Open Thread and Link Farm, Mailboxes Edition

  1. How to Test Every American for COVID-19, Every Day – The Atlantic
  2. U.S. Immigration Law’s Unconstitutional Double Standards – The Atlantic
  3. Three Words. 70 Cases. The Tragic History of ‘I Can’t Breathe.’ – The New York Times
  4. Three Cheers for Socialism! | Commonweal Magazine
    “Chiefly, what [Americans] have been trained not to know or even suspect is that, in many ways, they enjoy far fewer freedoms, and suffer under a more intrusive centralized state, than do the citizens of countries with more vigorous social-democratic institutions.”
  5. Why Black Voters Prefer Establishment Candidates Over Liberal Alternatives | FiveThirtyEight
    Established relationships, and being risk adverse. The effect seems somewhat smaller if the liberal alternative is a credible Black candidate.
  6. A Better Remedy for Cancel Culture – Persuasion
    That “better remedy” being ending (or at least limiting) at-will employment. Some very interesting comments, as well.
  7. Lackawanna woman died as she lived: hating Tom Brady | Buffalo Bills News | NFL | buffalonews.com
  8. The Black Officer Who Detained George Floyd Had Pledged to Fix the Police – The New York Times And an alternate link.
  9. The gruesome, untold story of Eva Peron’s lobotomy – BBC Future
    Interesting, but less than certain.
  10. New Work by Gary Larson | TheFarSide.com
  11. Words for cutting: Why we need to stop abusing “the tone argument”
    Written five years ago and still terribly relevant today.
  12. Teens in Argentina are leading the charge to eliminate gender in language – The Washington Post and an alternate link.
  13. The Unstrung Power of Elaine Stritch in “Original Cast Album: Company” | The New Yorker
  14. Why Are Hospitals Censoring Doctors and Nurses? – The Atlantic
  15. Why It Was Easier to Be Skinny in the 1980s – The Atlantic
  16. Yavne: A Jewish Case for Equality in Israel-Palestine
  17. Abigail Nussbaum — How to do Garak/Bashir in Canon DS9

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92 Responses to Open Thread and Link Farm, Mailboxes Edition

  1. 1
    Ampersand says:

    Marion County, Fla., Sheriff Billy Woods bans deputies from wearing face masks – The Washington Post

    He does make a few exceptions – for instance, a deputy visiting a hospital is allowed to wear a mask while in the hospital. The rule also applies to anyone who visits the Sheriff’s office.

  2. 2
    Jacqueline Onassis Squid says:

    Maybe I need to read further into the piece, but #11 just seems wrong in its execution. What I mean by that is that the first set of 3 examples doesn’t have anything to do with tone. The issue with that set is that they are, in order, an offensive, bigoted, transphobic declaration, an explicit call for violence against the target and an explicit call for violence against the target. None of them are examples of righteous outrage and I don’t see how this is relevant to, or furthers, the position of the author. The argument against those statements is not about tone, it’s about a bigoted slur and two calls for violence against an individual.

    I’m not getting it.

  3. 4
    Ampersand says:

    Thanks for that link, Nobody – for the most part, I found it really persuasive.

  4. 6
    Ampersand says:

    An anti-MLK cartoon from back in the day. Seem familiar?

  5. 7
    LTL FTC says:

    #11 is an oldie but goodie. Joe Biden won on tone and tone alone. Bernie’s screeching revolutionaries made his movement look unfit for governance, Warren and her supporters projected smugness, though it’s considered sexist to say. Joe Biden, OTOH, is your favorite politician’s buddy, always smiling, and doesn’t have an army of thinkpiecers and reply guys who hate all the other candidates. And look who won.

    Calling out tone policing is a close-quarters weapon. You can silence and intimidate people in your circle, and allies will know the rules and submit. At a wider range, it’s just a crutch that prevents activists from developing an appealing message to the masses.

  6. 8
    Jacqueline Onassis Squid says:

    I think saying that Biden won on tone alone is a facile argument. Why should we totally ignore his history with the African American community? Why should we ignore the political preferences of Democratic?

  7. 9
    LTL FTC says:

    I think the tone appealed to African-American voters – a tone he has taken for decades. Black voters are so solidly in the Democratic Party because the Republicans are built in opposition to (fear of) Black people, not because very many Black voters are leftist ideologues. They didn’t want the uncompromising or sky-is-falling tones offered by other candidates.

    The whole spectrum of Black political opinion fits in the Democratic Party, but the pontificators white people listen to when they want to know about Black public opinion are plucked almost exclusively from the pool of ideologues. The kind of people who enforce the anti-tone policing norm. Thus, everyone scratching their heads as to why being nice to segregationist senators in the 70s didn’t sink Biden like they thought it should have.

    Frankly, “tone policing” and nearly everything in Derailing for Dummies suppresses the electoral aspirations of the left.

  8. 10
    Jacqueline Squid Onassis says:

    Or, you know, he had Obama’s back, unquestioningly, for eight years. If his tone has been so good for decades, how come he never won even 1 delegate in his previous tries?

    Your theory is still in opposition to the facts and to history and, as such, is not at all convincing.

    Nor do I find the claim in our last sentence to rise above the level of “risible”. This is a position that relies purely on what you wish the world to be and not what the world actually is.

  9. 11
    nobody.really says:

    Black voters are so solidly in the Democratic Party because the Republicans are built in opposition to (fear of) Black people, not because very many Black voters are leftist ideologues. They didn’t want the uncompromising or sky-is-falling tones offered by other candidates.

    The whole spectrum of Black political opinion fits in the Democratic Party, but the pontificators white people listen to when they want to know about Black public opinion are plucked almost exclusively from the pool of ideologues.

    Hidden Tribes analyzed the US population, looking for correlations between beliefs and attitudes. It won’t surprise anyone to learn that the most doctrinaire conservative tribes are predominantly white. But the study showed that the “Progressive Activist” tribe, representing only 8% of the population, is also more white (and more educated, and younger) than the population at large. Among other findings, the study revealed that Black and Hispanic people predominate in the “Passive Liberal” and “Politically Disengaged” tribes, which combined represent 41% of the population. In particular, Black and Hispanic people tend to have more socially conservative views, professing more traditional views on sex and religion.

    This aspect of the Hidden Tribes study largely corroborated the findings of the Pew Research Center, which found that the “Solid Liberals” tribe, representing 16% of the population, was disproportionately white and educated. People of color were more likely to be found in the more moderate “Devout and Diverse,” “Disaffected Democrats,” and “Opportunity Democrats” tribes, representing 35% of the population.

    Likewise, these findings were corroborated by the Democracy Fund’s “Placing Priority” study. This study found that the Democrat/Independent Liberal Elites tribe, representing 13% of the electorate, was disproportionately young, educated, and white. People of color were more likely to be found in the Democrat-Leaning Working Class tribe, representing 27% of the electorate, which is older and more moderate. The main conclusion of this study was that Republican-leaning tribes have more similar demographics, and thus could more easily achieve a semblance of unity, than could these two Democratic-leaning tribes.

    In sum, the most “woke” Democrats tend to express political views that are to the left of the views embraced by most people of color.

  10. 12
    Ampersand says:

    Nobody: Do you know if either analysis compared young, well-educated whites to young, well-educated Blacks (and the same question for Asians and for Latinos)?

  11. 13
    Ampersand says:

    I can partly answer my own question: Brookings, analyzing data from Gallop, found that Blacks with a college degree are much more likely to be liberal Democrats than Blacks without a college degree (who were more comparatively more likely to be moderate Democrats). However, Blacks with a college degree are still less likely to be liberal Dems (43%) than whites with a college degree (68%). Latinos were in the middle (52%). See table three here.

    (I couldn’t find anything that accounted for race, education, and age at once.)

    A wrinkle: What does it mean to say that people are “moderate Democrats,” at a time when the Democratic party as a whole has been moving left? My guess is that if you could poll a moderate Democrat now, and compare their issue views to a moderate Democrat 15 years ago, you’d find the current-day moderate is to the left of the present-day moderate on many issues.

  12. 14
    LTL FTC says:

    Amp: “moderate” changes over time, but so do the issues. It’s hard to say what a 2005 Dem with a moderate orientation would think about, say, regulating social media.

    But my point was that these moderate voters – including moderate black voters who – care a lot more about tone and people skills, wherever they land on, say, Medicare for all vs. a public option. The very term “moderate”, as opposed to something more concrete like Marxism, is more about tone and consensus than a list of things to accomplish on in power. It’s an attitude, not a program.

    The argument against Tone policing, which treats a speaker’s right to be obnoxious as sacred if they tick enough demographic boxes, is anti-moderate by nature.

  13. 15
    Jacqueline Onassis Squid says:

    We get your point, LTL FTC. The issue I have with your claims is that you’ve given no factual support for them. There isn’t much, if any, factual support for your claims but you haven’t even tried. All you’re doing is repeating the same baseless opinions without either addressing our refutations or providing any support for them.

    No matter how many times you write that African Americans are all about tone and nothing else, you won’t convince anyone to stop laughing at the absurdity of that opinion.

  14. 16
    LTL FTC says:

    I’m not sure which “Facts” answer the question one way or another. It is a theory of why some predictions came to pass and others did not.

    Biden’s relationship with Obama, the way he spoke about grief, the way he deals with people in small group settings, are all matters of tone.

  15. 17
    Ampersand says:

    It’s hard to say what a 2005 Dem with a moderate orientation would think about, say, regulating social media.

    A lot of issues don’t change, though. A moderate Democrat in 2005 would have been against gay marriage if asked – and probably would have found the idea ridiculous. A moderate Dem in 2005 would certainly be against pot legalization; nowadays, a moderate Dem could be either for or against that. A moderate democrat today would be far more liberal about expanding medicaid and medicare access than one in 2005. The Equality Act (lgbt rights) would have been too far for most moderate Democrats in 2005; it passed the House unanimously among Democrats last year. Etc, etc..

  16. 18
    Jacqueline Squid Onassis says:

    Biden’s relationship with Obama…

    Ah. So you’re saying that by “tone” you mean “anything LTL FTC classifies as tone”.

    I begin to understand you more and since it just means whatever you want it to mean and you can cite nothing to support your theory of politics, I’ll leave you to it. But you may want to consider that your repeated assertion of your theory is not convincing in the least. There’s no there, there, as the kids said once upon a time.

  17. 19
    RonF says:

    I have a question regarding these events (and yes, this is not a primary source link, but there’s plenty of them cited in it and it has videos):

    On the ninety-third night of violent antifa riots in Portland, a group of protesters occupied the lobby of Mayor Ted Wheeler’s (D-Portland) apartment building as a mob held a block party outside and activists shined strobe lights into Wheeler’s window

    Across town, antifa rioters marched to the police union wearing helmets, goggles, gas masks, and black clothing. They also carried shields. The mob arrived at about midnight, blocking traffic and cutting the power line to the building, the police reported. The police union building is in a residential neighborhood. Ngo suggested that the protesters harassing Wheeler’s apartment complex had moved on to attack the police union.

    Rioters wheeled dumpsters into the road and lit at least one of them on fire. Then they proceeded to pile up debris, including a large mattress, against the front door of the building. Rioters sprayed accelerant on the mattress and lit it on fire. “The flames appeared to engulf the front door area of the building and nearly reach the roofline,” police reported. The cops declared the arson attack a riot and moved the rioters away from the building in order to extinguish the fire. As the cops moved into action, “rioters threw objects at them, including rocks.” Antifa rioters struck multiple officers with rocks, causing minor injuries.

    What would you propose be done about this? Should it be allowed to continue? Should force sufficient to stop it be applied? What should be done?

    Does anyone here still propose that reports of mobs targeting the police union HQ are suspect? How is this being covered in the local media? Does anyone here still propose that the violence has stopped because the Feds left town?

  18. 20
    a says:

    I see now that a Trump supporter was shot to death in a street skirmish between right-wing and left-wing groups in Portland.

    I thought predictions of a second civil war were kind of hysterics before, but now I’m not so sure.

  19. 21
    Kate says:

    Ron, my first instinct was to tell you to link to a reputable news source. I do not accept your quote or the piece you linked to as an accurate description of the state of affairs in Portland, much less an accurate characterization of the protests more broadly. But, the fact of the matter is, if it were an accurate characterization, my answer would be much the same.
    Peaceful protesters must not only be allowed to protest, they should be encouraged. Left wing protesters should be greeted with the same restraint, deference and respect that the white, gun-wielding anti-mask protesters storming into state capitol buildings are. The police know how to use tactics which deescalate conflict – they do it all the time with right-wing protesters. They are choosing tactics designed to heighten tensions with left wing protesters because they disagree with their political message. That has got to change. We need our police forces to submit to civilian political control. That is what these protests are about, and they are righteous.
    Individuals who actually destroy property or commit violence against others should be arrested and prosecuted for their crimes. This should be handled by local officials. The Feds should stay out unless they are invited in by local officials.
    Anyone who values democracy should be protesting now if they can, not wringing their hands over the very limited number of property crimes being committed under the cover of the protests by a combination of antifa, alt-right agitators, and garden variety criminals. If the person killed last night in Portland was killed by an anti-fascist (which has not been established), that is the first person to die at the hands of an anti-fascist since 1994.

    A new database of nearly 900 politically motivated attacks and plots in the United States since 1994 includes just one attack staged by an anti-fascist that led to fatalities. In that case, the single person killed was the perpetrator.
    Over the same time period, American white supremacists and other rightwing extremists have carried out attacks that left at least 329 victims dead, according to the database.
    More broadly, the database lists 21 victims killed in leftwing attacks since 2010, and 117 victims of rightwing attacks in that same period – nearly six times as much.https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/27/us-rightwing-extremists-attacks-deaths-database-leftwing-antifa

    If the police really wanted to keep these protests peaceful, they would be focusing on calming the right-wing agitators, not egging them on, as they tragically did in Kenosha.

  20. 22
    Kate says:

    Excellent piece from Rebecca Watson

  21. 23
    Fibi says:

    Kate – there have been studies before demonstrating that our political valence can shape our perceptions. This one is one I always remember. It differs from your link in that it shows both sides fall victim to this failure of rationality.

  22. 24
    RonF says:

    Kate:

    Ron, my first instinct was to tell you to link to a reputable news source. I do not accept your quote or the piece you linked to as an accurate description of the state of affairs in Portland,

    Do you deny that the events described in the link I gave occurred? Do you have an alternative explanation for what is seen in the videos?

    Peaceful protesters must not only be allowed to protest, they should be encouraged. Left wing protesters should be greeted with the same restraint, deference and respect that the white, gun-wielding anti-mask protesters storming into state capitol buildings are.

    True, but off topic. I’m not asking how to deal with peaceful protesters. I may not agree with their point of view, but that’s not the problem. I’m asking how to deal with violent mobs.

    Individuals who actually destroy property or commit violence against others should be arrested and prosecuted for their crimes. This should be handled by local officials.

    I again agree. What I’m asking for is a description of how to do so. In this case we have armed mobs who – unlike the people who showed up armed at that State capitol – are bent on and are actually routinely committing violence and property destruction and are attempting or actually committing assaults on law enforcement officials. Arrests and prosecutions are an excellent answer for the course of action that should be pursued once such things have occurred. The question I’m asking is what should be done to stop it from happening in the first place. Or do you not think that it should be stopped, and the only answer is to permit it to occur and then attempt to identify, arrest and prosecute the offenders?

    The Feds should stay out unless they are invited in by local officials.

    From what I have read about the Feds’ involvement in Portland, they only showed up after requests from them to the local officials to stop the vandalism and assaults against Federal property went unanswered. It certainly is the prerogative of the Federal government to protect Federal property and officials without asking for the permission of any local or State authorities, especially if those authorities have refused to effectively act to prevent such acts. Is it your position that this is not true? And, in any case, these acts have been going on for quite some time after the State government finally agreed to properly secure the Federal property.

    They are choosing tactics designed to heighten tensions with left wing protesters because they disagree with their political message. That has got to change.

    What tactics have the police been using to heighten tensions with these mobs, and what tactics do you recommend for them to de-escalate situations such as those documented in my previous post?

  23. 25
    Corso says:

    @21, 24

    Ron, my first instinct was to tell you to link to a reputable news source. I do not accept your quote or the piece you linked to as an accurate description of the state of affairs in Portland,

    I think requests like this border unreasonable, and are actually primarily designed to avoid having the conversation. The most important thing should be whether the assertion is true or not. Or even materially true, with some editorializing. In the case of the Portland Riots, we all know those are happening, right? While it’s important to get facts right, and I’ll never say otherwise, and I appreciate all the help I get along the way, I think that ignoring the cities on fire because we’re worried about the specific type of accelerant used isn’t a great spend of time.

    I think that Democrats, generally, have done a poor job at differentiating between the riots and the protests. I even want to go so far as to point to an origin for this problem; CNN’s Chris Cuomo said on June 2nd: “Please, show me where it says protesters are supposed to be polite and peaceful.” in a segment while referring to the first amendment. Which Republicans immediately made hay with, because the text of the first amendment is: ““Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, & to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” I can’t find the words “mostly peaceful protest” before that point, the closest I got was an article that was titled “After peaceful afternoon, protests escalate in Madison” from May 30th. It’s possible, even probable, that there was some usage before then, but really late may, early June is when the term got traction. The media write large does not like to be mocked, and my belief is that they doubled down.

    Which served no one well. I don’t understand why we’re hiding “riot” inside semantics like “mostly peaceful protest”. Threatening and beating people isn’t protest, it’s Assault and Battery. Burning people’s livelihood isn’t protest, it’s Arson. When the protests devolve into riots, they’re “mostly peaceful protests” the same way a couple has a “mostly peaceful marriage” when the husband only beats his wide every third Thursday. The nature of violence changes things, and as opposed to carrying water for it, the legitimate protesters should have been doing everything in their power to disassociate from them. Democrats have been giving grief to Republicans for not disassociating hard enough from problematic groups that support them (often with great cause), and then when the opportunity came for Democrats to show Republicans how it’s done, they failed, opting instead to try to minimize the issue.

  24. 26
    Jacqueline Onassis Squid says:

    The city ain’t on fire. Everybody who lives here knows it. On my street, a full three miles from the site of the vast majority of protests, you’d have no idea there have been police riots nightly for over 3 months. Downtown, at the exact location of the nightly police riots, during the day you’d never know that anything was happening regularly aside from some boarded up shop windows and the barricades around the federal court building.

    So please take your claims that my city is on fire and shove them up Dollar Store Mussolini.

  25. 27
    Corso says:

    I guess it’s a “mostly not on fire city” then.

    Meanwhile, last night a person who describes himself as “100% ANTIFA” and has a long social media history of BLM support chased down and shot another man point blank in the head after yelling “We got a Trumper”. It’s on video.

    I don’t know what to tell you. If you have the privilege of living in a part of town that doesn’t need to board up windows for shop fires and don’t have to hear the sirens because the murders aren’t in your neighborhood, that’s… great. Really, it is. But it’s cold comfort to the people literally dying in your city.

  26. 28
    Ampersand says:

    Corso, as far as I know, there was no shooting in Portland last night.

    There was a shooting Saturday night, which afaik was not as you described. However, there is now a suspect, and he is pro-BLM.

    Pro-BLM protesters have been killed, too, although not in Portland. The Portland police haven’t killed any protesters yet (afaik), but they’ve grievously wounded several; there’s a well-known incident in which someone was shot in the head with “non-lethal” ammo, and suffered severe brain damage, and in another case a cop shot out a reporter’s eye.

    Do you not consider the violence a problem when it happens to protesters? Because you seem exclusively interested in talking about one kind of violence – and one that’s less common than either right-wing violence or police violence.

    I think it’s tragic that a right-wing extremist was killed on Saturday. But that doesn’t mean I think it deserves more attention than all other incidents of violence, or that I think it should be used to falsely claim that’s typical.

  27. 29
    Celeste says:

    I guess I just feel like the opinions and reports of Portland residents ought to be privileged over any “city in flaaaames” fearmongering from outsiders, whether those outsiders happen to be former reality TV personalities or not.

    Folks say they’re worried about the condition of Portland. Well, that’s great, but unless their concern is connected in some meaningful way to the things that the residents say Portland needs help with, then I have to question how much of this is about Portland and how much of it is about trying to silence ongoing vocal public opposition to the right.

    Like, if Portland residents say they need more federal money for their public schools, do these people give a shit? Or is their “we have to help Portland” stance pretty much limited to hiring more cops to beat up more protestors?

  28. 30
    Corso says:

    @28

    That’s the one I was referring to. I was actually just logging in to post some corrections; I was catching up from the weekend on my newsfeed, and the article I saw said “last night” but it was actually from Sunday, also, when I saw the video, it looked like the guy was shot in the head, but the article very clearly said chest.

    Do you not consider the violence a problem when it happens to protesters? Because you seem exclusively interested in talking about one kind of violence – and one that’s less common than either right-wing violence or police violence.

    No… Perhaps as we get more cases of police violence against protesters I can work on my ratio, but seeing as this is my first comment here on these protests and the violence surrounding them, any opinion would be exclusive. Derek Chauvin had no business being a police officer, and some of the calls and actions from police departments, and in particular the cavalier attitude of some police towards the protesters has been egregious in and of itself. and it’s especially egregious when you as a police officer have to know that people will be focused in on you, and you still act like that.

    That said… While it’s true on a long enough scale that “either right-wing violence or police violence” are more common, I think that in the last 90 days, and particularly when you look at the local situations, that isn’t true. These protests are uniquely violent. I can’t think of a 90 day period of time where protests held by a far-right group managed to accumulate 30~ homicides. I can’t think of the last far-right protest that resulted in entire burnt blocks. I can’t think of the last time a far-right group cordoned off a six black area of a major metro center. I think that the abortion clinic bombings might be as close as you could get for the fires, maybe Waco if you want to count police actions, and I think that the Cliven Bundy standoff is probably as close as you could get for CHAZ. My point, more than anything else, is that you have to go pretty far back to make even weak comparisons.

    I also think that it’s a mistake to mention far-right activity in the same way as police violence, as if they’re somehow related. We’re talking about the Portland Police Bureau, which is controlled by a city council and mayor that have been Democrats longer than I’ve been alive (The Mayor of Portland has been a Democrat for the last 63 years except for a 12 month stint in the 70’s) in a State where the Senate and House have been held by Democrats for at least 15 years and the Governor has been Democrat since the late 80s. If police violence in Portland is partisan in nature, I fail to see how any Republican could take credit for it. Unlike national issues, if Democrats in Portland were united in their thoughts surrounding the police, I can’t think of anything any Republican could do to stop them. The reality is that even Democrats aren’t united on this.

  29. 31
    Ampersand says:

    Corso, could you please provide links for the video you saw, and also for the “30~ homicides” and entirely burned block, etc.? And like some others, I’d prefer links to mainstream sources, if possible.

  30. 32
    Jacqueline Onassis Squid says:

    Wow. There have been at least DOZENS of documented instances of police violence against peaceful protestors in Portland alone over the last 3 months. The fact that you demand still more police violence before you’ll consider it is disturbing, but expected. I am appalled at your failure to even make a feint at both siderism and instead go with a pure Trumpist narrative in the face of the mounds of evidence that shine a light on those lies.

  31. 33
    Jacqueline Onassis Squid says:

    The PPB – as you’d know if you had done any research at all – has had their good relationships with invading right wing militias well documented over the years.

    But, please, go on and tell me more about what you imagine the city I’ve called home for decades is REALLY like. Your story will win no awards, but it’s pure fiction, nonetheless.

  32. 34
    Ampersand says:

    Corso, I think the truth isn’t “Police in Portland must be doing everything they do with the approval of the Democrats, because Democrats control the city government” so much as it’s “the system is broken in some ways, and one of those ways is that even with control of the city government it’s extraordinarily difficult to reform the police.”

  33. 35
    Corso says:

    @31

    Corso, could you please provide links for the video you saw, and also for the “30~ homicides” and entirely burned block, etc.? And like some others, I’d prefer links to mainstream sources, if possible.

    Video I saw the Shooting in:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKmX4mXMmTc
    Content Warning: You see it all.
    Full disclosure, it’s the Ben Shapiro show, and no, that’s not where I heard about it, but it was the first source I could find the raw video from. Relevant section starts at about 19:30.

    30~ Homicides in BLM protests:
    If you Google “Number of Deaths in George Floyd Protests” Google answers 30. I used 30~ because no one has a solid figure on this, I’ve seen sources say as high as 40 and as low as 15. It depends on what you count and how you count it. The one thing is, the number, whatever it is, is not going down. If you have a source that says a solid number that you’d like me to use, I will.

    @32

    Wow. There have been at least DOZENS of documented instances of police violence against peaceful protestors in Portland alone over the last 3 months. The fact that you demand still more police violence before you’ll consider it is disturbing, but expected. I am appalled at your failure to even make a feint at both siderism and instead go with a pure Trumpist narrative in the face of the mounds of evidence that shine a light on those lies.

    I don’t know what part of

    Derek Chauvin had no business being a police officer, and some of the calls and actions from police departments, and in particular the cavalier attitude of some police towards the protesters has been egregious in and of itself. and it’s especially egregious when you as a police officer have to know that people will be focused in on you, and you still act like that.

    led you to believe that I hadn’t considered the police’s brutality, but I obviously have. I just don’t see the need to overstate the obvious. Do you feel the discussion on police brutality is lacking in these forums? From the discussion at large? The the fact is; the political violence that is these riots is wrong, and obviously wrong, and it deserves discussion. That discussion does not need to be a net-zero game.

    The PPB – as you’d know if you had done any research at all – has had their good relationships with invading right wing militias well documented over the years.

    But, please, go on and tell me more about what you imagine the city I’ve called home for decades is REALLY like. Your story will win no awards, but it’s pure fiction, nonetheless.

    My point wasn’t that it’s the Democrats fault, so much as it couldn’t possibly be a Republicans. You think your police department is way too friendly with Right-Wing militias? Sure. I don’t know that, but I’ll believe you. You think they have a racial bias that’s causing the deaths of young black people. Sure. I’ll believe you. What is your Democrat led from the top-down administration going to do about it? Fire them? Defund them? Replace them with social services? Send them for training? I make no judgement, they’re your local PD. Do it. What’s stopping them? Why is this a partisan discussion when one side is utterly powerless. What could any Republican do to stop you?

    Corso, I think the truth isn’t “Police in Portland must be doing everything they do with the approval of the Democrats, because Democrats control the city government” so much as it’s “the system is broken in some ways, and one of those ways is that even with control of the city government it’s extraordinarily difficult to reform the police.”

    That’s probably about right. I don’t like how I’ve been cast in the role of defending American police departments. I have no interest in doing that. The amount of ordinance they have and the rate they use it concerns me. It’s very foreign to me. But it’s like there’s this idea that it’s strictly one side or the other, and life almost never actually works that way. The closest thing I’ve said to support of police is that you’d have to go back to Waco to find a comparable amount of property damage from police as some of these riots, and Jaqueline (do you prefer a shortened version of that?) seems to have read volumes into that, that I just did not say, would not say, did not mean, and would not mean. I don’t know what to do with that.

  34. 36
    Celeste says:

    Thread by a Portland resident on the links between the PPD and far-right groups: https://twitter.com/BritishPodcast/status/1300105289522270213

  35. 37
    Jacqueline Onassis Squid says:

    Corso, look up Jo Ann Hardesty and see what the city government is or isn’t doing.

    Here’s the full video of the incident. If you can honestly tell me that you can clearly see what happened, you’ve got a better imagination than I do. If you want, you can read about the guy who livestreamed the murder and read some quotes from a friend of the victim who was there when it happened here. It would be cool if you could do some of this googling on your own one day. Please do some of the work yourself.

    Me? I’ll wait for more credible reporting than a person who parrots right wing lies about what’s going on in my city and how it is affecting its residents.

    The thing is that you come here and insist that my city is on fire, nobody’s safe and Antifa targeted and cheered on the murder of a white supremacist while having no evidence for any of those things. It’s infuriating. I feel like next you’ll tell me, vehemently, how tall I am and how much I weigh since you’re more knowledgeable about that than, you know, the person who lives in my body.

  36. 38
    Corso says:

    @37

    Again… I don’t know what to do with half of this…. I haven’t said the things you’re attributing to me. Take this for example:

    The thing is that you come here and insist that my city is on fire, nobody’s safe and Antifa targeted and cheered on the murder of a white supremacist while having no evidence for any of those things. It’s infuriating.

    I literally said none of this. I didn’t even mention Portland until you brought it up. The one thing that’s close is that I referenced “cities on fire” and while that might be a little colorful in that obviously these cities aren’t all actively on fire, if you can’t even admit the amount of arson attached to these riots is at least unusually high, then maybe pour points of view are so divergent we just shouldn’t have this discussion.

    I cannot remember this level of political violence in my lifetime, maybe the Rodney King riots, although I would have been 7ish around then, so I feel I could be forgiven for not remembering. These videos of gas stations, convenience stores, and coffee shops burning are new to me. I have to admit a little bit of fear. This is not normal and should not be normal. And again… if you feel safe, you probably are, and that’s great. I feel safe. But I have a friend who lives in Washington and commutes to work in Portland, and his car windows were broken last week while he was driving. He was scared, he talked about cleaning the glass out of his baby seat, and it was real. Your experience, as real and as important as it is, is not the experience of my friend, or any of the people who have been directly effected by these riots.

  37. 39
    Kate says:

    I can’t think of a 90 day period of time where protests held by a far-right group managed to accumulate 30~ homicides.

    I think the 30-murders figure might come from this Wikipedia article, in which they’re including any violent death within half a mile of a protest. If they applied the same standard to right wing protests, I suspect they’d have a substantially higher body count. They are also including protesters killed by people driving into crowds, and people (protesters and bystanders) killed by police officers (which, given the context is particularly galling).
    I can’t think of a time when far right protests have been met with tear gas, flash-bangs and a hail of rubber bullets (these are the tactics designed to heighten tension, Ron). I suspect they would not have reacted as peacefully to such provocation as BLM protesters routinely do. And, yes, they are doing this to peaceful protesters, most famously for Trump’s photo op in Lafayette Park. But, if we’re sticking to Portland, how about the way they treated the wall of moms? I also can’t think of a time when far right protesters didn’t get essentially what they were demanding in a hell of lot less than 90 days – most recently ending lockdowns despite the clear danger to public health. They didn’t keep protesting for 90 days because they won.

    I’m not asking how to deal with peaceful protesters. I may not agree with their point of view, but that’s not the problem. I’m asking how to deal with violent mobs.

    The problem is that they are treating peaceful protesters, like the ones Trump cleared out of Lafayette Park, and the Wall of Moms in Portland, as if they are violent mobs. They are not. But, when they are running from tear gas and rubber bullets, they will look like a mob. Then, the chaos that ensues attracts looters and other criminals. But, time and time again, the police violence in response to peaceful protesters, or something stupid, like someone throwing a plastic water bottle, or blocking an intersection, is the initial spark.

    The question I’m asking is what should be done to stop it from happening in the first place.

    What do you propose…arresting people before they commit crimes? Not allowing people to protest?

    From what I have read about the Feds’ involvement in Portland, they only showed up after requests from them to the local officials to stop the vandalism and assaults against Federal property went unanswered.

    Graffitti. According to the head of the Department of Homeland Security they were responding to fucking graffitti….by sending out armed thugs with no identifying insignia to randomly pick up innocent people off the streets in unmarked cars blocks from the nearest federal building. They also shot someone with a bullhorn in the face with rubber bullets. source

  38. 40
    Jacqueline Onassis Squid says:

    Ampersand asked you, Corso:

    Do you not consider the violence a problem when it happens to protesters? Because you seem exclusively interested in talking about one kind of violence – and one that’s less common than either right-wing violence or police violence.

    To which you, Corso, replied:

    No… Perhaps as we get more cases of police violence against protesters I can work on my ratio, but seeing as this is my first comment here on these protests and the violence surrounding them, any opinion would be exclusive.

    So when you, Corso, say:

    I don’t know what part of

    “Derek Chauvin had no business being a police officer, and some of the calls and actions from police departments, and in particular the cavalier attitude of some police towards the protesters has been egregious in and of itself. and it’s especially egregious when you as a police officer have to know that people will be focused in on you, and you still act like that.”

    led you to believe that I hadn’t considered the police’s brutality, but I obviously have.

    all you need to do is look at what you wrote, and I quoted in this comment, above. I loathe gaslighting and this sure looks like an attempt at just that.

  39. 41
    Jacqueline Onassis Squid says:

    From what I have read about the Feds’ involvement in Portland, they only showed up after requests from them to the local officials to stop the vandalism and assaults against Federal property went unanswered

    If I may be so bold, might I suggest reading something other than right wing propaganda organs when looking for the truth of a given situation? I only suggest that because you keep parroting the right wing propaganda on the subjects raised in this thread and the implication is bound to follow such action.

  40. 42
    Corso says:

    @40

    Again…. I don’t know what to tell you…. It’s all there, I feel like if you approached my comments in good faith, you’d understand them, but it’s like you’re trying really hard to purposefully misunderstand me.

    I wasn’t saying “No, I don’t consider violence a problem when it happens to protesters”, I was saying “No, I’m not interested in exclusively talking about one kind of violence.” And then I immediately, immediately gave an example of police brutality. Do you really think so little of me you think I approve of violence against protesters? Why would you think that?

    Let’s be real, you’re telling me that I said things that I did not say, and that I think things that I do not think. It’s like you’re straw-manning me and are then disappointed and frustrated that I’m not the monster you think I am. I’m not gaslighting you, I think you’re being horribly uncharitable, and gaslighting yourself.

  41. 43
    Ampersand says:

    I’ll ask everyone to please avoid escalating any personal attacks. Thanks.

  42. 44
    RonF says:

    Ms. Squid:

    might I suggest reading something other than right wing propaganda organs when looking for the truth of a given situation?

    You seem more interested in attempting to either impeach or justfy ignoring the the sources of the information I present by mischaracterizing them than you are in presenting information that counters it. This appears to be what’s referred to as the genetic fallacy; the concept that the worth of a statement is based on what you perceive to be the character of its origin rather than on its truth. I have not found any source contradicting the statements I made. If you have any, please feel free to post them.

  43. 45
    Jacqueline Onassis Squid says:

    That’s okay, it’s totally cool to blame one’s failure to communicate clearly on one’s audience.

    Here’s a final suggestion for you, Corso. If it’s clear that you are being misunderstood, try to restate your position clearly. The failure to communicate is almost always the fault of the speaker, not the listener. I don’t think I habitually accuse my audience of a purposeful failure to understand me since I know the failure is mine. But there are others who’ve been here as long as I have and will let me know if I’m wrong about that.

    I think I’ve clearly laid out how I understand what you’ve said. Rather than saying, “I meant to say this other thing, let me try again,” you accuse me of straw-manning you. Even when I quote you back to yourself.

    When you write:

    I can’t think of a 90 day period of time where protests held by a far-right group managed to accumulate 30~ homicides.

    … without any cites, it’s clear that all your info on the BLM and associated protests is coming from right wing propaganda organs. What else am I suppose to think?

    When you write:

    From what I have read about the Feds’ involvement in Portland, they only showed up after requests from them to the local officials to stop the vandalism and assaults against Federal property went unanswered.

    … but do not acknowledge that the request for help came from a Federal official, where am I to think you get your talking points from?

    Rather than thinking how you might be better understood or how you might look for info from more credible sources, you use the old, “I’m rubber and you’re glue,” comeback. I am not impressed.

    tldr? If you don’t want me to think the things about you that I have stated and provided quotes to back up, you might try to write more clearly. If that’s not possible, you might try not writing those things that I’ve quoted back at you. Or you might just ignore my ridiculous objections to the objectively clear positions you have laid down and chalk it up to a lack in my reading comprehension.

    (Note: I don’t think I’m making any personal attacks here. If I’m wrong and someone wants to email me and let me know where I made a personal attack in this (or any of my most recent 7 comments), I’d appreciate it because I’m failing to see it on my own and would really like not to be doing that in this thread.)

  44. 46
    Jacqueline Onassis Squid says:

    I don’t know why the Portland Fire Department would be believed about this, but here’s what they have to say about the “Burning City” narrative.

    “WE ARE NOT ABLAZE IN PORTLAND,” Lt. Rich Chatman, a spokesman for Portland Fire & Rescue, said in a text message to CNN on Monday night. “There is a very isolated pocket of demonstrations that have involved fire, none of which has been substantial enough to need more than 1 fire engine.”

  45. 47
    RonF says:

    Kate:

    The problem is that they are treating peaceful protesters, like the ones Trump cleared out of Lafayette Park, and the Wall of Moms in Portland, as if they are violent mobs. They are not. But, when they are running from tear gas and rubber bullets, they will look like a mob.

    What do you propose…arresting people before they commit crimes? Not allowing people to protest?

    The question I’m asking concerns none of those things. The question I’m asking concerns a violent mob that shows up dressed and armored for hand-to-hand combat, starts throwing rocks and other projectiles at law enforcement officers, shines lasers at them risking (whether deliberately or not) blinding them and sets fires around and in buildings. All of which are felonies. And when the authorities declare them an unlawful assembly, refuses to disperse. I’m asking what to do about them.

    But, time and time again, the police violence in response to peaceful protesters, or something stupid, like someone throwing a plastic water bottle, or blocking an intersection, is the initial spark.

    That doesn’t seem to be the scenarios that have been going on for the last month or two at any rate. The reports I’ve seen have been that there has been no tear gas, rubber bullets, etc. employed against anyone until groups of people with masks, shields, etc. have destroyed (or attempted to destroy) property and harm law enforcement officials.

    According to the head of the Department of Homeland Security they were responding to fucking graffitti….

    So, local vandals kept vandalizing Federal buildings, causing $1000’s of damage. The Feds asked the local authorities to stop it. They didn’t. It looked like it was just going to continue. Since the local authorities weren’t doing their job, the Feds quite properly sent Federal agents to stop Federal property from being vandalized. At which point the local antifa folks went ape$h!t and upped their game to employ projectiles (both thrown and fireworks), fire and lasers against the Federal agents. The Feds escalated accordingly and defended themselves and the Federal property. When the State stepped up and did what the City of Portland should have done all along, secured the Federal building, the mobs started picking out targets that neither the Feds nor the State were defending, and this has continued to the present day. Which still leaves open my question, what should be done about it?

    by sending out armed thugs with no identifying insignia to randomly pick up innocent people off the streets in unmarked cars blocks from the nearest federal building

    The reports I have seen, including videos of people purportedly being picked up by the law enforcement officials you gratuitously and inaccurately describe as “armed thugs” and a presentation by one of the officers in charge, show that the officers involved WERE wearing insignia describing the branch of law enforcement they belonged to. It is true that they did not wear their name strips identifying them personally, but according to the official who spoke on the matter that was because people were doxxing the officers and they were receiving death threats, etc. They were detaining people in the area as the rioters were dispersed to question them to see if they were involved in the rioting; that this happened a few blocks away from the buildings instead of right next to them is hardly remarkable; rioters do tend to start running when they want to get away. And use of unmarked cars in law enforcement is pretty common. They use them in drug busts, etc., all the time. Heck, I’ve gotten a traffic ticket from a cop in an unmarked car. It’s not notable.

    They also shot someone with a bullhorn in the face with rubber bullets.

    Pro Tip #1: When you are in the middle of a literal riot, where the authorities have issued warnings that you are in an unlawful assembly and no longer a peaceable one and people are actually attacking or attempting to attack law enforcement officials, get out. Fast. Or something bad might happen to you (as I found out myself back in the day) and it’s quite frankly your own damn fault for not using common sense and complying with the lawful orders of the authorities. At that point you are no longer a peaceful protester, you are complicit in the violence even if you are not yourself throwing something, etc.
    Pro Tip #2: I don’t know if you mean to imply that this was deliberate or not, but in case you are, rubber bullets are not that accurate. By which I mean that said person with a bullhorn didn’t get hit in the face due to anyone deliberately aiming to do so.

  46. 48
    RonF says:

    Ms. Squid:

    … but do not acknowledge that the request for help came from a Federal official, where am I to think you get your talking points from?

    Do not acknowledge? What are you talking about? I didn’t specifically state it, but that’s because it’s of no significance. What’s that got to do with anything (especially regarding the source of the information I cite)?

  47. 49
    Corso says:

    @45

    Here’s a final suggestion for you, Corso. If it’s clear that you are being misunderstood, try to restate your position clearly. The failure to communicate is almost always the fault of the speaker, not the listener.

    I think I’ve clearly laid out how I understand what you’ve said. Rather than saying, “I meant to say this other thing, let me try again,” you accuse me of straw-manning you. Even when I quote you back to yourself.

    I’m sorry, I can’t let this stand. You’re not misinterpreting or misunderstanding what I’ve said, you’re making things up, and then treating me as if I said them. That’s not a “misunderstanding”. Believe me, I’m familiar with how to talk to people who misunderstand me, that scenario you talked about, going back and trying to re-explain, that is almost play for play exactly what I did with Amp in the other thread regarding the racial connotations of using the term “Wuhan Flu”

    No, you’ve repeatedly said that I’ve written things that I have not written. You cannot quote me saying, for example;

    “The thing is that you come here and insist that my city is on fire, nobody’s safe and Antifa targeted and cheered on the murder of a white supremacist while having no evidence for any of those things.”

    Because I didn’t say that. I also did not say;

    “From what I have read about the Feds’ involvement in Portland, they only showed up after requests from them to the local officials to stop the vandalism and assaults against Federal property went unanswered.”

    And frankly, I have absolutely no conception under God what could even possibly have given you the impression I did. I can’t “re-explain” things that I’ve never said. I don’t need to. This isn’t a reading comprehension problem, or a competent writing problem, this is a “you-making-stuff-up problem”. I’m sorry Amp, I know you want to take the personal out of this, but I have no idea how else to put this. It’s hard not to feel personally attacked in this situation, and I have no idea how to turn it into a discussion of ideas when the other person is fighting a scarecrow.

    And then there’s things like this:

    When you write:

    I can’t think of a 90 day period of time where protests held by a far-right group managed to accumulate 30~ homicides.

    … without any cites, it’s clear that all your info on the BLM and associated protests is coming from right wing propaganda organs. What else am I suppose to think?

    How is it clear that I’m getting info from a right wing propaganda site? That’s the response you get when you ask Google “How many people have died in George Floyd Protest” it’s also the figure on Wikipedia. I get that it wasn’t cited, but you assume a *whole* lot of facts not in evidence and then act like I’m responsible for your assumptions. I can’t stress this enough: I’m not.

  48. 50
    Kate says:

    Jacqueline, you’re confusong Corso & Ron.

  49. 51
    Kate says:

    Corso, if you actually read the Wikipedia article you would know that it does not list 30 homicides, it lists 30 deaths. This includes people killed by shop owners defending their propety as far as 1.6k from the nearest protest. It includes protesters hit by cars. It includes killings by police officers. It includes the officers killed by the Boogaloo boy in California. It icludes the body of a woman found in a car where there happened to have been protests the previous night.

  50. 52
    Jacqueline Onassis Squid says:

    Huh. You’re right about the feds quote. I mistakenly grabbed something RonF said. I apologize for that. (See how easy it is?)

  51. 53
    Jacqueline Onassis Squid says:

    When I googled “30 homicides 90 days of protest” I got no results claiming there were 30 murders at protests this year. I apologize for not divining the search term you used. (See how easy it is to apologize for a failure? That’s twice in 2 comments.)

  52. 54
    Jacqueline Onassis Squid says:

    Corso wrote:

    No, you’ve repeatedly said that I’ve written things that I have not written. You cannot quote me saying, for example;

    “The thing is that you come here and insist that my city is on fire, nobody’s safe and Antifa targeted and cheered on the murder of a white supremacist while having no evidence for any of those things.”

    Because I didn’t say that.

    I direct you to your comment at #25 where you wrote (my bold):

    While it’s important to get facts right, and I’ll never say otherwise, and I appreciate all the help I get along the way, I think that ignoring the cities on fire because we’re worried about the specific type of accelerant used isn’t a great spend of time.

    That was you and not another Corso, right? Because I wrote, “The city ain’t on fire. Everybody who lives here knows it.” at comment 26 in response to those words.

  53. 55
    Jacqueline Onassis Squid says:

    RonF,

    My mistake. I mixed up stuff you said with a response to stuff you said. I apologize for the mistake.

  54. 56
    a says:

    This includes people killed by shop owners defending their propety as far as 1.6k from the nearest protest. It includes protesters hit by cars. It includes killings by police officers.

    Kate, all the definitions of homicide I see involve “the killing of one person by another” or the like. It doesn’t have to involve murder of some type. Everything you listed in the above quote would be a homicide, although not necessarily murder.

  55. 57
    Corso says:

    @51

    Appreciated Kate, but I don’t understand the difference between “deaths” and “homicides” in that context. My understanding is they’re basically synonymous, unless some of the deaths were health related?

    @53
    Jaqueline, I didn’t say I Googled “30 homicides 90 days of protest” I said I Googled “Number of Deaths in George Floyd Protests” something I’ve put in quotations three times now, Google returns 30 as a result. I wish I could post a screenshot into here, because I promise you that it happens. It is 100% replicable. I Also feel like I need to point out that when questioned on the figure, I gave my source, Google, not some far-right propagandist. Multiple times. And you still tried to smear me with that. And more than that, you’ve been told multiple times by more than one person that the figure is also on Wikipedia, again, not exactly stormtrooper central. I don’t know what you’re trying to prove. It’s especially boggling because I also offered to use any source that anyone wanted, my point didn’t rely on a certain threshold of deaths. Find a source you’d prefer, I’ll use it.

    @54

    Yes I said that, but I didn’t say your city was on fire (although, the fact is that these riots did, 100% absolutely include arson. or do you deny that?), I didn’t say you weren’t safe, and I didn’t say anything about Antifa cheering on murder. I don’t know how you can make bombastic claims like that, post what I said, and not have the self-awareness to see how bad it is. That was also just one quote, the very first message you sent to me ended with, and I quote:

    So please take your claims that my city is on fire and shove them up Dollar Store Mussolini.

    I to this day am unsure whether you were calling my a Dollar Store Mussolini or you were suggesting I perform a sex act on one, but again, I never identified Portland, although parts of it were on fire related tot he riots, multiple times over the last 90 days, you inserted yourself into this and made it about you. It was never about you.

  56. 58
    Ampersand says:

    Google returns 30 as a result. I wish I could post a screenshot into here, because I promise you that it happens. It is 100% replicable.

    All I think this shows is that google searches aren’t replicable; the search results can change over time, plus they change according to what google knows about the person searching (or if it knows anything at all).

    Incidentally, the first time I googled it, I just copy and pasted from your comment and carelessly included the quote marks. Searching that way yielded this result, which cracked me up:

    * * *

    I’m not going to force you, but I wish you’d both drop this who-said-exactly-what argument.

    Corso, it’s true that you didn’t specify Portland when you said “cities on fire,” but given the context of this discussion – and the context of the way that national news about protests and rioting has covered Portland more than just about any other city – I think it was a natural inference to make. Even if you didn’t intend to include Portland in that statement, I suspect most or everyone else here read it as including Portland, and that’s not an unreasonable reading. If you weren’t talking about Portland, then in context you were unclear.

    Corso and Jacqueline, please try to de-escalate.

  57. 59
    Kate says:

    Kate, all the definitions of homicide I see involve “the killing of one person by another” or the like. It doesn’t have to involve murder of some type. Everything you listed in the above quote would be a homicide, although not necessarily murder.

    Yes, I was thinking homicide=murder, which is incorrect. Although, there was one guy on the list who blew himself up trying to rob an ATM machine – so that one wasn’t a homicide.

  58. 60
    Kate says:

    So, local vandals kept vandalizing Federal buildings, causing $1000’s of damage. The Feds asked the local authorities to stop it. They didn’t. It looked like it was just going to continue. Since the local authorities weren’t doing their job, the Feds quite properly sent Federal agents to stop Federal property from being vandalized. At which point the local antifa folks went ape$h!t and upped their game to employ projectiles (both thrown and fireworks), fire and lasers against the Federal agents. The Feds escalated accordingly and defended themselves and the Federal property. When the State stepped up and did what the City of Portland should have done all along, secured the Federal building, the mobs started picking out targets that neither the Feds nor the State were defending, and this has continued to the present day. Which still leaves open my question, what should be done about it?

    The federal government does not have the right to send troops into an American city over the objections of its Governor – full stop. If vandals flee beyond the immediate environs of the Federal building they are guarding, they need to call the local police to pursue. It doesn’t matter if you think the local government isn’t handling it well. They are the ones with jurisdiction and if they don’t want the federal government sent in the federal government needs to stay out. It is not their jurisdiction. What is to be done about it is up to the people of Portland and the state of Oregon.
    And Ron, your descriptions are of antifa are entirely too hyperbolic, especially given your silence on the often greater damage being done by far right militias. I think this article, which describes violence between pro-police protesters and BLM protesters takes an even and measured tone. It sounds to me like the police handled it well. I think if the police had tried to step in and use force, it would only have made matters worse.

    When you are in the middle of a literal riot, where the authorities have issued warnings that you are in an unlawful assembly and no longer a peaceable one and people are actually attacking or attempting to attack law enforcement officials, get out. Fast. Or something bad might happen to you (as I found out myself back in the day) and it’s quite frankly your own damn fault for not using common sense and complying with the lawful orders of the authorities. At that point you are no longer a peaceful protester, you are complicit in the violence even if you are not yourself throwing something, etc.

    If you are aware that that is what is going on, and if by the time you’re aware there is any point of egress left. Often there isn’t. The police surround a group and demand that they leave, but leave them no way out. They know damn well what they are doing.
    The people in Lafayette Park were peaceful, and given no warning before they were set upon with tear gas and flash-bangs. Police fired paint canisters at people on their front porch in Minneapolis. The police waited less than 20 seconds between telling them to get inside and firing paint canisters at them – a group which included children. 20 seconds. I don’t know how you can look at things like this and think they’re o.k..

  59. 61
    Nancy Lebovitz says:

    RonF: “Pro Tip #1: When you are in the middle of a literal riot, where the authorities have issued warnings that you are in an unlawful assembly and no longer a peaceable one and people are actually attacking or attempting to attack law enforcement officials, get out. Fast. Or something bad might happen to you (as I found out myself back in the day) and it’s quite frankly your own damn fault for not using common sense and complying with the lawful orders of the authorities. At that point you are no longer a peaceful protester, you are complicit in the violence even if you are not yourself throwing something, etc.”

    This is apparently much easier to say than to do if you’re in a crowd, and sometimes the police make to hard to leave.

  60. 62
    a says:

    Note: This post may be double. I got a nasty (apparently standard spam-type) note after the first post, and it was automatically deleted. If this was intentional in some way, please be fair and let me know so that I don’t waste my time here.

    ——————————————————————————————

    The federal government does not have the right to send troops into an American city over the objections of its Governor – full stop.

    Kate: ‘dunno about that. In any case it’s not a “full stop” because the feds and the relevant state share sovereignty (with the general trend after the “Commerce Clause” being used for everything going more and more to the feds). The FBI and state governments, as an example, routinely share their parts and assist each other. Local crime, but kidnapping over state lines. Bank robbery as a fed offense. That sort of thing.

    But a famous case of exactly what you are talking about was the desegregation of the University of Alabama in June of 1963. Fed troops/people were there on top of federalized Alabama National Guard troops (acting as Fed troops). Governor Wallace couldn’t effectively make your argument.

  61. 63
    Grace Annam says:

    RonF:

    …show that the officers involved WERE wearing insignia describing the branch of law enforcement they belonged to. It is true that they did not wear their name strips identifying them personally, but according to the official who spoke on the matter that was because people were doxxing the officers and they were receiving death threats, etc.

    I have received death threats. I’ve had people threaten to rape my wife and children. I have taken different routes home in order to make it harder to follow me there. I have cleared my own house (moving tactically, sidearm up) when I came home to find the door ajar or something otherwise apparently amiss.

    In uniform, I always wore a name tag. Always. Because every officer is and should be accountable to the citizenry for their actions. It doesn’t get more basic than this. In a free society, the answer to “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes” is “Populus custodiet ipsos custodes”.

    Grace, hoping she got her Latin right

  62. 64
    Corso says:

    @51
    I…. did not know Google results could differ like that. I don’t know if that was actually a source of confusion, but if it was, I was obviously wrong and that’s on me.

    I also think that interpreting “I think that ignoring the cities on fire because we’re worried about the specific type of accelerant used isn’t a great spend of time.” to mean “Portland is actively on fire, the people who live there are unsafe.” is an exceptionally uncharitable reading, but if it helps clarify, I could have said “I think that ignoring the buildings that have burned because we’re unsure what specific type of accelerant was used to burn them isn’t a great spend of time.” or even “We’re spending way too much time missing the forest for the trees.”

    Regardless, we’re very far afield from the point I was trying to make. I’m… exhausted. I don’t have anything else to say, so I think I’m going to bow out.

  63. 65
    RonF says:

    Kate:

    The federal government does not have the right to send troops into an American city over the objections of its Governor – full stop.

    Well, the people sent weren’t military, they were law enforcement agents. In my experience the term “troops” generally is understood to refer to military personnel. And I have my doubts that a State governor can forbid the Federal government from sending Federal law enforcement personnel to Federal property in that State. That makes zero sense to me. If you have some citations to back up this assertion and the rest of the assertions you made in that paragraph (e.g., Federal agents being unable to pursue people who broke Federal law over the objections of the local authorities will be news to the Border Patrol and ICE) I would be very interested to see it. Do not mistake what you would like to be true for what actually is true.

    And as far as sending actual troops go, I seem to recall Pres. Kennedy Federalizing the Alabama National Guard and sending them to the University of Alabama over the strenuous objections of Gov. Wallace. And I mean “I recall” not “I recall reading in a history book/essay/treatise about …”.

    which describes violence between pro-police protesters and BLM protesters

    Off topic. Just because I’m not asking questions about what you would like me to ask questions about does not invalidate my question.

    And Ron, your descriptions are of antifa are entirely too hyperbolic,

    I just did a quick look through the past posts on this thread and I don’t see where I used the term “antifa”. If I missed such a reference I apologize, but I think I’ve consistently referred to “violent mobs”; I haven’t attempted to get into the details of their organizational affiliations. I don’t think that’s a hyperbolic description, I think it’s pretty accurate. I did use the term “ape$h!t” once, but I had just watched a video of The Carters performing “APES**T” and the term came to mind.

  64. 66
    RonF says:

    Grace:

    Populus custodiet ipsos custodes

    Your Latin looks pretty good to me both in syntax and in meaning. I agree. If someone claims to subscribe to the ideal of limiting government power to the minimum extent necessary then you logically have to subscribe to the principle you state. Government that is unaccountable to the people is anathema to the principles stated in the Declaration of Independence and does an end-run around the structure intended to implement those principles that is specified in the Constitution.

    Law enforcement officials have had their personal information dug out and used against them by individuals or even organizations for a long time. What’s new is that a) it’s a LOT easier for people to do that than it used to be and b) there are occasions where people then publicize such information on social media to 1000’s or 10,000’s of people in an instant while issuing invitations to take advantage of it. After listening to the official state why he ordered the name tags off I was convinced he was trying to protect his people, not trying to avoid accountability. I do not know what the proper solution to that issue is. There may not be a good one.

    And I’m very sorry that this kind of thing has happened to you. No one deserves that and I would not wish it on you or anyone else regardless of our personal or political differences.

  65. 67
    RonF says:

    Kate, to your last statement about the cops surrounding a crowd and not letting them leave – again, the topic I’m attempting to get an answer to is what to do about the violent mob actions in Portland at the present time. Those mobs certainly weren’t surrounded by cops during the siege of the Federal building and I haven’t seen any reports or videos of such action by the cops at other times since then. Have you?

  66. 68
    Kate says:

    Off topic. Just because I’m not asking questions about what you would like me to ask questions about does not invalidate my question.

    This is breathtakingly arrogant. Last I checked, this was not your blog, nor are you a moderator. It is not your place to set the terms of the discussion, and I am not here to submit to your questioning.

    I just did a quick look through the past posts on this thread and I don’t see where I used the term “antifa”. If I missed such a reference I apologize, but I think I’ve consistently referred to “violent mobs”; I haven’t attempted to get into the details of their organizational affiliations. I don’t think that’s a hyperbolic description, I think it’s pretty accurate. I did use the term “ape$h!t” once, but I had just watched a video of The Carters performing “APES**T” and the term came to mind.I just did a quick look through the past posts on this thread and I don’t see where I used the term “antifa”.

    @47 in the very line in which you use the word ape$h!t:

    At which point the local antifa folks went ape$h!t and upped their game to employ projectiles (both thrown and fireworks), fire and lasers against the Federal agents.

    And, as I think should be clear from my comments so far, I am not answering this question because I do believe your descriptions are hyperbolic and inaccurate. In particular, I reject the term “violent mobs” as a description. There are small groups of people who are mostly committing property crimes (incidentally, a significant number of the 30 deaths in that Wiki list are of such people shot by people defending their property or the property of their employers)… mixed in with a much larger number of innocent bystanders, some protesters, some who just need to get home after work, or who were out and about for any number of reasons and suddenly found themselves surrounded by the quickly moving melee (quickly moving often because they are running away from tear gas). When the police use things like tear gas, and rubber bullets (which as you pointed out above, are difficult to control) the result is innocent people getting hurt – and I don’t see how it makes it any easier to identify and apprehend the criminals. In fact, I think making all the innocent bystanders run away along with the criminals must make it MORE difficult. So, even if it was, as you contend, a “violent mob”, the way to deal with that is containment and de-escalation – not increasing tensions through use of tear gas, rubber bullets, flash bangs, paint canisters and the like.

  67. 69
    Grace Annam says:

    RonF:

    And I’m very sorry that this kind of thing has happened to you.

    Thank you, but, eh. I volunteered. I knew the risks as well as anyone can, going in. It surely didn’t feel good at the time, and I’d probably be less blasé about it if it had turned out more poorly. If you’re willing to risk bullets or a back-alley gang-up curb-stomping, then you should be willing to risk doxxing. And while you’re in, maybe work toward making policework honorable and clearly functioning from the earned goodwill of the community you work in, as Sir Robert intended.

    That’s a lot easier said than, done, mind you. I wish I’d done better at it than I did, but I tried.

    Grace

  68. 70
    Ampersand says:

    Note: This post may be double. I got a nasty (apparently standard spam-type) note after the first post, and it was automatically deleted. If this was intentional in some way, please be fair and let me know so that I don’t waste my time here.

    Not intentional! WordPress sometimes decides to send a comment to the spam trap. When that happens, post a comment letting me know, and I’ll fish it out. (I didn’t do that in this case b/c you already reproduced your comment).

    I’d turn the spam trap off, except that there are so very many spam comments. Seriously, there are a hundred genuine spam comments caught by the spam trap for every one non-spam comment accidentally caught. Blog comment sections would just be impossible without the spam traps.

  69. 71
    RonF says:

    Kate:

    It is not your place to set the terms of the discussion,

    It’s an open thread. There is no theme for it set by the moderator. I can ask any question I want.

    and I am not here to submit to your questioning.

    You are under no obligation to answer my questions. But when you make a posting in response to a question I asked it’s entirely legitimate for me to point out that you are not actually addressing the question.

    On the use of “antifa” – mea culpa, I missed it and you are correct that I did use it. As far as my use of the term “violent mobs” goes, I watched the videos and they sure look like violent mobs to me. Is every member of the mob throwing rocks, shooting fireworks, etc.? No. But the mob as a whole is violent, even if all the members of it are not actively so. And if the police have notified a group that it is an unlawful assembly and have ordered it to disperse – multiple times, in these cases – then anyone who defies that order is at that point complicit in any subsequent violence (as well as being in violation of the law) regardless of whether they are personally throwing rocks, etc., and it is legitimate for law enforcement to use the minimal levels of forcible means that will disperse them while minimizing the risk to the law enforcement officers.

    The federal government does not have the right to send troops into an American city over the objections of its Governor – full stop.

    Do you now acknowledge that this statement is wrong?

  70. 72
    RonF says:

    Grace:

    If you’re willing to risk bullets or a back-alley gang-up curb-stomping, then you should be willing to risk doxxing.

    Going into the profession now would be one thing. Consider, though, that if you joined law enforcement even 5 years ago bullets and curb-stomping haven’t changed that much. But doxxing didn’t exist in the form it does now. They didn’t sign up for that. And while bullets and curb-stomping represents a risk to yourself, doxxing represents a threat to your spouse, children, pets, etc.

    We issue law enforcement officers training, body armor, helmets, firearms, etc. to counter physical threats. We don’t seem to have any defense for them against doxxing. If our law enforcement officers cannot defend themselves against a threat we are going to run out of law enforcement officers.

    At which point a meme I’m seeing across the more conservative blogosphere may become true; “The police are not there to protect people from criminals; they are there to protect criminals from the people.” The law in America belongs to the people. For various excellent reasons we do not want everyone to enforce the law, so in exchange for that we have created law enforcement officers and have delegated to them the authority (but not the responsibility) to enforce the law. If they fail to do so – for whatever reason- people will start to do so on their own. Trust me, I do not look forward to that. We need to protect and defend law enforcement officers (as long as they themselves act within the law); the alternative is bleak.

  71. 73
    RonF says:

    Kate:

    mixed in with a much larger number of innocent bystanders, some protesters,

    Just to reiterate my point – once the group has been declared a unlawful assembly and ordered to disperse, by virtue of that declaration anyone who remains is no longer an innocent bystander or legitimate protester.

  72. 74
    nobody.really says:

    Apropos of nothing, the NYT published a statement about the risks of universalist thinking–and missing the point:

    I cannot think of many researchers who haven’t tacitly adopted some dubious universalist assumptions. I certainly have. We will all have to change our perspective.

  73. 75
    Kate says:

    The federal government does not have the right to send troops into an American city over the objections of its Governor – full stop.

    Do you now acknowledge that this statement is wrong?

    Yes, and my hyperbole weakened my point, which is that it is not o.k. for the feds to send in troops over the objections of local officials, to stop something as trivial as graffiti.

  74. 76
    Grace Annam says:

    RonF:

    Going into the profession now would be one thing. Consider, though, that if you joined law enforcement even 5 years ago bullets and curb-stomping haven’t changed that much. But doxxing didn’t exist in the form it does now. They didn’t sign up for that.

    A few years before I started my career as an officer — so this would be probably 1990 or before — an agency local to me served a search warrant on a local biker gang, and in the process of executing the warrant, found a book containing the names, addresses, and other details of the officers in that and other local agencies.

    In other words, thirty years ago, those of us who were paying attention had a decent idea of what we were getting into. We didn’t like it, but we knew about it. It’s one reason I took it seriously on the occasions when I came home and found my door ajar.

    Sure, doxxing spreads the word faster. But people were already collecting the information long ago. That’s why many of us are armed off-duty.

    RonF:

    We issue law enforcement officers training, body armor, helmets, firearms, etc. to counter physical threats. We don’t seem to have any defense for them against doxxing.

    There’s always the option of treating the citizenry in such a way that they don’t want to kill you. Just a thought.

    When I was in the academy, one of our instructors told the following story, by way of trying to teach us how to survive our careers: He was on patrol in his local town which had a bit of gang presence. He was dispatched to a local home to answer some questions about home security. It was a nicely-maintained house in a nice neighborhood. He parked in the driveway and walked up the walk to the door, where he knocked. He received no answer. He knocked again. No answer. It seemed weird, since someone had just called from the house. So he peered in through the window next to the front door, and saw an elderly couple, sitting on the living room couch, bound hand-and-foot and gagged. He called for backup and made entry and released the couple. They told him that they were at home when two gang members came in the back door, tied them up at gunpoint, and then talked about how they were going to kill a cop (probably not the word they used) by getting him delivered and shooting him through the window as he walked up the to the door. And they called in and sure enough, here came the cop. And then one said to the other, “Wait, we’re not shooting this cop.” And the other one said, “What are you talking about? I’ve got him in my sights.” And the first one said, “Not this one. That’s the only cop who cares about the people in this town.” And they ran out the back. The elderly couple heard the whole thing.

    Apparently, at some point, that gang member had formed the impression that our instructor cared. That impression probably came about from the way our instructor acted as he went about his duties.

    Now, there are times as an officer when you have to do things which make people angry, or when you have to deal with people who are not capable of reason (like the psychotic who spit in the face of his lawyer in court, whom we then dragged away, screaming, to the cells, where we had to sit on him). But there are a lot of interactions with members of the public where you can choose how you do it. And when you have such a choice, and you choose to be professional, even-handed, and civil, not only are you doing the job well, but there is a payoff in officer safety, both for you, personally, and for your fellow officers. Likewise, when your fellow officers needlessly treat someone poorly, like taunting someone, or deliberately swinging a physically cooperative person-in-custody face-first into a wall (as was documented on video a few years ago in an agency not too far from your alma mater, Ron) … those fellow officers are not only doing the job poorly (and illegally, in the case of the parenthetical assault), they are setting you up for failure in your next interaction with the public, no matter how professional you are.

    It can get pretty frustrating.

    But since police officers like to have families and live in houses in the community, or in other communities within commuting distance, there is no cure for doxxing other than to act such that the public has your back.

    Sadly, while many officers do exactly that as much as they can, many other officers do no such thing, as we have seen documented on video time and time again.

    In the short term, there is no cure. In the long term, the only cure is to fix the underlying problem. Piecemeal, stepwise police reform doesn’t seem to work well. I suspect that we will need to dissolve and reconstitute a lot of police departments before we get where we need to be.

    If our law enforcement officers cannot defend themselves against a threat we are going to run out of law enforcement officers.

    Maybe if enough officers quit we’ll hire social workers to deal with homeless people and nonviolent suicidal people and other such. Maybe if enough officers quit, the rest won’t have time to respond to suspicious people. That will frustrate a lot of people who are suspicious… but, also, probably fewer POC will die.

    For various excellent reasons we do not want everyone to enforce the law, so in exchange for that we have created law enforcement officers and have delegated to them the authority (but not the responsibility) to enforce the law. If they fail to do so – for whatever reason- people will start to do so on their own.

    There were plenty of years and places in this country where law enforcement was a far-flung thing, and only the worst crimes (or the crimes committed on the most privileged) got addressed. (In many places, the legal mechanisms are still in place. In California, for instance, there is still citizens’ arrest, and it’s used routinely in situations where a citizen witnesses a misdemeanor, but the officer arrives later. The citizen makes the arrest, and the officer takes custody on the citizen’s behalf, and it saves a lot of time and paperwork and money.) There were a lot of problems with those systems, but it’s not clear to me that they are worse systems than one which permits such widespread employment and protection of officers who are willing to lie in order to get away with illegal acts, or who out-and-out assault people when there’s no reason to (like the Navy vet who was verbally asking officers to examine their consciences), or when the threat is over (like George Floyd).

    “No cops” doesn’t equate to “anarchy and chaos”. It equates to people working things out, for better or for worse, amongst themselves. That will go well sometimes and badly other times. But the improvement on that is not “cops”. It is “cops with integrity and judgement”. Better none than the other kind.

    Grace

  75. 77
    Grace Annam says:

    RonF:

    Just to reiterate my point – once the group has been declared a unlawful assembly and ordered to disperse, by virtue of that declaration anyone who remains is no longer an innocent bystander or legitimate protester.

    Sure, if they’re given time to hear the order, understand the order, and react to the order, and if they’re able to disperse. All of those things take more clarity and more time in the case of a large crowd. In a crowd of just a few thousand, you can move quite a way and still be within the crowd. You may be trying to disperse, but it may take you a minute or two, even under ideal circumstances, to actually leave the crowd. These are just facts of life, in crowd control, and it’s no use pretending that your use of force was lawful when it’s against people who were unable to comply with your lawful order.

    Kate made these points, and as far as I can tell, you have not replied to her on them.

    Also, it helps with credibility if the determination that an assembly is unlawful is based in information sufficiently important that it should contravene the Constitutional right of the people to assemble, and not simply because the gathering has become inconvenient to the powers that be.

    Grace

  76. 78
    Görkem says:

    The federal government may have the legal right to send troops into cities that don’t want them, but it doesn’t have the moral right.

  77. 79
    nobody.really says:

    When was this said?

    Western civilization is being forced step by step into a state of civil war by the rising assaults of a revolutionary movement known as [redacted].

    This movement centers in the universities and spreads outward into every institution of today’s society. It spreads in two ways: by indoctrination of those who are open to indoctrination, and by terrorization of those who are not.

    Many observers are bewildered by the fact that the violence and terror have appeared suddenly in the midst of a scenario – written by liberals – calling for a new society based on gentleness, tolerance and the humanitarian concern of everyone for everyone else’s needs. The violence, the obscenity, the unabashed totalitarianism have burst like a storm upon the calm of an afternoon tea party.

    h/t Bryan Caplan

  78. 80
    Görkem says:

    Sounds like the 19th century to me. Although the word “totalitarianism” is a 20th century coinage so perhaps I will instead say the 1960s?

  79. 81
    RonF says:

    Gorkem @ 77:

    The federal government may have the legal right to send troops into cities that don’t want them, but it doesn’t have the moral right.

    If Federal property and officials are being threatened and the local municipality refuses to do anything to stop it then they are the ones being immoral. The Federal government has not only the legal right but also both the fiduciary and the moral duty to stop it.

    Grace, @ 76:

    Kate made these points, and as far as I can tell, you have not replied to her on them.

    Actually I believe that I addressed it in my post @ 67, where I pointed out that my question was not about riots or demonstrations in general but the situation in Portland in particular, and then asked if the actions she described were being committed by the police in Portland. I don’t see where she responded to that.

    There’s always the option of treating the citizenry in such a way that they don’t want to kill you. Just a thought.

    I figure there’s a lot more psychopaths who view the police as an obstacle in the way of their ability to commit crimes that they have no problem disposing of by any means possible than there are police who treat the citizenry in such a way as to make a reasonable person want to kill them.

    Also, it helps with credibility if the determination that an assembly is unlawful is based in information sufficiently important that it should contravene the Constitutional right of the people to assemble, and not simply because the gathering has become inconvenient to the powers that be.

    I figure that when people are setting fires, throwing various incendiary devices, defacing public property. attempting to block exits with concrete and/or shining lasers in the faces of law enforcement or other government officials then that burden has been met.

    I suspect that we will need to dissolve and reconstitute a lot of police departments before we get where we need to be.

    IIRC there have been municipalities in Illinois that have done just that, dissolving their local police force and contracting with the Sheriff’s Police for law enforcement services.

    It is “cops with integrity and judgement”.

    Getting rid of police lacking in those and replacing them with police who have those qualities is an objective whose necessity you and I can agree on.

  80. 82
    RonF says:

    I find it pretty interesting that no one has directly addressed the question I asked. What should be done about the rioting and violence going on in Portland? There’s been a lot of criticism of the question and deflection into general discussions on riots, demonstrations, etc., but unless I missed something no one has actually chosen to answer the question I asked.

  81. 83
    Nancy Lebovitz says:

    The disastrous program of spreading giant hogweed in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe. Stalin wanted to improve Soviet agriculture. There are plants similar to giant hogweed which are useful, but the seeds were contaminated with giant hogweed and no one was willing to stop the program for at least a decade.

    Giant hogweed is highly poisonous to touch and extremely prolific.

    http://www.russiaknowledge.com/2020/07/14/the-day-of-the-giant-hogweed/?fbclid=IwAR229_n8IazaOgu-epFwQFerCWY53rcAbgCxR2Vdip8Jm_ksm7-Ol998XJM

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/03/opinion/sunday/russia-hogweed.html?fbclid=IwAR2fW6HxFjAFtILf4xn2dxNxW3zAOT8vRM5HEL6h3jhjvitgMnbzB5QGFDQ

  82. 84
    Petar says:

    Many observers are bewildered by the fact that the violence and terror have appeared suddenly in the midst of a scenario – written by liberals – calling for a new society based on gentleness, tolerance and the humanitarian concern of everyone for everyone else’s needs.

    Sounds like the 19th century to me. Although the word “totalitarianism” is a 20th century coinage so perhaps I will instead say the 1960s?

    Marxism was not all that aggressive in the 19th century. Anarchism is where the hotheads went, and until Lenin came along, violence was not seen as a very useful tool by Marxists.

    Definitely late 20th century, from the language alone. The target is definitely a movement based on Marxism, but probably one of the later developments – Leninism, Maoism, or whatever fucked up mutation is practiced by people who are more concerned about appearing enlightened, than converting minds and undermining the opposition.

    Could have been Ayn Rand. Sounds like her. That does not mean that I agree, or that the author is right. In my experience, there is no ideology that can’t be used as tool of oppression. This includes any religion you can think of – genocidal Buddhists exist, Gautama must be rolling in his grave.

    This said, Marxists are very rare, among modern leftists, especially in the US. Too many people adopt Maoist practices, without the exact doctrinal subtleties. Not that the former would be an improvement to the existing non-useful idiots, mind you.

  83. 85
    Görkem says:

    “Marxism was not all that aggressive in the 19th century”

    Did I mention Marxism? There were plenty of violent, non-Marxist left-populist groups like People’s Will or the Combat Organisation.

    But the question was about something that was said, not something that was done. What I read reminded me very much of the writings of Jules Michelet when he described the inhabitants of French working class suburbs as akin to the barbarians who had violently destroyed the Roman Empire. (Not that that is an accurate understanding of the Roman Empire, but that’s beyond the point). What was written was 100% consistent with his tone and his analysis – except for the word “totalitarianism”. The fact that the SFIO was non violent, even pacifist wasn’t something he believed, even if it was true.

  84. 86
    Görkem says:

    “I find it pretty interesting that no one has directly addressed the question I asked.”

    Maybe it’s because we prefer to have a discussion that doesn’t revolve around you demanding answers from us on whatever question you feel we are required to answer.

  85. 87
    Petar says:

    What I read reminded me very much of the writings of Jules Michelet when he described the inhabitants of French working class suburbs as akin to the barbarians who had violently destroyed the Roman Empire.

    If you are talking about the passage in Histoire de France , then the perceived motivations do not match the quote in regards to “humanitarian concern of everyone for everyone else’s needs.”

    In a similar manner, Народная воля did not have a strong presence in Universities. That’s where their precursor started, but by the time they had focused on violence, they were using worker and conscript study groups.

    It’s one of these quotes, where if we assume that the author is half-way educated in the subject, Marxism, in its pre-Lenin form, is the obvious target. It’s not that other ideologies do not claim that they are concerned with everyone’s needs. It’s that Marxism was somewhat unique in seeing economic development leading to a state where practically everyone will be concerned with those needs. I knew some Muslim populists, and they had similar beliefs as to what would happen once the great struggle succeeded in uniting humanity. Too bad that at the time, my operational priorities were not about debating them. I am still curious about how religious they actually were, to get such an understanding of Judgement Day.

  86. 88
    Görkem says:

    I think People’s Will counts as a movement that “starts in the universities and spreads outwards”.

    I am sure Michelet was aware of the humanitarian claim that French socialists made, even if he didn’t agree with them.

  87. 89
    Görkem says:

    By the way, I thought you refused to acknowledge me until I could explain to your satisfaction my position regarding the ubiquity of Japanese war crime denialism/apologism? Or were you just refusing to discuss that specific point with me?

  88. 90
    Petar says:

    What the hell. Did you expect me to remember your name?

    But now that I remember who you are, I am very impressed by your skewed recollection of the argument over Japan’s continued denials of their war crimes and atrocities committed during WWII.

    In my recollection, I quoted a Minister of Education, Representatives, mayors of major cities, editorial guidelines of major newspapers, etc. denying the war crimes. You were claiming that those were fringe beliefs, akin to Americans claiming Obama is the Anti-Christ. When I challenged you to list highly placed American officials claiming Obama is the Anti-Christ, you refused. So, no, I did not refuse to debate you. I simply decided that there was no point in talking to someone who claims that Japan’s government does not approve textbooks, or who claims that a sustained policy by a party that has ruled the country for about 70 out of the last 80 years is a fringe belief.

    Now, back to People’s Will. Make up your mind. You gave them as an example of a non-Marxist organization. Then you say that are an example of an organization spreading from Universities.

    You cannot have both. People’s Will became People’s Will when they ideologically deviated from traditional Marxism over violent means, when they started following Bakunin’s teachings, and started spreading their message over workers’ and conscript s’ study groups, as opposed to intellectuals’ philosophical clubs. Yes, Bakunin met and was influenced by Marx. But he became radicalized, he became much to controversial for academia, and broke with Marx exactly over what made People’s Will People’s Will.

    Either you count them as Marxists spreading from Universities, or you have them as an example of non-Marxists who are persona non-grata in educational settings.

    ——–

    And seriously, now you are reading Michelet’s mind? You are sure of what he knew and believed, as opposed to what he wrote? Even if we assume that you are right about what he privately thought, the style and terminology of the passage above still does not match his writings. He was pushing a different narrative.

  89. 91
    Görkem says:

    “What the hell. Did you expect me to remember your name”

    I dunno, when you state your intention to avoid someone, I guess I assumed that it was something that was possible for you to do. If it isn’t, it’s certainly no skin off of my back.

    Skipping the opportunity to pick up the Japan discussion again, I am not claiming to read Michelet’s mind, but knowing the context in which he was operating, of contemporary French nationalist conservatism and anti-socialism generally, I am pretty confident in my interpretation. Reasonable people may, of course, disagree.

    And re: People’s Will, I will say again, neither I nor the original quote I was mentioning them in response to identified them as a Marxist group. But for the record, they definitely were not Marxists, I agree with you there. And I am not necessarily saying that they were definitively university based, just that their connection to the intellectual world of the universities was significant enough that I could imagine some third party describing them as “university based” without it being a complete fabrication.

    I am pretty sure that the original quote was not about People’s Will or French socialists, it was just notable to me that it plausibly could have been a reference to them (absent the word “totalitarian”).

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    Ampersand says:

    My inability to remember names or faces has, perhaps inadvertently, led me to be a very forgiving person.