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Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal

(thanks Unkempt)

Aw yeah it's Happy Monday as everything opens back up and nothing matters any more for the next couple of weeks (keep watching that number).

Find Your Local COVID-19 Mutual Aid Group - or set one up
Also check:
https://freedomnews.org.uk/covid-19-uk-mutual-aid-groups-a-list/
https://secretldn.com/uk-community-aid-groups-by-area/
https://queercare.network/our-work/resources/covid-19/

Free Academic Books For All Your Lockdown Needs Here

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

Load of free non-fiction books from Springer: everything from computer touching / physics / maths / business / theatre / social justice etc etc.

https://link.springer.com/search/pa...st&showAll=true

May saw the whole country in lockdown except for some people who broke it and resigned, and one notable person who broke it several times and refused to resign. Then American police killed some African American people and tried to blame everyone but themselves, leading to mass protests in solidarity, also some people in Dorset jumped off of a cliff during a pandemic.

Rosa Luxemburg - June Pamphlet posted:

Violated, dishonored, wading in blood, dripping filth—there stands bourgeois society.
This is it. Not all spic and span and moral, with pretense to culture, philosophy, ethics, order, peace, and the rule of law—but the ravening beast, the witches’ sabbath of anarchy, a plague to culture and humanity. Thus it reveals itself in its true, its naked form.
In the midst of this witches’ sabbath a catastrophe of world-historical proportions has happened: International Social Democracy has capitulated. To deceive ourselves about it, to cover it up, would be the most foolish, the most fatal thing the proletariat could do.
Imperialism and all its political brutality, the chain of incessant social catastrophes that it has let loose, is undoubtedly a historical necessity for the ruling classes of the contemporary capitalist world.

Nothing would be more fatal for the proletariat than to delude itself into believing that it were possible after this war to rescue the idyllic and peaceful continuation of capitalism. However, the conclusion to be drawn by proletarian policy from the historical necessity of imperialism is that surrender to imperialism will mean living forever in its victorious shadow and eating from its leftovers.

In Other News :sax:
• MP Conor Burns resigns as Minister of State for Trade Policy after a report found he used his position as an MP to intimidate a member of the public.
• Overall measures of wellbeing are reported to be at their lowest levels since records began in 2011.
• The UK death toll from COVID-19 becomes the highest in Europe.
• Bat Stokes, Matt and Dec, and Man Antcock open NHS Nightingale Hospital North East.
• The government approves Cleve Hill Solar Park on the north Kent coast, the UK's biggest ever solar farm at 900 acres in size and 350MW of capacity, enough to power over 91,000 homes.
• Other news still cancelled due to Coronavirus.


Green was the silence, wet was the light, the month of June trembled like a butterfly.

Also It's Hot :sun:


Whitsuntide
UKMT May 2020 - Let them eat Nando's
UKMT April 2020 - The Betacoronavirus and the Virgin Atlantic
All Previous Threads (thanks Pesky Splinter)

Gathering Day
Europol Thread
Scotpol Thread
Trainchat Thread
Political Cartoons Thread
C-SPAM: BREXIT
BYOB: UKMT

Düsseldorf's Cartwheeler Day
Podcasting is Praxis - The official podcast of the UKMT with UKMT goons talking into microphones about things.
Off the Fence - Brighton based, covering UK & Global topics. Pretty chill and professional peeps. Older 'casts can be found in the PLATFORM B archive.
Reel Politik - The Original Leftie Hate Trolls. Check 'em out.
We Don't Talk About The Weather - Two cool guys discuss news and other stuff. The second-most UKMT-iest of Podcasts.
Desolation Radio - Socialism from a Welsh perspective. Informative hosts.
Revolutionary Despatches - Two new guys starting out.
Connected & Disaffected - Breezy discussions of lefty social, and historical topics, and news updates. Pretty Good.
Trashfuture - Theme of the week style podcast about capitalism and how much it fucks up. Cool podcasters, sometimes working with Reel Politik
Agitpod - Owen Jones & Ellie Mae O’Hagan discuss news.
Reasons to Be Cheerful - Former Labour leader Ed "Red Ed" Milliband and Geoff Lloyd shoot the poo poo, and discuss general politics. Sometimes with guests.
Novara Media - Numerous fluctucating commentators including Matt Zarb-Cousin, Max Shanly, and James Butler among others. Varying topics with guests.
[Citations Needed] - Covers the US, focussing on the media, PR, and assorted bullshit. Also some socialist history topics. Very informative.
Chapo House Media - More US focused, from a leftist perspective. Basically a US version of Reel Politik, but with better mics. Worth a listen.
General Intellect Unit - Podcast of the Cybernetic Marxists. Examining the intersection of Technology, (Left) Politics, and Philosophy; decently in-depth and theory-driven as podcasts go.
Alpha 2 Omega - Tom O'Brien talks political strategy.
Requires Improvement - Podcast of lefty teachers exploring all things education, from a socialist perspective.
Swampside Chats - "The highest communist podcast"

mehall posted:

Fresh new podcast on the state of Labour factionalism from your thread comrades over at Podcasting is Praxis, plus also Jack off of Reel Politik -

https://twitter.com/PraxisCast/status/1255989056674107394?s=20

Inventors' and Rationalizers' Day
Stop, Thief!: The Commons, Enclosures, And Resistance – Peter Linebaugh
Demanding The Impossible - David Morland
Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism - Peter Marshall
Chav Solidarity - D. Hunter
No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age - Jane McAlevey
Libertarian Communism – Isaac Puente Amestoy
At The Café – Malatesta
The Method of Freedom – Malatesta
In Praise of Idleness – Russell
Political Ideals – Russell
Declaration – Hardt and Negri
Liberalism, a Counter History – Domenico Losurdo
God and the State – Bakunin
The Conquest of Bread – Kropotkin
Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism – V I Lenin
Anarchism and Other Essays – Emma Goldman
Social Reform or Revolution – Rosa Luxemburg
Violence – Slavoj Zizek
Jihad vs. McWorld - Benjamin Barber
Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World – Adam Tooze
Flat Earth News - Nick Davies
Hack Attack - Nick Davies
Ecology of Freedom – Murray Bookchin
Anarchism, Marxism and the Future of the Left – Murray Bookchin
A Brief History of Neoliberalism – David Harvey
Let's Read Das Kapital – Karl Marx and Goons

World Miwk Day (thanks feedmegin)

quote:

I came up with the idea of a register of goons and their CLPs in case any new joiners wanted someone to go to to get the local lie of the land.

Barking :shittydog: - feedmegin
Bexleyheath and Crayford - Rolled Cabbage
Bristol East - Luxury Tent Carpet
Bristol West - Pistol_Pete, Rarity
Broxtowe - MikeCrotch
Bury St Edmunds - Cluncho McChunk
Canterbury - Spangly A
Chelmsford - Trickjaw
Cotswolds (yes, we do have one) - Yvonmukluk
Cumbernauld - mehall ('s partner)
Dulwich and West Norwood - maugrim
Ealing Central and Acton - Comrade Fakename
Edinburgh Central (s?) - Autonomous Monster
Edinburgh Central, Ipswich - Lord of the Llamas
Enfield Southgate - spiderbot
Glasgow Southside/Central - Niric
Havant - Last Emperor
Hertford and Stortford - Brovine
Hyndburn - Kegluneq
Leeds East - mrpwase
Leeds North East - Irving Washington
Manchester Central - Jakabite
Northampton - superLINUS
North-East Somerset (the long-shot campaign to unseat Jacob Rees-Mogg) - Darth Walrus
Paisley & Renfrewshire South - Sanitary Naptime
Rochford and Southend East - DesperateDan
Salisbury (and Salisbury Momentum, which is now a thing that actually exists) - Wolfsbane
Sheffield South East - Cast_no_shadow, Mebh
South East Cambridgeshire - Stoic Fnord
Southampton (Test) - waffle, Nova88
St Austell & Newquay - Oh dear me
Stockport - Taear, Tesla was right
Stroud - sebzilla
Swansea West - Borrovan
Tatton - Bundy
Watford - SpaceCommie
Wimbledon - chestnut santabag

The Effortpost's Graveyard (thanks goddamnedtwisto and UKMT goons)

Join us on synIRC for Question Time Awfulness and Stuff
#ukgoons on synIRC (thanks crispix).

Or on Discord for other UKMT Chat and Podcast Conspiring
https://discord.gg/QErneZT

:siren:Do Not Post In This Thread::siren:
  • Bobby Thompson
  • AceOfFlames
  • Pissflaps

learnincurve posted:

Need something added to every OP. DWP have been told not to tell sanctioned people about this.

If you get sanctioned then to prevent your housing and council tax benefits falling like a house of cards, and in some case get access to a utility bill fund, call your local council for a "Nil Income Form".

Maugrim posted:

:siren: The UKMT Solidarity Fund is now live! :siren:

:siren: How to Donate Funds: :siren: Paypal - https://paypal.me/ukmtsolidarity OR Bank Transfer - PM IrvingWashington (aka Bill Drummond on Discord) for account details
:siren: How to Apply for Funds: :siren: Fill in the Google Form OR PM a committee member on forum or Discord: AceClown, Fargle (discord only), Maugrim, Oscar Diggs or Rarity.

:siren: UKMT Solidarity Fund Monthly Update - April 2020 :siren:

Thanks to donations from many generous goons and goonfriends, the fund is thriving! Here's the summary of income and outgoings since we started:



  • Almost half the funds to date came from extremely generous donations by friends of goons who (so far as I know) aren't goons themselves, so feel free to tell the financially blessed comrades in your life about the Fund!
  • We now have an email address! Applications to solidarity@ukmt.fund will now be accepted, or you can still use the form (linked below) or PM a committee member.
  • As you can see, income so far has drastically exceeded outgoings, so if you're feeling the pinch in these trying times, come to us. No judgement, no stigma. We are all comrades.
Constitution | Record of Activity | Application Form

Guavanaut fucked around with this message at 14:55 on Jul 7, 2020

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Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal

goddamnedtwisto posted:

A tiny bit of unfinished business from the last thread - I was struggling to remember the name of the American bluetick who managed to perfectly encapsulate two hard-and-fast rules of the universe:

https://twitter.com/mtracey/status/1267060056203427840
According to the Washington Post database, a total of 41 unarmed people were shot and killed by US police in 2019. The racial composition of victims is:
White: 19 (46%)
Black: 9 (22%)
Hispanic: 6 (15%)
Other: 4 (10%)
Unknown: 3 (7%)

According to the 2010 U.S Census, the composition of the USA is:
White 72.4%
Black or African American 12.6%
Hispanic and Latino 16.3%
Other 15%

So yes Michael good job proving that police shoot African Americans at a disproportionately higher rate and white Americans at a disproportionately lower rate.

goddamnedtwisto posted:

- Anyone with a cartoon of themselves as their avatar is a twat
- Any portrait with the subject's hands visible is the mark of a dickhead
- Pipe multiplies any of the above by 1000

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal

thespaceinvader posted:

Yes, I'm sure those statistics are absolutely accurate to the numbers WaPo presumably got from the police, who don't recortd the numbers of unarmed black people they murder.
Hey be fair it's only recording unarmed people shot and not the people they armed after the shooting.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal
Really enjoying all the lefties telling me to read a loving book when my grandad, a respected doctor, fled to Chile in 1945, and I grew up in Winchester.

e: 2 is the only even prime number.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal

Spangly A posted:

the guardian had an ongoing thing about US police murders of black people in 2018/2019 and it's thousands a year, the Wapo figure is solely where the cop straight up refuses to lie and insists they were right to murder
That's specifically shooting of unarmed people though, it doesn't count if they're armed, or the cop decides they're armed, or if the BB gun or gravity knife they found (or in some cases 'found') on the body counts, or if they're killed by choking them to death or beating them to death in a police van or if they're shooting back because it's a no-knock raid and 911 says they aren't police.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal
Ian Dunt should read some articles on LatAm politics, like this one, by Ian Dunt.

thespaceinvader posted:

Wanna bet the person whose fire they returned was a cop hiding amongst the protestors?
Could be, could be one of the gun rights contingent snapped, or it could be self styled accelerationists trying to turn the protest into a massacre.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal

jabby posted:

Take into account that unlike other countries US cops are routinely issued guns and sent to police a heavily-armed populace, and it's maybe not surprising they do such an abysmal job. ACAB, but some are more B than others.
There's a stat that the NRA people love throwing around that the average American gun owner has more training than the average American cop.

It's used as a case for armed citizen militias and good guys with guns, but it's true and most large city police departments only train twice a year and that's pretty terrifying especially if they're being allowed to do no-knock raids and poo poo like this keeps happening.

As per PolitiFact and a 2008 Rand study.

quote:

Hit ratios were below 30 percent for gunfights (18 percent) and from long ranges (23 percent from more than seven yards away). However, in cases where suspects did not return fire, NYPD officers hit their targets 30 percent of the time. Accuracy levels were above 30 percent when the target was seven yards away or closer (37 percent).

I'm not sure "we're actually not poo poo with our guns, which we need in case people shoot at us, as long as they're not shooting at us" is a spectacular justification.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal

goddamnedtwisto posted:

But how do you get there from here? Train up entire new forces then just replace the existing ones? I can't imagine anything getting better for *anyone* in that interim period. Maybe it's just a failure of imagination on my part but I can't see anything (absent a large-scale civil war, or some other massive upheaval to society) that lets you rip apart and remake the system without consequences similar to the fallout from a civil war, at least in the short term.

(Comedy option - if we're insisting on getting technology involved in everything, how about instead of cameras, make all cops wear AR goggles that turn everyone into the pastiest of WASPs)
You can debate how much of an improvement going from the RUC to the PSNI is, but it is an improvement.

(You can also debate how much of what led up to it was a large-scale civil war.)

We can also start looking at alternatives to policing that can run alongside them. Not the NRA's appeal to armed citizen militias, that often just ends up replicating the failures of the police, but some thoughts:
Violence Reduction Units, either run by cities or groups of people, to use the disease model for violent crime.
Restorative and communal justice alongside/instead of punitive courts and prisons.
Citizen peaceful patrol groups that aren't bearded neoconfederates with assault weapons.
Less crimes, we're obsessed with creating new crimes and then wondering why the justice system gets overworked.
Maybe feed and house people instead of having prisons do it.

The idea of the clockwork society where everything runs according to top-down series of commandments is plainly one that is full of people in cages, and every alternative seems to be saying a variation of the same thing: make people happier and healthier and give them more of a say in their lives and there's less crime and less need for policing.

Jel Shaker posted:

i recall that most bullets in armed conflict are used for suppression of the enemy rather than actual killing?
This is also true in American policing.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal

AutismVaccine posted:

Thats the most tinfoily thing i read here for a while.

Wth, we people in Europe mostly really cant complain about the police. If there is a problem you dont want to solve with violence yourself or need documentation about something, you call them. I pay taxes, so i use this service.
That's because there's very few alternatives, and most of the alternatives aren't available to the average person or are makeshift solutions by marginalized communities. And because there's no alternatives there's very little you can do when police themselves are involved.

Police, courts, and lawyers should really be the last resort where index crimes, murder and non-negligent homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, arson, etc. are committed. Otherwise, if there is a problem you don't want to solve with violence yourself, your first port of call should be a professional mediator, community justice, or civil dispute resolution.

If it isn't, it's usually because access to these doesn't exist or costs thousands, whereas access to police is free (for now).

That, along with the attitude that "there ought to be a law" is the first response to something that people don't like rather than "there ought to be a community driven change" are things that should change.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal

goddamnedtwisto posted:

I started typing something up about this last night but couldn't quite get my meaning across (it's possible I actually posted it, as this isn't normally a barrier) that one of the biggest problems with modern police at least here and in the US is how little actual police work they get up to. They probably spend more time doing front-line social service work than catching criminals although they often deal with the former, as you say, by turning them into the latter - homelessness, for example, should never be a police matter (of course it just shouldn't be a matter at all), but years of gutting social services (and society) have meant that they've been used as a temporary fix for just about all of society's ills.

In a perfect world this could actually still work - PCSOs could be trained in basic social work and be that first port of call, even if all they end up as is walking directories of (properly funded, of course) government agencies that could help someone in distress and being the general face of the Old Bill. Using them as warm bodies in high-vis satisfies nobody.

Actually the high-vis is part of the problem. I've joked about it in the past but the utility vests and other tacticool bollocks they wear definitely have a big psychic effect on both sides. If nothing else the natural reflex to hook their thumbs in the arm holes *definitely* transforms them into Dickensian beadles. It's also a fundamentally military look, something that breaks the most fundamental principle of (British) policing, that the police are of the people and not an occupying force. Bring back the old uniform, tit-head and all - make the pockets a bit bigger and make the coat out of kevlar and you've got something with as much use as the modern uniform, but maybe will remind everyone that they're not in Fallujah. We sneer (with some justification) at the idea of "bobbies on the beat" but the idea of having a known, familiar face behind the uniform, seen as an everyday thing, not someone swooping in with sound and fury, is a drat good one for all concerned. Get plod back to seeing themselves as part of society, not a power over it (and get people seeing them as the same thing) and you fix a lot of problems.

The Peelian principles are, I think, still a very sound basis for the enforcement of civil authority. Whether they can truly be adhered to is another matter, of course.

(Sorry, that's still really rambly and unfocused, but tbh I'm getting serious lockdown brain at this point)
Yeah, as founding principles go, the Peelian ones are about the best, in terms of updating them really the only things I'd change are adding emphasis that the police should be representative of the public, Brixton having an almost entirely white police presence until poo poo got set on fire and the Scarman Report said "this is a bad look" was a cause of community strain and resentment, and adding giant loving bold strokes around "all members of the public without regard to their wealth or social standing" for similar reasons.

I also agree that we rely too much on police/law/courts because we've scrapped too much of the rest to even run, which has led to moving vast swathes of "we don't do this because it makes you kind of a dick if you do" into the realm of formal law rather than social contract. Policing isn't the best solution to everything, and some things such as as helping drug addiction or making sex work safer with healthcare based models, work far less well if Constable Savage is going to be clomping around in the background, because people won't turn up and then you're back to dealing with a hepatitis epidemic which you definitely can't control with batons.

I think big state funded social services on the healthcare model can sometimes go badly wrong though, like psychiatrists creating a rigid social model of a 'healthy mind' and institutionalizing a bunch of people, so there always should be a wide variety of community oriented resolution initiatives too. We don't have an alternative to police and courts for the big serious crimes like murder, but for the little ones, the ones more like grievances, like alleged theft of chickens, or even some serious ones like domestic violence where the family are forced to choose between enduring abuse and their main breadwinner being banged up, there's good evidence that proper restorative justice with weight behind it and campaigns to stop it happening in the first place work better than cops/courts/cages.

The Question IRL posted:

I’m sorry, are you saying that if someone in your family is killed, instead of ringing the police you should look at all other possible avenues of things to do? Like call up a priest to see if he could raise your relative from the dead, perhaps?
Likewise if you suspect that you have been raped, you don’t think that the first thing that you should do is make a report to the police? Something that is incredibly difficult and hugely under-reported at the time and very often crucial forensic evidence is loss due to the astonishing levels of trauma associated with it. And you are suggesting that people should be influenced into looking at other options first.
No, I'm saying that the use of police, courts, and prisons is best reserved for those very serious crimes, where we don't really have any alternatives we can look at.

e: ^^ yes, that

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal

OwlFancier posted:

I think there is a comma missing there, a last resort, (such as) where index crimes have been committed.
I mean saying that, there has been some good work incorporating those alternative methods into existing justice systems even for very serious crimes.

Here's the South African conception of what that could look like, and here's a very serious case of the murder of a youth in S. v. Maluleke where a judge combines elements of retributive justice with elements of restorative justice and considers the balance for the community good.

Police still made the arrest, and traditional courtroom affairs still led to the publication of that, but it's an interesting and seemingly positive direction.

So it's not a case for throwing all police/state courts/prisons in the bin immediately and seeing what happens in its place, but building alongside and inside of that, although I'm suspicious of the likelihood of British judges deciding to take that leap without being poked, and lol at that ever happening with elected US judges.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal
That's true, but also because it was a literal fascist murder state until the mid-90s, and after that point people were willing to throw anything at the wall to see if it worked.

But despite being high by Western standards, it appears at least some of these (probably mostly no-longer being a literal fascist murder state, but I have hopes for the other things) are working.


But it has, as was noted in the case paper, worked in Canada and Australia as well. Mainly in getting justice for communities that weren't well served by the predominant idea of justice, but that's what started this whole thing with George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and the tasering of Judah Adunbi.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal
https://twitter.com/duttypotus/status/1267061450494799872

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal
My hopes of restorative justice getting a look in for the UK in the distant future have risen

Guavanaut posted:

because it was a literal fascist murder state

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal
I think the Posse Comitatus Act bans him from doing that. Which isn't to say he won't do something equally dumb, but someone might step in the way of him doing literally that.

e: Or in the words of Tom Lehrer
To the shores of Tripoli,
But not to Mississippoli,
What do we do? We send the Marines!

Guavanaut fucked around with this message at 00:03 on Jun 2, 2020

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal
Yeah there's no way that this looks good, because anyone with an interest in reading it (and even those that weren't until it was suppressed) are going to assume that it says the worst thing possible.

Deliberate botched handling of information by Reagan (and a dose of Soviet propaganda capitalizing on that misstep) is why there's a bunch of people who think that Reagan instructed Robert Gallo to invent HIV as an ethnic cleansing program, so going against transparency during an epidemic is a very harmful move.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal

Ms Adequate posted:

Of course, there are plenty of structural reasons Biden and most of the Dems aren't all aboard such a thing, but it could have been pursued as a credible policy platform, is my point, and probably one that made political hay.
This is a good post. Given the decentralized structure of the US and the fact that there's a bunch of it ruled by literal Cavalier neoconfederate aristocratic psychopaths though, I'm not sure how much the central government can do though.

Ending the drug war is one that they could, and should do asap. That's something that should always have been done on a healthcare model.

Actually running healthcare reform would be another good one to try, and ending the qualified immunity doctrines that turns police from "only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen" into supercitizens is one that's actually being tried at the moment.
https://twitter.com/justinamash/status/1267267244029083648

Other than that, the USAs best options all seem to come from organic bottom-up movements or municipal level violence reduction units, community courts, and peace patrols, or at best at the state level deciding not to route actually-its-not-a-tanks from Raytheon to village PDs.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal
Who is shooting the cops though? Because a lot of this seems like tactics discussed by James Mason/SIEGE, William Pierce, and Atomwaffen Division for accelerating the decline of modern society. "Shoot cops during a peaceful protest to turn it into a massacre" is a tactic discussed by all three.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal

Jedit posted:

I think you just answered your own question, though. The militarisation of America's police is a response to the militarisation of American society in general. So long as there are all those assault rifles in circulation, disarming the cops is a pipe dream. You're literally talking about setting up the plot of Robocop - underequipped officers sent into a meat grinder of criminals with military grade weapons.

If you want to demilitarise the cops, you first have to institute gun control. And that ain't gonna happen, because both parties enjoy having that heavily armed police force way too much.
I'm not sure any of that would stop the deeper problem of hardline accerlerationist neo-nazis working in groups though.

Yes, a better licensing system would stop poo poo like

but even before strict gun control in the UK we got away with a comparatively lightly armed police force and didn't feel the need to throw SWAT teams at every tiny warrant* and the nazi problem isn't one that can just be solved with gun control.

Saying "you can't just walk into a store and pick up a semi-auto rifle" might stop the guy who wants to kill his wife in a rage or shoot up his office, but white supremacist terror cells who are that far down the rabbit hole of sowing Mansonesque destruction will just make guns. Or nail bombs. Or they'll join the police. As an ideology they constitute a separate threat in and of themselves.

*offer not valid in Northern Ireland.

Bobstar posted:

From the Ars Technica comments section (which, for a comment section, is fairly non-terrible, if a bit liberal sometimes)

Antifa are the people who stormed the beaches at Normandy.

From the land side.

:psyduck:
An alliance of imperialists and segregationists stormed the beaches of Normandy from the sea, a bunch of fascists who were even worse manned the forts, and antifa stormed them from the land side. A good comment.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal

josh04 posted:

"extrovert" and "introvert" were invented by Myers-Briggs to sell more personality tests, don't believe the hype.
:hai:
Myers-Briggs is astrology for middle managers.

The Conservative Party: Won't consider alternatives to prisons because the Daily Mail complains, will consider a definition of 'quarantine' that includes getting on the bus to go to Tesco.

Jippa posted:

What could possibly be in that report to make them delay it?
They deliberately botched the start of lockdown, leading to disproportionate deaths of the poor and BAME people.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal

communism bitch posted:

The other 5% is gibberish to English speakers but who needs to know how to say "bread" in Russian anyway.
:anarchists:

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal
They both have a dual meaning as slang for testicles though. That's also common with Spanish and a bunch of other languages with unrelated eggwords, so maybe English is the weird one for not having eggs be common slang.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal

Miftan posted:

Bay-tzah. I wonder what the common root is there.

Miftan posted:

I mean Yiddish has a ton of crossover with Russian/German and both those countries have had massive Jewish populations.
There's eggs in Deuteronomy and other texts which predate the diaspora, so either Russians stole the eggs from Jews or it's a strange coincidence.

Danger - Octopus! posted:

I'm pretty sure it used to be slang in English didn't it? I'm sure I've read stuff from a couple of centuries ago where it was slang for testicles here.
Maybe, but it's always been a distant third to balls/bollocks (small balls), and stones/jewels (a Shakespeare favourite).

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

I think Arabic too if the Arabian Nights (the adult version not the kiddy version) is anything to go by!
It really wouldn't surprise me, it's in a ton of non-English languages.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

Well I had to go and check why Lee Rigby is trending on twitter. Don't recommend if you have blood pressure problems (unless it needs a boost).

stev posted:

I did this and thankfully the first results were explanations and condemnations of the fuckwits making this comparison so I didn't need to scroll further.
:same:

Also UKIP trending which made me all :ohdear:, but then I clicked it and :aaa:
https://twitter.com/GBTheGhost/status/1267833261176369158

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal
I thought Black Panthers and rebel flag gun rights bros both chanting We Will Shoot Back at a police station at the weekend was surreal enough, now this.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal

Borrovan posted:

Thing is though, there's been gently caress all going on lately, save for Tommy's latest Muslamic Ray Guns escapades up North which are kind of isolated to a single issue atm. There was some liberal nonsense in the papers a while back about how great it is that all the street fash have calmed down since Boris has been in power, we were all joking about how it turns out the way to combat fascism is to give them exactly what they want. It's weird though - typically, give fash an inch, they'll take a mile. Legitimising their viewpoints emboldens them, elect a Trump and they dig out the tikki torches. I have no idea what's so different this time. A terrorism researcher I'm close to reckons they're just as active as ever, but we've just pushed them off the streets and onto the web. I'm not so sure about that, since Western fash are all about overt displays of cultural dominance, which you can't do online. If I'm wrong, more co-ordinated online action might be the way forward (English Disco Lovers was a great one). But, it could just be that stuff like the aftermath of Charlottesville, the mass rise in interest in anti-fascism worldwide, and the consistent violence whenever they have one of their rallies has got them worried about delegitimising their viewpoint, like it (eventually) did in the '30s (in the UK, at least) - i.e., we're winning in the streets, but it makes gently caress all difference because their guys are in power across the world now so all they've got to do is sit tight and avoid making GBS threads their pants too publicly. It looks pretty grim to me, and the absence of actual mobilisations makes it really hard to keep people organised ready to oppose them when they start building the camps. All we can do is try to stay as involved as we can, and encourage others to do the same.
Maybe I've gone too far down a rabbit hole of my own making, but the modern day fash seems to have gone through a few compaction cycles, perhaps because of constant delegitimising (which isn't to say don't do it) or maybe because of a few falling outs, and the ultras seem to be following the pattern of

Guavanaut posted:

James Mason/SIEGE, William Pierce, and Atomwaffen Division for accelerating the decline of modern society.

That means small leaderless cells communicating on Telegram now that Iron March has gone. Someone posted a massive leak from the IM forums that might help identify them, but my worry is the next time we hear from them it won't be grooming gangs it'll be nail bombs.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal
Tweet's gone and the main party account has put out a load of the usual shite.
https://twitter.com/CookPassTim/status/1267880014252515330

Ah well, UKIP/BLM partnership was a fun two hours.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal
The Wire had its moments.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal

feedmegin posted:

Solution; watch Comrade Detective
Came here to post this.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal

Darth Walrus posted:

https://twitter.com/globalhlthtwit/status/1267919803962064897?s=21

Holy poo poo. Anyone with decent MPs, call them. Get them screaming about this at the top of their lungs. The government is literally covering up the causes of excessive non-white deaths in Britain.
Absolute shitshow of a nation, and yet entirely predictable given the "we won't release the document due to the political and racial tensions of the moment", "no wait we will", "no wait we won't".

It's the kind of thing you'd expect from P. W. Botha's office rather than a working nation, but predictable.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal

OwlFancier posted:

Also I guess watch out for matt hancock glowing yellow and gaining a load of hitpoints.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3h8ZnXLsRg
Recommended videos interesting. Mass Effect, action movies, Woody Guthrie antifa, cake


The nation-state is a doomed project, but for example some postcolonial national governments would face enormous, even existential, criticism if they took all the bits about structural racism out of a report on structural racism during an epidemic.

Extremely cool to see that Whitehall is currently at the "In ensuring the social development of both white and non-white society, we have taken the step of [pages 2-9 removed due to State of Emergency] which consultation has shown to be satisfactory to all groups." stage of statecraft.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

I don't remember insects (except midges in swarms on walks along the river) ever being this bad years ago. I never saw a mosquito anywhere I lived in the UK until I think it was 2012!
I think we killed a ton of them in the 90s and 00s, if you compare the windscreen and grill on your car from the 80s to the 10s.

That may just be better car design picking up less of them, but I drove an old boxy pos in the late 00s and there were definitely less insects than in the 80s and 90s.

Maybe they're all coming back again because of lockdown. I hope malaria doesn't return to the Fens.

The screen doors/windows is another note in my "why the hell did the UK abandon sash windows for hinged ones?" log though, because all the window fly screen designs are for US style sash ones, which are the same as Georgian and Victorian UK house ones.

OwlFancier posted:

Lol according to wikipedia by 2030 southern england will be a viable climate for malaria for 2 months of the year. And by 2080 so will southern scotland :v:
It has been for a long time, but fortunately the malaria that actually resided there was fairly mild as they go.

That was the origin of East Anglian opium cultivation, which was regarded as a curative.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal

Prince John posted:

Which makes me wonder is this actually a thing? Is there some supplanting of black voices in favour of peaceful protest going on in the US, or was it just a massive coincidence that I appeared to randomly land on a confirmatory tweet?
There may be some, but whenever there's a US BLM protest that has a random white dude saying "throw rocks at the police, it'll be awesome" then there's also a far more common but worse reason with analogs dating back to the Klan involvement in the Tulsa 'race riot' of the 1920s.

There is legitimate Black hurt and anger which is being vented in sometimes violent ways through these protests, but there's also a bunch of people who think it would either be strategically useful for terrible reasons or just lol hilarious to gently caress around with for various ends.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal

OwlFancier posted:

Some of them might be white people who also, justifiably, hate the cops. The problem is it won't be them that pays for it.

radmonger posted:

I know some people here have issues with Brown Moses, but this seems a legit investigation:

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2020/05/27/the-boogaloo-movement-is-not-what-you-think/
Yeah, some of the people at those protests (especially the ones in the South) are gun rights people who are legit incensed that Kenneth Walker got charged with attempted murder of a cop because he shot back at masked intruders who broke into his house and murdered his girlfriend Breonna Taylor, when 911 told him that there were no police in the area to respond, when the masked intruders happened to be police executing a warrant for people who were already in custody.
That's a legitimate thing to be angry about, it's a monumental fuckup. If armed people try to enter your dwelling with violence and you call the police and they tell you there are no police nearby to respond then it's only right and proper to assume that the people entering mean you harm.

The problem is that in the absence of any kind of left mass line you end up with a bunch of people who care about weapons but not politics (von Clausewitz might suggest they should instead be take up painting) and that's something that's (ironically, given the prepper/home defense nature) poorly equipped to defend itself against infiltration or parasitization by right wing accelerationism.

That makes it very difficult without opening windows into men's souls to tell who's operating off of some romantic misreading of (supposedly apolitical) insurrection and who's trying to instigate a race war.

At least for the ones just randomly firing shots. The ones deliberately targeting stores with 'Black Owned Business' on the shutters are probably racists.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal
Early morning reminder that the government is literally doing a P.W. Botha and censoring structural racism in a report about structural racism during a state of emergency.

Darth Walrus posted:

https://twitter.com/globalhlthtwit/status/1267919803962064897?s=21

Holy poo poo. Anyone with decent MPs, call them. Get them screaming about this at the top of their lungs. The government is literally covering up the causes of excessive non-white deaths in Britain.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal
Teaching schoolkids to make cruise missiles might not work out the way they want.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal
Sounds like some of the discussion when the smoking ban in pubs was introduced. Why not just have a rule that indoor atmospheric tar and particulate levels have to be below H&S recommended guidelines and smokers have to be distant from staff?

Because 99% of country pubs aren't going to be able to reconfigure as a HEPA facility and Plessey were reluctant to let their cleanrooms be used as a pub after hours.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal
Cracking open a covid one nine with the boys.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal
I think I've hit peak better things aren't possible.

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Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal
https://twitter.com/AcxaVenka/status/1268011190921375745
:discourse:

e: lmao it's true, I was prepared to be disappointed
https://twitter.com/Dharsh_Kwon/status/1268130771778154496

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