GregPersons

Jon Stewart from his NYT interview https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/15/magazine/jon-stewart-interview.html

Jon Stewart from his NYT interview https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/15/magazine/jon-stewart-interview.html

It's not about "you" -- it's bigger than individuals. I just want you to listen.

She's not talking about her anything being burned, you complete fool. She is talking historical. She is giving you a history lesson, broken down into terms any fool can understand, and you are still so literal you think she's talking about, what, a real monopoly game that you played with her? Did you not stomp around in the Tulsa Massacre thread about how that had no relevance, no point? You ask who stole, who burned? You see evidence of generational wealth destroyed, repeatedly, and you say "Big deal" You're delusional to a point of maybe no return. You are *****ig la la land. Your entire ass is hanging out.

"Who"??????? WHO???????????? You are still asking WHO!?!?!??!?!!!!!!!!!!???? You're a teenager, or you're brain damaged. I really cannot imagine a thicker skull. The obvious fact spitting in your face and you can't see it. THE GAME IS RIGGED. That is the point. That is the protests. IT IS RIGGED IN YOUR FAVOR. And you don't notice and don;t care. You're born on 3rd base and think you hit a triple. Personified.

You aren't listening and you aren't acknowledging the obvious truth. THE GAME IS RIGGED.

I don't know, you would be the expert. I defer. And also I cede my time ***** you, watch this. Six minutes. Only talk to me if you can explain why her analogy is wrong.

What? You are so stupid.

You still didn't watch the full video and you are still a bad liar. Did you get to the part with the analogy? Which analogy does she use? Refute her logic or why it's fallacious. Go ahead. Six minutes. Watch the whole thing. I know it's uncomfortable. Sit with it. WHOLE THING. Not just the first 2 minutes. All 6 plus minutes.

2 men in CA both hung from trees. Both ruled "suicide" with little investigation. 10 days / 50 miles apart. KKK sightings in the area. How many cops are in the KKK? This might reveal some.

So you guys have all the racist knock knock jokes, and the other guys got movie quotes. Brilliant minds among us. Bills fans are truly the smartest in the NFL.

How so? What analogy did she use and how is it invalid? I don't believe you watched it. 6 minutes. Just listen, bro.

Watch the vid, champ. Then talk to me about her analogy.

6 minutes. That's it. Less time than George Floyd had the knee on his throat.

Here's the thing. We're all trained to assume the cops have the best intentions, even in spite of all of the evidence, simply as the default position. Why? We are all so certain we could never fall for propaganda. Why?? Cop propaganda is everywhere, and it is naive for to think our minds are so fixed that this doesn't have an impact on things. We all have a vision of this job that is not matching the lived reality. As to the police issue, this essay says everything, from the perspective of a former cop. It's anonymous, take it for what you will, we're all anonymous here too. https://medium.com/@OfcrACab/confessions-of-a-former-bastard-cop-bb14d17bc759 As to the Wendy's. If you have not seen this entire clip, please take 5 minutes to listen and consider this answer to that question.

I’m not telling you I have the blueprint for a beautiful new world. What I’m telling you is that the system we have right now is broken beyond repair and that it’s time to consider new ways of doing community together. Those new ways need to be negotiated by members of those communities, particularly Black, indigenous, disabled, houseless, and citizens of color historically shoved into the margins of society. Instead of letting Fox News fill your head with nightmares about Hispanic gangs, ask the Hispanic community what they need to thrive. Instead of letting racist politicians scaremonger about pro-Black demonstrators, ask the Black community what they need to meet the needs of the most vulnerable. If you truly desire safety, ask not what your most vulnerable can do for the community, ask what the community can do for the most vulnerable. A WORLD WITH FEWER BASTARDS IS POSSIBLE If you take only one thing away from this essay, I hope it’s this: do not talk to cops. But if you only take two things away, I hope the second one is that it’s possible to imagine a different world where unarmed black people, indigenous people, poor people, disabled people, and people of color are not routinely gunned down by unaccountable police officers. It doesn’t have to be this way. Yes, this requires a leap of faith into community models that might feel unfamiliar, but I ask you: When you see a man dying in the street begging for breath, don’t you want to leap away from that world? When you see a mother or a daughter shot to death sleeping in their beds, don’t you want to leap away from that world? When you see a twelve year old boy executed in a public park for the crime of playing with a toy, jesus ***** christ, can you really just stand there and think “This is normal”? And to any cops who made it this far down, is this really the world you want to live in? Aren’t you tired of the trauma? Aren’t you tired of the soul sickness inherent to the badge? Aren’t you tired of looking the other way when your partners break the law? Are you really willing to kill the next George Floyd, the next Breonna Taylor, the next Tamir Rice? How confident are you that your next use of force will be something you’re proud of? I’m writing this for you too: it’s wrong what our training did to us, it’s wrong that they hardened our hearts to our communities, and it’s wrong to pretend this is normal. Look, I wouldn’t have been able to hear any of this for much of my life. You reading this now may not be able to hear this yet either. But do me this one favor: just think about it. Just turn it over in your mind for a couple minutes. “Yes, And” me for a minute. Look around you and think about the kind of world you want to live in. Is it one where an all-powerful stranger with a gun keeps you and your neighbors in line with the fear of death, or can you picture a world where, as a community, we embrace our most vulnerable, meet their needs, heal their wounds, honor their dignity, and make them family instead of desperate outsiders? If you take only three things away from this essay, I hope the third is this: you and your community don’t need bastards to thrive.

I’m not telling you I have the blueprint for a beautiful new world. What I’m telling you is that the system we have right now is broken beyond repair and that it’s time to consider new ways of doing community together. Those new ways need to be negotiated by members of those communities, particularly Black, indigenous, disabled, houseless, and citizens of color historically shoved into the margins of society. Instead of letting Fox News fill your head with nightmares about Hispanic gangs, ask the Hispanic community what they need to thrive. Instead of letting racist politicians scaremonger about pro-Black demonstrators, ask the Black community what they need to meet the needs of the most vulnerable. If you truly desire safety, ask not what your most vulnerable can do for the community, ask what the community can do for the most vulnerable. https://medium.com/@OfcrACab/confessions-of-a-former-bastard-cop-bb14d17bc759

Meaning, “I’ll take my chances in court rather than risk getting hurt”. We’re able to think that way because police unions are extremely overpowered and because of the generous concept of Qualified Immunity, a legal theory which says a cop generally can’t be held personally liable for mistakes they make doing their job in an official capacity. When you look at the actions of the officers who killed George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, David McAtee, Mike Brown, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, Eric Garner, or Freddie Gray, remember that they, like me, were trained to recite “I’d rather be judged by 12” as a mantra. Even if Mistakes Were Made™, the city (meaning the taxpayers, meaning you) pays the settlement, not the officer. Once police training has - through repetition, indoctrination, and violent spectacle - promised officers that everyone in the world is out to kill them, the next lesson is that your partners are the only people protecting you. Occasionally, this is even true: I’ve had encounters turn on me rapidly to the point I legitimately thought I was going to die, only to have other officers come and turn the tables. One of the most important thought leaders in law enforcement is Col. Dave Grossman, a “killologist” who wrote an essay called “Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs”. Cops are the sheepdogs, bad guys are the wolves, and the citizens are the sheep (!). Col. Grossman makes sure to mention that to a stupid sheep, sheepdogs look more like wolves than sheep, and that’s why they dislike you. This “they hate you for protecting them and only I love you, only I can protect you” tactic is familiar to students of abuse. It’s what abusers do to coerce their victims into isolation, pulling them away from friends and family and ensnaring them in the abuser’s toxic web. Law enforcement does this too, pitting the officer against civilians. “They don’t understand what you do, they don’t respect your sacrifice, they just want to get away with crimes. You’re only safe with us.” I think the Wolves vs. Sheepdogs dynamic is one of the most important elements as to why officers behave the way they do. Every single second of my training, I was told that criminals were not a legitimate part of their community, that they were individual bad actors, and that their bad actions were solely the result of their inherent criminality. Any concept of systemic trauma, generational poverty, or white supremacist oppression was either never mentioned or simply dismissed. After all, most people don’t steal, so anyone who does isn’t “most people,” right? To us, anyone committing a crime deserved anything that happened to them because they broke the “social contract.” And yet, it was never even a question as to whether the power structure above them was honoring any sort of contract back. Understand: Police officers are part of the state monopoly on violence and all police training reinforces this monopoly as a cornerstone of police work, a source of honor and pride. Many cops fantasize about getting to kill someone in the line of duty, egged on by others that have. One of my training officers told me about the time he shot and killed a mentally ill homeless man wielding a big stick. He bragged that he “slept like a baby” that night. Official training teaches you how to be violent effectively and when you’re legally allowed to deploy that violence, but “unofficial training” teaches you to desire violence, to expand the breadth of your violence without getting caught, and to erode your own compassion for desperate people so you can justify punitive violence against them. https://medium.com/@OfcrACab/confessions-of-a-former-bastard-cop-bb14d17bc759

https://medium.com/@OfcrACab/confessions-of-a-former-bastard-cop-bb14d17bc759 Meaning, “I’ll take my chances in court rather than risk getting hurt”. We’re able to think that way because police unions are extremely overpowered and because of the generous concept of Qualified Immunity, a legal theory which says a cop generally can’t be held personally liable for mistakes they make doing their job in an official capacity. When you look at the actions of the officers who killed George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, David McAtee, Mike Brown, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, Eric Garner, or Freddie Gray, remember that they, like me, were trained to recite “I’d rather be judged by 12” as a mantra. Even if Mistakes Were Made™, the city (meaning the taxpayers, meaning you) pays the settlement, not the officer. Once police training has - through repetition, indoctrination, and violent spectacle - promised officers that everyone in the world is out to kill them, the next lesson is that your partners are the only people protecting you. Occasionally, this is even true: I’ve had encounters turn on me rapidly to the point I legitimately thought I was going to die, only to have other officers come and turn the tables. One of the most important thought leaders in law enforcement is Col. Dave Grossman, a “killologist” who wrote an essay called “Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs”. Cops are the sheepdogs, bad guys are the wolves, and the citizens are the sheep (!). Col. Grossman makes sure to mention that to a stupid sheep, sheepdogs look more like wolves than sheep, and that’s why they dislike you. This “they hate you for protecting them and only I love you, only I can protect you” tactic is familiar to students of abuse. It’s what abusers do to coerce their victims into isolation, pulling them away from friends and family and ensnaring them in the abuser’s toxic web. Law enforcement does this too, pitting the officer against civilians. “They don’t understand what you do, they don’t respect your sacrifice, they just want to get away with crimes. You’re only safe with us.” I think the Wolves vs. Sheepdogs dynamic is one of the most important elements as to why officers behave the way they do. Every single second of my training, I was told that criminals were not a legitimate part of their community, that they were individual bad actors, and that their bad actions were solely the result of their inherent criminality. Any concept of systemic trauma, generational poverty, or white supremacist oppression was either never mentioned or simply dismissed. After all, most people don’t steal, so anyone who does isn’t “most people,” right? To us, anyone committing a crime deserved anything that happened to them because they broke the “social contract.” And yet, it was never even a question as to whether the power structure above them was honoring any sort of contract back. Understand: Police officers are part of the state monopoly on violence and all police training reinforces this monopoly as a cornerstone of police work, a source of honor and pride. Many cops fantasize about getting to kill someone in the line of duty, egged on by others that have. One of my training officers told me about the time he shot and killed a mentally ill homeless man wielding a big stick. He bragged that he “slept like a baby” that night. Official training teaches you how to be violent effectively and when you’re legally allowed to deploy that violence, but “unofficial training” teaches you to desire violence, to expand the breadth of your violence without getting caught, and to erode your own compassion for desperate people so you can justify punitive violence against them.

Yes, I agree. He should have received a citation. He may have even needed to sleep it off in a cell and pay a fine. At no point did it need to become any more violent than wrestling a drunk and depressed man to the ground. Outnumbering him 2 to 1 should be enough. They have clubs!! I highly recommend reading this essay from a former police officer on why things like this happen. "I'd rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6" is a motto and mindset that is drilled into cops to over-react and over-rely on firearms. It's not necessary, it's not right.