructive.
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why would you say it?

It matters a great deal if you are detained by or injured by them
 
fishfinger said:
Apparently, they are riot teams from the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Click to expand...

That's one suggestion (another is that they are 'private security contractors'); nothing has been confirmed.

If it is true, then it would matter because using officers trained to suppress riots in prisons, in a public order context, is pretty obviously fraught with danger.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice
 
SpookyFrank said:
They got enough gear strapped to them? I bet they're never more than 30 feet from their van ffs.
Click to expand...
Wearing all that gear to face civilians to me gives the impression that they are perpetually terrified every time they are deployed. No wonder people end up dead through their actions.
The historian Noble Frankland, former director-general of the Imperial War Museum was adamant that psychological studies should be done to understand the fear of those on the frontline. He was convinced that those who served while suffering from deep rooted fear were those that committed the worst atrocities. Admittedly he was referring to soldiers, but how else can the police in the states be perceived.
 
Sprocket. said:
Wearing all that gear to face civilians to me gives the impression that they are perpetually terrified every time they are deployed.
Click to expand...

I reckon they're just cosplaying special forces with a bunch of superfluous (and probably very expensive) tat to make them feel important and scary.

I wonder how much of the vast expenditure on police and prisons in the US goes on stupid shit that will never be used. IIRC there are police forces in one-horse towns that have actual tanks.
 
Sprocket. said:
Wearing all that gear to face civilians to me gives the impression that they are perpetually terrified every time they are deployed. No wonder people end up dead through their actions.
The historian Noble Frankland, former director-general of the Imperial War Museum was adamant that psychological studies should be done to understand the fear of those on the frontline. He was convinced that those who served while suffering from deep rooted fear were those that committed the worst atrocities. Admittedly he was referring to soldiers, but how else can the police in the states be perceived.
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Absolutely. I don't think it's news that a scared copper is a dangerous copper, tbf.
 
For those that want a modded and curated US protests source then this Reddit is a great place to go. I'm liking Redditt more and more these days as the uptick/downtick means you get to see the most useful/popular material separated from the dross of an undifferentiated stream.
 
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SpookyFrank said:
IIRC there are police forces in one-horse towns that have actual tanks.
Click to expand...
But then that's the big Military-Industrial Complex/TWAT cup game procurement con trick - selling on slightly older military gear to tumbleweed town PDs for pennies in lieu of actual Federal support for crime prevention or offender rehabilitation, to free up warehousing/garaging space & save the DoD the maintenance costs so they can buy a crapload more shiny new shit.
 
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