Michael Brown protesters being shot by police

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/14/ferguson-police-teargas-rubber-bullets-michael-brown

"Rubber bullets were fired at people who remained on West Florissant. One young man, who had his arms aloft in the "hands up – don't shoot" gesture that has come to define these protests, was shot several times. After he fell to the ground, he was pounced on by several officers".

Reading the account and looking at some of the pictures, it really does look like some sort of dystopian nightmare. :ohmy:

[GiantMonkeyMan]

The first comment is really quite apt:



Schellman said he could not say whether any bottles struck officers. However, he said, "the fear of threat like that is still construed as an assault. Injury does not have to happen for an assault to happen".
Then surely

"Demonstrators, who for hours had sniper rifles trained on them while they protested with their hands up as an emblem of peaceful protest,"
is also assault?

[Jimmie Higgins]

Reading the account and looking at some of the pictures, it really does look like some sort of dystopian nightmare. :ohmy: or Birmingham, USA.

[Red Son]

How many more times does this have to happen before the public at large start to realise the cops are not a symbol of honour and protecting / serving - there may be many who sign up because they feel they can be of service to the community etc but there are some who just enjoy the power and the status and this wouldn't be so bad if it wasn;t for the fact they are armed and have the backing of the state.

[Per Levy]

Reading the account and looking at some of the pictures, it really does look like some sort of dystopian nightmare. :ohmy:

well it seems like they dont care hiding it anymore.

[Sasha]

find it intresting to see the amount of articles moving away from the black-white theme and towards discussing the militarization of the US police forces: http://www.businessinsider.com/police-militarization-ferguson-2014-8

[Geiseric]

If we had a working class party we could build off of these events... oh well.

[Sasha]

Because you need a party to do that?

[Gh131]

Give it time, following these events America will begin to form into a police state even faster than before. It's a matter of time before a member of the police force shoots and kills a member of the protesting crowd. Just an unfortunate situation overall.

[John Nada]

If we had a working class party we could build off of these events... oh well.

A "worker's party" doesn't build off shit like this, workers MAKE parties/organizations BECAUSE of this type of shit. And I ain't talking no third place for city council ;) .

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Because you need a party to do that?

That's what I'm saying. Last time I went partying, I drank a bottle of whiskey an saw 3 cars get burned. Come on guys. Which is to say, why the fuck don't we just go HAM

[Jimmie Higgins]

Because you need a party to do that?
Not necessarily, but in Oakland it's like every time something like this (police murder or attacks) happens the wheel has to be reinvented; grassroots groups have to relearn that the big political, liberal, and religious figures in town are going to show up and then demobilize existing community efforts, (or not learn that) etc.

Anger flares up, but then with nothing coming out of it, no ongoing networks or visible movements, the brief anger then reinforces a sense of nothing ever changing. Small organic networks that form but then don't get anywhere also enforce this.

Maybe not a specific party or specifically a militant labor or anti-racist group... But some kind of ongoing organizing, sustained networks, would help make it so that on day two of unrest in St. Louis becomes national things able to connect abuses there to abuses in all cities and suburbs.

It would be good if the sheer number of high profile things since treyvon might accumulate enough consciousness to begin some reevaluation of the popular response and strategies of anti-racists, but it's not a given. I didn't think people would put up with shit after the l.a. Riots... Katrina... Treyvon... (Or locally) Oscar grant, and yet here we are.

It seems like some kind of ongoing organizing and formations might come out of this... It's hard to imagine no ongoing ramifications, but who knows. The riots of the 60s came after a decade of ongoing organizing in the south and a radicalization of urban black youth... The kind of confidence and experience and consciousness and debates and organization that existed then doesn't visibly exist today.


how many times...yeah, I think for a segment of the population this is no secret (and not just for black folks or other oppressed communities) but I think people don't feel there's any actual leverage. So everyone always asks "where are the black leaders" but what I think it meant by that is "where is the ability to rally and to organize ongoing resistance" going to come from.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

So yeah, now the national guard has been deployed in Ferguson.

http://news.yahoo.com/missouri-governor-sends-national-guard-ferguson-070038626.html

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

find it intresting to see the amount of articles moving away from the black-white theme and towards discussing the militarization of the US police forces: http://www.businessinsider.com/police-militarization-ferguson-2014-8

Would you agree that there's a link between the two?

The social relationship between whites and blacks has become less legally entrenched as a power relationship over time, from slavery, through the Jim Crow laws, and post-Jim Crow.

Yet when a black, working class neighbourhood rises up in anger, we see a formalisation of whites' social control over working class black Americans like in Ferguson.

Would this happen in a white working class neighbourhood? Would it happen in a more middle class neighbourhood? Or has it?

[R3ver]

I think America has been a police state since the "war on drugs" began. But, every year it seems more and more like a military squad

[RedSonRising]

The FBI has obtained new audio allegedly recording the exact moment that Darren Wilson began shooting Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. The recording captures at least 11 gunshots, six of which we know hit Brown. Perhaps most devastatingly, it features a notable pause between the first seven and the last four shots. What made Wilson stop shooting? And more importantly, why did he start firing again?

The audio was captured by a witness who happened to have a video chat open with a friend. The microphone picked up the gunshots while he was having an ordinary conversation.

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/08/26/fbi-obtains-new-audio-of-ferguson-shooting-darren-wilson-should-be-worried-video/

[Red Commissar]

The FBI has obtained new audio allegedly recording the exact moment that Darren Wilson began shooting Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. The recording captures at least 11 gunshots, six of which we know hit Brown. Perhaps most devastatingly, it features a notable pause between the first seven and the last four shots. What made Wilson stop shooting? And more importantly, why did he start firing again?

The audio was captured by a witness who happened to have a video chat open with a friend. The microphone picked up the gunshots while he was having an ordinary conversation.

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/08/26/fbi-obtains-new-audio-of-ferguson-shooting-darren-wilson-should-be-worried-video/

Interesting, I had not even heard of this. Media seems to be running off with the whole "Brown attacked the cop" angle even though it originates from essentially hearsay and outright false info. Even after it has been debunked (http://www.alternet.org/how-fox-news-promoted-one-most-bogus-ferguson-smears-so-far)still seems to rear its head even among respectable outlets like Washington Post.

I know this ain't the thread for it, but I am sad (but not surprised) by how many people want to rush to defend the cop's actions. I think there's a fundraising campaign which already broke $150,000 for him.

[RedSonRising]

Interesting, I had not even heard of this. Media seems to be running off with the whole "Brown attacked the cop" angle even though it originates from essentially hearsay and outright false info. Even after it has been debunked (http://www.alternet.org/how-fox-news-promoted-one-most-bogus-ferguson-smears-so-far)still seems to rear its head even among respectable outlets like Washington Post.

I know this ain't the thread for it, but I am sad (but not surprised) by how many people want to rush to defend the cop's actions. I think there's a fundraising campaign which already broke $150,000 for him.

It's despicable, it's above 300,000 now. There's so much racism all over the internet, bigots looking for any excuse to criminalize his character, as if that makes him worthy of execution

[Geiseric]

A "worker's party" doesn't build off shit like this, workers MAKE parties/organizations BECAUSE of this type of shit. And I ain't talking no third place for city council ;) .

Great, thanks for your input. Dont run for city council then.

[John Nada]

Great, thanks for your input.No problem.
Dont run for city council then.

Too many skeletons in my closet to be in public office. Also what's wrong with first place in city council? You'll get my protest vote:).

My point was that an actual worker's party isn't some entity separate from the proletariat, waiting to save us. It's part of the community(or should be). A means to advance our own interest, as proles.

The events to respond to happened and will happen. It's always been there. Ya know, class conflict and it's blood brothers, racism and imperialism.

For example, there's hundreds of Mike Browns every year. http://mxgm.org/report-on-the-extrajudicial-killings-of-120-black-people/ I'm inclined to think this is an underestimate. If no one gave a fuck, Mike would've just been another statistic.