Ongoing U.S Police Brutality and Corruption Discussion Thread

or at least, not to remotely this extent

Wait, why are we taking about Antifa looting? Does anyone have even a shred of evidence for this? It sounds like right wing disinfo creep.

Vandalizing/damaging property, antagonizing/confronting cops, yes. Not sure what “looting” has to do w Antifa and really disappointed to see this notion getting parroted here.

It's this. Treeship putting Antifa in quotes for a discussion.

I'll bet there are "antifa" assholes setting fires. But, whatever, it's not the root of the problem.

― treeship., Tuesday, 2 June 2020 bookmarkflaglink

btw before you all have me down as a square and an enemy btw i would like to pledge my allegiance to smartly-targeted acts of vandalism both symbolic and functional

btw

Btw, imago pushing the same line as Maitlis re. UK police aren't as bad as the US just last night (1 min in), and this was a good response.

Part 2: #BlackLivesMatter #Newsnight pic.twitter.com/IVSFR23JhG

— William Kedjanyi (@KeejayOV2) June 1, 2020

obviously the treatment of people esp minorities in custody in the uk is a fucking abomination, i meant the tactics during protests etc

Lol sure

while kettling and other crudely suppressive police tactics were used around that time, you didn't have a militarised police really actively escalating things into a near-battleground situation

Lol sure

― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 2 June 2020 bookmarkflaglink

literally nothing i said remotely excused (or even referred to) the treatment of suspects in custody which has always been dreadful. except the bit where i talked of the cops executing mark duggan

anyway, don't become the story etc, just trying to help us all work out which sorts of violent action are fair game rn

I can tell you from ground zero here in Minneapolis is NOT FUCKING ANTIFA, we have neighborhood WhatsApp coordinated watch with over 50 people. The things we are seeing is right wing, white power actors.

For example, last night a man in a large red pickup truck got out and walked around Moto Mart, beard, tats, body armor, large weapon, Call of Duty cosplay.

Hour later fire set behind Moto Mart

Two white people, M/F, Indiana plates parked in alley. Asked where they were from, gave fake address (i.e. could not exist for due to local streets, numbering)

This is happening all over the city.

So Treeship don't "bet" on things you think you know please and further disseminate bad information.

Ask people who are here.

Trump & the right say it's Antifa therefore "Antifa is doing the looting" is all over the news right now

well, more than which actions are fair game - which actions are good ideas that will advance the cause

and yeah of course bad-actor opportunism is making everything murkier

Now that Minnesota Freedom Fund is pausing donations, where is $$$ most urgently needed

I know many people in many neighborhood watch groups all over this city, literally no one is worried about Antifa, everyone is looking white redneck dude, trucks, SUVs with no plates or out of state plates

Simon thanks!

Yes so Reclaim the Block is a great org but believe they have said that they don't need anymore.

We Love Lake Street is a great org, in the community and is helping rebuild and local charities

HOWEVER

I will say that there has been overwhelming generosity towards South Minneapolis and perhaps consider donating to the Northside (Minneapolis largest African American neighborhood) they have had less rioting but are traditionally the most neglected part of this city and have been the victim of very targeted firebombing of black owned business

Unsurprisingly, their fundraising is lagging

Here's a great North Minneapolis and black owned business community org:

https://giving.onecause.com/public/02ad4737-2285-4ad2-91c6-95cd66b423bf/fundraisers/c60e5030-69ce-4853-8b11-4727da5054ad/donate

I apologize for not making a distinction between "looting" and "vandalism and property damage," which are obviously different things, but either way, I hope these small businesses have insurance, because while I assume broken windows don't cost as much as lost inventory, it still costs something and I'm not sure a lot of these mom and pop shops will have the disposable income to deal with this right now (or ever). Probably a little sensitive to it as someone who has in my youth worked retail in such places and who knows how something as minor as a small leak in the ceiling can wreak financial havoc when margins are already razor thin. To be clear, I'm not talking about Target or Wal Mart, who are insured up the wazoo (and may even actually profit from damages), and fuck them anyway

ums, other Minnesota residents, how are you doing?

Sending my best

I dunno if this is different in the States, but I've been involved with local Antifa activities since they started here in the '90s, and there really isn't much more to it than what's there in the name. It's just bunch of anarchists and other radical leftists coming together for demonstrations/protests/etc against fascism, racism, and other far-right threats, under the Antifa banner that can be used by anyone who's against those threats. There's no central organisation, nationally or internationally, no agenda beyond anti-fascism and anti-racism, no long-term plans for revolution or insurrection. Of course some Antifa activists are also anarchists who might have nothing against sabotaging big capitalist companies and looting and redistributing their products, but those are not Antifa actions, and not everyone who's for Antifa is for looting as well. So saying "Antifa" is behind stuff like this is pointless, because Antifa is pretty much just a code word, a symbol used by those who feel the far right should be opposed by any means necessary.

thanks for that link, ums

Tuomas it's not pointless, they want to be able to designate anyone who opposes them as a "terrorist" so that the designee has no legal rights

To the extent that Antifa is not an organized group per se but rather a hodgepodge of people who oppose fascism, the decision to brand them as terrorists should tell you a great deal of what you need to know about the person/people making that decision. If you even needed the nail to be hit that squarely on the head at this point.

Yeah but they uppercutted a KKK member once, absolutely shameful stuff.

doesn't seem like I can donate to WBC from outside the US, an all too common issue

oh nvm all the address stuff is optional!

thanks Simon very appreciatied they need it up there

neanderthal - thanks ok just exhausted.

everything is so confused, I think we are getting paranoid and seeing ghosts to some extent but then real, verifiable things are happening too and it gets so hard to separate

which I guess is exactly the point

https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/george-floyd-protests-06-02-20/h_98f026c33f5f4bdcbe991cbed382af97

^6 ATL cops under arrest for excessive force. Were previously just fired

ums, my buddy in your neighborhood was in the all night watch last night and he said things seemed a little quieter finally... was that your sense? (Aside from mr call of duty)

just donated, ums

Haven’t lived in Atlanta for a while but I’ve been impressed with mayor Bottoms. This, letting killer mike speak at a mayoral press conference and reopening the child murder cases. Mostly symbolic stuff, but the right kind of symbolic stuff

I've been involved with local Antifa activities since they started here in the '90s, and there really isn't much more to it than what's there in the name. It's just bunch of anarchists and other radical leftists coming together for demonstrations/protests/etc against fascism, racism, and other far-right threats, under the Antifa banner that can be used by anyone who's against those threats. There's no central organisation, nationally or internationally, no agenda beyond anti-fascism and anti-racism, no long-term plans for revolution or insurrection.

Tuomas otm -- there are groups/cells here that affilate with Antifa but are also their own name. Saturday night I watched that biopic about Dalton Trumbo and HUAC starring Bryan Cranston, and then this Antifa = terrorist thing is like ... wow are they gonna revive HUAC?!

There is definitely tension and distrust here between some Black organizers/progressives and white anarchist activists which is unfortunate.

Hey, does anyone know of people who monitor right-wing social media and websites and them seeing anything about Boogaloo types deliberately stirring shit up?

Born and bred MPLS native here (grew up one block from Lake Nokomis). Love to all who I there. I've been donating too.

*are

ums, my buddy in your neighborhood was in the all night watch last night and he said things seemed a little quieter finally... was that your sense? (Aside from mr call of duty)

― valet doberman (Jon not Jon), Tuesday, June 2, 2020 11:42 AM (twenty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think so?

I'm assuming there might have have a certain contingent that had to get back to work after the weekend. Whether this becomes their new hobby is another question...

Like I said I think everyone is tired and stressed and may be seeing some stuff as suspicious that's not, but I guess that's what domestic terrorism does

In a funny way, there's not a sort of bizarro world racial profiling that's developed in south Minneapolis, everyone on the lookout for suspicious looking white males, which is sort of awesome if I step back from it

Boring, I don't know will tell ilx if I find out

Thanks voodoo!

xps to Boring, Maryland

https://twitter.com/IwriteOK is often good at keeping track of the online right-wing facebook groups and shit, but he's mostly been livestreaming and tweeting from the protests for the past couple days and I don't know if he's mentioned anything about that recently.

He did write that invaluable piece on bellingcat re b00g4l00

Boring, MD: You mean stuff like this?

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/02/tech/antifa-fake-twitter-account/index.html

JJ Macnab on Twitter is also a good follow

Corollary. It isn't the Hawaiian shirt that indicates "boogaloo." It's how they choose to accessorize their Luau-wear. pic.twitter.com/pE1FOIqicm

— JJ MacNab (@jjmacnab) June 2, 2020

This is so crazy it’s morning now in New Zealand and they’re marching for #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/KxegRDzTK3

— Joshua Potash (@JoshuaPotash) June 1, 2020

Yes, she's great. xp

I'm not sure if this article is linked somewhere in this thread, but it's a good short (15-page) overview of policing in America and definitely helps put a lot of things in context for people who may be interested but have never thought about it before.

https://plsonline.eku.edu/sites/plsonline.eku.edu/files/the-history-of-policing-in-us.pdf

HEARTBREAKING:

https://lefsetz.com/wordpress/2020/06/01/blackout-tuesday/

It's hard to think of many people I want to hear from right now less that putz.

I find him unreadable. Was what he wrote heartbreaking-good or heartbreaking-bad?

lol like I need to click on it to know the answer

jon otm

You see the U.S. is screwed-up.

There, I said it.

holy moly, Lefsetz is done fucking around!