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Author Topic: baltimore (and everywhere else)  (Read 5227 times)

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Offline MLA

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Re: baltimore (and everywhere else)
« Reply #15 on: May 04, 2015, 10:21:09 AM »
Fuck the media? Maybe just fuck me for liking that crap.

It's not just you.  The 24-hour news cycle is the beginning of the end of the human race as we once knew it.

Offline MLA

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Re: baltimore (and everywhere else)
« Reply #16 on: May 04, 2015, 10:30:53 AM »
I will also say, working hard for something be it a cause, property etc...changes the point of view of 'hey perhaps I should not rush to destroy this or that' the aspect of working to secure something is a good thing,

because it gets energy out in a positive direction and the people that worked for whatever it was they did appreciate said thing, cause, movement more and are stewards of what they put there sweat into...

just a thought...

Rioters are so dumb ... they burn their own houses down!

I am so tired of that trope.  Thank all the gods that you grew up a white girl in a first world country so you never found yourself in a situation where burning down your own community seemed like a plausible reaction to the insurmountable systemic problems you faced.




Offline Jack

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Re: baltimore (and everywhere else)
« Reply #17 on: May 04, 2015, 04:39:30 PM »
Fuck the media? Maybe just fuck me for liking that crap.

It's not just you.  The 24-hour news cycle is the beginning of the end of the human race as we once knew it.
Don't even know how to operate the tv. The remote has a screen; what the crap? Feed my sickness in other ways. :M

Offline Dexter Morgan

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Re: baltimore (and everywhere else)
« Reply #18 on: May 08, 2015, 10:35:37 PM »
Privileged, colonialist oppressors getting their comeuppance:

« Last Edit: May 08, 2015, 10:37:32 PM by Dexter Morgan »

Offline odeon

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Re: baltimore (and everywhere else)
« Reply #19 on: May 09, 2015, 03:23:19 AM »
Rioters are so dumb ... they burn their own houses down!

I am so tired of that trope.  Thank all the gods that you grew up a white girl in a first world country so you never found yourself in a situation where burning down your own community seemed like a plausible reaction to the insurmountable systemic problems you faced.

+

Rioters are a riot.
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Re: baltimore (and everywhere else)
« Reply #20 on: May 10, 2015, 09:19:54 PM »
Rioters are so dumb ... they burn their own houses down!

I am so tired of that trope.  Thank all the gods that you grew up a white girl in a first world country so you never found yourself in a situation where burning down your own community seemed like a plausible reaction to the insurmountable systemic problems you faced.

+

Rioters are a riot.

well...I have been to a 3rd world country (China) and helped folks there(I want to go back at some point and help again because I love helping out people)...

and I have a big heart, and honestly (reading civil disobedience good read highly recommend) if that is the reason for saying someone takes for granted xyz then it's a poorly founded argument to have...

personally I stay off the net (novel idea eh?) and read more, get out more, help people more and stay informed to a degree, but I am less impressed with myself the older I get

I make a difference where I can, and fart in the general direction of those that can destroy things just because they feel an itch to do so...

Leave your bit coins at the door, I have no use for them

Offline MLA

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Re: baltimore (and everywhere else)
« Reply #21 on: May 11, 2015, 10:16:22 AM »
Sorry, I didn't follow most of that. Especially the part where you took to the net to tell me that you stay off the net.  I just have to interject when someone calls China a third-world country.  The cold war is over, and China was never unaligned.  It supplied about two-thirds of the second-world citizens.

Or perhaps you were referring to the new (incorrect) usage of the term meaning a country with a shit economy.  Except China overtook the US as the world's largest economy last year.

Offline Parts

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Re: baltimore (and everywhere else)
« Reply #22 on: May 11, 2015, 09:03:28 PM »
Sorry, I didn't follow most of that. Especially the part where you took to the net to tell me that you stay off the net.  I just have to interject when someone calls China a third-world country.  The cold war is over, and China was never unaligned.  It supplied about two-thirds of the second-world citizens.

Or perhaps you were referring to the new (incorrect) usage of the term meaning a country with a shit economy.  Except China overtook the US as the world's largest economy last year.

Largest economy yes but with 1.3 billion people vs the US which has about 319 million what do you expect?  Look at the per capita numbers  and things are a bit different the US is 12th and China 99th
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Offline WolFish

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Do you know Damocles?
« Reply #23 on: May 11, 2015, 10:18:18 PM »
If you're well read then you know the story of Damocles. Except for the fact that those rioters have no power at all, there is some similarity.
I'm not saying that I would go out and join a riot, just that I understand.

Trips to China are made by the privileged. How did the trip to China help people with the same issues in this country? My ex went to China and couldn't wait to tell me, yet she makes no effort to help people in need in her own city. That would not meet her standard of elitism. Who could go to a party and say, "I went downtown and helped some homeless people?" Far better to talk about the people in need in China. That makes you a real humanitarian.

People who riot don't do it because they got an itch.
They do it because they got stepped on. Over and over. They do it because there is a boot, right there, waiting to step on them again.
Civil disobedience requires a level of organization that is crippled by pain, and by strong emotions like fear and anger. Because they worked to secure something (for example, their rights) and watched it get taken away.

Sure, there are opportunists and thieves among the rioters, but there are also very angry people who are angry because they got hurt, not because they took something for granted. It's caring that gets them hurt. I belong to an oppressed group; however I recognize that I have enjoyed a certain amount or privilege. But I can't take that for granted because I know my skin is a sign to others that they can take away, my privilege, my rights and my life if they so choose. No matter how much I get out, how much I read, how much I volunteer, I cannot erase the fact that those things will mean nothing if I am in the wrong place and someone with a weapon decides I am a threat. The boot is waiting.

It is people who take their privilege for granted who cannot see why anyone would riot.

If you can't see why people would riot, then you can't see.
Mark Twain: “Never argue with a [troll], onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.”

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Offline sg1008

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Re: baltimore (and everywhere else)
« Reply #24 on: May 11, 2015, 11:36:15 PM »
Speaking of China, I found this:



On 19 September 2006, the Declaration of Independence of the Nations of High Asia: Tibet, East Turkistan and Inner Mongolia was read out in a conference room at the Capitol Building of the US Congress in Washington D.C.
....
The declaration of independence was signed by the representatives of Inner Mongolia, Tibet and East Turkistan, and was also signed by the Taiwan representative since the declaration made a major reference to the threat that independent and democratic Taiwan was facing from China. All other delegates, including the Chinese, unanimously supported the declaration and the aspirations of the people of these nations for freedom and independence.
....
[excerpt]"The Tibetans, the Uyghur people of East Turkistan and Mongols have traditionally desired only to live in freedom in their own independent homelands, but this desire has been thwarted and crushed by Communist China for over fifty years. It is a matter of history that Communist China invaded Tibet in 1949-50 overpowering and smashing a small Tibetan army defending its homeland. It is also the case that East Turkistan and Inner Mongolia were forcibly occupied by Communist troops in 1949. In no case did Communist China’s rule in these countries come about through the consent of the people or even through an accident of history.

Since then China has systematically undermined the ancient way of life of these peoples, first doing away with their legitimate governments, and then imprisoning, torturing and executing many of their traditional rulers, chieftains and spiritual leaders. When the people of these nations refused to accept these injustices and depredations, the Chinese Communist army and State Security organs crushed all such resistance with overwhelming violence. Millions of Tibetans, Uyghurs and Mongols were killed. Millions more were imprisoned or deported to forced labour camps (laogai). The people in these lands had, in the past, enjoyed a sufficiency in basic needs, but now the policies of the Communist government caused widespread crop failure, recurring famines and mass starvation where millions of people especially women, children and the elderly perished.

Under the slogan of revolutionary “struggle” (douzheng), the Communist administration in these regions coerced and forced the people to spy on and inform on each other, often employing even children to report on their parents and participate in public denunciations and “struggles”. All customary, in fact universal, human values of friendship, hospitality, trust, respect, tolerance, peace and compassion were regarded by the Communist authorities as “feudal” and “counter-revolutionary”.

During the years of the “Cultural Revolution”, people were compelled to destroy their own temples, monasteries, and mosques. Nearly all buildings and monuments of historical, cultural and religious importance in these countries were demolished and their treasures and art objects looted and shipped to China for their precious metals or for sale on the Asian art market. The mineral wealth, forests, water and other natural resources of these lands have, especially in the last couple of decades, not only been systematically exploited to benefit China, but have also been thoughtlessly wasted and the environment devastated because of the extreme policies of China’s leadership.

Right now China’s population transfer policy has flooded Inner Mongolia, East Turkistan and Tibet with Chinese migrants, completely marginalizing the indigenous population and making them a minority in their own homelands. Native craftsmen, small businessmen, workers and even labourers have been near completely displaced by Chinese immigrants, causing tremendous social problems, and psychological distress among the native population.
All the while, the informers, the various organs of State Security (gongan), the State Psychiatric Units (ankang) and the “People’s Liberation Army” are relentlessly going about their task of spreading terror throughout these lands and forcing the submission of their peoples.

We individuals and our organisations assembled here today are firmly behind all the Tibetans, Uyghurs and Mongols who in their homelands are standing up and demanding independence, and we mutually pledge to fully support those inside who risk everything, including their lives, in the quest for a free and democratic homeland. We appeal to the global community of nations as to the rectitude of our intentions and do thus declare that Tibet, East Turkistan and Inner Mongolia are absolved of all political connections to the People’s Republic of China, or any future Chinese state and government, and shall henceforth be free and independent nations, each irrevocably committed to a democratic system of government, established by the free will of the people, and based on the rule of law and the primacy of individual freedom.

In the case of Taiwan we have a travesty of international justice where a fully independent, prosperous and democratic nation, is not recognized as such by other nations, primarily out of concern for displeasing Communist China. Taiwan may have once been a part of China, but most member states of the United Nations Organization were at one point or another in their history a part of another nation or empire. Taiwan was only a province of China briefly for eight years between 1887 and 1895. Taiwan was, by the treaty of Shimonoseki (1895), ceded, in perpetuity, to Japan. Whatever the ramifications of its varied history the people of Taiwan have the right, as do all peoples in the world, to self-determination; and furthermore through their successful efforts in creating a progressive and prosperous democratic state have more than earned the right to nationhood. China’s numerous and increasingly belligerent threats to invade Taiwan must be condemned by the international community and Taiwan’s right to independence recognized.

We call upon individual nations of the world and the United Nations Organization to support the inalienable right of Uyghurs, Mongols, Tibetans and Taiwanese to independent homelands. We appeal to the United States of America, the first liberal democratic nation in the world, to give due recognition to the rightful cause of these peoples and aid them in their noble quest for independence, freedom and democracy.

19th September 2006,

Conference Room HC-9,

U.S. Congress,

Capitol Hill, Washington D.C.""

READ THE FULL ARTICLE: http://www.innermongolia.org/english/Nations%20of%20High%20Asia%20Declare.htm
Can't you guys even just imagine it?

Forget practicality, or your experience....can you just....imagine?

It's there. It always was.

Offline MLA

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Re: baltimore (and everywhere else)
« Reply #25 on: May 12, 2015, 04:47:39 PM »
WolFish understands.  I'm kind of surprised that not everyone else does.  Sure, everyone here is white and from a rich country, but everyone is also a spazz.  There is no spazz privilege.  Some of you appear to be "out", and thus genuinely stigmatized.

Offline sg1008

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Re: baltimore (and everywhere else)
« Reply #26 on: May 12, 2015, 04:57:53 PM »
Dr. MLK jr. commentary on black riots- which I agree with:
"And I contend that the cry of "black power" is, at bottom, a reaction to the reluctance of white power to make the kind of changes necessary to make justice a reality for the Negro. I think that we've got to see that a riot is the language of the unheard. And, what is it that America has failed to hear?"

source: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/mlk-a-riot-is-the-language-of-the-unheard/

I UNDERSTAND riots. I don't need to join them, but I can understand them. And I feel in my gut that rioters are far less of a threat to anyone than the upheld systemic violence in this country which should be alarming to anyone made aware of it.
Can't you guys even just imagine it?

Forget practicality, or your experience....can you just....imagine?

It's there. It always was.

Offline sg1008

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Re: baltimore (and everywhere else)
« Reply #27 on: May 12, 2015, 05:03:31 PM »
speaking of which,
I recommend everyone listen to Michelle Obama's Tuskegee commencement speech all the way through. It is very good, encouraging for everyone (especially if you are a woman or minority), and very thorough for anyone seeking to understand some present day frustrations rooted in historical things. She doesn't speak for everyone, but the experiences she shares have commonalities with many others.

And I am wondering- based on her speech giving skills- if she helps the President write his speeches lol.

Can't you guys even just imagine it?

Forget practicality, or your experience....can you just....imagine?

It's there. It always was.

Offline Jack

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Re: baltimore (and everywhere else)
« Reply #28 on: May 12, 2015, 08:10:00 PM »
Sure, everyone here is white
That's incorrect.

Offline Dexter Morgan

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Re: baltimore (and everywhere else)
« Reply #29 on: May 12, 2015, 08:13:21 PM »
WolFish understands.  I'm kind of surprised that not everyone else does.  Sure, everyone here is white and from a rich country, but everyone is also a spazz.  There is no spazz privilege.  Some of you appear to be "out", and thus genuinely stigmatized.
Guess what?  The rioters are from a rich country, too.  Why can't they check their own privilege?