posted May 02, 2015 02:45 PM            

I agree that looting is criminal. Terrorist or opportunist it isn't justifiable. It is, however hateful, understandable tho..in hysterical circumstances.

posted May 02, 2015 03:00 PM            

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And when the military loot..is that terrorism, or doing their job?

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Bella`s question was general and so I didn`t give any military specifics. I`m glad you ask

Yes, military looting is terrorism. It is a willful, terrorizing and destructive deed.

Most soldiers don`t loot as most Americans don`t loot. It is the few that do that needs to be called thugs and punished by law.

posted May 02, 2015 03:37 PM            

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It is dangerous to assume that any of us know the whole story but allowing ourselves to be divided is the very worst response.

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Thank you and Amen Sister !!

This is the first time I have heard someone else say this . Right or left, white or black ,this truth,imho, needs to be spoken.

posted May 02, 2015 04:17 PM            

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Originally posted by Catalina:
This whole situation is fraught with overreaction..on all sides. It is not enough to cast blame while the press inflame. It is dangerous to assume that any of us know the whole story but allowing ourselves to be divided is the very worst response.

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NOW it's overreaction?

*incredulous*

This point was made two days ago, by several, before you.

lol

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Nothing is permanent in this wicked world; not even our troubles.

posted May 02, 2015 04:56 PM            

I came to GU and found Rightwing radio alive n well and believed as the gospel. So I am called leftist here lol.

posted May 02, 2015 06:42 PM            

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Originally posted by Catalina:
Anyone remember Serpico?
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/10/the-police-are-still -out-of-control-112160.html#.VUVLLKNlDFp

Anyone disagree with him that things haven't changed Much? Of course there are good cops but sometimes there are good reasons why they are silent

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posted May 02, 2015 06:59 PM            

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Well i guess i have wasted several years here then juni cos that is my whole point in debunking the righteous smear tactics prevalent here.

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Nope, nothing wasted here in G.U..

I just chose this particular point to mention and voice an agreement on.

Actually, I figured it covered a whole lot of territory....

posted May 02, 2015 07:36 PM            

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After sitting on the sidelines, silent at the lynching of Freddie Gray, you'd think that some property damage and non-lethal violence would fail to shake the conscience of the average white viewer. You'd be wrong.

It's in the defense of that property - those CVS stores owned by faceless individuals and those police cars being bashed in - that we've seen the strongest response from the dominant element of society. Social media is a good indication, but certainly not the only one. There, on sites like Facebook and Twitter, folks have spoken up about Freddie Gray for the first time. They've not come to the defense of the oppressed. Rather, they've spoken up in condemnation of those "animals," "thugs," and "criminals" who are "destroying their own city."

It's some combination of historical illiteracy and racial animus that drives the response. The prevailing white view has been tragically non-curious from an intellectual perspective. Rather than asking what might cause a people to risk life and limb in an effort to smash to bits their own neighborhoods, we've responded with a stupid, incredulous look on our faces. "Look at them," we've said. "Burning down their own city." We understand that we would never do something like that - not even when our favorite hockey team failed to win Lord Stanley's Cup. But we fail to ask that critical next question - if these people, who are in so many ways like us, would do something that we wouldn't think of doing, [u]what must the conditions be like to drive that behavior?

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Why do you see destructive rioting and looting? It's not because people think it's the best way to get things done. It's because the people have finally come to realize that no matter what they do, nothing gets done. No matter how loud they scream, the system still crushes them under its weighty wheels. Their macro situation in many ways mirrors their individual situations. These people are expressing not just anger and frustration at another black man killed by another group of police officers. Rather, they're expressing anger and frustration at a socio-economic reality in which they are the bones and scraps left over after the best meat's been taken.

Despite living in the wealthiest state in the country, the residents of Baltimore's inner city find themselves in abject poverty. No group is hit harder than young people. In fact the child poverty rate in Baltimore is 36.5-percent, according to a 2014 report by Catholic Charities of Maryland. Around two in every three high school students will graduate, a number that is even an improvement over how things were just a few years ago.

These are young people who live in communities torn to pieces by the War on Drugs, where violence is the norm. They're young people who are considered a "success story" if they achieve what people in my community would call the base level of productive existence - graduating high school without dying or being sent to prison. They're young people who, if they were to achieve what my parents would call success, will be a story so rare that Hollywood might come calling for the movie rights. The handful of young people who escape horrible Baltimore neighborhoods and find themselves in the middle class are the exception that proves the rule.

And they're smart enough to know it. Centuries of oppression, and more specifically, decades of policies targeted at the economic destruction of black communities in places like Baltimore, have led to this reality. They're the bubbling furnace that powers the kind of frustration necessary for destructive protesting.

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posted May 02, 2015 08:15 PM            

Having a best friend who is black changed my mind. And she didn't convince me, the irony is that I did more to convince her. Her own experience (which includes the LA Riots which terrified her as a child) was that everyone treated her like crap, even her own family liked to bully her and call her an "oreo" ("white on the inside") because she was smart and shy, and how is that not agreeing with white racists on what black people are like? (Though ironically many white racists in small towns that look down on inner city blacks can be just as suspicious of higher education as well as being just as active in beer drinking, drug using, music cranking--cosmetic differences in brands, types, and genres only--as well as having a big problem with teen pregnancy, juvenile crime, and domestic violence only to go to church on Sunday where they pretend for a few hours that they're completely different people than they usually are.) Furthermore, she said that for all the crap she took growing up no one accused her of sacrificing people to Satan as happened to me (she has a point there...even during the Satanic Panics where there were arrests and prosecutions most people charged were white).

But I saw the low grade racism that happened to her a lot, how people would react differently when I was with white people and when I was with her. And she also got treated differently when she greeted people I introduced her to without me being around so that we came to realize that in many cases she was simply tolerated for my sake rather than accepted. She's been harassed by the cops far more than I have who are also less polite to her than they usually are to me, and though cops have also done very nice things for me as well they've never done the same for her, despite how sweet she is. In the rare times she showed anger I've seen people FLINCH as she reached inside her purse (that never happened to me no matter how angry I got), a politician stammered and backed away slowly when my friend gently corrected the politician on how to say her name (costing that politician two votes, hers and mine), and one who said her intuition was never wrong "knew" that my friend was a drug dealer and thought I was being absurd when I pointed out my friend is actually an administrative assistant who is really good with computers.

And in addition to all of that which was almost constant if generally low key was the usual occasional in your face racism that would pop up at times that I knew about because I was around her or because of her (people asking why I was friends with her and such). Granted, a few black people were overtly racist to me but they're not part of the system, they can't hold me down, and the system is likely to be my friend and ally if I want to make an issue out of it. It was so ridiculous in one neighborhood that white dealers were left alone for months despite many of us complaining (including one white lady living across the street from one once), but black and Hispanic dealers had to keep a low profile (I suspect that part of that tolerance is that this was a minority slum I was living in and the cops WANTED the blatant white dealers like that to get out of white society).

When me and my blasian partner were threatened the deputies helped me get a carry permit while arbitrarily denying the blasian one despite that she was just as qualified as me (through granted not as charming as I can be when I think it's a good idea, sometimes Libra wins over Aries when it comes to attitude). Oh yeah, I once saw some white girls staring at my garage so I went outside to see what it was to find another white girl leaving a racial epithet for my blasian partner. In all our years there where I was a minority (a blue eye blonde with a Texan accent) no one ever tagged our home with racial epithets against me, but white people still had to leave their own neighborhoods to do it to the minorities (sheesh). 'Course minorities prowling there to do so would've drawn police action a hell a lot faster, too. Which reminds me, an experiment of having a white guy trying to break into a car and a black guy (plenty of experiments like this out there):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-LqMOcwDpI

posted May 02, 2015 11:24 PM            

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Originally posted by aquaguy91:
This may come across as arrogant but I feel that I probably have more perspective on the cop issue than most people here given my life experiences.
To put it simply, I have seen the issue from multiple angles. I was harassed on multiple occasions and even got arrested by a gung ho cop when I was a teenager. I have also seen my dad get railroaded by corrupt cops.
On top of all of that I work as a security officer and step into the shoes of a cop when I am in my uniform. You might not believe me but people treat me differently when I put on my uniform because they think i'm a cop. I go into stores and restaurants when i'm going to and from work and I have people sucking up to me and being nice to me. I get all sorts of reactions but more than anything I get fear..... People see me in my uniform, think i'm a cop, and I can tell it makes them feel uneasy. You may think i'm joking but i'm being dead serious when I say this. It's no secret that alot of people have a negative view of cops in general, just ask and you'll find out. As I said I kind of step into the role of a cop when I put on my uniform and I can tell you that you definitely get negative reactions from people when they think you are a cop or are connected to the cops.
I am saying all of this to bring up a very important point. People should not be afraid of cops and people in authority. They should see them as allies, not as enemies. Unfortunately alot of people in this country are scared of cops and don't really trust them. It should not be this way! The fact that there is a lack of trust between cops and the communities they serve proves that there are some serious issues that need to be addressed. I'll say it again, people should not be afraid of cops. Unfortunately, most people are and they often have good reason to be afraid. H*ll, I get uneasy when I get pulled over or deal with cops.

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posted May 03, 2015 07:42 PM            

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Originally posted by Randall:
I never said protesters were bad. Looters are. The two are mutually exclusive. Looters are just criminals who take advantage of a greater opportunity to do what they probably often do anyway. "No justice, no peace!" *grabs another tv*

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You do think the Boston Tea Party looters are terrorists? Both events hold the same ideology and involved an oppressed group reaching their limits. The only difference are the players involved.