5 policemen shot dead, 11 wounded during a protest in Dallas. Jesus Christ.http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/08/us/da ... index.html

Ben Abraham wrote:emmanuelle cunt wrote:5 policemen shot dead, 11 wounded during a protest in Dallas. Jesus Christ.http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/08/us/da ... index.htmlIt should come as no surprise that when the police can kill and not face any repercussion, that there will be those that seek out violent means of retribution for a repetitive, systematic injustice. When justice fails to be served, this is what happens.It doesn't make the killing of 5 random cops less horrific or untolerable, I must add.

I wonder if Trump's going to suggest a ban on black army recruiting "until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on".

Iconic image of the moment from Baton Rouge. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36759711https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/752242091166724098

Another one. Black man with his hands in the air. Shot ten times. Cop rolls up and unloads on him before he can even get his cruiser into park. https://www.facebook.com/shaunking/vide ... 141511303/

Protests against police brutality erupted across the United States over the weekend, with tens of thousands of people taking to the streets and blocking roads, bridges and highways in cities including Chicago, Atlanta, Baton Rouge, St. Paul, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Rochester, New York. More than 300 people were arrested nationwide, including more than 160 in Baton Rouge, where two white police officers killed Alton Sterling last Tuesday morning ” an African American father of five. Multiple videos of the killing show police officers had Sterling pinned to the ground before shooting him multiple times. Among those arrested in Baton Rouge was Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson, who ran for mayor in Baltimore. He was held for 17 hours.In Minnesota, where Philando Castile was killed by police, more than 100 people were arrested on Saturday night on Interstate 94 during a standoff with police, during which officers in riot gear threw smoke bombs and pepper spray; while some threw Molotov cocktails and rocks at the officers. More than 20 police officers were injured. Philando Castile was killed during a traffic stop for a broken tail light. The aftermath of his death was live streamed on Facebook by his girlfriend, Diamond "Lavish" Reynolds in an extraordinary video in which she narrates the killing while she is still in the car, with the police pointing a gun at her and her 4-year-old daughter, as her boyfriend lay dying in the seat next to her. Philando Castile had been pulled over at least 52 times by police in recent years, receiving $6,588 in fines, although more than half of his violations were later dismissed ” a record which many decried as an example of racial targeting.Throughout the weekend, solidarity protests also erupted in Phoenix, Arizona, where police pepper sprayed a crowd of more than 1,000 protesters; in Memphis, Tennessee, where hundreds shut down the Interstate-40 bridge, in Rochester, New York, where 74 people were arrested; and in Chicago, where protesters blocked traffic by forming a peace sign with their bodies. In cities across the country, the police deployed military-style vehicles, smoke bombs and tear gas to attempt to suppress the uprisings. The heavily militarized response to the protests was encapsulated by a photograph, which has since gone viral, of a tall black woman in a dress standing gracefully in front of two police officers in full riot gear, who appear to be running toward her. The photo was shot by New Orleans photographer Jonathan Bachman. It s reported the woman was later arrested.http://www.democracynow.org/2016/7/11/h ... 0\_arrestedMichelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: I know many people believe that our criminal justice system can be œfixed by smart people and smart policies. President Obama seems to think this way. He suggested yesterday that police-community relations can be improved meaningfully by a task force he created last year. Yes, a task force. I used to think like that. I don t anymore. I no longer believe that we can œfix the police, as though the police are anything other than a mirror reflecting back to us the true nature of our democracy. We cannot œfix the police without a revolution of values and radical change to the basic structure of our society. Of course important policy changes can and should be made to improve police practices. But if we re serious about having peace officers ” rather than a domestic military at war with its own people ” we re going to have to get honest with ourselves about who our democracy actually serves and protects.... Our entire system of government is designed to protect and serve the interests of the most powerful, while punishing, controlling and exploiting the least advantaged....This is not hyperbole. And this is not new. What is new is that we re now watching all of this on YouTube and Facebook, streaming live, as imagined super-predators are brought to heel. Fifty years ago, our country was forced to look at itself in the mirror when television stations broadcast Bloody Sunday, the day state troopers and a sheriff s posse brutally attacked civil rights activists marching for voting rights in Selma. Those horrifying images, among others, helped to turn public opinion in support of the Civil Rights Movement. Perhaps the images we ve seen in recent days will make some difference. It s worth remembering, though, that none of the horrifying images from the Jim Crow era would ve changed anything if a highly strategic, courageous movement had not existed that was determined to challenge a deeply entrenched system of racial and social control.This nation was founded on the idea that some lives don t matter. Freedom and justice for some, not all. That s the foundation. Yes, progress has been made in some respects, but it hasn t come easy. http://hellablvck.com/michellealexander ... community/Video of militarized police storming a neighborhood and private residences in Baton Rouge on Sunday: https://www.facebook.com/RevNews/videos ... nref=story

Andrew. wrote:Iconic image of the moment from Baton Rouge. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36759711https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/752242091166724098Was just coming here to post this.What an incredible photo.Also, wtf are those cops doing?

Corey Robin remarks that "One of the consequences of the end of the Cold War is that global embarrassment of this kind may no longer matter to American elites." There's definitely some truth to that IMHO. Images of Militarized Police in Baton Rouge Draw Global Attentionhttps://theintercept.com/2016/07/11/ima ... attention/I recommend watching the last two video clips of the Black woman on the street speaking out and then getting jumped by pigs.I've always loved the "No Justice, No Peace" chant, for the way it cuts against cheap liberal handwringing, and also the update: "No Justice, No Peace; No Racist Police."

[N.B.: I accidentally wiped out my original post and had to recall it all from memory and rewrite. This isn't exactly what I wrote..and indeed I think I've expanded on what I originally wrote. Nonetheless it is true to what I initially wrote]I won't deny that there are some bad cops, corrupted cops, asshole cops. There is also an ongoing problem with the militarization of some police departments and some of those departments recruiting too heavily from the armed forces. But that aside, one has to respect police and treat them with respect.Point of fact: Two or three years ago I had to flag down a police cruiser one evening on the street. The reason I did so is because a guy had collapsed from a drug OD on the street and there was clearly a medical emergency.It just so happened that there was a police cruiser passing when I observed the medical emergency so I flagged it down. When I did so, I was very deliberate to let the officers (there were two officers in the cruiser) know I was not a threat to them by having my palms open and outward and keeping a reasonable distance from their cruiser. Why did I do this? Not because I thought or confabulated all police officers to be thugs who beat and kill people with impunity, or because they are racist, or because they are 'fascist' tools. It was because I know that any police officer in the United States is trained, rightfully so, to treat a random event such as a guy flagging them down on the street as expect the unexpected'. I am sure that both officers didn't expect me to flag them down for a medical emergency on the street.Anyway...just to put things in perspective with the murders in Dallas, the police chief says so much with so little. He's right:phpBB [media]Let's also not forget another police chief who knew which way the wind blows:phpBB [media]

matthew wrote:Anyway...just to put things in perspective with the murders in Dallas, the police chief says so much with so little. He's right:phpBB [media]Discussing this man's point probably warrants a thread of it's own.