#241
[account deactivated]
#242
can i please just be optimistic about one single thing you guys. jesus christ
#243

Superabound posted:

Imagine not being an extremely online eRevolutionary and having like a family and a job and a real, safe, simple, productive life and NOT wanting all of those things destroyed by orgiastic violence orchestrated by the CIA as retaliation for Trump pulling out of invading Syria. Imagine being that reatarted


Imagine logging back into your rhizzone account after a long absence just to complain that Black Lives Matter is stopping you from brutally owning the CIA by taking your family out for a quiet meal at the Cheesecake Factory

#244

kamelred posted:

can i please just be optimistic about one single thing you guys. jesus christ



i've been watching the live streams and a lot of these protests are getting co-opted by libs with megaphones telling people to contact their local representatives and vote in November, which is getting applause.


#245

Superabound posted:

Imagine not being an extremely online eRevolutionary and having like a family and a job and a real, safe, simple, productive life and NOT wanting all of those things destroyed by orgiastic violence


damb i think id want that orgiastic violence more than ever

#246
.

Edited by solidar ()

#247
seriously though while im sure the cia is pissed the assad government survived and trump didn’t just full on invade he did not ever really with draw, the state is still fractured and being sanctioned into death, and you think this same cia isn’t rejoicing about trump tearing up the iran deal, killing soleimani, and putting maximum economic pressure on iran? you think theyre disappointed by the US moving their embassy to jerusalem in israel and giving those apartheid fucks a total blank check? you think thryre not pleased as punch about getting their boy elliot abrams in there to try and coup maduro while trump/pence spearhead the recognition of that whole fake guaido government? you think they’re disappointed the oas with the trump regimes backing achieved a coup in bolivia? you think they’re not thrilled with having pompeo literally running the state dept while ratcheting up operations against cuba and nicaragua? trump was pretty iconoclastic when he first came into office but you think 3.5 years later after they got all those things theyre trying to coup him by empowering black resistance to the state... because of syria?

separately how exactly is this outrage supposed to be fake or orchestrated? saying the cia is doing it makes as little sense as assigning it to soros. If the CIA is doing anything it’s sending their guy deray and his ilk in there to channel this situation into harmless liberal paper reforms.
#248

kamelred posted:

can i please just be optimistic about one single thing you guys. jesus christ


the city of seattle has exhausted its arsenal of chemical weapons

#249

MarxUltor posted:

the city of seattle has exhausted its arsenal of chemical weapons


recession drove Starbucks out of business huh? things are finally looking up!

#250
I've begun researching the energy drink sector to see if there's any possibility of exploiting cleavages within the ruling class here. Bad news: the CEO of the Monster Beverage Corporation is a donor to the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces. Gonna have to cross that one off my list.

Also a bonus from the papers:




Edited by trakfactri ()

#251

ilmdge posted:

seriously If the CIA is doing anything it’s sending their guy deray and his ilk in there to channel this situation into harmless liberal paper reforms.



just on this last point, it does seem like a lot of these protests are absolutely riddled with undercover cops and DNC operatives. i've seen lots of accounts of these creeps declaring themselves head organizers, meeting with pigs in secret, pied pipering marches into kettles, gas attacks, handcuffs etc, i know its nothing new but i'm quite heartened by how quick the backlash came to that pathetic 8cantwait proposal. black militant activists dismantling it in real time, in easy to read screengrabs for libs, every point dismissed. my (weak) hope is this kind of thing can become a necessary wake up slap to people who are marching now but still feel residual affection for obama. not saying it will turn them into soviets over night but pointing them towards further radicalisation can prove useful.

#252
#253


all white, middle aged, mostly overweight. Hair and facial hair on several don't appear to comply with any military/police grooming standards. Every single one on the front line has different equipment from the others. Vests, gloves, helmet, shields, mask, goggles, elbow pads, gas mask carrier, t-shirt and pants, the TACTICAL shit dangling all over the place. Some repeats sure because there's probably limited options but not a single thing standardized. I can't recall ever seeing pigs in the greyscale "urban camo" BDU pants the first 2 have, just black or brown. Not a single insignia, even the generic "police"

Even the guys in camo in the back look irregular although its harder to tell because of the focus, but I'm pretty sure there's several different vests and helmets visible back there too.

These are militia.
#254
#255
it's ok guys we figured it out, we know who's behind everything now. stop the movement


lmao
#256
obligatory "damn i wish"
#257

Flying_horse_in_saudi_arabia posted:

Superabound posted:

Imagine not being an extremely online eRevolutionary and having like a family and a job and a real, safe, simple, productive life and NOT wanting all of those things destroyed by orgiastic violence orchestrated by the CIA as retaliation for Trump pulling out of invading Syria. Imagine being that reatarted

Imagine logging back into your rhizzone account after a long absence just to complain that Black Lives Matter is stopping you from brutally owning the CIA by taking your family out for a quiet meal at the Cheesecake Factory



Great, nuanced political argument based on actual historicism and critical thought rather than pulled straight from GenX shitlib Facebook post Template #368753. 'grats

#258

MarxUltor posted:

all white, middle aged, mostly overweight. Hair and facial hair on several don't appear to comply with any military/police grooming standards. Every single one on the front line has different equipment from the others. Vests, gloves, helmet, shields, mask, goggles, elbow pads, gas mask carrier, t-shirt and pants, the TACTICAL shit dangling all over the place. Some repeats sure because there's probably limited options but not a single thing standardized. I can't recall ever seeing pigs in the greyscale "urban camo" BDU pants the first 2 have, just black or brown. Not a single insignia, even the generic "police"

Even the guys in camo in the back look irregular although its harder to tell because of the focus, but I'm pretty sure there's several different vests and helmets visible back there too.

These are militia.



Reminder that these are the exact people who will end up patrolling every street in America once you abolish the police.

Well them, and Google, Amazon, and Apple's private, William Gibsonsonesque security forces. Every socialists wet dream lol

#259

liceo posted:

edited just to recommend you to check this out before posting more vague nonsense



all those rich white college kids out there smashing up Somali-owned shop windows are more likely to have PLAYED Settlers than read it

#260

Superabound posted:

Reminder that these are the exact people who will end up patrolling every street in America once you abolish the police.

Well them, and Google, Amazon, and Apple's private, William Gibsonsonesque security forces. Every socialists wet dream lol


Oh well then better not try and change anything. Status quo ante everybody!! Now if you'll excuse me I have a Cheesecake Factory booking to make for myself and my very large family. There are not many of us, by large I simply mean obese.

#261

Superabound posted:

MarxUltor posted:

all white, middle aged, mostly overweight. Hair and facial hair on several don't appear to comply with any military/police grooming standards. Every single one on the front line has different equipment from the others. Vests, gloves, helmet, shields, mask, goggles, elbow pads, gas mask carrier, t-shirt and pants, the TACTICAL shit dangling all over the place. Some repeats sure because there's probably limited options but not a single thing standardized. I can't recall ever seeing pigs in the greyscale "urban camo" BDU pants the first 2 have, just black or brown. Not a single insignia, even the generic "police"

Even the guys in camo in the back look irregular although its harder to tell because of the focus, but I'm pretty sure there's several different vests and helmets visible back there too.

These are militia.

Reminder that these are the exact people who will end up patrolling every street in America once you abolish the police.

Well them, and Google, Amazon, and Apple's private, William Gibsonsonesque security forces. Every socialists wet dream lol



#262
if anything a world with amazon rentacops is one where it's way easier to make them look the other way vs actual cops
#263

Superabound posted:

MarxUltor posted:


all white, middle aged, mostly overweight. Hair and facial hair on several don't appear to comply with any military/police grooming standards. Every single one on the front line has different equipment from the others. Vests, gloves, helmet, shields, mask, goggles, elbow pads, gas mask carrier, t-shirt and pants, the TACTICAL shit dangling all over the place. Some repeats sure because there's probably limited options but not a single thing standardized. I can't recall ever seeing pigs in the greyscale "urban camo" BDU pants the first 2 have, just black or brown. Not a single insignia, even the generic "police"

Even the guys in camo in the back look irregular although its harder to tell because of the focus, but I'm pretty sure there's several different vests and helmets visible back there too.

These are militia.



Reminder that these are the exact people who will end up patrolling every street in America once you abolish the police.

Well them, and Google, Amazon, and Apple's private, William Gibsonsonesque security forces. Every socialists wet dream lol


whats your proposed solution

#264
From my experience at normie mainstream protests theres still signs in the crowd like ACAB, or Don’t mistake the reaction of the oppressed for the violence of the oppressor, or Some of those who work forces are the same as those who burn crosses, or, one of the most common signs, Defund the Police. Only saw a single “Eight Can’t Wait” sign. Even though there’s talk about being sure to vote and the like, masses of people really hate the police
#265
Please fuck off.
#266

Superabound posted:

liceo posted:


edited just to recommend you to check this out before posting more vague nonsense




all those rich white college kids out there smashing up Somali-owned shop windows are more likely to have PLAYED Settlers than read it



epic brother...

#267
hearing there are some white people in the riots....settlers much!!?!!?!?
#268
Tonight I noticed a couple trends. The cops, national guard, etc were way less visible than earlier in the week - hardly any surrounding the WH like before, just the big black fence and the now switched off floodlights. That said I managed to spot ATF, FBI, MP, US Marshals, secret service, Capitol Police, DEA, and all my plain clothes friends in the span of a day, which I thought was interesting.

The other thing is the tone is shifting away from BLM to Defunding the Police. The organizers can see the liberal co-opting of "BLM" happening as the mayor renames the street to Black Lives Matter Plaza and has the the whole asphalt painted in giant letters, while simultaneously not showing any change of course from increasing the police budget and cutting social programs. (I can see "BLM" being used in five or ten years by liberals as a platitude dog whistle the way they invoke MLK now.) Tonight M4BL painted "Defund the Police" in those same giant letters in the next section of the street. The message and tone seems pretty consistent across the protest here, I got the same impression that ilmdge described. I saw a few Answer Coalition signs and voter registrars, but very few overall with some other agenda.



#269
i think, even if you believe that formally abolishing the police would only allow some other structure to fill the same role, it would likely take some time before such a structure can gain its footing and establish itself. in the short term, the economic impact of the virus will very likely spur more mass action. what happens in those months if the state is still negotiating terms and tactics with its enforcers?
#270

ghostpinballer posted:

not saying it will turn them into soviets over night but pointing them towards further radicalisation can prove useful.


#271
So on trends in my neighborhood... went out on Saturday with the ^ demo. Same deal with the police like what burritostan said. Cops stayed back and didn't gas us like last Saturday. The march must have at least tripled in size, with more white people, and was probably around half black instead of a majority like last weekend. It didn't feel like it lost its radicalism, but it didn't feel as angry either. NAARPR had a big banner up front alongside a Palestinian group with a banner. PSL brought out a banner but had it back in the middle of the crowd so you couldn't really see it. Downtown had been boarded up like a hurricane was about to hit so there must be brisk business happening for contractors.

ghostpinballer posted:

just on this last point, it does seem like a lot of these protests are absolutely riddled with undercover cops and DNC operatives. i've seen lots of accounts of these creeps declaring themselves head organizers, meeting with pigs in secret, pied pipering marches into kettles, gas attacks, handcuffs etc,


Deffo. Yeah there have been protests here every night but I've opted to stick with consider the following because they're at a level I want to be on, and some of these protests during the week were either liberal photo-ops or (possibly deliberate) disasters. A few nights ago someone led 700 people into a kettle on a bridge. Zip ties and bus rides for everyone!

Also what makes me the Optimist in that four-quadrant meme is seeing stuff like this. This town has such a reputation for being a sundown Klan town that when the call went out people did a double take. Like, Vidor? No way... this has got to be a setup or a trap. But no.

#272

trakfactri posted:

A few nights ago someone led 700 people into a kettle on a bridge.


oooof.

#273

trakfactri posted:

A few nights ago someone led 700 people into a kettle on a bridge.


was it a dog wearing a cone?

#274
[account deactivated]
#275

MarxUltor posted:

These are militia.


i regrewt to inform you the militia are coming from inside the state dept building

politico posted:

To understand the police forces ringing Trump and the White House it helps to understand the dense and not-entirely-sensical thicket of agencies that make up the nation’s civilian federal law enforcement. With little public attention, notice and amid historically lax oversight, those ranks have surged since 9/11—growing by roughly 2,500 officers annually every year since 2000. To put it another way: Every year since the 2001 terrorist attacks, the federal government has added to its policing ranks a force larger than the entire Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Nearly all of these agencies are headquartered in and around the capital, making it easy for Attorney General William Barr to enlist them as part of his vast effort to “flood the zone” in D.C. this week with what amounts to a federal army of occupation, overseen from the FBI Washington area command post in Chinatown. Battalions of agents were mustered in the lobby of Customs and Border Protection’s D.C. headquarters—what in normal times is the path to a food court for federal workers. The Drug Enforcement Administration has been given special powers to enable it to surveil protesters. It is the heaviest show of force in the nation’s capital since the protests and riots of the Vietnam War.
As large as the public show of force on D.C.’s streets has turned out to be—Bloomberg reported Thursday that the force includes nearly 3,000 law enforcement—it still represents only a tiny sliver of the government’s armed agents and officers. The government counts up its law enforcement personnel only every eight years, and all told, at last count in 2016, the federal government employed over 132,000 civilian law enforcement officers—only about half of which come from the major “brand name” agencies like the FBI, ATF, Secret Service, DEA and CBP. The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, which serves as the general academy for federal agencies who don’t have their own specialized training facilities, lists around 80 different agencies whose trainees pass through its doors in Georgia, from the IRS’ criminal investigators and the Transportation Security Administration's air marshals to the Offices of the Inspector General for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Railroad Retirement Board. Don’t forget the armed federal officers at the Environmental Protection Agency or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Law Enforcement, whose 150 agents investigate conservation crime like the Tunas Convention Act of 1975 (16 USC § 971-971k) and the Northern Pacific Halibut Act of 1982 (16 USC § 773-773k).
In and around D.C., there are more than a score of agency-specific federal police forces, particularly downtown where protests have played out over the past week, nearly every block brings you in contact with a different police force. A morning run around the National Mall and Capitol Hill might see you cross through the jurisdictions of the federal U.S. Capitol Police, the Park Police, the National Gallery of Art police, the Smithsonian Office of Protective Services, the Postal police, Amtrak police, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing police, the Supreme Court police, the Uniformed Division of the Secret Service, the Government Publishing Office police, and the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Protective Service. (Only recently did the Library of Congress police merge with the Capitol Police across the street into one unit.) Run a bit farther and you might encounter the FBI Police or the U.S. Mint police. And that’s not even counting the multistate Metro Transit police and the local D.C. Metropolitan Police.
The public has little understanding or appreciation for the size of some of these agencies, each of which has its own protocols, training, hiring guidelines and responsibilities. On the lighter side, few tourists know, for instance, that the National Gallery of Art—home to some of the world’s most famous artwork—has a shooting range for its police tucked away above its soaring central rotunda. On the darker side, the roughly 20,000 federal prison guards known formally as the Bureau of Prisons—whose riot units make up a sizable chunk of the officers imported to D.C. and who represent the single largest component of federal officers in the Justice Department—are concerning to see on the streets in part because they’re largely untrained in civilian law enforcement; they normally operate in a controlled environment behind bars with sharply limited civil liberties and use-of-force policies that would never fly in a civilian environment.
There are more gun-carrying agents employed across the federal government by inspectors general—the quasi-independent watchdogs responsible for rooting out fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars—than there are ATF agents nationwide; the roughly 4,000 inspector general agents nationwide, in fact, is roughly equivalent to the entire size of the DEA. The Department of Veterans Affairs’ police department, who guard the nation’s veteran hospitals, facilities and cemeteries, is larger than the entire U.S. Marshals Service.
Beyond those 132,000 federal civilian law enforcement, the U.S. has tens of thousands of military law enforcement officers, including military police units and investigators like the 2,000 agents of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, the 1,200 agents of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service or the 900 agents of the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division. Plus, the 40,000 armed personnel of the U.S. Coast Guard, which has broad law enforcement powers on the nation’s rivers, lakes and oceans, but is counted as part of the military.
Then there are the officers who can be spotted across Northern Virginia in white marked patrol vehicles labeled only as “United States Police,” the purposefully vague public name given to what is formally known as the CIA’s Security Protective Services, who provide security to the CIA and the Office of Director of National Intelligence. They carry weapons, but have limited law enforcement authority. (As one agent told me, only half-joking, “We can’t arrest you, but we can kill you.”)

The rise of so many specialized federal forces—and so many federal law enforcement officers overall—is a relatively recent phenomenon; the FBI was unarmed until the mid-1930s and modern incarnations of the DEA and ATF, for example, were only founded in the 1970s, as part of President Richard Nixon’s law and order push. Historically, it’s not altogether surprising that many of the personnel on D.C.’s streets this week have come from the Border Patrol and the Bureau of Prisons, which have long served as the nation’s “surge” national police force.
What is surprising is that those two agencies now facing down Black Lives Matter and crowds protesting systemic racism historically have been enlisted by the federal government to protect blacks against white protesters. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, for instance, deputized officers from the Border Patrol and the Bureau of Prisons to work as U.S. marshals and secure the University of Mississippi in 1962 to protect James Meredith as he enrolled at the school after desegregation. Similarly, the Border Patrol once watched over the Freedom Riders in Alabama and Mississippi in the 1960s.

The Covid-19 pandemic has even spawned what will apparently be the nation’s newest federal investigator: The Senate confirmed on Tuesday a special inspector general to oversee the $500 billion pandemic recovery spending. He, presumably, will be recruiting his own agents and equipment soon.


Fun fact: The vast majority of the total arrests made by the Pentagon police, formally known as the Pentagon Force Protection Agency, are for drunk driving. Roughly every two or three days, an intoxicated driver gets lost in the maze of interstate roads around the Defense Department headquarters and takes a wrong turn into one of its parking lots. Such incidents account for as many as four out of five arrests the PFPA make annually.

#276
I've been having a lot of discussions with anarchist comrades about defund the police vs community control of the police. This is another example of how anarchists get bamboozled into supporting neoliberal demands, they think that any sort of defunding will lead to BPP style community self defense. The more practical solution is accountability to the community for the structure that already exists instead of trying to tear down something and not having a replacement ready to step in. Ideological differences between tendencies have a funny way of popping up over and over with common themes

Edited by pogfan1996 ()

#277
the problem with that, is the structure that already exists does and will continue to fuck up any attempt to introduce accountability. from simply refusing to work with civilian oversight boards, to go-slows and failing to comply with federal oversight, to running million dollar campaigns against pro-accountability candidates, to doxxing the mayors daughter as a warning. that's just speaking of legal stuff anyone can see coming, its not like they don't have experience killing people and destroying evidence either

it was what 5 dozen pigs in buffalo who quit the special tactical toys brigade because two of their buddies got disciplined, now all the sudden the mayor pulled a 180 and is calling the 75 year old dude a major instigator who was trying to start a riot

Edited by zhaoyao ()

#278
That's definitely one of the downsides of a reformist strategy, and this demand can play a place within a revolutionary framework. The relationship between the police and oppressed nationalities within the US has a lot of similarities to colonial police. In this context, demanding community control of the police can also be a demand to end the colonial relationship.

There's a couple other pitfalls that I see: redistricting to ensure the colonial relationship, attempts by internal colonies to integrate fully into the labor aristocracy/hijacking by the black bourgeoisie, etc

There is a strong pressure on the existing power structure, which is that if there isn't an outlet for anger against police brutality, cities will burn.
#279
re: that earlier leftist trainspotting discussion, it is interesting to see how influential recruiting practices are on org culture. There's a ML Soviet fanclub that's entirely online, the centrality of college campuses was really evident with some groups, the CPUSA is based out of the food court at the FBI. An orgs recruiting practices are a direct reflection of their view of class in society and of revolution in general

Edit: this is completely unrelated to everything else but this is a great third worldist approach to the entire us uprising

Edited by pogfan1996 ()

#280

ghostpinballer posted:

ilmdge posted:

seriously If the CIA is doing anything it’s sending their guy deray and his ilk in there to channel this situation into harmless liberal paper reforms.

just on this last point, it does seem like a lot of these protests are absolutely riddled with undercover cops and DNC operatives. i've seen lots of accounts of these creeps declaring themselves head organizers, meeting with pigs in secret, pied pipering marches into kettles, gas attacks, handcuffs etc, i know its nothing new but i'm quite heartened by how quick the backlash came to that pathetic 8cantwait proposal. black militant activists dismantling it in real time, in easy to read screengrabs for libs, every point dismissed. my (weak) hope is this kind of thing can become a necessary wake up slap to people who are marching now but still feel residual affection for obama. not saying it will turn them into soviets over night but pointing them towards further radicalisation can prove useful.



yeah any opportunist with a microphone can hijack a protest for their influencer IG clout or score an interview with a media desperate to find a spokesperson. i assume there are strategies to work against this from experienced organizers.