There is war in the streets of America tonight

[Econoline]

“We stand behind those officers 100 per cent”

...just in case someone should happen to, you know, shove them backwards...

[Scooter]

Mark S. King

It would be a shame if protesters began making their signs out of quarter-inch-thick plywood to stop rubber bullets, forming a tight shield wall to prevent police from singling out and mobbing individual protesters. It would be a shame if the people behind the shield wall held up umbrellas so that tear gas canisters fires over their heads on the front line will be bounced away. It would be a shame if protesters began constructing improvised armor vests out of duct tape, hard-backed books, and ceramic tiles.

It would be a shame if protesters started wearing safety glasses, hard hats, respirators, and gardening gloves, all of which can be found at the same hardware stores as the plywood. It would be a shame if they started using traffic cones (the kind without the hole in the top), upside down buckets, or other improvised lids to contain teargas by placing them over the canisters.

It would be a shame if protesters learned that police scanners are legal to own in the US, allowing them to learn where police are moving, and what routes they intend to take. It would be a shame if they discovered that these scanners can be used to send as well as receive, allowing them to flood the scanner frequencies with noise.

All of this would be a terrible, terrible shame.

*It would be an awful shame if you copied and pasted this, so that they couldn’t delete the original and all linked posts (again).

**An even worse shame would be to start donating these items to protesters.

[BoSoxGal]

“We stand behind those officers 100 per cent”

...just in case someone should happen to, you know, shove them backwards...

The two officers responsible for shoving the protester are charged with assault by a decent prosecutor who knows a crime when he sees it. Their 57 colleagues who are clearly also either bullies or gutless cowards have all resigned from the unit in protest - but not, of course, from their jobs and pensions. I don’t care what their leader says because clearly he’s got loads of bad apples in his barrel and hasn’t done shit about it.

And not one thing about the elderly protester’s background is relevant. What is relevant is what you see with your own fucking eyes in that video - he did NOTHING that justified ANY use of force. Period.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Now, now. The video clearly shows one cop stooping to help the old geezer but his superior officer pulls him away and shoves him forward. The cop's instinctive move to help earns him a pass.

I don't think much of the shove - they barely touched the annoying old coot. Anyone who thinks that was brutal has obviously never worn a Tottenham scarf in the Arsenal stadium. Where I fault the officer in charge is that he didn't allow the sympathetic guy to assist the old troublemaker.

[ex-khobar Andy]

RE the Buffalo incident: I would at least listen to a spur of the moment, confusion, terrible misjudgment type argument from the police. Maybe it was meant to be a prod and not a shove. All that can await an investigation. But we all saw them walk by and ignore a man lying on the pavement, bleeding profusely from his ear. That is unforgivable.

Their story is that medics were walking 'close' behind. Fine. One cop should have gone to the guy's head and yelled for a medic until one arrived.

The police and mayor say he was an 'agitator' whatever that means. (They also said that he tripped and fell.). Sure.

[Big RR]

Where I fault the officer in charge is that he didn't allow the sympathetic guy to assist the old troublemaker.

I certainly fault him for that; but where I clearly fault him is that he didn't try and help the guy, since his reports were responsible for the predicament.

[Bicycle Bill]

Mark S. King

It would be a shame if protesters learned that police scanners are legal to own in the US, allowing them to learn where police are moving, and what routes they intend to take.

Most people already do know that, and have known that for at least 40 years now.

It would be a shame if they discovered that these scanners can be used to send as well as receive, allowing them to flood the scanner frequencies with noise.

Most people do not know that, because it is bullshit.  A receiver-only radio cannot be a transmitter, no matter how much you wish it was.  That's like saying the radio in your car can also broadcast on the same frequency as the station it is picking up.

Now, it might be possible to devise some mad-hacker-style components-and-wires-all-soldered-together-on-a-breadboard system to connect a scanner to a short-wave radio or transmitting device like an old-time CB radio so that you can broadcast on those same frequencies, although it would more simple to just tune those devices to the police frequencies themselves, but at that point you are now operating an unlicensed radio station in violation of FCC regulations (US Code Part 95, if I remember correctly) and subject to penalties including fine and imprisonment.  Those are the same rules that makes it illegal to own radar jammers (not detectors, but jammers) or for me to build an RF hash generator to fuck with the asshole down the block who thinks his taste in music is so good that he plays it loud enough so that EVERYBODY within a two-block radius can feel the throbbing of the bass sub-woofers in his car.

-"BB"-

[Darren]

Mark S. King

It would be a shame if protesters learned that police scanners are legal to own in the US, allowing them to learn where police are moving, and what routes they intend to take.

Most people already do know that, and have known that for at least 40 years now.

It would be a shame if they discovered that these scanners can be used to send as well as receive, allowing them to flood the scanner frequencies with noise.

Most people do not know that, because it is bullshit.  A receiver-only radio cannot be a transmitter, no matter how much you wish it was.  That's like saying the radio in your car can also broadcast on the same frequency as the station it is picking up.

Now, it might be possible to devise some mad-hacker-style components-and-wires-all-soldered-together-on-a-breadboard system to connect a scanner to a short-wave radio or transmitting device like an old-time CB radio so that you can broadcast on those same frequencies, although it would more simple to just tune those devices to the police frequencies themselves, but at that point you are now operating an unlicensed radio station in violation of FCC regulations (US Code Part 95, if I remember correctly) and subject to penalties including fine and imprisonment.  Those are the same rules that makes it illegal to own radar jammers (not detectors, but jammers) or for me to build an RF hash generator to fuck with the asshole down the block who thinks his taste in music is so good that he plays it loud enough so that EVERYBODY within a two-block radius can feel the throbbing of the bass sub-woofers in his car.

-"BB"-

Now throw trunk tracking into the mix. Short of the hash transmitter you mentioned, it won't work.

[Darren]

"A Minneapolis manufacturing company has decided to leave the city, with the company’s owner saying he can’t trust public officials who allowed his plant to burn during the recent riots. The move will cost the city about 50 jobs.

“They don’t care about my business,” said Kris Wyrobek, president and owner of 7-Sigma Inc., which has operated since 1987 at 2843 26th Av. in south Minneapolis. “They didn’t protect our people. We were all on our own.”

Wyrobek said the plant, which usually operates until 11 p.m., shut down about four hours early on the second night of the riots because he wanted to keep his workers out of harm’s way. He said a production supervisor and a maintenance worker who live in the neighborhood stuck around to keep watch over the business. He said they became alarmed when fire broke out at the $30 million Midtown Corner affordable housing apartment complex that was under construction next door.
...
The Star Tribune recently obtained the city’s first survey of property damage, which shows that nearly 1,000 commercial properties in Minneapolis were damaged during the riots, including 52 businesses that were completely destroyed.

Owners and insurance experts estimate the costs of the damage could exceed $500 million. That would make the Twin Cities riots the second-costliest civil disturbance in U.S. history, trailing only those in Los Angeles in 1992, which were also sparked by racial tensions with police and had $1.4 billion in damages in today’s dollars."

[Darren]

"I taught history from 1976 through 2013 at Harvard, Carnegie-Mellon, the Naval War College, and Williams College. The 37 years of my career coincided with a drastic change in the nature of history as it is taught in our colleges and universities. That led to an extraordinary decline in student interest in history, reflected in majors and course enrollments.
...
The roots of what has happened to history go back to the 1960s, when the Vietnam War convinced a critical mass of college students that they could safely ignore whatever the older generation said. That war was indeed a catastrophe, but that single strategic mistake did not, as so many of my contemporaries thought, discredit the entire government, society, and intellectual tradition within which it took place.

Many, however, decided that imperialism, not the defense of freedom, was the basis of American foreign policy; that universities were cogs in that imperialist machine, not sites to pursue knowledge for its own sake; and that racism was fundamental to American life, instead of an aberration our parents’ generation had been working to eliminate.

https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2020/06 ... m-history/

[Crackpot]

The cognitive dissonance is strong with this one.

[Darren]

The cognitive dissonance is strong with this one.

Thank you for your vote. Let me adjust the heat just a smidgen. Comfy?

[RayThom]

"I taught history from 1976 through 2013 at Harvard, Carnegie-Mellon, the Naval War College, and Williams College. The 37 years of my career coincided with a drastic change in the nature of history as it is taught in our colleges and universities. That led to an extraordinary decline in student interest in history, reflected in majors and course enrollments.The roots of what has happened to history go back to the 1960s, when the Vietnam War convinced a critical mass of college students that they could safely ignore whatever the older generation said. That war was indeed a catastrophe, but that single strategic mistake did not, as so many of my contemporaries thought, discredit the entire government, society, and intellectual tradition within which it took place.Many, however, decided that imperialism, not the defense of freedom, was the basis of American foreign policy; that universities were cogs in that imperialist machine, not sites to pursue knowledge for its own sake; and that racism was fundamental to American life, instead of an aberration our parents’ generation had been working to eliminate.https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2020/06 ... m-history/

Darren, you "cut and pasted" this entire post. Is there some sort of personal comment you failed to include?

All I see is yours and "Doc's" pathological need to keep your posting numbers up. Are we missing anything here?

[Darren]

"I taught history from 1976 through 2013 at Harvard, Carnegie-Mellon, the Naval War College, and Williams College. The 37 years of my career coincided with a drastic change in the nature of history as it is taught in our colleges and universities. That led to an extraordinary decline in student interest in history, reflected in majors and course enrollments.The roots of what has happened to history go back to the 1960s, when the Vietnam War convinced a critical mass of college students that they could safely ignore whatever the older generation said. That war was indeed a catastrophe, but that single strategic mistake did not, as so many of my contemporaries thought, discredit the entire government, society, and intellectual tradition within which it took place.Many, however, decided that imperialism, not the defense of freedom, was the basis of American foreign policy; that universities were cogs in that imperialist machine, not sites to pursue knowledge for its own sake; and that racism was fundamental to American life, instead of an aberration our parents’ generation had been working to eliminate.https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2020/06 ... m-history/

Darren, you "cut and pasted" this entire post. Is there some sort of personal comment you failed to include?

All I see is yours and "Doc's" pathological need to keep your posting numbers up. Are we missing anything here?

Thank you for your vote, Ray. Do you believe in dreams?

[Darren]

"I taught history from 1976 through 2013 at Harvard, Carnegie-Mellon, the Naval War College, and Williams College. The 37 years of my career coincided with a drastic change in the nature of history as it is taught in our colleges and universities. That led to an extraordinary decline in student interest in history, reflected in majors and course enrollments.The roots of what has happened to history go back to the 1960s, when the Vietnam War convinced a critical mass of college students that they could safely ignore whatever the older generation said. That war was indeed a catastrophe, but that single strategic mistake did not, as so many of my contemporaries thought, discredit the entire government, society, and intellectual tradition within which it took place.Many, however, decided that imperialism, not the defense of freedom, was the basis of American foreign policy; that universities were cogs in that imperialist machine, not sites to pursue knowledge for its own sake; and that racism was fundamental to American life, instead of an aberration our parents’ generation had been working to eliminate.https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2020/06 ... m-history/

Darren, you "cut and pasted" this entire post. Is there some sort of personal comment you failed to include?

All I see is yours and "Doc's" pathological need to keep your posting numbers up. Are we missing anything here?

Thank you for your vote, Ray. Do you believe in dreams?

[Darren]

Dreams fulfilled.

[ex-khobar Andy]

From Darren's reposting:

The roots of what has happened to history go back to the 1960s, when the Vietnam War convinced a critical mass of college students that they could safely ignore whatever the older generation said. That war was indeed a catastrophe, but that single strategic mistake did not, as so many of my contemporaries thought, discredit the entire government, society, and intellectual tradition within which it took place.

Wow. You make one little mistake - the Vietnam War - and people think that the system which generated that mistake may itself be flawed. How about that! Next you'll be telling me that John Wilkes Booth's career on stage should not be defined by that one little mistake of his towards the end of that career.

[Darren]

From Darren's reposting:

The roots of what has happened to history go back to the 1960s, when the Vietnam War convinced a critical mass of college students that they could safely ignore whatever the older generation said. That war was indeed a catastrophe, but that single strategic mistake did not, as so many of my contemporaries thought, discredit the entire government, society, and intellectual tradition within which it took place.

Wow. You make one little mistake - the Vietnam War - and people think that the system which generated that mistake may itself be flawed. How about that! Next you'll be telling me that John Wilkes Booth's career on stage should not be defined by that one little mistake of his towards the end of that career.

Thanks for your vote. Want to try again?

[Econoline]

Here you go, Darren. The (wet?) dream is alive!

Dream on. Remember to clean up afterward.

[Scooter]