George Floyd

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
calling it now - when the UK does an embarrassing second lockdown in a month’s time people will blame the protestors as a tactic to delegitimise them and draw flak away from the government
not very hard to call. I would be shocked if it didn't happen, here and the UK. worse here.

a huge chunk of the media coverage I saw - outside of social media - was "Will protests spread COVID/trigger 2nd wave/etc"
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
couple recent pieces that have caught my eye

The Story Behind Bill Barr's Unmarked Federal Agents
who are these mysterious assholes? largely riot cops from the Bureau of Prisons, it turns out, and border patrol.

worrying in a less immediate but significantly larger sense, it turns out federal law enforcement has been growing steadily - in scope, numbers and powers - over the last 20 years. the bloat is huge - there are something like +50% more federal agents than there were pre-9/11, across a whole slew of poorly overseen, often little-known agencies, often with temporary leaders b/c Trump admin can't/won't get nominees past Senate. oh, and federal law is so vast and convoluted that no one actually all of it, what powers these agents have or what some of them are meant to be doing.

post-9/11 law enforcement industrial complex spreading like an octopus isn't surprising, but the scope and (especially) disorganization might be

The Social Psychology of Popular Right-Wing Conservatism
the good kind of historical comparison, i.e. an expert in a particular era - in this case 19th C. American history - draws on that knowledge, as well as social psychology, to compare modern populism to the antebellum South. read it, it's good.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Absolutely support the protests but I regret the way they will be used to undermine the case against Dominic Cummings, next time it pops up.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
right-wing types, moderates, etc misusing protests in support, or against as the case may be, various odious causes is a fact of life. always happens.

it's good to know what people who disagree with you are saying but emotionally you gotta tune it out as white noise.

Cummings is a real-life evil genius but small fry comparatively to the moment.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
right-wing types, moderates, etc misusing protests in support, or against as the case may be, various odious causes is a fact of life. always happens.

it's good to know what people who disagree with you are saying but emotionally you gotta tune it out as white noise.

Cummings is a real-life evil genius but small fry comparatively to the moment.
What I'm hoping is that the dots are joined between these protests and contemporary racism as expressed against immigrants. Then the whole Brexit project could be in trouble. I would normally say that this seems like a massive long shot but the moment seems so febrile, who knows what might happen.

Cummings is relative small fry for sure against this moment but an absolute central player in this country's coming transformation into a much more unequal and divided place. I hope this current outrage can be leveraged against that project.
 

version

Well-known member
The thing that most worries me re: Cummings are his interest in and connections to "Big Data". Palantir's just been given access to the NHS... God knows what they're going to do with all that info.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
What I'm hoping is that the dots are joined between these protests and contemporary racism as expressed against immigrants. Then the whole Brexit project could be in trouble. I would normally say that this seems like a massive long shot but the moment seems so febrile, who knows what might happen.
oh yeah, good luck

I agree it's such an up in the air moment, almost certainly the most acute in any of our lives*, that many normally/previously unlikely things could come to pass (many of them not good, unfortunately)

but that would require the articulation/comprehension of complex underlying causes and the overcoming of deep, massive, bitter division

people at different points on the political spectrum experience essentially different realities at this point

I read a John Stuart Mills thing the other day about the impossibility of winning arguments over emotionally-held (rather than rational) beliefs - facts are actually counterproductive - which basically summed up the Internet
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
There are reports of Predator drones over Minneapolis now
I'd be more surprised if there weren't

one striking thing is that Minneapolis is quite laidback as big American cities go. the legacy of all that Scandinavian niceness and liberality.

not that there aren't the same issues as anywhere - I haven't been there in a long time, but I remember a lot of tension around the Somalian immigrant community, for one - but it's a comparatively nice place

if this had kicked off out of an incident in NY, LA, Chicago, Philly, you wouldn't bat an eye. but Minneapolis?

reinforces how universal the underlying toxicity of American race relations, and their nexus with law enforcement, is
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Re. the statue. Largely down to one man it seems
it was resolved to raise funds for a statue of the great man. Although 1,500 circulars were distributed the response was poor. The first subscription list produced only £201. A second appeal raised the total to £407. By June the committee decided that 'citizens generally¿ should be invited to subscribe. `The promoters had no idea of turning back because they were not so enthusiastically supported as they might have been.¿ Even this did not raise the sum required but the competition went ahead. Models from 23 sculptors from Edinburgh, Manchester, Birkenhead, London and Bristol were received and the `commission was placed in the hands of Mr John Cassidy, of Manchester'. Funding-raising continued in 1895 when, encouraged by the success of the Industrial Exhibition of 1893, a Handicraft Exhibition was held in the Rifle Drill Hall. The result was poor. Although 96,510 visitors attended only £170 was raised for the Colston statue fund. By the unveiling the £800 required had still not been fully subscribed. An Anchor Society banquet raised £12 and the Dolphin Society contributed £1. 10s and the balance, 'about £150, was given by an anonymous citizen who had already subscribed liberally¿. This was almost certainly Arrowsmith, himself"
 

version

Well-known member
God, he's a twat.

NmHpn4o.png
 

sufi

lala
. An Anchor Society banquet raised £12 and the Dolphin Society contributed £1. 10s
These 2 organisations still exist i think also there's the merchant venturers soc, who colston was a member, are still going strong.
they must have forgot to invite the avon cops to their secret banquet last year tho
 
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