George Floyd

[version]

I've a bad feeling about the protests over here. The Tories have been steadily losing support due to their poor handling of the virus, particularly since the Cummings debacle, and now they can point the finger at protesters (and by extension "the left") if there's a second wave, galvanise their base and do their "law and order" routine whilst their friends in the media churn out article after article of outrage porn about "chaos on the streets" in an attempt to convince the populace they're in danger.

Also Starmer's going to be caught between showing enough support for the protesters to satisfy his party and voters and showing enough support for the police and public order to satisfy floating voters and not give the Tories enough ammo to paint him as some sort of threat to society and the rule of law.

 

[Mr. Tea]

I see the usual suspects have been lining up to say the statue should have been left there to 'educate' people. Well I'd never heard of the guy till the statue was dumped, and I was born there (although we moved away when I was five and I've only been back very occasionally ever since).

 

[DannyL]

I've a bad feeling about the protests over here. The Tories have been steadily losing support due to their poor handling of the virus, particularly since the Cummings debacle, and now they can point the finger at protesters (and by extension "the left") if there's a second wave, galvanise their base and do their "law and order" routine whilst their friends in the media churn out article after article of outrage porn about "chaos on the streets" in an attempt to convince the populace they're in danger.

Also Starmer's going to be caught between showing enough support for the protesters to satisfy his party and voters and showing enough support for the police and public order to satisfy floating voters and not give the Tories enough ammo to paint him as some sort of threat to society and the rule of law.

There is a sense of the zeitgeist though and being on the wrong side of it. No one now argues that the Poll Tax was a good idea, for instance, and it's that moment that sunk Thatcher despite lots of press licking her arse in the run up to those events. Governments do need some sense of legitimacy. The Tories are never going to embody this tbh and I think its a limitation of Starmer. His softly softly approach doesn't capture this moment. Corbyn might have done (much as it makes me choke to say anything positive about him). i think lockdown and Covid throws a lot of these previous certainties to the wind.

 

[version]

I did notice today's front pages that cover it basically all just mention a statue of a slaver was toppled. The only one playing up the "chaos in the streets" angle was, unsurprisingly, The Mail.

 

[version]

There are a couple of clips going round atm of an Irish guy being stabbed and another Irish guy being beaten on the floor whilst the guys beating him are shouting about four hundreds years of slavery and now 4chan and far-right accounts are circulating faked chat logs trying to pin it on gangs or something. I saw it on Reddit, but I think they're spreading it across other platforms too.

 

[DannyL]

Seen that before with the circulation of attacks on Trump supporters - normally accompanied by a sneering "who are the real racists, huh?!"

 

[version]

Yeah, exactly. The clips themselves seem to be legit, but there's a clear attempt being made to make it out to be something more than a handful of dickheads. One of the attacks allegedly took place in Cork yet the chat logs mention locations in Dublin...

 

[version]

They read exactly how you'd expect fake chat logs written by a bunch of guys on 4chan to read too.

 

[WashYourHands]

There are a couple of clips going round atm of an Irish guy being stabbed and another Irish guy being beaten on the floor whilst the guys beating him are shouting about four hundreds years of slavery and now 4chan and far-right accounts are circulating faked chat logs trying to pin it on gangs or something. I saw it on Reddit, but I think they're spreading it across other platforms too.

The National Party low hanging fruit are all over this. Certain insidious group tried to launch a gofundme page for the lad involved, but it got suspended temporarily. These people are networking with hard right groups on the continent plus that ingrate Paul Jospeh Watson & Brexit twats who would’ve thrown Irish interests on the bonfire first chance on the way to no deal.

They all need a few, focused slaps, hard enough to leave visits to the dentist, but that’s me.

 

[version]

I expect Gemma O'Doherty will be onto it soon enough too.

 

[version]

I guess it could just be a PR move, but it was cool to see Romney join the march in DC. The fact he was there at all still sends a message.

 

[version]

We often accuse the right of distorting science. But the left changed the coronavirus narrative overnight | Thomas Chatterton Williams

Progressives blithely accepted throwing millions out of work to fight coronavirus - but now urge street protests to fight racism

www.theguardian.com

 

[entertainment]

We often accuse the right of distorting science. But the left changed the coronavirus narrative overnight | Thomas Chatterton Williams

Progressives blithely accepted throwing millions out of work to fight coronavirus - but now urge street protests to fight racism

www.theguardian.com

Tricky ground, it's basically about balancing incommensurable moral principles. Curious if anyone would disagree with anything he said.

 

[IdleRich]

The march in Lisbon was very chilled out... police were smart enough to hardly be there for most of the thing, I suppose they call it light touch, did feel kinda artificial at times as though people were protesting the wrong people. The police here are far from perfect I'm sure but it was kinda weird to see people taunting them when we went past the police station as though they had actually personally killed George Floyd. But it was all fairly peaceful that I saw, people walking round handing out masks to those without them (although ninety-five percent of people had them anyway) and people with hand sanitizer etc My friend got a phone call from some people nearer the back saying it had got more rowdy there but I never saw anything apart from people singing and waving placards and so on. One thing - demographics were very mixed, but almost everyone was young. Hardly saw anyone at all over fifty, not sure why that should be.

 

[version]

They're going after statues of Leopold II in Belgium. Hopefully the authorities listen and have them removed. I've seen only glimpses of what went down in the Congo under his watch and it was more than enough to justify tearing every single one of them down.

 

[Leo]

Fans of the K-pop boy band BTS have raised more than $1 million for Black Lives Matter, the Movement for Black Lives and more than a dozen other civil rights and advocacy organizations, a fan group said on Sunday, as protests against police brutality and systemic racism continued worldwide.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/08/arts/music/bts-donate-black-lives-matter.html

 

[version]

They've been doing good work. Whenever some racist or pro-Trump thing's started trending they've flooded it with BTS memes and stuff and completely shut it down.

 

[DannyL]

I can't help but think the focus on statues - Sadiq Khan has launched a review today - is a bit of a diversion from the more systematic and immediately relevant racisms being perpetuated in the name of the hostile environment, immigration discourse and son on.

 

[entertainment]

Should Churchill go as well?

 

[droid]

Yes.