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Ferguson

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Also, who are these people abandoning support of imperfect black people? I have seen a lot of angry internet talk about the Sanders disruption, and no one has given any indication that they're withdrawing support for black rights because these few people did something the speaker disliked. Even those saying the protesters made the movement look bad were mostly lamenting it.

 

It's not difficult to find ostensibly progressive people who were willing to dismiss the Black Lives Matter movement or disparage those particular protesters with ugly racial rhetoric because they had the gall to do activism incorrectly.

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You're right. I wrote what I did out of concern for discrediting #BlackLivesMatter and placing people of color in danger, but it's true that my own expectations and anxieties are part of the social mosaic restricting black action. I really don't get the point of claiming to be taking down all political candidates, only starting with the most progressive one and getting to the less progressive ones maybe never, but I'm trying...

 

I don't know that it has to be or even should be all candidates, and that's entirely possible that pushing, say, only Bernie makes a lot of sense.

 

I could try to sum it up, but I'm going to do something instead that I kinda cringe at doing, which is to link a facebook post.  But, style aside, it does a good job of evaluating the strategy of "Why Bernie?", and it's pretty simple: Bernie's the one that might actually listen. 

 

Those protesters didn't just show up overnight.  There's been a simmering issue with Bernie for a little while now, but Bernie wasn't actually going out of his way to address.

 

If Bernie Sanders, out on the far left of the spectrum on his own, doesn't have to address these issues head-on, then why should anyone else?  Who in the field is positioned to take up this particular mantle and use it to make them look good and Bernie look bad?  If Bernie's not talking about it, then no one will.

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I can't argue with the reasoning that post lays out for the strategy, but it relies on a whole host of other factors. First, that other groups won't follow their example and browbeat Sanders into adopting their positions as a more central part of his platform. Second, that it won't lessen the focus on other elements of his platform, possibly pushing those groups to Clinton or other candidates (that's how Obama beat Hilary). Third, that Bernie Sanders wins the presidency twice. This is mainly due to the fact that a self described democratic socialist isn't going to get a damn thing through a republican controlled Congress until his second term, and then that the next round of elections put a democratic majority into the house and senate.

Finally there is the question of how this strategy, and it's apparent success, changes the Sanders campaign with relation to the rest of the field. How does this affect his position with moderates? Is he going to lose or never gain the support of other groups? Regardless of the facts on the ground, the perception elsewhere seems to be that Bernie has aligned himself with a belligerent faction. As much as it shouldn't be the case, fear often dictates people's voting choices more so than principle. The argument seems to center on the idea that this strategy would only have ever worked with Bernie, but I don't really see the argument as to why it is the best strategy.

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Last night the Ferguson PD abandoned the protest group, and immediately after, a group calling themselves the "Oath Keepers" took their place. Who are the Oath Keepers?

 

Old white guys that used to serve in the armed forces, who felt they should carry their weapons in front of the crowd and tell them what to do.

 

Terrorism alive in America.

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I'm not sure which thread this should go in, if any; but we were talking about the BlackLivesMatter incident at the Sanders rally here previously.

 

Trump blasted Bernie Sanders, who let the protesters speak at one of his events, as a “disgrace.” According to Trump, “That showed such weakness, the way he was taken away by two young women. They just took the whole place over!”
 
Trump said he would never have to cede the stage because he would beat up protesters who tried to interrupt his event. “I don’t know if I’ll do the fighting myself, or if other people will,” Trump added.

 

Maybe a 2016 Election thread is possible?

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How does one keep up to date on a topic like Ferguson? I don't live in the US so my media isn't full of updates about it, I've taken to just Googling "Ferguson" under the assumption that if there were any significant developments since yesterday, the news results will be full of it. It's not an especially thorough approach, can anyone suggest something better?

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Follow the local newspapers and a few local activists is probably the single best way, anything worth knowing is probably going to show up in one source or another.  I'm lucky enough to have a bunch of friends in StL, so my regular feeds more or less keep me up to date. 

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My source has been Twitter. Sadly, social media is the best way to get news on this sort of thing because major media outlets still don't have the courage to report on police departments acting hatefully or murderously. As easily out of hand rumors and hearsay can get on social media, these days there's at least videos and photos that support activist stories of what's going on.

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It's not a matter of outlets, but specific people. Wesley Lowery with the Washington Post has done a great job covering the story, but he's also become a part of it now that he's facing charges related to his abuse at the hands of police last year.

Following #BlackLivesMatter leaders on Twitter is incredibly helpful -- Netta, DeRay, and Cornell are people to follow off the top of my head, but there are definitely others whose names I just can't remember offhand. Writers like Heet Jeer and Ta-Nehisi Coates are great. There used to be a newsletter I got called This Is The Movement, but I don't remember when I last hit one. I'll see if I can find a good replacement.

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I tend to get my updates on ferguson and related incidents through the US news aggregators like huffington post, though I do find more of the deeper stuff on sites like the atlantic and mother jones.

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I can second a mention of Wesley Lowery as being a really good source of coverage. Considering he got arrested the first week, he's always been "part" of the story.

 

Ryan Reilly was there during the arrest and seems like a decent source to get information as well.

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So... ignoring the issue of guns and how insane guns are and wow I would not want to be around a bunch of people carrying AR-15s (same as I wouldn't want to be around Ferguson cops ever, really)... does that make the Oath Keepers actual decent human beings, contrary to what was originally proposed in this thread? I'm confused, for real.

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Uh... The Oath Keepers plan to arm fifty black people with AR-15s to make a statement on open carry. Somehow I imagine that the police are suddenly going to be a lot less welcoming to the Oath Keepers if they go through with what they claim to be planning.

 

Man, I caught some of that and my head just won't stop exploding. Talk about a freaking crazy development out of left field that nobody saw coming.

 

I'm having a really hard time figuring out how to process this but my gut is telling me that this will ultimately be a good thing if it goes down as they're claiming (with a line of people armed to the teeth, alternating between BLM supporters and Oath Keepers). At the very least it will be a big reminder to everyone that the right to bear arms isn't a privilege exclusive to white people and that police react to a black person with a gun in a vastly different way than they react to a white person with a gun.

 

Head exploding.

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Well this chain of event proves that political allegiances are never simple.  Sometimes they are your enemies, next day they can be your friends.

 

And it does paint The Oath Keepers as being 'true' to their core vision, which is to well, arm USA civilians.  Whether their vision is faulty or not, I think it's ok to appreciate (and to criticize their core values as well~) the irony that they are at least not racially motivated to oppress even though their 'core vision' is often seen as racially charged one, hence the shock value.

 

At least for now.

 

Edit: Also I question the wisdom of arming untrained people with rifles in very tense environment, but still hoping for 'best' of whatever this chain of event could result in.

 

Edit2: correction, if those are legal AR15 they are most likely semi auto as I understand the law as fully automatic ones are really really difficult to gain access to.  But maybe they are fully automatic then I'm back to double concerned.

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“At least my men know how to use them,” he said. “He (Belmar (St Louis County Police Chief)) was thumbing his nose at the legislature of the State of Missouri. It was like he couldn’t give a crap about the Bill of Rights or state law.”

 

Andrews claimed he and the other Oath Keepers spent an entire night talking to African-American protestors about the situation in Ferguson and their Second Amendment right to bear arms. He said Oath Keepers never encountered any violence or profane language during their stay in Ferguson.

 

“Every person we talked to said if they carried they’d be shot by police. That’s the reason we’re going to hold this event and it will be a legal demonstration,” he said. “I’m sick and tired of law enforcement who doesn’t think they have to abide by the law. They’re narcissistic and that guy (Belmar) discredited my men.”

 

Complete insanity.

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Edit2: correction, if those are legal AR15 they are most likely semi auto as I understand the law as fully automatic ones are really really difficult to gain access to.  But maybe they are fully automatic then I'm back to double concerned.

 

Practically all automatic weapons are illegal in the US. There are ways to automate the trigger pulling to make semi-auto guns fire similar to automatic guns, but I doubt that people who were trying to communicate the legality of bearing such arms would toe the line in that fashion.

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Practically all automatic weapons are illegal in the US. There are ways to automate the trigger pulling to make semi-auto guns fire similar to automatic guns, but I doubt that people who were trying to communicate the legality of bearing such arms would toe the line in that fashion.

 

Well there are very narrow legal ways to obtain them, and groups that are hardcore like The Oath Keeper probably would try hard enough to get them legally, I assume?

 

Off topic but all this gun talk keeps reminding me how stupid gun laws are in NJ.  Still baffling that they banned AK series by the name (so AK branded knives are also illegal cause of guns while SAIGA series rifles aren't...)

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I'm having a really hard time figuring out how to process this but my gut is telling me that this will ultimately be a good thing if it goes down as they're claiming (with a line of people armed to the teeth, alternating between BLM supporters and Oath Keepers). At the very least it will be a big reminder to everyone that the right to bear arms isn't a privilege exclusive to white people and that police react to a black person with a gun in a vastly different way than they react to a white person with a gun.

 

I'm a pessimist, so I can't help but feel it probably won't be a good thing. It has a chance of being a neutral thing, but... I don't know. The way I see it, a victory for open-carry advocates is a victory for the runaway libertarianism that they mostly represent. It might diminish the power of the police, but their intent isn't to diminish it in order to reduce the amount of state-sponsored violence against oppressed peoples. It's to diminish it so that they themselves have more latitude to carry around lethal weapons and intimidate the local government and citizenry. It's selfish and childish activism, a fact that is reinforced by their brave stance of letting someone else do the protesting and possibly the dying for specious rights that (by and large) the black community isn't interested in defending.

 

Yeah, there might be the media moment of seeing black people armed in identical fashion to white assholes and hence seeing the police's differing reactions, but when the best-case scenario is that no one is hurt and a minor rhetorical point is made... Yeah, I'm not optimistic.

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I'm a pessimist, so I can't help but feel it probably won't be a good thing. It has a chance of being a neutral thing, but... I don't know. The way I see it, a victory for open-carry advocates is a victory for the runaway libertarianism that they mostly represent. It might diminish the power of the police, but their intent isn't to diminish it in order to reduce the amount of state-sponsored violence against oppressed peoples. It's to diminish it so that they themselves have more latitude to carry around lethal weapons and intimidate the local government and citizenry. It's selfish and childish activism, a fact that is reinforced by their brave stance of letting someone else do the protesting and possibly the dying for specious rights that (by and large) the black community isn't interested in defending.

 

Yeah, there might be the media moment of seeing black people armed in identical fashion to white assholes and hence seeing the police's differing reactions, but when the best-case scenario is that no one is hurt and a minor rhetorical point is made... Yeah, I'm not optimistic.

 

Honestly, you're probably right. It's just so fucking weird and hard to extrapolate what will potentially come out of this demonstration. At the very least, it will hopefully force some people to face some of the ugly hypocrisy in this country. I can just imagine right wing gun nuts all over the country watching the demonstration on TV and having an existential crisis when they see non-white people exercising their right to bear arms in the same brazen way they do. 

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