A social culture where perception of others is not conditioned by skin tone is obtainable. In the process of getting there, a system of law with no impunity for racism and with exemplary punishment for agents of the state in contravention is essential.
A court will judge whether there was intent to kill George Floyd; what is absolutely apparent is there was certainly no intent by the police to preserve his life or health. It is also plain that the force used was wildly disproportionate for the alleged offence. It is further undeniable that police violence in the USA impacts particularly on black people, and that in dealing with black people the police act with an arrogance founded on anticipated impunity. The societal change whereby the majority of adults have camera phones at the ready has given a new power of resistance to the public in this regard. That must be reinforced by exemplary sentencing.
The law currently takes the opposite approach:
If a police officer unlawfully harms a citizen, the officer is subject to assault or homicide charges—no different than if the officer committed these crimes off duty. [2] However, if a citizen unlawfully harms a police officer, the citizen is automatically subject to aggravated assault or aggravated homicide charges, which carry more severe punishment. [3] In fact, some states make the intentional killing of an on-duty officer a capital offense. [4] Enhanced charges in police encounters are thus asymmetrical. They only apply if a citizen harms an officer but not if an officer harms a citizen.
Police who kill in the course of their duties are given every latitude by the courts and far lower sentences than others who kill. That attitude needs to reverse. Police need to understand that their duty to protect and deal fairly embraces both the alleged victim and the alleged criminal. Breach of this public duty to protect should be an aggravating factor when the police kill, and sentences should be stiffer than for the general public. There are moments in public discourse where you need to come down off the fence and decide which side you are on; I am on the side of Black Lives Matter.
Here are two murdered men who have even less chance of receiving justice than George Floyd.
There is a stark contrast between the justified international outrage at Floyd’s death, and the unremarked killing of just a couple more Palestinians. I recommend this twitter thread by the ever excellent Ben White, and the links it gives. Ben does not mention that Iyad, on the left, was on his way to classes for those with special needs when he was chased and gunned down by Israeli soldiers.
This may surprise you. The police in the USA have less impunity for killings than the police in the UK.
Even as straightforward a case as the murder of Jean Charles De Menezes, who did nothing wrong whatsoever, brought no action against the police in the UK. The killing of Sheku Bayoh in Fife had obvious parallels with that of George Floyd, yet nobody was charged. 457 people have died in police custody since 1998, from all causes. From 2005-2015 10% of 294 deaths were “restraint related”. That is 30 people in the UK in ten years who have died at the hands of police in much the same way George Floyd died. That figure excludes those shot by the police.
Not one British policeman has been convicted of an unlawful killing in all these deaths. – not one. The last British policeman convicted was in 1969. That is what I call real impunity.
Source: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/655710/Deaths_in_police_custody_A_review_of_the_international_evidence.pdf
And that is without examining the similar impunity enjoyed even by private contractors in the UK responsible for the many deaths in the prison system and in immigration detention.
Impunity is a major problem all round the world, and everywhere it enables disproportionate use of state violence against minorities. But it is most sinister in a state like the United Kingdom, where the support of the prosecutorial and judicial institutions of the state for those who enforce the state’s monopoly of violence is absolute, and where the public are so conditioned to the power of the state they do not even notice the impunity.
The United Kingdom is full of people, right now, looking at the images of unrest from the USA and telling each other that the way the police kill black people in the USA is terrible. We do not process that in the UK law enforcement officers enjoy still greater impunity than in the USA.
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I saw the video of the incident. I was struck by the fact that people watched, shot video, persuaded the police to check his pulse, but no one tried to intervene with the action.
That’s how human life perish right before our eyes. I feel so sorry, and so angry, and ashamed.
Had anyone attempted to intervene, they would’ve been maced, beaten, or even shot, and then thrown in jail and prosecuted. Few people are willing to take those risks for someone they don’t know. I don’t fault them.
probably none of them had a gun at the time, and if they had, the cops would have gotten off for killing them just as they may well get off for killing floyd.
US cops beating and killing African Americans, including the late Mr Floyd.
https://mobile.twitter.com/RobertDeNiroUS/status/1267146599639236613
Coming soon! No irony.
Watch the trailer for gripping BBC One drama The Salisbury Poisonings
The three-part drama series dramatises the Skripal incident and stars Anne-Marie Duff and Rafe Spal
31st May 2020 at 10:59 am
BBC One has released the trailer and first look image for its upcoming drama The Salisbury Poisonings, a three-parter that focuses on the impact that the real-life 2018 Novichok poisonings had on ordinary people in the local community.
/..
https://www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2020-05-31/watch-the-trailer-the-salisbury-poisonings/
As expected, the National Guard has been summoned. Curfew in certain cities would be the first step to quell the violence.
Over a Dozen U.S. Governors Summon Thousands of National Guardsmen to Quell Violent Protests
https://www.politicopathy.com/2020/05/31/over-a-dozen-u-s-governors-summon-thousands-of-national-guardsmen-to-quell-violent-protests/
Note that many of these governor’s, mayor’s are from the democratic party.
Delete your greengrocer’s apostrophes Jack. Governors and mayors are plurals ffs.
So what they are Democrats? More in your continual attempts to make a fake narrative about the protests. Like all the other rightwing media.
Ian
I raised the issue because some people believe the National Guard, military only have been summoned by right/wing convervative states.
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms condemned violent protests over the death of George Floyd that erupted in her city on Friday, saying in a fiery speech “this is not a protest … this is chaos.”
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/500237-atlanta-mayor-condemns-violent-protests-in-fiery-speech-if-you-love-this
Chicago too, black woman is the mayor condemning the violence
https://www.newsbreak.com/illinois/chicago/news/0PCaXrY8/read-lightfoots-full-statement-condemning-violent-chicago-protests-enacting-curfew
Note that many of these mayors are black, they condemn it, so it makes no sense for you on internet, far away, witha complete different racial background, to support the violence.
Haha, what rubbish. Just because they are democrats or black doesn’t mean a thing in your perverse reasoning. Hilarious that you think I support violence, but that is all your whole pathetic argument is trying to do, and divert attention from what is actually happening. You should read Martin Luther King’s Letter From An Alabama Jail, but I doubt you would understand it. You’re just trolling.
Ian
That is what makes this so weird. You are white guy, far off america that support violence by fringe black groups that majority of blacks do not want anything to do with.
MLK was about non-violence even his grandchildren today speak out against the violence you support.
MLK Jr.’s niece Alveda King speaks out against rioting overshadowing protests over George Floyd’s death
https://www.foxnews.com/media/mlk-alveda-king-george-floyd-riots-protests
I think you underestimate the power of American police to get away with murder.
In this case the medical examiner in Minnesota found no evidence of Asphyxia or suffocation as the four conspirators had so restricted George Floyd’s ability to breathe that he died, it was kind of water-boarding on land with the subject having no control over what happened.
This finding left Derek Chauvin holding the bag on a third degree murder charge, allowing the other three to escape without charge, and without having to post bail. They may never be seen again.
Whatever happened to Minneapolis Police officer Thomas Lane and Minnesota Paul Wellstone?
Minneapolis police officerThomas Lane has had his indictment raised from third degree murder to second degree, the same as colleague Derek Chauvin’s who killed Floyd, and more important his bail set at $1,000,000 rather than the puny $50,000 which he could have lost by fleeing.
Paul Wellstone was the Minnesota Senator who was murdered so the warmongers and torturers could have their way more easily.
The media focus on this one incident out of (I’m guessing) tens of thousands of other as newsworthy events across America, made all this outrage. This blog is the last place I would have expected the media’s role in turning an everyday incident into something more than just routine seediness, to get a free pass, as if they’ve all of a sudden turned truth-tellers, and that this is a black and white matter with no shades of grey. Why the disproportionate attention given, it’s as if they’ve been waiting for something like this, that there’s a team, primed and ready to let rip, boilerplate articles and editorials, hands pre-wrung just waiting for the details before a torrent of good-thinking angst is poured out. I’m talking of course about selection, of what is news and what isn’t, what is a big-deal and what is memory-holed and never sees the light of day. The police in America (and in other places, including far closer to home) degrade, injure and kill whites too, even non-criminal (usually poor) ones, they’re equal-opportunites oppressors, tools of the ruling oligarchy, colour-blind, but tuned to class and income stratification amongst their prey, and those who’re at or near the bottom of the social heap are far more likely to find themselves both physically abused and have something contrived to charge them with than their betters in that one metric, wealth. There is much about this case which is disturbing and does not ring true, such as the cop involved having a 17-year long second-job as a nightclub bouncer where the 6’7 tall 191lb dead man Floyd had also recently taken on at the same place in the same capacity. Horrific and prevalent black on white crime too is too often under or never at all reported, or whites would riot regularly, though plenty of them, primarily female have piled in on this incident and joined the lawlessness.
@TonyM – I would take issue with this statement: “Horrific and prevalent black on white crime too is too often under or never at all reported, or whites would riot regularly“.
There is a point to be made about Trump, the far right and its desire for race war, and the media reporting of rioting, but you are not really making it.
There is certainly such a thing as copycat rioting, but there is also such a thing as a tidal wave of working class insurgency which does not depend on the media. Gil Scott-Heron wrote well when he said the revolution would not be televised.
I don’t think current developments are good for Trump, but I’m open to persuasion and being not good for Trump doesn’t mean they’re not good for the (rest of the) US far right.
I’ve noticed that practically no site on the internet talks about how the word “n*****” is used sometimes not only by poor blacks in greeting each other but also when they greet poor whites in a friendly fashion (at least in a reasonably friendly fashion – it’s to be noted that the poor whites don’t use the word back, and it’s surely a good thing that they don’t). Actual working class actions can sometimes be too hot for the left to handle…
Are you suggesting the white far left (female or otherwise) is playing a major role in this conflict? I doubt it is. That may be the line put out in the media though.
Certainly the conflict is nowhere near as large in magnitude as is being made out (yet). It is on a far lower scale than the uprisings in Watts and Detroit in the 1960s and in Los Angeles in 1992.
read the article and you will.see the entire point is that brit media ignores the impunity of brit police.
CM: “It is further undeniable that police violence in the USA impacts particularly on black people, and that in dealing with black people the police act with an arrogance founded on anticipated impunity.”
I don’t think there’s a grain of truth in this woolly sentence of undeniably groundless supposition. It doesn’t account for demographics, they’re both a minority and disproportionately commit more crimes. Statistically, lethal police violence in the US, by shooting dead, impacts most on white people, not surprisingly, as they’re still (just) the majority. And they don’t have impunity at all if the media and Soros’ thugs are on permanent standby to make a great song and dance of it as long as the victim’s profile suits their playbook and are wilfully ignorant when far more frequently it doesn’t.
why are you complaining about this article when it’s allowed you to give full vent to your hard right repertoire?
Your contorted and ridiculous attempts to justify your denial are quite odious. The repeated alt right distortions and diversions in order to evade the point and deny what is going on in America from your comfortable armchair just make the protesters point more powerful.
And not a single word about the plus/minus 20,000 murders a year in South Africa, of which, white farmers tortured and murdered disproportionately by gangs of marauding black bandits is uttered, where is the outrage when a three month old child is killed by being thrown into a tub of boiling water? Perhaps because the child is white?
More fake news, of which Craig is receiving more than his customary share on this subject. Alt right unsubstantiated wildly exaggerated claims.
“While violent crime is a huge problem in South Africa, the vast majority of victims are poor and black. Of 20,000 murders in the last recorded year, 46 were white people killed on farms, according to police data.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-07/white-south-african-farmers-jailed-for-killing-black-teen/10877446
Fact check:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-05/fact-check-were-400-white-south-african-farmers-murdered-year/9591724
“Black people comprise 80 percent of the 54 million population but most of its wealth remains in the hands of white people, who make up about 8 percent.”
I’d say most of the wealth in most countries is owned by the 8%, whether or not the rest of the population is whitey or otherwise. I demand that more wealth be given to the underclass, especially me!
Tony M
I agree with you, crime by certain minorities is a difficult subject for alot on the left, they simply refuse to talk about who is destryoing the cities now with fire, looting.
Most of those people (who support these acts) are privileged and have no reason to support violence to begin with, in a sense they have become useful idiots to a violent cause.
Just because one sympathize the left doesnt mean one should ever support far left fringe groups that use violence.
Instead of blaming the obvious culprits, pundits now call out Russia for being behind the culprit.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/susan-rice-suggests-russians-behind-violent-george-floyd-demonstrations
you are no more on the left than the person you’re responding to. your outpourings on here are those of a fanatical racist.
zoot, mary
Exactly what I meant. You have become radicalized beyond reason if you cannot condemn the violence we now see.
What does the store owners, companies bystanders have to do with the issue of the police violence?
Do you realize that most small stores that are now inflamed are owned by minority groups?
Take a look at this man, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBXQGD25eiA
Do you realize how much money, time that is involved in starting your own business?
People will go bankrupt now because of the senseless violence you refuse to condemn and serve no purpose. Shame on you!
No-one is condoning violence, you idiot. You, however, in your faux concern are shifting the controversy to it deliberately in order to smear protesters and people who support their cause, which is obvioulsy entirely just. You just repeat all the alt right talking points endlessly, and as per usual try to make a false attribution that if you support the cause for justice then you support the violence which has arisen from the consequences of the original, deep-seated violence and racism of state institutions. Fake news, in your words.
Ian
More evidence what I am saying, these are not protesters these mobs commit grave violent crime, why are you not condemning this?
This is maddening. “Protestors” beat a woman w/ sticks as her husband screams & fights back.
https://twitter.com/JoeBorelliNYC/status/1267148439709790208
Interesting gravatar there Jack. Black and white Emperor penguins. Is that how you see the human world too as ‘black and white’?
Mary could you please tell me why you cannot condemn this violence?
Minneapolis vandalism targets include 189-unit affordable housing development
https://www.startribune.com/minneapolis-vandalism-targets-include-189-unit-affordable-housing-development/570836742/
Keep changing the subject, why don’t you. Typical trolling behaviour.
Ian
If you refuse to condemn arson against a public housing project, you are lost morally.
jack i have yet to see you condemn the sadistic murdering cops in this case. can you point out where you did, and why you instead focus on irrelevancies based on fake crime stats in the u.s.? thanks in advance.
Jack, your ridiculoous attempts to get everybody to dance to your tune are risible. Stop trolling this site. Thanks.
Ok, I can only hope you realize coming weeks how wrong you were when you typed those comments .
Senseless racial/violence is never right nor is wanton destruction.
It’s a given Jack as is Trump’s support for it.
Apparently a considerable quantity of ‘crowd control’ material is supplied to US police forces by the UK.
Trump should be more careful with what he wishes for, cause if he wants looters to be shot he is putting himself and his billionaires buddies right in the crosshairs.
Who Exactly is Doing the Looting, and Who is Being Looted?
https://jacobinmag.com/2020/05/looting-minneapolis-police-george-floyd
This is a mob of New South Wales police in action against a young mother. Don’t know what happened to her distressed little boy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=427&v=ok2NKb1ryYo&feature=emb_logo
Note the one in command wearing the cap. His gut hangs over his trouser belt and his hands are in his pockets at one stage.
This is a report from the NZ Herald website.
Covid 19 coronavirus: Dramatic arrest of a mother protesting in Sydney shocks bystanders
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12330831
Imagine the scale of reporting this if the film had come from China.
When the scum who murdered Harry Stanley for possession of a deadly chair leg were facing disciplinary action their colleagues threatened to go on strike. Lovely people.
“light ’em up!”
https://mobile.twitter.com/tkerssen/status/1266921821653385225
Minnesota National Guard fire paint rounds from 12 gauge pump actions at folk standing on their own front porch in Missouri. From the metallic clank as the round enters the room, they could be pretty fucking lethal. Seems the State Governor’s gonna send the farm boys in. to show those God damn hippy, fagot liberals who’s boss.
Craig,police Scotland battered to death the black Muslim Sheku Bayo for sport in Kirkcaldy five years pas in Kirkcaldy.
The Scottish governments answer to that was to grant the police immunity from prosecution and early retirement. I believe they were coerced into doing this by the police union who threatened to work to rule if their members were prosecuted. So who runs Scotland?
This is exactly what is going to happen:
-This woman ran up and stood outside a pillaged Vans and was begging people to stop looting because it will help get Trump re-elected.
https://twitter.com/bri_sacks/status/1267224316745146370
But apparently a pair of stolen shoes were more important for these people.
This is a tragic incident, although I think Craig is absolutely right to urge a sense of perspective. We should remember the hundreds of thousands of innocent people killed by the American military in the Middle East in recent years, not to mention over recent weeks the thousands of elderly and vulnerable who have died from both physical and mental illnesses as a result of the British government’s callous and ill-planned lockdown.
I suspect it is precisely because of the many who have died at the hands of governments that the media appear to be fanning the flames of the riots in the US. They would much rather you blamed the police for one tragedy, than turned on the governments for the many, many tragedies they have caused every day in the name of money and power.
The funny thing is those most in favour of the lockdown are also those most in favour of non-social distancing protests/rioting. But that’s Trump derangement syndrome for you.
Dave
Its bizarre, people coming out not condemning violence, riot because they somehow believe doing so will help POTUS .In fact the riot, violence will help Trump. As you say, TD syndrome.
An evening on the couch with Jack and Dave. Get a room.
The War Criminals who run both the Repugnants and Demoprats support police brutality against Blacks, Hispanics and Poor Whites; even against rich Whites, if they are anti-Establishment and have something the police covet, just as they support wars for oil and other plunder.
Trump has egged the police on, and Obama did sweet FA to stop their brutality..
Both sides of the Banksters and Corporate Two Party Circus want the general public to be cowed into submission, to accept their diktats. They have not built massive FEMA Camps around America for fun.
America has the highest per capita prison population on earth, but you ain’t seen nothing yet.
Anyone who thinks things are going to improve should remove their rose-tinted glasses and blinkers, and take a look at T’rump and the ‘Fondlin’ Dementiac’.
330 million people, and they come up with a choice between these two for POTUS?
‘Land of the Free’ has become ‘Land of the Freaks’.
One of the NWO Agendas that was rolled out for the ‘convenient’ Covid – 19 is already being used for another (it’s real?) purpose: ‘Minnesota is now using contact tracing to track protesters, as demonstrations escalate’. (BGR Update).
“Minnesota is now using contact tracing to track protesters, as demonstrations escalate.”
The authorities can easily do this anyway, contact tracing or no contact tracing. They don’t even need GPS data, all they need to do is look at the cellular phone tower connection data. Although GPS is far more accurate and constantly monitored by Google.
They only way to stop this is to not carry a phone or, if you do, put in flight mode or turn it off. (Note that your phone might still be recording GPS location data even in flight mode, even if it is not transmitting it “live”.)
Plus, the authorities monitor social media and are able to create social contact maps very easily. (“End-to-end encryption” doesn’t prevent this, the metadata is sufficient.)
Another night of violence, looting, destruction, the authorities have lost control, they should have moved in much quicker.
4 police shot in St Louis, shooting on going
https://www.foxnews.com/us/4-st-louis-police-officers-shot-at-george-floyd-protests-still-taking-fire
Trump have said that military will be summoned in those states where mayors/governors have been passive
https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/watch/trump-vows-to-send-military-to-u-s-cities-if-governors-don-t-dominate-protesters-84204613923
Rodney King riots lasted just about a week and resulted in damages around 1 billion dollar. The riots, destruction we see now far surpass the destruction back in 92. Especially ciritical in these times of Covid19 where the economy is already hurt.
The US Congress and President have just given multiple Trillions of public money(Trillions with a T) to Wall Street and sundry other plutocrats. That is another big reason for all the righteous anger we are seeing over there. Working-class people know the USA is governed solely in the interests of the elite. The police are the only public sector employees the elite need, which is why they are the only ones who are lavished with equipment even in a health emergency .
I suppose protracted riots provide Democrats with an excuse to impose a curfew to replace the ebbing lockdown.
Trump and Republicans are hardly opposing curfews, are they?
Quite a mess in New york area
https://www.foxnews.com/us/cuomo-de-blasio-riot
sorry I clicked reply too fast,
Cuomo criticized de Blasio for doing too little against the destruction (both are Democrats), de Blasio’s daughter was also apprehended the other night being part of the protests.
As in other states Democratic mayors/governors begin to realize that what is going with the destruction,looting of their cities and will move on to quell it.
“The last British policeman convicted was in 1969. That is what I call real impunity”
Yes and since then there have been over 1,700 deaths at the hands of British police. Far too close to home for media frauds now posturing about US police. Even the crusading Guardian, champion of deeply implicated figures like Cressida Dick and Sir Keir Starmer.
And now the same violence flood the streets of europe
Paris
https://twitter.com/JeromeRoos/status/1267909349453807616
Spain
https://twitter.com/BasedPoland/status/1267933476587737088
Eliot Engel, Congressional Representative for Tel Aviv West (surely New York?) explains in a hot mic moment “If I didn’t have a Primary, I wouldn’t care.”, when asked to speak about Police brutality.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/02/engel-hot-mic-296963
Ultra-Zionist, Engel has been absent his Coronavirus ravaged constituency since late March. A creature of the swamp par excellence.
Criminologist and attorney Brian Levin is a professor of criminal justice and Director of the nonpartisan Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. Speaking on Al Jazeera news, he emphasised, what he says is, the ‘story behind the story’. He says that most of the protesters are non violent. A smaller number of interlopers, looters and extremists from different sides are exploiting this situation.
The violence damages race relations.
In a demoralizing blow to reactionaries and racists, June 1 poll shows most Americans back Floyd protests
54% support the protests and 22% oppose them
This after a police station was burned down, police cars destroyed in most major cities, protesters breached the White House security fence & national guard are on the ground in 15 states
https://mobile.twitter.com/broseph_stalin/status/1267947401832206338
Protests yes, but not in support of looting, riots, violence:
Poll: Majority of Americans Support Calling in Military to quell unrest
https://www.newsweek.com/majority-americans-support-calling-military-assist-police-during-nationwide-unrest-polling-shows-1508210
Interesting all these so-called human rights organisations who make such a fuss about China, Russia, Venezuela, Iran etc have nothing to say about police brutality and the use of military force against protesters in the USA. It’s almost like talk of human rights is s ploy to attack opponents of US imperialism!
A quick google search show that Human rights watch, Amnesty have multiple articles on the recent event.
Any of the usual demands for regime change, sanctions, direct military intervention? No? Oh… why do you think that is,, Jack?
It is interesting to observe that while this so-called pandemic has allowed the most repressive governments of the world (e.g., Britain) to make so many things illegal and violate all sorts of human rights, it is still possible to kill people with your vehicle with impunity, or to kill the ‘lower classes’ simply because you are a police officer.
We need to face the facts, that air pollution, road deaths and police brutality (in the name of protecting white wealth and power) cause more deaths per day than any virus.
And yet, I don’t see any new laws being passed to curb air pollution, road deaths or police brutality.
British state hypocrisy doesn’t even need to be concerned about being so outwardly noticeable, because people have become so hysterically blind to reality/truth.
Police, journalists assaulted by Black lives matters protesters
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/reporter-outside-downing-street-chased-22136175
Tip: stop reading the Daily Star and you will quickly stop wetting the bed in fear of people of a different colour.
Also australian journalists were assaulted, guy screamed allah ahkbar and made stabbing motions
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2020/06/australian-journalist-attacked-live-on-air-man-yells-allah-akbar-makes-stabbing-motions.html
Police smashed to the ground while people laugh, cheer,
https://twitter.com/BasedPoland/status/1268403445125521409
Jack,
I think that when the police of the world start doing what they were meant to do, which is to protect the peace and ensure fairness and equality and freedom from discrimination on the basis of ethnicity/wealth/politics/origin, then you will see the people start to laugh and cheer with them rather than against them. At present, we have police forces that are essentially thugs in uniforms protecting thiefs and murderers, psychotic politicians and greedy corporations. This used to be well-concealed, for the sake of order, but no longer. The further capitalism is propelled into crisis (and that is just inevitable, I’m afraid), the more this violence will become visible. As they say, things will get a lot worse before they get better. On the bright side, though, we have already seen many police forces express solidarity with the people against power, and we can only hope that this continues because that is the direction of peace and reconciliation.
“The further capitalism is propelled into crisis (and that is just inevitable, I’m afraid), the more this violence will become visible. As they say, things will get a lot worse before they get better.”
Hence, this?
“British soldiers who have been accused of committing war crimes in Iraq are unlikely to face criminal prosecution.
Independent investigators were asked to look at thousands of allegations made against the British military after the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
But the director of the Service Prosecution Authority (SPA) said just one remaining case was being examined.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52885615
“From 2005-2015 10% of 294 deaths were “restraint related”. That is 30 people in the UK in ten years who have died at the hands of police in much the same way George Floyd died.” Not necessarily.
For a death to be counted as ‘restraint related’, the use of restraint does not have to be the only factor behind the death or even the main one, just one of the factors. Then there is the reason for the use of restraint. Restraint is justified and may be necessary for a person threatening to attack another person or to resist arrest for a serious crime. George Floyd in contrast had not committed a crime against a person, was not threatening to do so and was not even resisting arrest.
Some other points. The steep decline in the number of deaths in police custody followed the election in 1997 of the Blair Government. Give credit where credit is due, as this was a policy objective of Jack Straw. The deaths in police custody show no significant racial bias – around 90% of the victims are white. Far more people are killed in police chases – further consideration of how to make these safer would bring greater dividends.
Juries including multi-racial ones are notoriously reluctant to convict police officers. Juries made up of the same sorts of people who exonerated Alex Salmond. Why this should be the case is not clear but my guess is that people are reluctant to convict people on whom they may one day depend for protection against violent crime.
@Christopher – It’s probably because when a police officer gets tried in court both the prosecutors and the other police officers who have been working with the prosecutors don’t bother getting a proper case together and they decide instead to take the piss.
Funnily enough when family members related to screws and cops find themselves charged with committing crimes, for one reason or another at the end of the day they often find their arses don’t get slung in jail. Why on earth might that be? Answers on a postcard? 🙂 Works the same in every country.
Great to see armed Black Panthers out on the streets today in Atlanta. If the second amendment applies to beer-swilling Trump-loving wrestling-fan tattooed Nazis, it applies to the brothers too. As Jonathan Jackson once wrote in a letter to George, “‘Let the ruling class tremble at a communist revolution.’ That’s my favorite line in all of Marx and Engels.” I wouldn’t even bother trying to explain what he meant to some poser like Slavoj Zizek who would never understand.
One could argue that here it is, rising once again – the spirit of the Watts and Detroit revolts and of 1968. Black citizens in the US are five times more likely than whites to be in jail, and twice as likely to die in childbirth. There’s something seriously f***king wrong here, and it’s not going to be overturned using polite methods.
There are at least some grounds, at long last, for a wee smidgeon of optimism…optimism that this movement builds and builds, brings the country to a standstill, and at long last forces that m***erf****er Trump out of presidential office, the way Democratic Party politics on its own almost certainly couldn’t.
@ N_ June 6, 2020 at 20:22
It’s not just Trump and the Repugnants – Obama also turned a blind eye, as did other Demoprats.
The two faces of the same monster both need thugs in the police, and the military, to uphold their unholy, unjust system.
I just got back from a demo for BLM, walked from Vauxhall Undergound Station to Parliament Square, via the US Embassy. Loads and loads of people, vast majority young people, black and white. I cannot judge the numbers, but one of the biggest marches I have been on, including the 2003 Iraq War demo.
I managed to get across to a lot of people, about the reality of what the virus is all about (I did manage to get screamed at, by two young girls who missed the point – but two against the scores I dialoged with is a pretty good score). Basically, person to persons, I got across, big time.
A major point I tried to put across, I believe successfully, was the !A luta continua!, ‘The Struggle Continues!. It should not fizzle out, but continue to face the Luciferian powers which seek to enslave or destroy us.
I had good contacts with drivers who where stuck in traffic jams due to the march, police on the streets and police in vans. People on the ground don’t say – ‘Oh, conspiracy theory’, they listen to the argument.
Person to persons (I almost always was dealing with a small group) is definitely better than online argumentation.
!A luta continua!
I was moved to watch the tearing down and disposal of the statue of slave-trader Edward Colston in Bristol: a beautiful action that will hopefully inspire many others in Britain and the world.
Statues to slavers in London and Edinburgh that haven’t yet been toppled include:
1. Charles I equestrian statue, Trafalgar Square, technically Charing Cross, London, looking down Whitehall. (This guy licensed and and supported slaving.) Most leading British politicians and civil servants must have passed this statue hundreds of times during their careers.
2. Charles II statue, Soho Square, London. (This guy established the slaving Royal African Company in 1660 almost as soon as he got the English and Scottish thrones back for his despicable family.)
3. Charles II statue, Parliament Square, Edinburgh. (See 2.)
4. James II (VII in Scotland) statue, outside the National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, London. (This foul wretch of a “man”, brother of Charles II, owned many thousands of slaves, whom he had branded with hot irons to read “DY” for “Duke of York”, which was the title he used before he became “king”. He is also the person that “New York” is named after.)
When photos and video clips speed around the world showing an anti-slavery crowd pulling down statues of monarchs in Britain and kneeling on the necks of said statues, that will be some day indeed – and it may happen before this month of June is out.
That is seriously NOT the kind of action that leading Tories and members of the royal family will be able to recuperate by saying “we feel your pain”.
And yes, descendants of slaver James II/VII are STILL called “the royal family” in Britain. This is where the “queen” got some of her huge wealth from: from SLAVING.
Avanti!
N_
June 7, 2020 at 22:20
Why the Tories ? Let us include the socialist Labour party who facilitated in the genocide of a million Indonesians and Africans during the 1960s and other human right abuses. And covered it up with their Joseph Goebbels propaganda Unit the IRD .
How far back do you want to go? Slavery was big business in the Iron Age. During the first century AD Britain’s biggest export to Rome was slaves so maybe the statue of Boudicca on Westminster Bridge ought to go in the river and why stop at Royalty? Oliver Cromwell (Parliament Square ) is said to have shipped thousands of Irish prisoners to the West Indies to work as slaves.
But do you honestly think it’ll do anything to combat racism or modern day slavery*?
*There are estimated to be 40 million slaves in the world today, many of them children. Some 70% are women and girls trafficked into sex work.