Bet on Dem VP! (Switches to: "Spring 2020 Riots Thread")

[JackRiddler]

Sometimes I really don't get where you're coming from.

A raging cop killed a black man while seeming to laugh about it and it was recorded on video. Like many days in America. This being publicly egregious, well-captured in daylight, and coming at a time and place with enough anger accumulated, it exploded. Just like LA in 1992. Can't believe you really think this is because someone (Abrams? Obama? Soros?) "reactivated" the "BLM network" (!) or because Abrams is "putting the shiv" to Klobuchar. But anyway, your bet is noted and I'll counterbet: zero chance of Abrams. Near-certainty of white "moderate" lady from the Midwest with conventional right-wing politics (no shortage of alternates to Amy, if she's personally cooked). Non-zero but very small chance of Warren, if they want to pretend that they tried to "unite" and win. The identity politics that matters most to the Biden handlers would be the traditional American identity politics, which is white. And of course policy is primary to them as to the GOP side: meaning, service to imperialism and plutocracy. Some differences about how best to do either, who the right enemy is, which fractions of capital should be most privileged, etc. (Other differences matter greatly to given groups but not really to the party leaderships.)

[Wombaticus Rex]

No, it had been re-activated for about a month now. It's easy to see the difference in the coverage of recent events with racial overtones. This was already incoming because black people get killed by police officers all the time, just like hispanics, asians and whites. Cops just kill a lotta fuckin' people in this country. Indeed, the cop did it quite nonchalantly, "raging" is a weird way to put it. Ol' boy in Los Angeles who starting used that handcuffed fellow as a punching bag on camera -- now that, that was a raging cop. The earlier incidents caught on, and helped set the stage, but the obvious murder of George Floyd was the match they needed. It was only a matter of time, though, it's summer in America.

When one of these police murders becomes the biggest news story of the day, that's a decision being made by a network of operators and a lot of them are proximal to BLM. I realize it's offensive to say that activist networks get used for political ends, but it's also a fact.

Also, I'm not making bets with you, you don't have any money, you have to make bets with bookies. Interestingly, last week Abrams odds were above +2000, I placed at +1600 and it's currently down to +1200. We'll see in July.

[liminalOyster]

I'm also don't totally get your take on this one (and esp as your other comments on that thread I started yesterday left me kind of speechless/stunned in a good way with lots to think about.)

I realize it's offense to say that activist networks get used for political ends, but it's also a fact.

Fuck yes. And isn't this the lasting value of this old haunted PHPBB so long after it functionally ended? Having a reliable cohort who accept at face value and without caveat that the MSM-life-form is real and instrumental and fed/starved by obscure organs of power.

When one of these police murders becomes the biggest news story of the day, that's a decision being made by a network...[snipping]

But this, I don't think so. I was going to call you an idealist yesterday for so much as speculating that any planetary turn for the better and/or survival at all was even possible. Today I read you as a pessimist for discarding the entire possibility that social networks still accidentally enable organic surfacing of events important to the people. Not , though, by any stretch to diminish that the organic event itself was theatrical and nerve-striking in all the right ways and that clearly that's part of why it's horror (however common it may be) made it surface. There are volumes to be written or that have about the nuance and context in which this takes place, but I, speaking only for myself, I think this is organic.

ps. It's a sidenote,but I can't imagine Biden giving a shit (no pun) about any of this. I'm sticking with Klobuchar but am curious (if you know) where she's at on the betting markets.

[Wombaticus Rex]

I do think all of these Events are more or less equally fungible. When I log into Facebook to check on how people respond, everyone posting either sermons or excuses is sharing the same iconography; The Event is essentially a .jpg, generally a video still, and the vast majority of the people engaging are doing so because of their existing beliefs. It's not a revelation, it's a reinforcement.

This is extremely cynical, for sure, but also informed by work in both politics and marketing.

Edit: To be clear, the initial protests after the incident were of course completely organic. That's the local community. Those got supplemented and framed on a national level from there, though, and just like marketing, big-node "social media influencers" were very important in driving that. Those are mostly paid messages, and we've been seeing revelations of back-end email networks, both left and right, to coordinate this "viral" dynamic and coordinate talking points, too -- language to avoid, language to stick to.

Also, when I talk about BLM networks I'm doing it an extremely unorthodox way because I include both the institutions injecting funding and bussing people to protests (which happened the 2nd day) and the DHS / LEO elements who take advantage of this to do things like, say, start fights, infiltrate undercovers, antagonize protestors into being more aggressive and violent, and as footage from last night seemed to indicate, walk around in a gas mask and a black umbrella (???) smashing windows and starting fires while actual local activists ask them who they fuck they are and what the fuck they're doing.

Just like I would very much include NYPD and MoveOn and Larouche elements as part of an "Occupy" network. There are multiple actors with competing goals here using the same network. Using is not meant to diminish the agency of the protesters or their anger or the issue of police killings, it's just an operational statement about what's actually going on amidst all this chaos.

And, cynically, those programming / perception management efforts will be more effective, in terms of influencing the short term and long term behavior of the American body politic, than the local, organic protest movements they're using. "Cops" are a double bind with no clear solution or exit.

[Harvey]

Claims already arriving that undercover police are throwing the matches, so to speak. Nothing remotely resembling conclusive. But, what if? If so, who, why? Would this fit within the scenario you're outlining Wombat?

Edit: Actually thinking about it, set a fire to avoid a bigger fire, selectively edit and frame the results.

[Wombaticus Rex]

Claims already arriving that undercover police are throwing the matches, so to speak. Nothing remotely resembling conclusive. But, what if? If so, who, why? Would this fit within the scenario you're outlining Wombat?

Edit: Actually thinking about it, set a fire to avoid a bigger fire, selectively edit and frame the results.

The footage of a six foot plus white man in boots and a very nice gas mask smashing up Auto Zone raises a lot of questions. The umbrella is clearly a signal -- I remember Quebec City in '01, cops use flags like that so they don't get shot or arrested when they're trying to ordo ab chao, it's so obvious when some big burly cracker in police-issue gear shows up and starts shouting about killing the rich -- and his behavior speaks volumes. Nobody else recognizes or knows him. Maybe he's some antifa radical dweeb, but I tend to doubt it.

And, this is what I mean about using: the system has goals for you and your demographic that have nothing to do with your demands and desires. Every color of the identity politics rainbow is only useful to the media machine insofar as they can be used as a wedge or magnet (Lee Atwater, "Boogie Man," Frontline PBS) towards the overall agenda.

As long as I'm saying unspeakably callous things, this is why the transgender community is being pushed so hard by the Fortune 500 set -- they're being taken advantage of because they're extremely divisive. They will bear the brunt of that backlash and the machine will move on. It's all inspiring corporate ad campaigns and moments of glory until you're not useful anymore. Progressives tend to see being embraced by the system as actual progress, and that's incredibly stupid shit, very easy to take advantage of marks like that.

[JackRiddler]

Regarding what happens at riots, none of what has been described as happening in Minnesota needs to be top-down and I see a lot of mystification in making that assumption. It's false. In its own way the cop riot is just as organic as the protests after the cops kill someone. Cops create riots. Cops from the bottom to the top do it. They show up in armor and military gear and formations and take up all the space and push people around until it blows up. They beat up the peaceful open protesters and the crowd reacts. Often enough they just dress civilian or send in assets who throw the rocks and molotovs themselves. Provocation is an ancient trick. It's everywhere, it's most cases, it's standard practice. No one needs to teach them or direct them to do it or spend days planning it. It's not handed down from Washington or a foundation. It comes from inside the departments. Protesters are always the enemy (with very few exceptions). Protests, crowds, these are why police forces were created in the first place. The way to deal with large threatening protests, especially of non-white people, is to send in your own men who start the window-smashing. Over and over. How many times have you seen the headline? "Protests turn violent." There's almost never an agency imputed, active voice is avoided, because it's obvious who's starting it 90-plus percent of the time. You see how the mayor of Minneapolis doesn't even get to impose policy on his own police department? Repeat across the country, around the world. Many mayors are held hostage, pressured by the police. It's even true of De Blasio, since his first day (and never mind how bought he was from the start, the cops never cared, they still hated him as though he was a traitor and a cop-killer). And yes, you get all these liberals who provide the getaway excuse by explaining to you (credibly) why young black men might want to smash that window, burn that storefront (usually assuming it without having been there, without even considering that the cops might be the who start it).

every time this happens all the libs fall over themselves to paint the rioting as a justified expression of anger when it's usually orchestrated entirely by a bunch of professional narcs paid to undermine that anger while the cops preoccupy themselves tasing and teargassing everyone but the ones committing crimes.

And of course the coppers -- by which again I mean the department of the city in this case -- have it altogether within their power to defuse the whole situation. No interest. They will always do whatever they can to protect their own. In this case way to exposed not to fire the ones caught doing this thing, but arrest? Arraign? It's like treason to them. They prefer the riot, and what they think is an opportunity to shift the blame and paint the community as savages. From my observation at many protests, many of them like the action, like it's sports, at least when it starts.

.

[Iamwhomiam]

^^^ Way too close, like one who breaks up families and takes parents away from their children. Nominating Harris would lose minority voters and would effectively be worse than nominating Klobuchar. But nominating either will surely elect Trump.

I agree with you regarding Stacy Abrams, that her time is yet to come, so it would be a surprise if she was to be nominated. Her nomination would pull in a lot of "iffy" voters who might otherwise not vote at all.

Jack ~ Cantwell because she's just what the doctor ordered and will satisfy neoliberals ideal qualities for a Democratic Party candidate: Republican-light.

Personally, I like Abrams. But she hasn't the experience... Kinda hard to write that with a straight face.

[liminalOyster]

Biden should add Candace Owens as veep. He'd have it this shit (no pun) in the bag.

[Iamwhomiam]

^^^ That's not funny. I cannot understand why you would reproduce that trash.

[Wombaticus Rex]

^^^ That's not funny. I cannot understand why you would reproduce that trash.

I appreciated the chuckle. Operators have to play all the angles to survive and I'm eternally grateful I haven't been compromised into a position like Owens or Cernovich or Deray or those Chapo boys. Yet. Gotta a lot of life ahead of me, we'll see.

The Soros Monomania stuff is a very useful foil to discredit the role of family foundation money in activist theater, and it's also got an increasingly eager audience, so: win/win.

[Iamwhomiam]

I owe you an apology, Liminal Oyster. I've posted some pretty awful stuff, too. I get your point though. That's the kind of crap that made me leave FB before the '16 election.

Rex, I've pretty much lost my sense of humor about such things and no longer can enjoy such absurdity.

I'd recommend a treadle operated leather sewing machine. I sense an armband being in your future; it will be cloth and bear a leather skull patch.

[Wombaticus Rex]

Is that good or bad?

[Grizzly]

As per usual...

Shit just got weird yo

https://kstp.com/news/george-floyd-fired-officer-overlapped-security-shifts-at-south-minneapolis-club-may-28-2020/5743990/
https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/gsjngj/george_floyd_and_the_police_officer_who_killed/

Also, new footage (different angle)

[Iamwhomiam]

Is that good or bad?

It could be either. That's for you and others to decide.

But you have no cause for worry. This time, when they round up the intellectuals, they'll be sending 'em off to Mars to create a brave new world made to order.

But here, sewing deer skin and lambs wool can bring you great wealth and warmth.