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Norway28630 Posts
Are there any descendants of Carthago around to be offended by statues of Seneca? Any Gauls who are offended by statues of Julius Caesar? Whether historical monuments or historical figures are offensive or not depends on what people think about them. Making parallels to historical figures whose monuments and celebration offend or insult nobody in an attempt to equivocate monuments or celebrations of historical figures that many people today find offensive or insulting doesn't make sense.
Eastern European countries who used to be under Soviet rule were allowed to remove Soviet monuments following the end of the cold war. If North Korea stops being ruled by the Kim Dynasty, they should be allowed to rid themselves of their statues. If Cuba turns into a capitalist democracy, they should be allowed to remove monuments celebrating Castro. And if an increasingly diverse and aware american population decides that they no longer want to celebrate Columbus or southern civil war generals, they should be allowed to stop doing so, too. What elements of history we want to highlight and commemorate are up for constant debate and revision. People aren't binary good or bad, viewing people from 500 years ago through a modern lens makes everybody look bad, that's fine. But someone like Columbus looked pretty terrible even viewed through a 500 year old lens. And statues of southern civil war leaders that were erected during the jim crow era or during the civil right's movement with the specific intent of intimidating black people or 'showing them what their place in society is' should be torn down if we as a society no longer want to intimidate black people or treat them as second class citizens.
Now, whether it should be done through mob rule tearing them down or through a community vote to move monument x into a museum or not, is a different question. I also think these decisions should be locally decided and on a case to case basis. But the idea that 'it's just history, can't change it' is a very ahistorical opinion - the decision of what element of history to highlight and celebrate was made in the past as a conscious effort to mold contemporary minds, and if we want to move future society into a different direction, then we can also, ourselves, choose different elements of history to highlight. Note, I'm not arguing in favor of 'removing' elements from history, but monuments and street names are not just about remembering, but also about celebrating. Move historical elements that we want to remember, but not celebrate, into museums, and choose different and better past heroes to commemorate.
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On June 12 2020 18:32 Silvanel wrote:
Just curious --> are there status of Luis XVI in France? I would guess not but You never know.
Course there are. He was a great king. A terrible person with horrible opinions and who did terrible things by our standards, but precisely, our standards have little to do with it.
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On June 12 2020 12:25 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On June 11 2020 00:15 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 11 2020 00:01 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On June 10 2020 23:19 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On June 10 2020 23:12 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On June 10 2020 22:42 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 10 2020 22:26 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On June 10 2020 11:20 JimmiC wrote:There is so much to unpack when it comes to the US and the issues around the police and crime. You have the rampant systemic racism. You have civic governments often looking for arrest "stats" to help in the next election instead of actual results. You have a massive amount of poor people considering the countries wealth. You have prohibition and a unwinnable "war on drugs" You have the mass, mostly unregulated gun ownership making being police a much more dangerous job than most countries. You have a for profit healthcare system which means prevention is not a priority since they want more customers and their customers to stay for longer, which is the opposite of what your society should want. You have a for profit prison system which means to succeed they need more customers who stay longer, which is exactly the opposite of what your society should want. You don't tackle the mental health issues of the poor or of the police. You have a police forces and unions who operate like gangs protecting their own regardless if they should and massive amounts of PSTD since there is so many shootings (both at them and others) where the police are first on the scene or involved. Simply defunding the police is not going to accomplish anything without understanding that none of these issues work independently of each other. The first and easiest step would be to tackle all the gun issues, by regulating it FAR FAR more and making them so much less accessible. Your police are armed to their teeth because so is the populous. Can you imagine the stress of every traffic stop even being a possible interaction with some one with a gun? You can make a great case for why police forces need to make a report for each time they uuholster their gun in other countries, not so much in the US. You could vastly disarm the police if you disarm the populous as well. It is very strange for me to that people on the left even are against this when it works EVERY where else. It is clear why it does not happen, gun and weapons companies are big business and make big donations to all politician's, and the more they can sell to people the more they can sell to the police. It is a vicious circle that everyone on the outside knows the solution for but some how the NRA's amazing marketing campaign has convinced people that guns some how equal freedom, hell they even took some of the wording out of the second amendment to the point where many Americans believe it says their slogan to help them sell more guns rather than what was actually written. (The actual " A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/second_amendment What the NRA doesn’t like to admit is that guns were regulated in early America. People deemed untrustworthy — such as British loyalists unwilling to swear an oath to the new nation — were disarmed. The sale of guns to Native Americans was outlawed. Boston made it illegal to store a loaded firearm in any home or warehouse. Some states conducted door-to-door registration surveys so the militia could “impress” those weapons if necessary. Men had to attend musters where their guns would be inspected by the government. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/12/16418524/nra-second-amendment-guns-violenceIf American's do not end their gun issues, they will likely never fix their police. This has become so accepted that the satirical news site the Onion has been able to regularly repromote its article “ ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.”But if that is a unwinable battle the next best place to start is dealing with the nations mental health issues.I really doubt that all the people who want to be police are psychopath's as has been suggested, heck I don't think there would even be enough psycopaths. But I don't doubt that given the massive stress, horrible events they both witness as first responders (not just murders, rapes, assaults and so on but also gruesome car accidents and so on), that they become very desensitized to violence and gain more and more prejudices both because of the culture they are surrounded with, but also because of the horrible things they see and experience. If you blame the people in the police for the problems instead of the system, you are no different than the people who blame the people committing the crimes instead of the system. On a case by case basis either can be true, but when it is this widespread it becomes clear that the conditions of the system are what is broken, and what breaks the people. So this means making sure that everybody poor, rich, everyone in between has medical care, that includes mental health. It means moving the system from treating the symptoms (all stages criminally, policing and incarceration, and healthcare for that matter) to treating the causes. There is actually a huge savings in doing this for the overall system the problem is because of how everything is structured "for profit" the people who could are incentivized not too. The easiest way to do this is make it government funded. That way the government and the people are better off if the system works better and therefore costs less. Right now hospitals want you to be sick (it is not surprising that the US has some of the worst overall health) and the prisons want you to get jailed, stay jailed and come back to jail once you get out. (In fact judges have gotten in trouble for taking kick backs from prisons for sentencing people longer and to their facilities). So for socialist's the government oversight is likely a positive and for capitalists, all the money being wasted in that system can now be spent on various other goods. And all the criminals in jail can now because customers and positive members of the economy. The people who are against the "defund the police" movement are right to be questing it, because no system in the world operates without some sort of policing. You can't stop paying the police, and make the job even more stressful and worse for mental health, while you are doing it and expect all the violence to magically go away. What you need is a full system overhaul where all the various stages are pulling together for the same goal. No one has found the perfect system yet. But there are many that are functioning a lot better than the US. The Netherlands would be a great place to start since they are actually closing prisons because they don't have enough "customers" instead of bursting at the seems. https://johnhoward.ca/blog/dutch-closing-prisons/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/12/why-are-there-so-few-prisoners-in-the-netherlandsAnd there are a bunch of other countries that you could also look at that have actual well (MUCH MUCH better than the US) functioning systems and take the best aspects from all of them. It is actually more drastic societal changes that are needed to improve the situation than defunding the police. And it means spending a lot more money up front to end up saving even a bunch more at the end. It does not take much analysis to see that taking the police completely out of the picture when you see how well armed the Boogaloo boys, Proud boys (strange how they all call themselves boys, I guess they also know they are not mature enough to be men, but I digress), gangs and various other well armed and bad intentioned groups that left to their own idea of justice will not end as a benefit to society. You don't even have to get into the criminal gangs in the US and beyond, because you have so many "legal" or legal adjacent gun owners who are not the people you want in control of justice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boogaloo_movement#:~:text=The boogaloo movement, members of,they call the "boogaloo". This seems like another case of American exceptionalism where you can easily look at other countries and see what they are doing and copy them, hell talk to them and see how you can do what they do and do it better. Otherwise if the answer is more of the same you are going to keep getting the same results. Defunding the police is just going to make people buy more guns, I bet it already has. Sure "guns don't kill people, people kill people" but you are not putting any effort or money into fixing the people, you are just creating more messed up people who kill people with more guns. You need to attack the root issues which is way to many mental health issues and culture that creates more. Then you mix in a fetishist attitude about guns and gun violence and you get what you have now. The answer is not some confusing message and something that has never worked anywhere. The answer is in finding out what has worked in other places the best and customize it to work for your unique setting. I've slowly learned that the "Defund The Police" movement and related sets of ideas are extremely diverse, and everything falling under that three-word catchphrase can end up hiding some of the more constructive, comprehensive solutions. For example, I've seen many clarifying posts and messages that the "Defund The Police" movement actually means something like this: + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/Q4x2bVN.jpg) Now, a lot of these exploratory ideas are things I can easily get behind. I think these potential options would actually help those who want to protect and serve communities, because it would put less pressure on cops. They're currently asked to do wayyy more than they're trained to do (or that any one person should be expected to do, for that matter). The proponents of these ideas are intending to alleviate that burden and allocate a significant amount of resources towards additional, necessary professionals who can work parallel to the police, and often resolve conflicts without the required intervention of law enforcement. The biggest problem, I think, is that the phrase "Defund The Police" does a poor, unclear job of getting these points across. We have to keep in mind that a large percentage of Americans couldn't even manage to comprehend a three-word catchphrase that was literally and semantically crystal clear ("Black Lives Matter") without throwing in absurd extrapolations about other lives not mattering... if we're starting off with another three-word message that already isn't equally clear because of the word "Defund" and has a negative connotation attached to it, then the DTP message is already dead on arrival. I'm sure that there are other catchphrases that can be used that could have a better chance of resonating with people, like "Alleviate Blue Burden" or something else that's equally loaded and contrived. People can look at that and actually ask what that means (or, if they recognize Blue = Police, probably infer that the movement is to help the police in some way... which might not be the worst context in the world, especially if we're trying to persuade more people to join the cause). All this being said, if you're an advocate of completely defunding and completely abolishing law enforcement, then the phrase "Defund The Police" does a pretty good job of laying out your central thesis. If, instead, you're looking for a broader financial reform that includes law enforcement and a variety of other entities, then I think you need a better, broader catchphrase. It's important to note that "defund the police" comes specifically out of the abolitionist movement. Work that goes back decades. Work that included dialectically moving past reformist strategies like you see there. The stuff you're seeing there DPB is the centrist reactionary cooption of that phrase and is at the core of the discordance between the tepid reforms listed and the phrase "defund the police". Now reformists are free to do what they wish, but it's important to know this distinction and not try to tell people that do want to abolish the police (because reformism has categorically failed them) that they actually want to go back to fruitless reformist strategies. That's definitely fair, and it sounds like those who don't want to literally defund and abolish the police should probably run a parallel movement and message. On June 10 2020 23:03 PhoenixVoid wrote:
Hashtag slogan-making is a tricky thing. Defund The Police is an excellent bundle of firewood to throw on the flames and are not the words worth dying on. You can play semantics all you want over, "Well, we don't literally mean defund or abolish the police and instead here's a 10-point proposal list of reforms you aren't looking at", but the public has a tendency to latch on simple phrasing that skirts around nuance. I'd think "Rebuild the Police", "Rethink Policing" or "Rebuild Justice" strikes me as the tone that would satisfy most. We're talking an enormously complicated problem spanning policing, criminal justice, the legal system, the medical industry, prisons, institutional racism, hospitals, education and economic fairness that cannot be captured by three words that imply on face value that slashing police budgets will correct the problem that the Floyd protests exposed. Agreed. A different and distinct message would probably help, for both movements' sakes. Appreciated. Also important to note that what you're talking about is a counterrevolutionary movement and stands in opposition of defunding and abolishing the police, despite the superficially overlapping goals. Sure; I think it's very clear that many people who want police reform and other progress are more interested in working within the system and making more measured changes, which would definitely be different than abolishing the police (and vice-versa). On June 10 2020 23:33 NewSunshine wrote:Show nested quote +On June 10 2020 23:15 Mohdoo wrote:
I think starting the goal post super far away is great for these types of movements. Yell at centrists you want to destroy the entire institution of policing and they'll actually give a shit and listen to you. If you shoot for the stars and miss, you at least hit the moon or something. I tend to agree. If the messaging is on the far end, the compromise just comes when it's time for implementation. If you start compromising before that point, then the compromise goes too far and you don't end up getting almost anything you needed. If messaging about defunding and abolition results in a more level approach involving rebuilding what exists in a more accountable way by the time it comes to action, that's still valuable progress. If you start your message with the compromise built-in, you end up selling the cause short. It's easy to forget that there is a constant disconnect that exists between an ideology and the messaging it uses. Trumpers were and probably still are happy with their "Build the Wall" messaging even though it never resulted in a wall. It's just how it works. I generally appreciate the strategy of trying to start as close to your ideal side as possible, so that any ground you give through compromise still nets you a greater win than if you started exactly in the middle and conceded more. That being said, there's also the risk that starting off at too extreme of a position may deter the other side from even coming to the table to talk with you (i.e., "they're not serious in making an equitable deal if we need to start at such an extreme position"). It seems to be all about a careful balancing act between getting as much of your side as possible while still convincing the other side that you're willing to negotiate with them in good faith. I respect you and your efforts to better navigate this issue by getting informed from where you can. I implore you and anyone else that wants to seriously understand the abolitionist perspective (and get a sense of the robustness behind the work) ignore me and the particular platform (for people with bias against them), and give this person a listen. While many people, including myself are relatively new to the abolitionist movement Ruth Wilson Gilmore has a deep and personal understanding of the work, a personal and generational history in the liberation movement in the US, and a lifetime of experience in this particular struggle between reform and radical changes to police and prison. She discusses and makes a case of sorts in favor of abolition.It's an hour+ of interview I've only partially gotten through at this point, but going forward would love to discuss the content with anyone that might consider themselves curious about abolition but drawn to more traditional channels of reform. That interview was rather disappointing for me. The journalist asks at the beginning "what do I mean by abolition?" He says it's not something stupid like defunding the police and "letting the chips fall where they may." There's a short recap of the history of policing. Policing is not about "safety" but enhancing productivity and ensuring usefulness. We should be asking ourselves what we want out of punishment. Sure, yes, all good. When Gilmore does get a chance to explain what she means by alternative ways of living, ways that communities can take some of the their social responsibility from the police, she points in the second episode to: 1) "public education" in the 19th century southern United States (as if we didn't have that) + Show Spoiler +That said, what we’re trying to do in thinking with so many people in so many places about abolition, is how can it be possible to realize a new way of being, given what it is we already know how to do. We can look back through history or around the world now and see, for example, as Du Bois taught us in “Black Reconstruction in America,” that post-Civil War communities in the South developed all kinds of institutions for well-being and opportunity and safety that did not rely on organized violence, but rather we’re opening up to the possibility of greater and greater freedom through the institution of such things as public education, and so on. and 2) small-holder farming — "70% of the world's food comes from small hand farming." Those seem like really strange answers. Do I have to read her book or what? There are plenty of good points made here and yet I can't help but feel that all of the answers she gives kind of slide right by the major questions.
Good interviewers challenge their subjects when that person tries to skirt around giving a tangible answer. If an elected Republican official were giving these kind of horseshit non-answers, they'd get dragged. This was effectively a PR stunt, not an interview.
I haven't seen one interview, story, etc from the abolish the police camp that wasn't filled with non-answers like this. Or you get inane things like communities policing themselves lol There is a whole bunch of stuff about overall investment in communities of color to improve them, which is obviously needed, but it's total non answers to how does abolishing the police fix anything
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Bolton's new book claims that Trump committed impeachable acts across a full spectrum of foreign policy actions, beyond Ukraine. It's important due to adding new info about foreign policy misconduct. He argues impeachment from democrats was too limited.
Axios broke story originally with a passage from the epilogue. Book is scheduled for June 23rd release.
https://www.axios.com/john-bolton-book-trump-misconduct-794e8e01-18a3-44ae-ae35-1ee2c4fddad4.html
From Simon and Schuster's press release, given to mediaite.
What Bolton saw astonished him: a president for whom getting reelected was the only thing that mattered, even if it meant endangering or weakening the nation. “I am hard-pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my tenure that wasn’t driven by reelection calculations,” he writes. In fact, he argues that the House committed impeachment malpractice by keeping their prosecution focused narrowly on Ukraine when Trump’s Ukraine-like transgressions existed across the full range of his foreign policy—and Bolton documents exactly what those were, and attempts by him and others in the Administration to raise alarms about them.
https://www.mediaite.com/trump/breaking-john-bolton-book-claims-impeachable-offenses-across-full-range-of-trumps-foreign-policy/
My heart weeps for Bolton, so torn by his principles that he waited until 4 months after it mattered to say anything.
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On June 13 2020 00:06 Nevuk wrote:Bolton's new book claims that Trump committed impeachable acts across a full spectrum of foreign policy actions, beyond Ukraine. It's important due to adding new info about foreign policy misconduct. He argues impeachment from democrats was too limited. Axios broke story originally with a passage from the epilogue. Book is scheduled for June 23rd release. https://www.axios.com/john-bolton-book-trump-misconduct-794e8e01-18a3-44ae-ae35-1ee2c4fddad4.htmlFrom Simon and Schuster's press release, given to mediaite. Show nested quote +What Bolton saw astonished him: a president for whom getting reelected was the only thing that mattered, even if it meant endangering or weakening the nation. “I am hard-pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my tenure that wasn’t driven by reelection calculations,” he writes. In fact, he argues that the House committed impeachment malpractice by keeping their prosecution focused narrowly on Ukraine when Trump’s Ukraine-like transgressions existed across the full range of his foreign policy—and Bolton documents exactly what those were, and attempts by him and others in the Administration to raise alarms about them. https://www.mediaite.com/trump/breaking-john-bolton-book-claims-impeachable-offenses-across-full-range-of-trumps-foreign-policy/My heart weeps for Bolton, so torn by his principles that he waited until 4 months after it mattered to say anything.
Pathetic that he wouldn't speak up during impeachment.
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Correctly me if I am wrong but didn't Bolton come forward with the clear message that he wanted to testify but Trump blocked or said he would block it if the House subpoenad?
Not saying he is a good guy or probably couldn't have done more but even if he had, would it have mattered?
Would Bolton laying out a clear case of impeachable offences signed in triplicate by Trump himself have gotten the Senate to Impeach?
Me thinks the answer is No, because Republicans have spend a long time building a base conditioned to ignore the problems so that when one of them goes beyond and some try to raise alarms, they are ignored and/or ostracised.
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On June 13 2020 01:18 Gorsameth wrote:
Correctly me if I am wrong but didn't Bolton come forward with the clear message that he wanted to testify but Trump blocked or said he would block it if the House subpoenad?
Not saying he is a good guy or probably couldn't have done more but even if he had, would it have mattered?
Would Bolton laying out a clear case of impeachable offences signed in triplicate by Trump himself have gotten the Senate to Impeach?
Me thinks the answer is No, because Republicans have spend a long time building a base conditioned to ignore the problems so that when one of them goes beyond and some try to raise alarms, they are ignored and/or ostracised.
No, he said he would only testify before the house if subpeona'd, and Trump said he'd fight a subpeona.
Dems chose not to drag it out in the courts and said they would only take voluntary witnesses. I think Bolton was implying he'd testify if the Senate called him, but the Senate wasn't interested in any witnesses at all (the senate was also GOP-controlled, and Bolton has been the goto definition of a partisan hack for at least 25 years).
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On June 13 2020 00:16 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On June 12 2020 23:48 QuanticHawk wrote:On June 12 2020 12:25 IgnE wrote:On June 11 2020 00:15 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 11 2020 00:01 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On June 10 2020 23:19 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On June 10 2020 23:12 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On June 10 2020 22:42 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 10 2020 22:26 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On June 10 2020 11:20 JimmiC wrote:There is so much to unpack when it comes to the US and the issues around the police and crime. You have the rampant systemic racism. You have civic governments often looking for arrest "stats" to help in the next election instead of actual results. You have a massive amount of poor people considering the countries wealth. You have prohibition and a unwinnable "war on drugs" You have the mass, mostly unregulated gun ownership making being police a much more dangerous job than most countries. You have a for profit healthcare system which means prevention is not a priority since they want more customers and their customers to stay for longer, which is the opposite of what your society should want. You have a for profit prison system which means to succeed they need more customers who stay longer, which is exactly the opposite of what your society should want. You don't tackle the mental health issues of the poor or of the police. You have a police forces and unions who operate like gangs protecting their own regardless if they should and massive amounts of PSTD since there is so many shootings (both at them and others) where the police are first on the scene or involved. Simply defunding the police is not going to accomplish anything without understanding that none of these issues work independently of each other. The first and easiest step would be to tackle all the gun issues, by regulating it FAR FAR more and making them so much less accessible. Your police are armed to their teeth because so is the populous. Can you imagine the stress of every traffic stop even being a possible interaction with some one with a gun? You can make a great case for why police forces need to make a report for each time they uuholster their gun in other countries, not so much in the US. You could vastly disarm the police if you disarm the populous as well. It is very strange for me to that people on the left even are against this when it works EVERY where else. It is clear why it does not happen, gun and weapons companies are big business and make big donations to all politician's, and the more they can sell to people the more they can sell to the police. It is a vicious circle that everyone on the outside knows the solution for but some how the NRA's amazing marketing campaign has convinced people that guns some how equal freedom, hell they even took some of the wording out of the second amendment to the point where many Americans believe it says their slogan to help them sell more guns rather than what was actually written. (The actual " A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/second_amendment What the NRA doesn’t like to admit is that guns were regulated in early America. People deemed untrustworthy — such as British loyalists unwilling to swear an oath to the new nation — were disarmed. The sale of guns to Native Americans was outlawed. Boston made it illegal to store a loaded firearm in any home or warehouse. Some states conducted door-to-door registration surveys so the militia could “impress” those weapons if necessary. Men had to attend musters where their guns would be inspected by the government. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/12/16418524/nra-second-amendment-guns-violenceIf American's do not end their gun issues, they will likely never fix their police. This has become so accepted that the satirical news site the Onion has been able to regularly repromote its article “ ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.”But if that is a unwinable battle the next best place to start is dealing with the nations mental health issues.I really doubt that all the people who want to be police are psychopath's as has been suggested, heck I don't think there would even be enough psycopaths. But I don't doubt that given the massive stress, horrible events they both witness as first responders (not just murders, rapes, assaults and so on but also gruesome car accidents and so on), that they become very desensitized to violence and gain more and more prejudices both because of the culture they are surrounded with, but also because of the horrible things they see and experience. If you blame the people in the police for the problems instead of the system, you are no different than the people who blame the people committing the crimes instead of the system. On a case by case basis either can be true, but when it is this widespread it becomes clear that the conditions of the system are what is broken, and what breaks the people. So this means making sure that everybody poor, rich, everyone in between has medical care, that includes mental health. It means moving the system from treating the symptoms (all stages criminally, policing and incarceration, and healthcare for that matter) to treating the causes. There is actually a huge savings in doing this for the overall system the problem is because of how everything is structured "for profit" the people who could are incentivized not too. The easiest way to do this is make it government funded. That way the government and the people are better off if the system works better and therefore costs less. Right now hospitals want you to be sick (it is not surprising that the US has some of the worst overall health) and the prisons want you to get jailed, stay jailed and come back to jail once you get out. (In fact judges have gotten in trouble for taking kick backs from prisons for sentencing people longer and to their facilities). So for socialist's the government oversight is likely a positive and for capitalists, all the money being wasted in that system can now be spent on various other goods. And all the criminals in jail can now because customers and positive members of the economy. The people who are against the "defund the police" movement are right to be questing it, because no system in the world operates without some sort of policing. You can't stop paying the police, and make the job even more stressful and worse for mental health, while you are doing it and expect all the violence to magically go away. What you need is a full system overhaul where all the various stages are pulling together for the same goal. No one has found the perfect system yet. But there are many that are functioning a lot better than the US. The Netherlands would be a great place to start since they are actually closing prisons because they don't have enough "customers" instead of bursting at the seems. https://johnhoward.ca/blog/dutch-closing-prisons/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/12/why-are-there-so-few-prisoners-in-the-netherlandsAnd there are a bunch of other countries that you could also look at that have actual well (MUCH MUCH better than the US) functioning systems and take the best aspects from all of them. It is actually more drastic societal changes that are needed to improve the situation than defunding the police. And it means spending a lot more money up front to end up saving even a bunch more at the end. It does not take much analysis to see that taking the police completely out of the picture when you see how well armed the Boogaloo boys, Proud boys (strange how they all call themselves boys, I guess they also know they are not mature enough to be men, but I digress), gangs and various other well armed and bad intentioned groups that left to their own idea of justice will not end as a benefit to society. You don't even have to get into the criminal gangs in the US and beyond, because you have so many "legal" or legal adjacent gun owners who are not the people you want in control of justice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boogaloo_movement#:~:text=The boogaloo movement, members of,they call the "boogaloo". This seems like another case of American exceptionalism where you can easily look at other countries and see what they are doing and copy them, hell talk to them and see how you can do what they do and do it better. Otherwise if the answer is more of the same you are going to keep getting the same results. Defunding the police is just going to make people buy more guns, I bet it already has. Sure "guns don't kill people, people kill people" but you are not putting any effort or money into fixing the people, you are just creating more messed up people who kill people with more guns. You need to attack the root issues which is way to many mental health issues and culture that creates more. Then you mix in a fetishist attitude about guns and gun violence and you get what you have now. The answer is not some confusing message and something that has never worked anywhere. The answer is in finding out what has worked in other places the best and customize it to work for your unique setting. I've slowly learned that the "Defund The Police" movement and related sets of ideas are extremely diverse, and everything falling under that three-word catchphrase can end up hiding some of the more constructive, comprehensive solutions. For example, I've seen many clarifying posts and messages that the "Defund The Police" movement actually means something like this: + Show Spoiler + Now, a lot of these exploratory ideas are things I can easily get behind. I think these potential options would actually help those who want to protect and serve communities, because it would put less pressure on cops. They're currently asked to do wayyy more than they're trained to do (or that any one person should be expected to do, for that matter). The proponents of these ideas are intending to alleviate that burden and allocate a significant amount of resources towards additional, necessary professionals who can work parallel to the police, and often resolve conflicts without the required intervention of law enforcement. The biggest problem, I think, is that the phrase "Defund The Police" does a poor, unclear job of getting these points across. We have to keep in mind that a large percentage of Americans couldn't even manage to comprehend a three-word catchphrase that was literally and semantically crystal clear ("Black Lives Matter") without throwing in absurd extrapolations about other lives not mattering... if we're starting off with another three-word message that already isn't equally clear because of the word "Defund" and has a negative connotation attached to it, then the DTP message is already dead on arrival. I'm sure that there are other catchphrases that can be used that could have a better chance of resonating with people, like "Alleviate Blue Burden" or something else that's equally loaded and contrived. People can look at that and actually ask what that means (or, if they recognize Blue = Police, probably infer that the movement is to help the police in some way... which might not be the worst context in the world, especially if we're trying to persuade more people to join the cause). All this being said, if you're an advocate of completely defunding and completely abolishing law enforcement, then the phrase "Defund The Police" does a pretty good job of laying out your central thesis. If, instead, you're looking for a broader financial reform that includes law enforcement and a variety of other entities, then I think you need a better, broader catchphrase. It's important to note that "defund the police" comes specifically out of the abolitionist movement. Work that goes back decades. Work that included dialectically moving past reformist strategies like you see there. The stuff you're seeing there DPB is the centrist reactionary cooption of that phrase and is at the core of the discordance between the tepid reforms listed and the phrase "defund the police". Now reformists are free to do what they wish, but it's important to know this distinction and not try to tell people that do want to abolish the police (because reformism has categorically failed them) that they actually want to go back to fruitless reformist strategies. That's definitely fair, and it sounds like those who don't want to literally defund and abolish the police should probably run a parallel movement and message. On June 10 2020 23:03 PhoenixVoid wrote:
Hashtag slogan-making is a tricky thing. Defund The Police is an excellent bundle of firewood to throw on the flames and are not the words worth dying on. You can play semantics all you want over, "Well, we don't literally mean defund or abolish the police and instead here's a 10-point proposal list of reforms you aren't looking at", but the public has a tendency to latch on simple phrasing that skirts around nuance. I'd think "Rebuild the Police", "Rethink Policing" or "Rebuild Justice" strikes me as the tone that would satisfy most. We're talking an enormously complicated problem spanning policing, criminal justice, the legal system, the medical industry, prisons, institutional racism, hospitals, education and economic fairness that cannot be captured by three words that imply on face value that slashing police budgets will correct the problem that the Floyd protests exposed. Agreed. A different and distinct message would probably help, for both movements' sakes. Appreciated. Also important to note that what you're talking about is a counterrevolutionary movement and stands in opposition of defunding and abolishing the police, despite the superficially overlapping goals. Sure; I think it's very clear that many people who want police reform and other progress are more interested in working within the system and making more measured changes, which would definitely be different than abolishing the police (and vice-versa). On June 10 2020 23:33 NewSunshine wrote:Show nested quote +On June 10 2020 23:15 Mohdoo wrote:
I think starting the goal post super far away is great for these types of movements. Yell at centrists you want to destroy the entire institution of policing and they'll actually give a shit and listen to you. If you shoot for the stars and miss, you at least hit the moon or something. I tend to agree. If the messaging is on the far end, the compromise just comes when it's time for implementation. If you start compromising before that point, then the compromise goes too far and you don't end up getting almost anything you needed. If messaging about defunding and abolition results in a more level approach involving rebuilding what exists in a more accountable way by the time it comes to action, that's still valuable progress. If you start your message with the compromise built-in, you end up selling the cause short. It's easy to forget that there is a constant disconnect that exists between an ideology and the messaging it uses. Trumpers were and probably still are happy with their "Build the Wall" messaging even though it never resulted in a wall. It's just how it works. I generally appreciate the strategy of trying to start as close to your ideal side as possible, so that any ground you give through compromise still nets you a greater win than if you started exactly in the middle and conceded more. That being said, there's also the risk that starting off at too extreme of a position may deter the other side from even coming to the table to talk with you (i.e., "they're not serious in making an equitable deal if we need to start at such an extreme position"). It seems to be all about a careful balancing act between getting as much of your side as possible while still convincing the other side that you're willing to negotiate with them in good faith. I respect you and your efforts to better navigate this issue by getting informed from where you can. I implore you and anyone else that wants to seriously understand the abolitionist perspective (and get a sense of the robustness behind the work) ignore me and the particular platform (for people with bias against them), and give this person a listen. While many people, including myself are relatively new to the abolitionist movement Ruth Wilson Gilmore has a deep and personal understanding of the work, a personal and generational history in the liberation movement in the US, and a lifetime of experience in this particular struggle between reform and radical changes to police and prison. She discusses and makes a case of sorts in favor of abolition.It's an hour+ of interview I've only partially gotten through at this point, but going forward would love to discuss the content with anyone that might consider themselves curious about abolition but drawn to more traditional channels of reform. That interview was rather disappointing for me. The journalist asks at the beginning "what do I mean by abolition?" He says it's not something stupid like defunding the police and "letting the chips fall where they may." There's a short recap of the history of policing. Policing is not about "safety" but enhancing productivity and ensuring usefulness. We should be asking ourselves what we want out of punishment. Sure, yes, all good. When Gilmore does get a chance to explain what she means by alternative ways of living, ways that communities can take some of the their social responsibility from the police, she points in the second episode to: 1) "public education" in the 19th century southern United States (as if we didn't have that) + Show Spoiler +That said, what we’re trying to do in thinking with so many people in so many places about abolition, is how can it be possible to realize a new way of being, given what it is we already know how to do. We can look back through history or around the world now and see, for example, as Du Bois taught us in “Black Reconstruction in America,” that post-Civil War communities in the South developed all kinds of institutions for well-being and opportunity and safety that did not rely on organized violence, but rather we’re opening up to the possibility of greater and greater freedom through the institution of such things as public education, and so on. and 2) small-holder farming — "70% of the world's food comes from small hand farming." Those seem like really strange answers. Do I have to read her book or what? There are plenty of good points made here and yet I can't help but feel that all of the answers she gives kind of slide right by the major questions. Good interviewers challenge their subjects when that person tries to skirt around giving a tangible answer. If an elected Republican official were giving these kind of horseshit non-answers, they'd get dragged. This was effectively a PR stunt, not an interview. I haven't seen one interview, story, etc from the abolish the police camp that wasn't filled with non-answers like this. Or you get inane things like communities policing themselves lol There is a whole bunch of stuff about overall investment in communities of color to improve them, which is obviously needed, but it's total non answers to how does abolishing the police fix anything The Portland city council meeting that Mohdoo posted actually got into the more tangible, actual services they want to do and it was reasonable. They basically want to move the money that is currently going to police to deal with crime after it has happened into social programs that can deal with the conditions that make crime happen. Some example were housing for houseless, addiction programs, school support, black leadership development programs lead by the black students, and so on. Also taking complaints seriously and firing those who need to be fired. The parts of the police they want to de-fund (at least at first) to move to the social program's, were the parts of the police that had the most complaints and did the least for improving society. In Portland that meant the SWAT/Riot police, the Gang Unit (renamed gun violence reduction team) and school resource officers. I was skeptical from the title, and it does seem like defunding the police means different things to different people but of all the people who called in a spoke the main message was defunding to Fund social programs, not just abolish. And initially they were asking for about 20% of the police budget. Many of the social programs that were spoke of I was shocked did not currently exist.
I read about some of that and suggestions in other places. That is the defund camp, which, while a bunch of loosely organized thoughts from different groups, is dramatically different than the abolish camp, which just wants no police period. The abolish camp Was what that interview was about and is the one that I think is completely ridiculous and it’s that kind of insanity that is going to turn people away come voting time.
Parts of the defund camp are reasonable or at least decent starting points for more polished ideas, by the good stuff (training, ROE Changes, deescalation, Body cameras etc) cant exist when you’re slashing the budget. I also think it’s really dumb And dangerous that certain municipalities are committing to looping off x% of police funding or vowing to veto budget increases without identifying where that’s coming from. A vast majority of the police budget is for personnel, not securing military surplus (which is often a result of a grant too). It’s pretty obvious a lot of people speaking have never seen a municipal police budget before.
When it comes to the defund ideas, the primary one I have a hard time understanding are all of these clear cut areas that social workers are going to represent an improvement over police. I think that is a pretty limited scope mostly contained to homelessness, which for most towns, youre talking about one or two people max. The gang unit and school cops one are baffling to me too. The high school I went to had a ton of fights, and a good sprinkling of gang and drug stuff going on. Are we saying teachers are better equipped to deal with that? Are social workers going to curtail gang violence?
Even with funding low income or free housing, that isn’t a magic bullet. Low incoming housing is already where cops spend a lot of their time (which is obviously part of a much larger problem). It just doesn’t make sense to me why those initiatives come at the expense of police budget which probably needs to go up if anything to accommodating training, make the job more appealing to better candidates, etc. it shouldn’t be an either or
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On June 13 2020 01:18 Gorsameth wrote:
Correctly me if I am wrong but didn't Bolton come forward with the clear message that he wanted to testify but Trump blocked or said he would block it if the House subpoenad?
Not saying he is a good guy or probably couldn't have done more but even if he had, would it have mattered?
Would Bolton laying out a clear case of impeachable offences signed in triplicate by Trump himself have gotten the Senate to Impeach?
Me thinks the answer is No, because Republicans have spend a long time building a base conditioned to ignore the problems so that when one of them goes beyond and some try to raise alarms, they are ignored and/or ostracised.
Some senators dont like Trump but care more about their career than to do anything against him because they don't want to get blasted by Trumps twitter/Hannity/Ingraham hate train. But if a Republican diehard like Bolton would put Trump on blast in hearings then some might feel safe to join Romney? Only needed 3.
I mean I've been disappointed in the senators so many times so you might be correct that the 'nothing would happen in the senate even if he shot someone on 5th avenue' scenario is probably more realistic than three switching to Romneys side.
Looking forward to the 'Bolton was a democrat liberal agent planted in the admin by Obama and Antifa' spins that will come out soon on Fox later today no doubt.
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Northern Ireland24952 Posts
On June 13 2020 01:40 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2020 01:18 Gorsameth wrote:
Correctly me if I am wrong but didn't Bolton come forward with the clear message that he wanted to testify but Trump blocked or said he would block it if the House subpoenad?
Not saying he is a good guy or probably couldn't have done more but even if he had, would it have mattered?
Would Bolton laying out a clear case of impeachable offences signed in triplicate by Trump himself have gotten the Senate to Impeach?
Me thinks the answer is No, because Republicans have spend a long time building a base conditioned to ignore the problems so that when one of them goes beyond and some try to raise alarms, they are ignored and/or ostracised.
Some senators dont like Trump but care more about their career than to do anything against him because they don't want to get blasted by Trumps twitter/Hannity/Ingraham hate train. But if a Republican diehard like Bolton would put Trump on blast in hearings then some might feel safe to join Romney? Only needed 3. I mean I've been disappointed in the senators so many times so you might be correct that the 'nothing would happen in the senate even if he shot someone on 5th avenue' scenario is probably more realistic than three switching to Romneys side. Looking forward to the 'Bolton was a democrat liberal agent planted in the admin by Obama and Antifa' spins that will come out soon on Fox later today no doubt.
Just from morbid curiosity I am extremely interested in hearing how Fox spin this one
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On June 13 2020 02:32 Wombat_NI wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2020 01:40 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:On June 13 2020 01:18 Gorsameth wrote:
Correctly me if I am wrong but didn't Bolton come forward with the clear message that he wanted to testify but Trump blocked or said he would block it if the House subpoenad?
Not saying he is a good guy or probably couldn't have done more but even if he had, would it have mattered?
Would Bolton laying out a clear case of impeachable offences signed in triplicate by Trump himself have gotten the Senate to Impeach?
Me thinks the answer is No, because Republicans have spend a long time building a base conditioned to ignore the problems so that when one of them goes beyond and some try to raise alarms, they are ignored and/or ostracised.
Some senators dont like Trump but care more about their career than to do anything against him because they don't want to get blasted by Trumps twitter/Hannity/Ingraham hate train. But if a Republican diehard like Bolton would put Trump on blast in hearings then some might feel safe to join Romney? Only needed 3. I mean I've been disappointed in the senators so many times so you might be correct that the 'nothing would happen in the senate even if he shot someone on 5th avenue' scenario is probably more realistic than three switching to Romneys side. Looking forward to the 'Bolton was a democrat liberal agent planted in the admin by Obama and Antifa' spins that will come out soon on Fox later today no doubt. Just from morbid curiosity I am extremely interested in hearing how Fox spin this one
If he is making money from saying this, easy to call it fiction. I don't think it is fiction. But repubs will slurp it up
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Cuomo just signed an executive order that says that police departments in NY must reform or loss funding. The language he had at signing was pretty strong, but I'm not sure on the details or specifics (ie, does this have any teeth?). Anyone in NY have more details?
Some quotes :
“This is not about a press release that’s going to solve it. The way we really solve this is we say to every police agency in this state — I believe should happen in the nation — ‘sit down at the table with the local community, address these issues, get to the root of these issues, get a plan, pass that plan by your local government, and if you don’t, you’re not going to get any additional state funds.’ Period.”
“We’re not going to fund police agencies in this state that do not look at what has been happening, come to terms with it, and reform themselves,” he declared. “We’re not going to be, as a state government, subsidizing improper police tactics. We’re not doing it.”
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On June 13 2020 03:00 Nevuk wrote:Cuomo just signed an executive order that says that police departments in NY must reform or loss funding. The language he had at signing was pretty strong, but I'm not sure on the details or specifics (ie, does this have any teeth?). Anyone in NY have more details? Some quotes : Show nested quote +“This is not about a press release that’s going to solve it. The way we really solve this is we say to every police agency in this state — I believe should happen in the nation — ‘sit down at the table with the local community, address these issues, get to the root of these issues, get a plan, pass that plan by your local government, and if you don’t, you’re not going to get any additional state funds.’ Period.”
“We’re not going to fund police agencies in this state that do not look at what has been happening, come to terms with it, and reform themselves,” he declared. “We’re not going to be, as a state government, subsidizing improper police tactics. We’re not doing it.”
Not really imo:
Police forces must adopt a plan by April 1, 2021 to be eligible for future state funding and certify that they have:
-Engaged stakeholders in a public and open process on policing strategies and tools;
-Presented a plan, by chief executive and head of the local police force, to the public for comment;
-After consideration of any comments, presented such plan to the local legislative body (council or legislature as appropriate) which has approved such plan (by either local law or resolution); and
-If such local government does not certify the plan, the police force may not be eligible to receive future state funding.
www.governor.ny.gov
It's an executive order, not law, so there's that. The "may not" instead of "will not" means to me that even those paltry/vague requirements aren't certain.
The 50-a police secrecy thing might be insightful though.
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On June 13 2020 03:00 Nevuk wrote:Cuomo just signed an executive order that says that police departments in NY must reform or loss funding. The language he had at signing was pretty strong, but I'm not sure on the details or specifics (ie, does this have any teeth?). Anyone in NY have more details? Some quotes : Show nested quote +“This is not about a press release that’s going to solve it. The way we really solve this is we say to every police agency in this state — I believe should happen in the nation — ‘sit down at the table with the local community, address these issues, get to the root of these issues, get a plan, pass that plan by your local government, and if you don’t, you’re not going to get any additional state funds.’ Period.”
“We’re not going to fund police agencies in this state that do not look at what has been happening, come to terms with it, and reform themselves,” he declared. “We’re not going to be, as a state government, subsidizing improper police tactics. We’re not doing it.”
Apparently that one in particular gives depts up until a certain date to come up with a plan to eliminate systemic racism or they will lose state funding. I would have preferred that direction to come from the state level but it's a start.
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-cuomo-police-reform-disciplinary-records-20200612-5zryohkuwjew7ksjowhtswmsk4-story.html
this is a decent run down
I would have preferred to have the state direct how to combat systemic racism rather than leave it up to individual cites but if they don't have a plan they would lose state funding the next go round. I can't see why that wouldn't be enforcable
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Today is the anniversary of interracial marriage being legal in the US. Friendly reminder that social conservatism has never once been on the right side of history. They eventually lose every. single. time.
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On June 13 2020 06:26 Mohdoo wrote:
Today is the anniversary of interracial marriage being legal in the US. Friendly reminder that social conservatism has never once been on the right side of history. They eventually lose every. single. time.
True, and this country still needs more Loving.
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United States24660 Posts
On June 13 2020 06:26 Mohdoo wrote:
Today is the anniversary of interracial marriage being legal in the US. Friendly reminder that social conservatism has never once been on the right side of history. They eventually lose every. single. time.
I'm sure there have been some pretty wacky ideas from self-proclaimed socially liberal people in the past that never got any traction following a modicum of push-back from social conservatives. It's easy to remember all the cases where social conservatism failed to prevent the future and forget the times when they were actually the voice of reason (since nothing changed).
My guess would be that most of the significant social arguments that got a lot of attention eventually went in the direction of social liberals, but I'd be cautious about going too far and saying or implying that all ideas from social liberals should be embraced by default.
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On June 13 2020 06:44 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2020 06:26 Mohdoo wrote:
Today is the anniversary of interracial marriage being legal in the US. Friendly reminder that social conservatism has never once been on the right side of history. They eventually lose every. single. time. I'm sure there have been some pretty wacky ideas from self-proclaimed socially liberal people in the past that never got any traction following a modicum of push-back from social conservatives. It's easy to remember all the cases where social conservatism failed to prevent the future and forget the times when they were actually the voice of reason (since nothing changed). My guess would be that most of the significant social arguments that got a lot of attention eventually went in the direction of social liberals, but I'd be cautious about going too far and saying or implying that all ideas from social liberals should be embraced by default.
Certainly. But when we look at:
1. What if black people are humans
2. What if black people should have equal voting
3. What if women are equal to men
4. what if different races should be allowed to marry
5. what if same sex marriage was ok
there is one side that fought against every single one of those
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EPT
