They have their guns, they don't even need freedom. These protests will last for a bit but will change nothing. But it's so good to see this chaos. Chaos and violence is the only answer to violence and tyranny.
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The thing I personally dislike is the demonization of the police, they're also human...of course the whole thing is often corrupt and controlled by people with agenda but I just read about those 4 cops, one of them tried to stop this and helps Somali refugees voluntarily....the murder of George Floyd was a trigger and I don't think the people like him are supposed to be the "scapegoat".
The problem is the system, it's a system where good cops are suppressed, to be put in place, where racism is often not just tolerated but wanted (from what some police men said).
I hope things change for the better of everyone, especially minorities and suppressed people but in my believe they would have to change some things that makes America what it is, which is what some Conservatives want.
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Should I remind people that it's highly possible that the people who are violent aren't part of the protesters but are using the protests only to be violent ? They may say that they are protesters if they are arrested.. But people lie, all the time and often with an agenda.
Just because the media are considering that anybody being within the protesters is a protester doesn't mean it's true.
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It's not the protesters job, it's the police job.
I'm from France, we protest pretty often here, and guess what? Instead of cops to stop people in line in front of buildings, they set iron barriers, instead of being an opponent, the cops WALK WITH the population to make sure that nothing happens to the protesters and to catch anybody attacking people or trashing cars, there are even firemen and ambulances following and inside the protest to make sure that people injured for a reason or another (usually it's people fainting and such) are taken care of. Most of time, nobody gets hurt, thieves and vandals get caught and everything is peaceful.
The police, by presenting itself AGAINST the protesters, using tear gas and shooting at them isn't helping in any way, it's only augmenting the anger. Guess what, protesters are CIVILS too and the job of the cops is to protect civils. As soon as the authorities decide to attack their own people, it can only go wrong.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised though? Policemen in NA are given over 100 hours of instruction to learn how to use a weapon and only 1 hour to learn how to deal with conflict, if the only thing you're taught is to raise your weapon and shoot in case of problem, I suppose that what is happening right now is expected.
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Completely agree that US police forces need reform from the top down. I'm hoping that is what will come out of all of this. And I'm sure that protests in France are generally peaceful as you maintain. Actually we have been known to have peaceful protests in the US as well. But you should know, that sometimes we get a different picture of police presence in France, and it's not always benign.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZvVqEEY16M
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Something important there, Mainstream media are selecting what they are showing you, news don't exactly get tractions if they show you only butterflies and lilies dancing in the wind.
I did search for the situation that happened there and what happened next. The policemen were arrested and judged for their crime, their justification was that they were facing violence, so reacted violently themselves. Of course they were wrong ! I do not say that this is never happening here, but (and this goes for NA as well, especially with mainstream media) you always have to make sure to not portray a one time situation as something which occurs all the time.
There is also a big difference that is certainly coming into play when you compare NA to a lot of other countries. Policemen in NA may be facing people wearing weapons, I believe that some of them may be really afraid to face someone who may or may not shoot them. In many other countries, such as in France, wearing weapons isn't allowed, which explains why the policemen don't hesitate to interfere when some violence is happening and may not use their weapon themselves.
I'm going to share something really different that seems to have absolutely nothing to do with the topic, but explains how the mainstream news pick a topic and sometimes are the ones causing a problem. Obviously it's not the case here, but it's really interesting to see how news are selected in order to get an audience https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOC7clogG6s
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Of course. Media bias is always the problem, and although France24 is a respected international news outlet, (I watch them daily) I have often noticed that the news they report from the US is filtered and even that one of their US based correspondents doesn't even bother to conceal his bias. It worries me and it also makes me wonder what's being filtered out in the their reporting regarding France and Europe in general. So it's good to get feedback from someone who actually lives there.
However, that said, this was a responsible special report - not a sensationalized news story like Tide pods - that actually documents many incidents - several occurring during the yellow vest protests - as well as public concern regarding police tactics. If you watched until the end of the piece, which I hope you did, they also talk about the government stepping in to address the problem. I applaud them for that, and I want that to happen in my country as well, but I also need to point out that they wouldn't be doing that if there was not a real problem. But again, anything that they might be filtering out in this report, I would like to hear about.
When we are talking about protests that have violent elements, or are verging on riot, I think police in any country in the world can become fearful and are in danger of overreacting. It doesn't take the threat of concealed guns once the bricks and the molotovs come out. But I'm not sure if by wearing weapons you mean openly carrying guns. If you do, you should know that open carry is only legal in some states in the US, and also that the last time there was a demonstration where that was done, it was entirely orderly and peaceful (regardless of what you or I think of the politics of that demonstration). Police in the US don't generally fear legal gun owners - it's the illegal gun owners that worry them. In France there are millions of illegal guns, far less than the US no doubt, but enough to be equally worrisome for any French officer facing an angry crowd. That particular argument just doesn't stand up for me.
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That's a long one, I'll try to not forget anything but If I do, please remind me what.
I shared that video to explain that news pick their topic and why those need to be sensational to make money out of it. You noticed yourself that the news coming from the US were filtered out and it's probably the same thing with the European and French ones) I didn't watch any other videos, I trust you in there, if they chose to filter content for one country, there is no reason for them to not do the same for others.
I don't know if you noticed, but when the news are covering a topic, they focus on the problems and most of time those happening in big towns. Because Paris is the capital and the biggest town, the events are really often covered with a majority of the clips taken from there. Paris have more problems with violence than some other towns during protests, there are far more people, when it gets heated more people are reacting which can lead to more violence on both side. The police also have to avoid the protesters to access certain areas to not damage the monuments or attack the people there, etc. Does that mean that every other town in France have the same problem. No. And that's also the case in NA, in smaller towns the situation is often different because there are less people marching, less area that need to be locked, etc.
There are laws regulating protests in France, they have to announce the date, the hour and give the path they will follow. This allows the town and the police to prepare in advance for it, setting the barricades properly and preparing for the event. As for police violence,when it happens, the people are judged accordingly.
In NA anybody is allowed to own a gun, it's in your constitution and it's not the case in France. To openly carrying a weapon, you have to buy one first, and this isn't as easy in France as you need a permit for it as it's illegal to own a gun here. Of course there are illegal weapons going on (as in NA), but it's easier for Mr Lambda to decide to take their weapon with them during the protest to protect themselves and it to turn bad.
It's complicated to judge properly any situation from the outside, that's something I've been trying to explain from my first post. You can't say that because looting and violence is happening and the people committing crimes are using the protest to conceal themselves that the protesters are violent. And of course.. The police should try to stop those people and protect the civils, all of them, not only the "non protesters ones".
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Once again, it's not the protesters job to take care of that. Would the police do their job properly, as in following the protesters to stop those causing problems instead of making human barrages, this wouldn't happen.
Beside, we're speaking of civils who are protesting peacefully. With no way to protect themselves, people are afraid of reacting, they aren't enabling this behavior they just can't do anything and certainly wonder why the cops are not there to stop the problem. It's not CIVILS job to take care of that, it's the POLICE work.
That's why, in France, the police follows the protesters, because they know there will be people taking advantage of the protest to make some damages, so when it happens, they can protect both the protesters and stop those people.
Why do you want civils to interfere against people who are clearly violent doing bad things? They are normal people, it's scary to see that and it's the same for every single situation where something bad happen and people run away or don't interfere because they are scared. Just because they are protesting doesn't mean that they suddenly have to take care of anything bad happening around, by blaming those civils to not act in front of violence, you're basically blaming every single civil who may have witnessed a crime and didn't do anything.
Beside, maybe they actually did do something, if you witness a crime, you're supposed to call the police, we don't know if some of them did it or not, and even if they did, due to the fact that the police doesn't follow the protesters, they can't interfere quickly and solve the problem.
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I don't think we need those people to get hurt and die for the sake of "the cause" to get any progress, people who protest aren't potential Jesus, once again, it's the police work to protect the civils.
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They are sacrificing. Because they're continuing to protest even as brutality is used, and they are assembling even during a pandemic, risking their health even without various units utter misuse of force. Those who are taken away in cuffs, even the nonviolent merely exercising their rights, aren't just all just going to be released without punishment later on, you know.
There is a reason why such a huge and varied amount of people are protesting, because while BLM is a focal player due to the death that re-lit the fire and the words he uttered as he died, and while many walk in simple solidarity and outrage against what happened, abuse of authority and unnecessary escalation of force within the police has affected every demographic. Including officers within the police. Good police shouldn't have to fear the repercussions of reporting abusers within the ranks.
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Good job the protesters are actively trying to out any attempts at violence or looting in the main body of demonstrations. Just as there are videos of brutality from police and opportunist assholes, there are also videos of protesters stopping looting attempts as they begin, calling out someone who suggested a group flip a car (was actually a non-police provocateur who was livestreaming their attempt to incite the protesters), etc.
Despite the usefulness of social media and the internet in spreading awareness, there is also the real danger that information bubbles can portray an incomplete picture simply via how content propagates. I wonder how many people who are overly focused on the looters are only doing so because of reasons of happenstance, having no natural crossover with the body of users circulating the other side of the picture, and only seeing occasional glimpses when mainstream media picks out a specific clip they feel like using. It can be surprisingly hard to navigate matters when there are bad-faith actors and idealogues attempting to deliberately skew perceptions, and given how justified outrage works, it's so easy to commit to the few bits of information we are exposed to first. I think the looters are disgusting, but find police who cannot follow the law / brutalising people to be worse, yet I can appreciate that if someone wasn't exposed to the circulating videos of police violence and had were dripfed only the subject of the looting / pointless arsonist assholes, then I can see how that outrage would grip them.
The others have already raised the point that it's the polices job to deal with criminals (and further highlights the absurdity of using such levels of violence against the actual peaceful protests instead of deploying actually proportional levels and diverting forces to actual incidents of violence/looting). Though at the end of the day I can only hope the obsession with the civilian side of the brutality and seeming total lack of concern at police brutality is just down to not having been exposed to the proof, and then having assumed people were being hyperbolic. So like, a manifestation of well-meaning anger but misdirected by the nature of digital information not spreading evenly.
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Most people tend to be evil, when they have opportunity and when they know that they won't be caught.
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Just look at marketing they are pushing.... Before they said nothing when innocent was killed outside USA... But now that they are doing it there, it is somehow bigger issue.
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How many blacklists did you get in last 24 hours? Haha
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About 40 lol. It doesn't really matter to me. If that's what makes people feel better than go ahead.
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Haha, been there done that... I remember several years ago I spoke out my opinion in something terror related or some shit and my black lists were jumping up. Guess war (and people) never change.
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Haha yeah I suppose that's just the reality of sharing your opinion on the internet.
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Well, I mean, people keep falsely equating the peaceful protesters with the rioters and looters, continually sidestepping from any mention of the former to point at the latter and pretending they're entirely the same, so it doesn't really surprise me that blacklists are on the weather forecast.
We've got instances like the police deliberately firing a teargas cannister into a solitary peppersprayed mans head at close range (beyond recklessly dangerous and illegal use of an LTL weapon). Or shoving an elderly bystander when they try to hand a displaced police helmets back, subsequently cracking his head on the pavement and bleeding freely from the ear, only to have the police casually ignore him, step over him, and arrest a non-violent onlooker behind him. Or when they open fire on a group and someone is hit in the base of the skull by an LTL round and begins convulsing, and a clearly designated first-aider gets the polices attention about the critical injury, they tell them to bring the injured person to the police line... and then fucking open fire on the group carrying him as per their orders.
...and yet despite these things hanging out in the public view, some people just can't help but constantly try to sidestep whenever they hear the words 'peaceful protester' and immediately begin gesturing wildly at the profiteers and rioters. Yeah, those assholes suck ass. Yeah, those people lashing out are assholes. Criminals. But those who are willingly trying to conflate the entire protest with the rioters as a whole, and those more inclined to stare at the loss of profit and stock than the criminal levels of force undertaken by police?
It's fine to find the rioters and looters distasteful. I'm right there with you in that regard. But I actually find it more sickening that people are being so intellectually dishonest as to consciously use it to devalue the actual protesters, and for what? If someone finds the rioting to be abhorrent because of its senseless application of violence, then why use those very rioters as a means to paint people protesting against unchecked violence as the bad guys? When there is literal footage of the same and worse being performed by the police? A singular selective focus is one thing, but to then use that selective focus as a means to devalue people fighting against another, more sickening force? How is that possibly justifiable?
So, I mean, you'll have to forgive me if I'm not surprised that blacklists happen when folks keep reducing a major upheaval down to its barest elements and all but disregarding one of the glaringly important halves of it, only to then season the discourse with false equivocation that ultimately serves to defend abusive levels of sanctioned state violence. People could look at the posts I've made through this thread see them as anarchistic or anti-police if they read them selectively and ignore my explicit referals to "rioting equals bad, but sustained police brutality equals catastrophic", so I get where my blacklists come from. I suppose my posts being pretty heavy on the wordage doesn't help the urge to only skim them too, heh.
But I mean, is it really 'just an opinion' if a person keeps pointing back to the rioters/looters every time people distinctly talk about the peaceful protesters?
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This isn't about protest violence or state violence for a long time ago.
If you swing to both sides, you won't please any of them. That's how it works.
You just pick a side where "black live matters" or "all live matters" and the opposite is "racism".
If you pick both sides, you're "racist" twice.
Also, if you like reducionism philosophy about the violence matter, one side "the means justify the ends" when the other "the means doesn't justify the ends". When you swings between both, when one is happening, you're against the other, while both are happening the same time.
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The difference here, is that one of the sides is inflicted by the state. The side that is heavily armed, and given legal immunity for engaging in violence. That side also happens to have been documented doing so to illegal lengths.
The point is, if the police do not follow the law, particularly when it comes to engaging with those who are, or are peacefully exercising their first amendment rights, then that is an issue that goes to the very roots of society. If that is not addressed, then the law is proven to be entirely optional depending on your circumstance. If the police themselves do not respect the law, and are able to engage in senseless extremes of violence on a whim, then what message exactly does that send to the populace for the times they feel like 'making a personal exception' to the law, even where unwarranted violence is concerned?
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Both sides are humans. Both sides will do things with poor judgement. Both will do "punishable" things.
If you expect perfection, the problem aren't the sides, but your expectations.
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Nobody expects perfection.
We should however expect heavily armed and supposedly trained police not to brutalise people. If peaceful protesters can manage to do it, then people who make a career out of supposedly upholding the law should be able to do it in return to the same crowd. It is not simply 'poor judgement' when a sworn officer fires a teargas cannister directly into the head of an already peppersprayed citizen at point blank range, in full knowledge of what that does, much less knowing that is an illegal degree of force (see also : brutality).
There is 'poor judgement', and then there is reckless endangerment and negligence, and then there is brutality. Does the attacking and arresting of press is merely 'poor judgement' and 'only human'? If so, would you accept this standard of misconduct in any other profession? Such as a firefighter turning up at a callout, only to ignore the blaze and blast their present neighbour in the face with the hose because they simply don't like them? Or a carehome deciding that they don't like some of thier charges, so deciding to not feed them for a few days, or switching their medication? Callous indifference is one thing. Intentional breach of conduct is another.
Hold them to a higher standard, and stop muddying the waters.
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All your answers are on the law. That's why both will do "punishable" things. The punishable origin isn't about your thoughts, opinions and feelings at all. It is objectively in the law. That's the base of the Rousseau's* "social contract". You break the law, you get punished. I don't even know where the hell are you getting this "would you accept" questions. If I accept, they are answered. If I don't, they are answered with the same answer. They doesn't fit anywhere. You don't need to relativize acts to justify whatever you are trying to justify. Just pick a side on the "the means do/doesn't justify the ends"* or get backlashed for swing on both.
edits.: clarifications on the * marks. :D
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Of course I talk about the law a lot, because that's the excuse they're trying to use to justify police behaviour, while blatantly breaking it in copious amounts, and then also doing their upmost to weaponise that law upon those they arrest in the process. Throwing teargas back at an advancing police line who used excessive force on a non-violent gathering nets you an "assault with a deadly weapon", yet wouldn't even barely register as a footnote on a debriefing in terms of actions undertaken, being more a budgetary concern rather than anything else.
I don't have to try prompt you with relative examples, but I did because you're still missing the point that one half of the violence equation comes from those who are supposed to uphold the law, not break it. If the system itself is able to break the law with minimal repercussion and severely lax follow-up, then the foundation of the paradigm is unstable and will be rightfully challenged. The letter of the law itself is also subject to scrutiny, because while it is technically against the law to be out after curfew, when the curfew was enacted as a means of 'legally' surpressing the right to assemble, then there is a blatant conflict in how a law is used. Another example is when for the longest time, if an officer lacked right or reason to arrest someone, but wanted to do so anyway, they would cite "Resisting arrest" as the sole and only reason for arresting a person, which is a similar conflict as it then manifests as the capacity for any officer to arrest any person without actual reason. Thankfully that seems to have died off in recent years, so I wonder if there was finally a hard ruling against it.
I'm not going to "pick a side". Conscious commital to only one side will only serve to create blind spots, and that kind of polarisation was what led to law enforcement being in its current state. Look, my entire point is that your summary of "they're all just human and will do human things" is reductive, and saying the situation isn't about violence or that one should only view everything from a "the means does/does not justify the ends" is a bit shortsighted.
Though I get the sense that this discussion will just go around in circles at this point, and the language aspect is likely causing the nuance of our points to get lost.
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No, it is not the language. You are the one who is biased and cannot accept another point of view.
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I have cited my reasoning and the events I drew my conclusions from, though they may not be centralised to this one comment chain. To present it as mere 'bias' is inaccurate. I accept other points of view when they hold up to scrutiny or have a consistent internal logic and that are not themselves just a manifestation of actual bias, dismissal, or incomplete information. Where I do not accept them and they prevail (or I find them particularly distasteful), I discuss or criticise them as civily as I can.
Something being an opinion does not make it sacred and untouchable, and the mere existence of other opinions does not necessitates acceptance of them. They engaged with me, and reduced any substantial nuance in the subject to a form of dismissive 'everything is relatively the same'. I do not have to share their sentiment, and I am free to reply when engaged with.
And yes, language matters play a role in these things. If two people are not equally fluent in the language used for discussion, then important nuance can be lost on both parts of the exchange. If I could speak it, and the discussion was in portuguese, Vinirockman's posts would no doubt be more articulate and more likely to have stronger points, but I may not pick up on them (or their subtleties). Again, it's only an assumption on my part, and while Vini's posts are entirely legible and have some thought behind them, it has telltale signs of being hindered by the langauge aspect.
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One can accept that another person has a different view, but must not necessarily adopt it. He explained his reasoning in great detail. Accusing him of bias instead of arguing the points he made seems a rather cheap way of dismissing his opinion.
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Been biased isn't bad per se, it's what it is. Everyone is biased to one or other way.
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I got most of mine saying Zoe Quinn is a terrible woman once she drove someone to kill themselves.
People can be a bit strange here... or everywhere i guess in modern times.
Some lives just matter a little more than others, god forbid you don't want anyone to die. Not from police brutality, not from riots, not from Corona.
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Harlem riot of 1964, 1965 Watts riots, 1980 Miami riots, 1992 Los Angeles riots, 2014 Ferguson unrest and 2015 Baltimore protests. Only a few examples to illustrate police brutality. An eye for an eye and the world ends blind. React violence with more violence.
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I do not condone violent protests and looting, but this video showcases a very interesting perspective.
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Maybe gaming website and all ... I don't know. I think enough manipulation from the Mass media regarding this ...
And the PR stunts from the big Publishers.
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This site is not mainstream media, nor is it involved in PR for publishers.
Again, this is the off-topic subforum. If you want to engage only with the strictly videogame-related stuff to preserve your mental/emotional wellbeing (which is totally understandable given the arguing and the severity of the subject), then you can avoid it by not clicking through to off-topic subjects, or clicking out after giving the opening post a peek if you're that way inclined.
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Aaaaa ... why I bother.
First fo all, I am engaged in this subject on several forums, my point is ... why the heck is this even here.
I don't need to see this even on something like gaming but hey what ever.
Are we that bored?
And After I read your several responses to others, I am not going to again have several pages of responses on this forum.
Good day gent.
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Ah yes, the old, "I don't want to see this here, so it shouldn't be here at all!"
You aren't obligated to participate. Next time, just don't click the thread link.
As a side note, if seeing a topic like this in a "safe space" of yours makes you react in this way, you may need to take a bit of a break. There's a good reason that you cannot seem to escape this topic, but that doesn't mean you have to stay plugged into the conversation 24/7. It's okay to cool off for a minute, moderation in all things.
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Again you seem to presume a lot ...
I said I don't think that mass copy-paste of this topic in all mediums like gaming is appropriate.
Yes but I am free to expose my position again copying your logic, you are not obligated to read my own comment and then reply.
As a side note stop presuming. Yes, the reason is that it is well copy-pasted for marketing by all spectrums, and news flash the USA is one country and that topic is really not universal and has nothing to do with gaming but I sure see it news gaming-related spectrums.
Btw I let you type to see what kind of logic would you present and yes "safe space" interesting.
On the other hand, you should thank me for bumping this thread.
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I think most people can agree that the police officer that killed George Floyd is guilty but violent protests are the worst thing you can do. All I see now are videos of businesses being burnt down and looted that have NOTHING TO DO with the actions taken against George Floyd. It's sad to see a small business owners mangled corpse outside on the ground after being beat to death because he was trying to stop rioters from destroying his business. Honestly, I don't even think these people are rioting for George Floyd, I think it because they want an excuse to steal and harm others. Protest peacefully and be reasonable.
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