I am such a cynic nowadays that I don't believe for one minute that the sniper's purpose was to retaliate against police brutality. I think that this -- just like the murderous actions of other state agents, including the police -- is terrorism. The goal is to frighten people into being compliant, giving up what remains of our civil liberties, and to excuse or permit widespread repression, subjugation, and incarceration.

The timing, immediately after the deaths of two such "sympathetic" (to white people) black victims of police violence, is completely fishy to me. This attack will be used to clamp down harder on black people and other POC, once again completely disregarding the daily killings at the hands of police and jailers.

later that it would actually come to pass.

...We have gotten complacent. We think those massively destructive forms of civil unrest we have seen in other countries fighting against their corrupt systems can never happen here, but I am becoming unfortunately quite confident that that is the direction we are heading.

Watch that documentary "The Square", If you haven't already seen it. It's about the uprising in Egypt. The same could easily happen here and it could be our own young leading it just as theirs did, because much like the youth of Egypt they too feel they have nothing to lose and no real hope that things will change on that front in the future.

People with nothing to lose are always the most desperate and dangerous of foes.

I think this may be one of the first big cracks in the social structure and we will be seeing more and more of these types of actions committed by desperate people enraged with the injustice and unfairness of their lot in life and pushed to the point of irrational, violent action.

If we don't do something soon it's only gonna get worse, but unfortunately until some of the 1% start falling victims to these attacks, or their paid henchmen at least, little will change.

The elites see cops as just as replaceable of a commodity as the rest of us, so killing them like this isn't likely to achieve the change they were probably hoping for, but maybe, just maybe it may make some of these departments start seriously considering REAL community policing efforts rather than the Jack booted door kickers so many have become.

"I mourn for the officers shot while doing their sacred duty to protect peaceful protesters...". Excuse me? Since when is being a cop a "sacred duty"? Sacred for who, worshippers of Thanatos? And "protect peaceful protesters"? What a revolting joke. While there are occasional examples of police actually protecting people, the police presence at protests seems to mainly be for the purpose of intimidating and assaulting protesters.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kropotkin

An excerpt:

Cooperation and competition

In 1902 Kropotkin published his book Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, which provided an alternative view of animal and human survival, beyond the claims of interpersonal competition and natural hierarchy proffered at the time by some "social Darwinists" such as Francis Galton. He argued that "it was an evolutionary emphasis on cooperation instead of competition in the Darwinian sense that made for the success of species, including the human". Kropotkin explored the widespread use of cooperation as a survival mechanism in human societies - through their many stages - and amongst animals. He used many real-life examples in an attempt to show that the main factor in facilitating evolution is cooperation between individuals in free-associated societies and groups, without central control, authority, or compulsion. He did so in order to counteract the concept of fierce competition as the core of evolution, which concept provided a rationalization for the dominant political, economic, and social theories[which?] of the time and for the prevalent interpretations of Darwinism.

After the last week of Hillary investigations, it is clear to most that lessers will always be blamed, it will be called terrorism (meaningless noun now). And that government officials will be protected at all costs. Paid by the tax-payers.

Do more than me see time speeding up?

they will not be taken alive. It is unlikely we will ever hear anything from them. I give it about 40% chance it is white supremacists starting their race war, 3% they are working for the FBI.

Military needs TAXPAYERS money to buy more toys, so they give the police their used toys, and police use them to kill us.

Just look at how the police in the USA are strutting their WEAPONS - now it's robots? Maybe we should be making sure, if we are at protests, we're wearing bullet proof vests, helmets, and what ever gear we can still (legally) buy. I'm serious, especially for those going to Philadelphia.

This will be an EXCUSE to crack down in Philadelphia as we can't even begin to yet imagine.

Guess bomb holding robots are considered "cooler" toys when dealing with a "suspect."
Tear gas? Nope - bomb holding robots.

May 4, 1970 Kent State 4 students killed by National Guard
Remember when we used to be surprised?

stoking the fires even further.

http://www.complex.com/life/2016/07/former-congressman-threatens-obama-t...

There will, of course, be no repercussions for him... "An eye for an eye" merely leaves everyone blind.

          The "all cops are evil" drumbeat is just as bad as the #BLM is a bunch of thugs rap. I have a good cop friend that is distraught by the fact that recently yet another young black man robbed a convenience store killing the guy behind the counter. How cliché can it get? Every damn time this happens he points out how this just makes it just that much harder to patrol that part of the city, because the reality is the local population knows who did it but they won't talk to him.
          So, even here on caucus99percent we have people that will say my friend is part of the problem, sigh.

judge, jury, and executioner. Beware. Period.

for the degradation of America. Not our politicians, not the corporations, not the 1%. It is the complete responsibility of black people. Period.

I've bookmarked your links to read later. this may sound silly, or cowardly, but can't do it now. Have lived for most of my 71 years with clinical depression, controlled well by medication, and right now I can't stop crying, for all of us.

It's what's happening, at the same time realizing how desperately defeated I feel about not being able to have Bernie Sanders be our nominee. In all the years, since the death of RFK, I've never felt as hopeful, as I did listening to every word Bernie was saying. His humanity, his heart.

Expect most are too young to remember RFK, and what he lived and learned in his very short life. Always giving thanks to Marion Wright ( before she married Peter Edelman, who was on Senator RFK's staff) for showing him how black children were living then. She was such an important mentor to RFK.

Will also read Larry Tye's new book. No longer think we'll see a person with this humanity, heart, in my lifetime. He certainly wasn't "a saint" and he had faults as all do, but what a heart, what a heart.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/07/robert-f-kennedy-race-rel...