Trump's America

Lil' Red said:
knapplc said:
This... is not what Trump should be commenting on.

https://twitter.com/sfchronicle/status/827217967377027072
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"Hey Donald I have a great idea. Why don’t we switch jobs? You take over TV, because you’re such an expert in ratings, and I take over your job," said Schwarzenegger in a video. "And then people can finally sleep comfortable again. Hmm?"
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If it were constitutional I would love to see that happen. I don't agree with all of political Arnold's ideas, but he's a pretty smart guy. He's been successful at almost everything he's done.
 
Landlord of Memorial Stadium said:
BIGREDIOWAN said:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-threatens-to-defund-berkeley-after-violent-protests-force-cancellation-of-breitbart-editors-speech-145048174.html

I'm fine with protests, obviously I'm not okay with riots. This seems a little extreme to threaten this University with this type of action over something they couldn't control and just happened.
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The riots are indeed awful and ugly, but from what I've read it seems like it was an opportunistic anarchist group that took advantage of the peaceful protests. People like that frustrate me more than almost anyone else, because they delegitimize the actions of others in the eyes of people who don't agree with them.
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Protests, especially angry ones, have an unfortunate tendency to spill into violence.

I don't like destruction. However, I'd rather focus on the reasons for the anger. A friend of mine made a great point to me recently. I like being able to not care about political topics too heavily sometimes, but this is definitely a luxury. It is easy when I do not feel basically under threat. The sword is not at my neck, so to speak.

When it comes to Milo, Trump, etc coming to power, it's completely legitimate that for a lot of people this is a dire threat they are facing.

I'm not saying to be ashamed of the fact that we can ignore it if we choose to. I'm saying to understand. If we can have this empathy, we would not use our own comparative luxury to enforce standards of "reasonable". There is a danger here of unwittingly helping prop the status quo and erasing voices of opposition.

There are a number of more eloquent articulations of the point I'm trying to get across. I can't find the ones I'm thinking of, but here's another I came across by searching just now: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-jeff-hood/the-violence-of-demanding-peaceful-protest_b_5703569.html

I don’t think you can have an honest conversation about race in our nation when you are always telling people to calm down. If peaceful protest is about controlling people’s emotions, then I believe it to be violently taking away the agency of people who have every right to be angry and engaged in resistance.
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I agree with you zoogs, but we are talking about two different groups of people. The rioters last night were not rightfully angry social crusaders - they were opportunistic anarchists whose goal was destruction.

 
The university blamed "150 masked agitators" for the unrest, saying they had come to campus to disturb an otherwise peaceful protest.
Administrators decided to cancel the event about two hours before the Breitbart editor's speech. UC Berkeley said it removed him from campus "amid the violence and destruction of property and out of concern for public safety."

Black-clad protesters wearing masks threw commercial-grade fireworks and rocks at police. Some even hurled Molotov cocktails that ignited fires. They also smashed windows of the student union center on the Berkeley campus where the Yiannopoulos event was to be held.

At least six people were injured. Some were attacked by the agitators -- who are a part of an anarchist group known as the "Black Bloc" that has been causing problems in Oakland for years, said Dan Mogulof, UC Berkeley spokesman.

My emphasis added to show that it doesn't seem like the people responsible for the violence are the same people that were zealously and genuinely protesting.
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Ah, I see. I think to them, they are fighting for a valuable social cause:

“In response to violent state oppression radical activists developed the tactic of the Black Bloc," Young wrote in 2001.
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I'm a bit leery of the legitimate/illegitimate distinction drawn by the former FBI official. I think it's fair to say that these guys did not represent the majority of the Berkeley protesters, though, who want nothing to do with them. Thanks for pointing that out. The lack of alignment between these disparate groups is important information.

Additionally, I'm inclined to agree with this criticism:

The appropriate moment for “black bloc” seems, for some, to be indefinite.
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Although I suppose for a true anarchist, horrific state oppression has been going on forever. I'm just not quite on the same wavelength there.

 
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zoogs said:
I'm a bit leery of the legitimate/illegitimate distinction drawn by the former FBI official. I think it's fair to say that these guys did not represent the majority of the Berkeley protesters, though, who want nothing to do with them. Thanks for pointing that out. The lack of alignment between these disparate groups is important information.
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Why? How can you "legitimize" violence? The whole point of dressing like this and acting in groups is that you can create havoc with anonymity.

In a 2015 article published in Police Magazine, author Kory Flowers said anarchists use protests such as the ones in Ferguson, Missouri, after the shooting death of Michael Brown, to launch their signature "chaos- and havoc-laden tactics." The article described Black Bloc strategy as "throngs of criminal anarchists all dress in black clothing in an effort to appear as a unified assemblage, giving the appearance of solidarity for the particular cause at hand."
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All I see that is wrong is the Liberal hate in this country. Marting Luther King himself would have been lynched by your the liberals you people keep defending. Step away from the ledge Trump isn't going to destroy this country it'll get burned to the ground in protests first.

 
nuhuskeralum said:
All I see that is wrong is the Liberal hate in this country. Marting Luther King himself would have been lynched by your the liberals you people keep defending. Step away from the ledge Trump isn't going to destroy this country it'll get burned to the ground in protests first.
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i see David Duke and the KKK celebrating the great victory of trump in office. if they get warm fuzzy feelings like that about this administration i have to question where our country is heading.

 
nuhuskeralum said:
All I see that is wrong is the Liberal hate in this country. Marting Luther King himself would have been lynched by your the liberals you people keep defending. Step away from the ledge Trump isn't going to destroy this country it'll get burned to the ground in protests first.
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No idea what you're talking about but this might help:

"But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear?...It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity." - Martin Luther King Jr.
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Landlord of Memorial Stadium said:
The university blamed "150 masked agitators" for the unrest, saying they had come to campus to disturb an otherwise peaceful protest.

Administrators decided to cancel the event about two hours before the Breitbart editor's speech. UC Berkeley said it removed him from campus "amid the violence and destruction of property and out of concern for public safety."

Black-clad protesters wearing masks threw commercial-grade fireworks and rocks at police. Some even hurled Molotov cocktails that ignited fires. They also smashed windows of the student union center on the Berkeley campus where the Yiannopoulos event was to be held.

At least six people were injured. Some were attacked by the agitators -- who are a part of an anarchist group known as the "Black Bloc" that has been causing problems in Oakland for years, said Dan Mogulof, UC Berkeley spokesman.

My emphasis added to show that it doesn't seem like the people responsible for the violence are the same people that were zealously and genuinely protesting.
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I am not informed on this occurance but this Yiannopoulos fellow spoke at Cu in Boulder just a few days ago and things turned a little ugyy there too as it was on the local nightly news. From the coverage I saw, the violence (not near as bad as what happened in Berkeley) was not perpetrated by any organized agitators. It all seemed to come about pretty naturally. After seeing some excerpts of that guy speaking, I can see why some problems arose. Yiannopoulos is quite the a$$hat IMO. Not sure why any school would invite him to speak. Seems like there is little use other than him saying inflammatory things.
Edit- Huh. I just went back and read the linked article. I had no idea this guy was an editor for Breitbart. First I'd ever heard of him was on the news a few nights ago when the problems arose at CU. He claims to not be some inflammatory neo-nazi but that is the precise impression he left on me after only seeing a blurb if his talk. Not sure why anyone would want to invite him to speak. He gives conservatives and repubs a bad name and surely nobody on the left wants to hear him stir the pot. Like I said, he's an a$$hat.

 
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