The Murder of George Floyd by Derek Chauvin: Update 2
Derek Chauvin has been arrested. More at the bottom of comments.
Update 1: Prosecutors warn there is 'evidence that does not support criminal charge' in case of four cops accused of killing George Floyd , dailymail.co.uk, May 29, 2020 (with 2 min. video from Mike Freeman's weasel words)
Other reports note that Freeman's 'office' later walked that position back for him..
"Prosecutors have warned there is ‘evidence that does not support criminal charges’ in the case of four cops accused of killing George Floyd, as they say police can use a ‘certain amount of force - but not excessive’.
At a press conference Thursday, Mike Freeman, county attorney for Hennepin County, condemned the actions of officer Derek Chauvin as 'horrific and terrible'. But he said prosecutors needed to determine if the white cop used 'excessive' force when he knelt on the black man's neck for eight minutes until he passed out and later died.
'That video is graphic and horrific and terrible and no person should do that,' he said. 'But my job in the end is to prove he violated a criminal statute - but there is other evidence that does not support a criminal charge.'
Further updates from wsws.org at the bottom of the comment stream.
‘As Chief Prosecutor, Klobuchar Declined to Bring Charges Against Cop that Killed George Floyd; While serving as Minnesota’s chief prosecutor between 1999 and 2007, Klobuchar declined to bring charges against more than two dozen officers who had killed citizens while on duty – including against the cop that killed George Floyd’, Alan Macleod, May 27, 2019
(my bolds, and my thanks to Alan Macleod)
“The latest example of America’s racist police brutality problem was caught on camera in Minneapolis Monday, as Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on 46-year-old African-American George Floyd’s neck for over seven minutes until he passed out and died. In its headline on its website, Minneapolis police described the event as “man dies after medical incident during police interaction,” laundering themselves of any responsibility. Chauvin continued his assault even as Floyd desperately pleaded that he could not breathe, while bystanders protested his brutality. “You’re fucking stopping his breathing there, bro,” warned one concerned passer-by. Even after passing out, Chauvin did not release pressure on his neck. Chauvin has killed multiple times before while in uniform, has shot and wounded others and is well-known to local activist groups.
A history of racist policing, thanks to Klobuchar
Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, who Joe Biden recently asked to undergo vetting to be his running mate for November, issued a very tepid statement about the incident, describing the police killing of an unarmed black man over an alleged forged check as merely an “officer involved shooting,” – a copaganda word often used by police as a euphemism for “murder.”
Klobuchar also called for a “complete and thorough outside investigation into what occurred, and those involved in this incident must be held accountable.” However, this is unlikely to occur, in no small part because of Klobuchar herself and the precedent she set while serving as the state’s chief prosecutor between 1999 and 2007. In that time, she declined to bring charges against more than two dozen officers who had killed citizens while on duty – including against Chauvin himself, who shot and killed Wayne Reyes in 2006 and would later go on to shoot more civilians while in uniform.
At the same time, however, Klobuchar was ramping up the number of arrests as part of her tough-on-crime agenda, something which inordinately affected people of color. In her first year in office alone, the prison sentences for first-degree drug crimes doubled. Activists allege her embracing of the broken window-style policing was a deliberate strategy to win support in the white suburbs of Minneapolis, to the detriment of the city’s non-white communities, bolstering her successful run for senate in 2006.
While it may not be the first city that comes to mind, data shows that Minneapolis is among the most racist cities in the United States for racial profiling and police stops. The police force’s own data shows that, while black people make up only 18 percent of the population, they were involved in nearly half of all police stops. Conversely, whites make up 60 percent of the population but figured in less than 21 percent of the stops. 62 percent of body searches and 63 percent of people whose cars were searched were also black. Thus, Floyd’s killing is merely a viral example of a wider phenomenon, a spark that ignited a powder keg of resentment that had been building for some time.”
Is Joe Biden still ‘vetting’ Klobuchar as a possible running mate?
Minneapolis police fire teargas at protesters after death of George Floyd
On July 17, 2014, Eric Garner was murdered in the New York City borough of Staten Island after Daniel Pantaleo,a New York City Police Department (NYPD) po-po, put him in a chokehold while arresting him. The po-po were pissed that Garner had been allegedly selling ‘loosies’ (single cigarettes) on the street.
How many times had Eric Garner pleaded with police: “I can’t breathe” before he died?
Comments
Klobuchar is the dictionary definition
of milquetoast.
Throwing stuff at staff is par for her course. Throwing stuff at those in established authority, not so much.
(Edit)
She's one of my senators, but I've never been impressed enough to vote for her.
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
from my place in the
cheap seats, she's aided and abetted george floyd's and several others' murders. fuck amy klobuchar, fuck the police.
It seems that those who are willing to accept a level of evil
...will be asked to accept even greater evils just in the course of a single campaign.
my apologies for having
missed this earlier; there may be others if i'd left this tab open too long. but yes, Evil thrives and grows when we yield to it as normal.
@Bollox Ref Klobocop's charmed life
Klobocop's charmed life as the most popular politician in MN is over. Mainstream liberals might still moon over her. But BLM is going to chase her in the Twin cities metro and Duluth (and maybe rochester too). It was evident on the last but one day of her prez campaign flop show - she couldn't take the stage in the inner ring suburb of Mpls. [oh but she managed to save face on the Night of the Long Knives in TX where she endorsed Biden]
The so called centrists nicely camouflage their cruelty. Think Biden, Harris, Billary, Klobocop....
@Bollox Ref Centrists are meanies -
Centrists are meanies - they direct their ire on the least powerful and grovel at the feet of the powerful. Like a real asshole, they spew shit & toxins
If the Dems had nominated Klobuchar
then the Republicans clearly would need to nominate Mike Pompeo. Then the debates would consist of a hour of stapler throwing. I would put my money on Amy as she appears a lot more nimble. But who knows what kind of flourish Pompeo could put on a three-hole punch?
Oh that's special.
And I really do wish Joe Biden would hurry up and choose Amy as his VP pick. People need to know who he really is. Either her or Michael Bloomberg will bear out the maxim that "honesty is the best policy."
So what's going to happen at this Green Party nominating convention, anyway? Are they just going to hand the mike to David Cobb and say, "you choose?"
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
who knows?
maybe dementia joe will choose her, thinking it might earn him more votes than he'd lose by doing so. yanno: Law and Order Joe? how 'bout that for a bumper sticker?
Murderer with a badge.
And evidently a Get Out of Jail Free card.
Beyond despicable.
i'd almost titled this using
'Murder in the 1st degree'. same with eric garner and thousands of others.
but yes:
but always remember that the 4 pigs were fired. ain't that enough?
A little rest before the next job.
Frankly, I'm surprised they were fired and not just
given a vacationput on administrative leave.kevin reed has an excellent piece
at wsws.org, and he includes this:
at least Boss Tweet is on the case:
That's more than Obama ever did.
Eric Garner's murder by law enforcement took place under Obama's watch, as did many others.
Obama (a POC himself) did nothing. He asked his Attorneys General (both POCs themselves) to do exactly nothing.
The Attorney General is the top law enforcement official in the United States. It is well within the scope of POTUS's authority as Chief Executive to use his Dept. of Justice to enforce the laws of the US and to deal with law enforcement issues. To see what a president can do using his DoJ, look at JFK and his AG, who was his brother, RFK.
President Barack Obama did nothing.
"Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep."
~Rumi
"If you want revolution, be it."
~Caitlin Johnstone
Still can't wrap my head around that
The Obama Administration's inaction on police brutality was hands down the most shocking and inexplicable aspect of his leadership to me. Despite the failures on foreign policy and economic policy, I had thought to myself that at least he and Holder would do something about the goddamned cops killing black people, and nope, nothing. Unforgivable.
was it on his watch that
the 1033 program was birthed? military weapons of war to the police? i remember satirizing obomba having knelt to public pressure...and had recalled the tanks on tracks, but not the ones on wheels.
here's a page on the program; i'll paste in a bit:
now i can't say about minneapolis, but most PDs provide vets with preferential hiring, partially because they're so familiar with the weapons of war. was that about the time when so many po-po began to see citizens in inner-cities as "the enemy"? look what these psychopaths did to george! a derek chauvin isn't born like that, i'd think, but conditioned over time, and allowed to thrive in various police cultures.
which year was this iconic photo taken in ferguson?
i'm glad you've added that,
reminding me of obomba's constant dodge: 'i'm a black ameikan president, not the president of black amerika'. my larger point was the case was already under investigation by the FBI as of tuesday; that's all. and that sort of empty signaling means zip to me, frankly.
wikipedia claims that
the MPD requested the FBI to open an investigation; but anyone can muck about with a Wiki entry, so who knows? i will say i don't imagine Trump would have even thought of it.
I'll just leave this here, shall I?
Figure 2. Black/white incarceration ratios
The ratio in MN is 11 to 1.
The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?
pretty stark visual,
my gorilla friend. now i would appreciate your take on what it shows, esp. given the southern states are pale blues. i'd think michigan & new jersey would be similar to MN. but vermont? speculation, please?
From the report...
As I read this, it's not so much that the northern states are locking up MORE Blacks, but rather that they lock up FEWER Whites per capita than Southern states.
Apparently in the South they ain't so picky about the race of the people for-profit prisons are allowed to grease the state for. They just lock up everybody.
Call it 'equal opportunity' incarceration.
The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?
“Cool hand lucrative” … n/t
"What we have here...
...is a jailer who accumulates."
The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?
after reading their text
three times (the third w/ my eyes crossed), i'd been about to as you the racial demographics at play, but you kindly added 'per capita', answering my Q.
we might even call it 'equal opportunity grifting' in a largely for-profit prison system, ad we know that some judges have been outed for accepting...ahem...gratuities for their help.
Incarceration Nation
'Incarceration rates in OECD countries as of May 2020', statista.com
It's all about the grift.
Rates of incarceration in the US bear very little rational connection to either crime rates or efficacies of alternative sentencing models.
It's mostly just a question of how far a state is willing to go to aid in the maximization of profits of private prison corporations.
In the North and West, state officials as a rule will happily ensure private prison capacity is filled to the brim with as many Blacks as they can stop and frisk, but get squeamish when shareholders demand revenue growth from the heretofore untapped White market.
In the South, the governing aristocracy has no such qualms: black or white - in their minds it's all just a way to make easy money picking up the trash.
The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?
whoa, you knocked me
off my pins with these conclusions:
A lot of pent up anger in the US right now
with the COVID lockdown, extremely high unemployment and obvious income disparity. The entire country is literately tinder waiting for a spark. This could get out of hand, especially if the cops respond with military force.
yes, hmmm.
'pent up rage', plenty of that, is isn't there? and most of those protesting looked pretty pale skinned. stay tuned, i reckon, as to how widely it spreads.
i'd tried to follow a few of the related hashatags and ran into this oldie but goodie from our bellicose bigot-in-chief:
hope the video plays; if not, here's the url for the tweet.
those damning words reminded me of the 'rough ride' the po-po in baltmore gave freddie gray; it killed him, the fuckers. i'm embarrassed that i don't even remember if marilyn mosby secured a conviction or not. but in many trials, former police 'experts' can demonstrate to juries just how justified about any murder by cop.
"I feared for my life, and shot him!" since michael brown's killing, "hands up, don't shoot!" is the byword.
State violence is inevitable now
The actions of congressional and state leadership, notably Pelosi, have baked into future events state violence against the most disenfrancished peoples which include middle class people swept into poverty, hunger, and homelessness.
I don't see how harsh state violence can be avoided. It will not happen everywhere, but major urban centers for sure.
Things will unravel. I think what happened to meat processing plants is an early sign as unprotected workers caught the virus at unprecented rates. Soon utility workers. The Navy itself will be in good measure knocked out unless they press on and insist death ships are kept on active duty.
Say his name! George Floyd
May there be justice.
Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation
Hot Air Website, Twitter, Facebook
bless your heart,
yes: Say His Name! it's hard to know what justice would actually look like. i steered away from videos talking with george's family and friends, as well as one with eric garner's sister.
but thank you for giving me the opportunity to embed this great crie de coeur from janelle monae and friends.
yesterday i was simply electrified with rage; at least after a mostly sleepless night, i'm able to weep for them all. the images of the brutal murders of so many unarmed citizens...nothing will ever bring them back.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHIUve8V2zo]
Other countries in these terrible times
Band together and unify around their people with tangible help. The US? Does what it usually does, devolves into violence against anyone that raises a peep against this inhumane system. This is after all what our cops are trained to do right? Aggressively inhibit any protests...throwing tear gas in the air? Like they are at war or something...oh wait.
Well done is better than well said-Ben Franklin
and in minneapolis,
rubber bullets, as well. will they bring in the tanks next time? as to this:
...dissent has become criminalized, often called 'terrorism'. i'd love it if you might expand on what people in other countries do to help one another tangibly and in solidarity, longtalldrink.
Not going to stop until there's some real accountability
And the training and mentality gets back from the current "Warrior Cop" to something llike "Protect and Serve".
Back in 2018, fresh from their success in taking down Infowars, (and while many on the left were exchanging high fives celebrating) the censors turned their attention to other anti-war, anti-corruption and police monitoring sites and a considerable number were banned from Facebook and Twitter, their search results dutifully buried by Google.
On of the best and most popular of these - and still clinging to existence despite the bans - for those who want to get a handle on the depressing frequency of police brutality and corruption is The Free Thought Project (thefreethoughtproject.com).
Commendably, they are not purely anti-cop but recognize and commend police conscientious and brave enough to stand up against wrongdoing.
Spend a little time over there, though, and it will be clear that cases like Floyd's occur depressingly often - and Klobuchar-style enablement has a lot to do with why that's so.
I defer but the pigs still serve and protect
I defer but the pigs still serve and protect, but it's their masters that are served and protected.
Chicago still has this site afaik
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-police-detain-am...
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
But then-Chicago-mayor Rahm Emanuel = “Obama Alumni Association”
and as everyone knows, Obama (genuflects) and all who served him are always and forever scandal-free and above reproach.
Does "Karma" have an expiration date?
I hope not
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
you know,
i've tried and failed to find out if it still exists as a black site for 'the disappeared'.
here's the CPD wiki page with a Homan Square section.
but bingling its status kicks up all sorts of Homan Sq. properties w/ other functions, or at least used to.
an erstwhile blogging friend of the Café was tossed in there for a night and a day...after being arrest trying to attend that year's NATO conference. he wrote about it in june of 2012 for the FDL readers diaries.
I've known many cops from way back when
but the pigs of yesteryear are nothing compared to the evilness of todays pigs
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
we live rural in podunk, amerika,
and i'd been friends with ONE county sheriff (and believe it or not, one local catholic priest) and even so, i'd have to agree with you. as i've indiate, it has to do with militarized warrior cops, many who are trained in the use of the 1033 weapons of war.
long with that, what they do in Our Owners' names is given their Seal of Approval™.
fuck the rabble classes: dissidents are all terrorists, in any event! hey, vanna white! whassupp? (by mi amigo anthony freda in NYC)
IIRC Chicago prisons were the incubator model
for Guantanamo Bay.
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
Not sure who came first, but this guy seems to be
the common denominator
https://www.facebook.com/events/906-s-homan-ave-chicago-il-60624-4135-un...
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
'warrior cop'
reminding of radley balko's 'rise of the warrior cop' book. we used to snitch bits of his journalism back in the day.
thanks for the reminder of the free thought project, but killed by police also tracks the killings, with hyperlinks to media coverage on the right side.
400 People Have Been Shot and Killed by Police in 2020 – Full database (Updated: 05/26/2020)
for a number of years the guardian had maintained an interactive data base: 'the Counted', i can't recall when (or why) they quit counting.
If you don't vote for Klobuchar you ain't black.
Even with such a blantant act of murder, history has shown there will be no justice. Maybe a slap on the wrist citing tht the poor cop hurt his knee.
is your subject line a
bit of a satirical twist on a Bidenism? but i agree, 'justice' in these cases is a very aspirational concept.
yes, and i remember a case of two where convicted cops actually got their old jobs backs after serving some paltry joke of a sentence (wink, wink).
i'd been wracking my holey brain this a.m. to remember this poor fellows name, even thought i'd said his name to mr. wd last night. as it turns out:
another ‘i can’t breathe’ murder by Six fullerton, CA po-po: schizophrenic and homeless Kelly Thomas in july, 2011 “Daaaaad! help me Dad!” (his father was an Orange county sheriff. they discontinued his life support 5 days later as i recall.
here's kelly's murder wiki page. lying cop claiming broken bones, etc. but only 2 of the 6 were tried:
Criminal trial
on this
I like Beau of the Fifth Column's take on George Floyd's murder.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aZ205Muu8A&t=1s]
He had a good one awhile back on being black in america I'll try to insert or link to or something.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=15&v=WD8mWq0Hdcw&feature=emb...
Good stuff. Low key delivery; a lot of (depolarized) wisdom. n/t
a bit more from kevin reed
at wsws.org:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TbFVTgJJjw]
and there was a smallish, but contentious protest in memphis last night; confusing (for me) coverage.
Amy might not know it, and Biden doesn't seem to know
anything, but this ends her VP quest. No different from 2016 when the death of Freddie Gray and subsequent riots in Baltimore quashed O'Malley's hopes for POTUS or VP.
Harris is also a no-go as her record as DA and AG will also be a focus and she also doesn't pass.
Biden's VP candidate pool is shrinking nearly as fast as McGovern's did after the Eagleton misstep. A good enough VP selection may not enhance a ticket, but a less than good enough warm body dooms a ticket.
i reckon my cynicism
about biden's thinking she might earn him more votes than she'd ;ose him was...over the top, then? ; )
Perhaps --
Biden is already in hot water with the AA vote he desperately needs in states that he needs. (He's only been strong with the AA vote in SC, AL, MS, etc.; none of which is a factor in the general election. And those weren't really AA votes for Joe but AA votes for the AA institutional party in those states.)
Are there any swing voters among the pro-racist, killer cop faction?
I doubt if Klobbachair
was even in Joe's top 5 before this latest incident. Mostly women of color in that group, and only 1 white woman, Liz Warren, would be my guess. Gov Whitmer might have been ahead of Klob in the top 7.
It's likely the Biden team is well aware that Klobbachair would be this year's Tim Kaine, a nonentity, dull and uninspiring who would add little to the ticket. And his camp may also be aware that the Hillary strategy of trying to win over mod Rs/NeverTrumpers is a losing strategy. If they don't, they will risk losing again.
He needs to add some political energy, youth as well as someone either with good enough liberal creds or capable of being flexible on ideology. Klobbachair is a walking, talking incrementalist centrist. Re white women, Liz at least has some liberal background and ability to embrace bold solutions.
I don't think there is an obvious one or two candidates for VP, but Klobbachair, even before all this, was always an obvious underwhelming pick to avoid.
This was more than murder. Floyd was tortured to death.
I would even go so far as to call it cruel and unusual. Too bad the Bill of Rights only protects gunz and the “right“ to impose religion on others.
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
yes, (editd out)
(as i understand it; or was that freddie gray and kelly thomas?)but my guess so was his carotid artery, without that blood-flow...: lights out, brain dead.on edit: it was kelly thomas whose larynx was crushed among other hideous facial and body injures, freddy gray had sustained massive spinal injuries (handcuffed, so seat belt very 'rough ride' in the po-po van.
it will likely be weeks before george floyd's autopsy results are made public. OMG: that will be a most terrible funeral service, in every conceivable way.
Yes, torture
It seemed to me that they were hoping someone would attempt to help so they could bash some skulls.
But, my daughter brought up a really good point. To normal people, since the "scary black man" had been subdued, the active possible threat was the crowd assembled nearby. However, neither of the animals in uniform appear the least bit concerned with anyone nearby. They both look perfectly calm and at ease. They are not human, and not normal.
I hope they spend the rest of their natural lives in cages. I also hope that state does not allow touch visits -- I hope they're only allowed to be through plexiglass over a nasty phone. And I hope they get treated like all the people they helped put there, getting cavity searched before and after every visit!
Just like Hannibal Lector
In The Silence of the Lambs.
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
I'm glad
I don't a gun at this moment. What I'm thinking, if I said or wrote, would put me in jail. I'll leave it to your imagination what my "desired" response would / should be. I am beyond words to express my overwhelming outrage.
C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote
as i'd said, yesterday i'd
been electrified with rage, today a bit less so in my grief. that doesn't prevent intermittent thought crimes for all the assassinations by police, of course, akin to the sincerely great bruce cockburn's, albeit a different time, different venue.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOjHior0RfU]
You damn sure have company, I have too much anger to even talk
Good thing cooler heads prevailed
among some of the locals who *did* have guns
Armed Civilians Save Local Businesses During Minneapolis Riots
Video available on Nesterak's Twitter feed.
this
is how it's supposed to be.
The "left" needs to understand, the 2nd amendment was for this exact purpose, citizens defending themselves from tyranny, whether it be from unruly mobs or government.
It's been reported that the guy that started the vandalizing, was a COP!
C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote
oh my gosh....terrifying show of police to protect the killer
https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/gs3cc7/large_group_of_o...
thanks; hard for my crap eyes
to see, though. i'll add (oh, my): 'Twin Cities public transit shuts down in effort to contain Minnesota riots & looting’, 28 May, 2020, RT.com
Light rail and bus transport in Minneapolis and St. Paul has been ordered to shut down as looting and riots following the death of a black man in police custody headed into the second day and threatened to spread.
Twin Cities Metro Transit had already suspended two major light rail lines serving the area around the 3rd Precinct police station in Minneapolis, after the nearby Target shopping center and several other businesses had been looted and destroyed. All other light rail and bus lines were suspended on Thursday afternoon for the rest of the day, and may or may not reopen on Friday.
There were reports that one looter was shot and killed by a shop owner. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has asked for the Minnesota National Guard to come in and help contain the riots.
“Our state watched George Floyd’s humanity get erased. Our feelings of anger, anguish, and disillusionment are justified,” Governor Tim Walz (D) tweeted out on Wednesday. Two hours later, he was saying that “the situation near Lake Street and Hiawatha in Minneapolis has evolved into an extremely dangerous situation,” asking everyone to leave the area so firefighters and paramedics could have access. He has not tweeted since.
several of this fellow's other tweets, and he says police are 'showing restraint' on his twit account:
from the Justice for George Floyd
hashtag on Twitter. but first i'd ask you to imagine if 'a passerby' hadn't recorded his assassination. then imagine: the world would never have known anything but what the po-po said when they'd lie. and oh, they will keep lying to the Fibbies, won't they?
it's closing time for me,
and i'd like to offer two closing songs tonight. kim possible had said 'this is who he was. he was in minneapolis for a job training program with the church.
say his name. speak his story. George Floyd was a godly, kind man. a person of peace.
may he hear this in his name: Sweet honey in the rock - Down By the Riverside
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_tt8qDSSI8]
and for those of us who are enraged by his murder, and can't really understand racism, knowing all our ancestors walked out of the kalahari desert, and that we're all siblings under the skin: Sweet Honey in the Rock's: We Are (One)
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMqZIUuCykQ]
good night, all; thank you for caring so much and adding to such a fine conversation. may we all heal during our sleep and dream time, and wake up refreshed.
from wsws this morning:
'Mass anger erupts throughout the US in protests against police murder of George Floyd; Trump threatens to mobilize the military to shoot protesters', Anthony Bertolt, 29 May 2020
from the comments:
George W Obama • 3 hours ago
Just read this headline from The Onion: 'Protestors Criticized For Looting Businesses Without Forming Private Equity Firm First'
The Onion has abandoned satire?'
Larka • 'On Twitter protestors have claimed to expose a police officer response for early property damage. There's a photo of the man and video of him calmly breaking windows at an Auto Zone.
We know good and well that the US ruling class will sic the military on the population to protect its interests. But it's not a foregone conclusion that soldiers will obey. When enough of the military ranks become class conscious, we can hope that they would refuse to follow orders when told to harm or kill civilians.'
from #JusticeforGeorgeFloyd:
as a side note: can anyone tell me what Reddit is?
There are a few of links in the Blog Roll
The site is a social news aggregation and discussion site with "subreddits" on various areas of interest. The sites in the blog roll here are progressive political ones and start with the prefix "r/" followed by the topic.
In my experience they are a great resource across a broad spectrum of my interests, including breaking news in some of the more active areas.
thank you;
i'll try to read your answer again and see i can get it. at least on these tow ancient firefoxes i need to use to cross-post from my own juke-joint to this one, it all looked like gobbledygook.
I really appreciate your work here
And I am surprised to hear that you are doing some at least on a "Harrison Bergeron"-ed system. Have a good day.
ta, but lol, i have no notion
of what a "Harrison Bergeron"-ed system" might be. who's in your avatar photo?
i need to update this at the top one more time, as chauvin has been arrested, although it's not clear on what charges from RT's reportge on what cbs is saying. to me, it proves that looting is one of the few voices the poor and disenfranchised have left, but then...i slept a bit to get rid of those infernal coronoa migraines (as wooods dweller calls them), and am fuzzier/muzzier than usual.
i'll poke around a bit for more precise news first.
Harrison Bergeron was a Vonnegut short story
It was set in a dystopian future society where no one is allowed to be more capable than the least-able in any respect, people have to be drugged if bright, wear masks or weights if they are attractive or strong, use earpieces that emit random noise to prevent them thinking too clearly. I just meant that it sounds like you are working through a system that imposes some handicaps!
My avatar is from one of many prints and drawings by the Belgian artist Félicien Rops of "The Absinthe Drinker".
clearly i've missed vonngeut's
short stories, as in: all of them. but i've loved and read most of his novels numerous times, and if i have a favorite, it's probably Slaughterhouse Five. thank you for introducing me to Rops; oh, my...how prolific he was, and in so many media and styles.
yes, the ancient firefoxes hamper me, especially now as they don't support adblock any longer, and sites like telesur english jump about like mad crickets. the absinthe drinker mus carry quite a story, as he does seem to have drawn and painted her often. her gown is such rich fabric, isn't it?
i did try sharyar's reddit again, and i looks like that place is beyond my..ability.
our new neighbor is outside practicing his bagpipes; what a strange sound to mix with the many bird songs in the air. ; )
to honor kurt, allow me to embed billy pilgrim's dream:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUhMzmeW3Qw]
There is a 3rd party branch of the old Firefox called Palemoon
It is well-maintained with frequent updates to keep it modern but supports the old-style plugins that modern Firefox no longer permits. I still use Adblock Latitude with it on my old
Windows 7 Pro 64 system. https://www.palemoon.org/
I moved to Linux for daily use due to the Windows 7 end-of-life last January, and have been using a Chromium-based browser called Slimjet. I had steered clear of the chromium line of browsers due to their Google heritage but took advantage of the platform change to try out this open-source offering. The Slimjet browser has built-in ad-blocking supposedly incorporating Adblock rules and I am supplementing that with NoScript.
I do have Palemoon's version of Firefox loaded on the Linux box as well and may end up going back to it as I prefer the Firefox bookmark organization and management.
Palemoon is good
I have used the Mac version of Palemoon on my old Mac laptop and found it to be a good replacement for current-version Firefox releases. I still have it installed. My reason for trying it out was due to the abandonment of the many addons developed over the years for Firefox. The Firefox people had thrown the baby out with the bathwater in my view. With Palemoon, I could still use them.
I don't recall that I had any issues with it, even though it is still considered beta software on the Mac platform. If you're running Windows, you're in luck as there's been much more development for that platform and I think there are stable releases.
After many, many years of use, I left Firefox in the last year or so, mainly due to speed issues. I've tried every fix under the sun, and just cannot get it to be anything but a snail. I've been using a Chrome derivative by the name of Vivaldi and I'm pretty happy with it. Fast as lightning, even on my ten year old Mac. It's probably not for everyone, though.
So, I will vouch for Palemoon. Were I using an old version of Windows, that's probably what I'd use. On the other hand, I wouldn't use an old Windows machine unless I was absolutely forced to do it. Too dangerous.
from kevin zeese, popular resitance
this morning:
‘Nationwide Rebellion Against Police Violence Demands Justice For George Floyd’, Kevin Zeese, Popular Resistance, May 28, 2020 (a few snippets)
crikey events at the (so far) 11 cities are facebook links.
Another reason
I consider Trump a very dangerous president, his tweet about the Minneapolis situation which appears to be encouraging more violence:
I have also seen two incidents of possible agent provocateur activity, both involving persons dressed and protected to the hilt all in black with helmet and gas mask, one taking point on knocking down the fence surrounding the police station, the other a rather bold, confident, aggressive fellow carrying a baseball bat smashing windows of the auto parts store which eventually was burned down. No mention on the cable news (CNN) of this provocateur angle, which is typical of the MSM.
agreed, and agents provocateurs were
ubiquitous during the occupy movement. careful watchers had featured photos of looters and window smashers on the sidewalk with identical vibram-soled boots circled in red.
your observation reflects one of the comments at wsws i'd brought towad the end of the comet stream. the MSM loves to report on the 'epic violence against property during riots'! i mightt do a separate post about that later, i dunno.
thanks wokkamile. but these current soliarity protests are growing larger, not smaller, and i'm glad of it.
breaking news:
Derek Chavin has been arrested; RT had featured this NBC news tweet of the announcement by Mike Freeman, but he'd said only murder and manslaughter, not 3rd degree murder and manslaughter. .RT had also reported:
i checked about and Minnesota CBS news local is reporting: 'Former MPD Officer Derek Chauvin In Custody, Charged With Murder In George Floyd’s Death; Complaint Says Chauvin Was On Floyd's Neck For 8 Minutes And 46 Seconds
the complain reads like rubbish to me, from what we know; you can decide...but so does what the HC medical examiner 'reported':
again, the rest is here.
for me, 'violence against property' and 'looting' are one of collective voices of the poor and disenfranchised, albeit some of it minneapolis may have been done by agents provocateurs. the cop precinct that was torched was the 3rd precinct from which the four dastardly psychopathic pigs had 'served and protected' the public.
You've highlighted the key points
That bogus "autopsy" is setting up the killer's exoneration.
What kind of autopsy doesn't say "this is what was in his system" but instead refers to "potential intoxicants"?
A fake one, is the answer.
Throw it on the pile along with the Jeffrey Epstein autopsy,
the Robert Maxwell autopsy, and JFK’s missing brain.
dang;
your 'JFK's missing brain' link went to 'no results' at quant. robert maxwell's not familiar to me, but point taken.
Very strange. O.K., here’s DuckDuckGo:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=JFK+missing+brain
oh, that is quite a tale!
(fearing what JFK's grey matter might show) metal box? sure hope it would have been in a jar of formaldehyde!
thanks; that's a wild one. but you've reminded me of the 3 dudes on the X-files who'd called themselves 'the lone gunmen' in satire of the warren report.
CNN called it 'an autopsy',
but clearly it wasn't:
that's from some brief examination by an ME? and sure: 'potential intoxicants'? i that just setting it up to prove that he was intoxicated so resisted arrest? which i exactly why i'd put up that angle of the video tweet showing that he did not resist arrest!
(i've just started a bit of a search for the meanings of 'third-degree murder' and second-degree manslaughter', and i ain't likin' what i'm finding. intent, for one., but i'll keep looking for other 'opinions'.)
but the autopsy will be Political as all giddy-up, too. 'Hey! ya got a little crack cocaine we can slip into this dude's system?'
Don't discount
the presence of provocateurs. Could be fed or other cops, could be Soros/Antifa - the sort of thing that should be seriously investigated but likely won't be.
Would note that the looting and destruction that occurred in the Watts riots, the post MLK assassination riots, the '92 Los Angeles riots, Ferguson, etc. all resulted in disproportionate
damage to local small businesses and was ultimately damaging to a lot of innocent people and to the general detriment of the communities themselves...
yes, i'd mentioned just above
'albeit some of it could have been done by agent provocateurs. but did this! RT has a short piece up saying that MN gov tim walz has indicated that unconfirmed reports say white supremacists are at play. okay, but: that social media rolled their collectives because why? the tags were all anarchist symbols and #BLM! well shucks; i'm sure they wouldda signed their shit KKK, yes?
oh, and you might wanna check your junk mail.
mr. wd steered me to this inspirational photo that was on the MSN home page (our email provider, captioned: A line of almost all white women formed between police officers and black protesters at Thursday night's rally in downtown Louisville calling for justice in the death of Breonna Taylor.
CNN seems to be claiming this was
what an autopsy showed, not what a hennepin medical examiner had 'determined', but still, what rubbish:
i'd add in closing off his carotid artery to the mix, myself, which would show up either way, as would petechial hemorrhaging in his poor eyes. no, the autopsy results won't be Political at all...
given all the above horrors, it's a small wonder
that a new hashtag has emerged;
in honor of 'we will not be silenced', tonight's closing song will be by Sweet Honey as well: 'Ella's Song'.
We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes
Until the killing of black men, black mothers' sons
Is as important as the killing of white men, white mothers' sons
To me young people come first
They have the courage where we fail
And if I can but shed some light as they carry us through the gale
The older I get the better I know that the secret of my going on
Is when the reins are in the hands of the young, who dare to run against the storm...
good night all; it didn't have to be this way, did it?
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6Uus--gFrc]
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