Have you ever, individually, faced a crisis? Reached a point at which - something you've been slowly working on for years - the progress just isn't quick enough, it feels hopeless, and then you lash out?
Via anger, sadness, depression - whatever?
Via anger, sadness, depression - whatever?
As an Army guy with a family embarking on his fifth overseas deployment spontaneous bursts of rage are frowned upon. I don’t do that. I have gotten comfortable to sparse, tiny, lonely living conditions and learned to regulate my mental health according to the expectations at hand.
> the progress just isn't quick enough
I suspect the majority of people engaging in riots, and possibly the protests as well, have provided little to no participation of any kind towards these social concerns before two weeks ago, and if that is true the speed of progress is irrelevant.
Would there be riots right now had Floyd not been killed? Have you even seen a riot started out of nothing? Just for fun?
I doesn't change the original point that if a politician's first goal is to stop the riots, it's only to cover a symptom while the real problem is not fixed. And it's a matter of time before everything starts over again.
It's a pretty well-known phenomenon. You hold a sports riot when your team wins, not when it loses.
And I've read enough history to wonder why and how the black population has suffered so much injustice for so long. You ask "why now" and you question their motives. But the only explanation I could come up with - for why they suffered in silence for the last few decades - was that the enemy was too formidable. Yet there is a breaking point, and George Floyd probably was it. I'm not hopeful that there will be any change though. On the contrary the American system will make black people pay, in a long, insidious, and institutional manner.
> It is not about you, but about the historical imperialism America
This host nation invited American presence as a partner.
Seen any riots in Iraq? What did you think the Arab Spring was?
(Conversely I suspect the people in the protests are almost certainly all politically engaged and at least vote. The previous political engagement of BLM has not achieved anywhere near the same results as the protests have. The protests appear to be the only way to get police charged for murder even when there is clear video evidence.)
The thing about counterinsurgency is that shooting insurgents makes more insurgents. Especially the indiscriminate use of "non lethal" rounds to cause severe and permanent injuries: shooting people, including reporters and medics, in the face with rubber bullets. Every act of filmed violence (e.g. https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1268759072876224514 ) makes the situation worse.
And the two feed off each other. The overseas wars return to domestic strife. A historical example: https://twitter.com/BeijingPalmer/status/1267539424549769219
According to the definitions though it is not an insurgency. An insurgency is violent opposed to a non-violent rebellion. Most peaceful protesters appear to disavow violent rioters.
I suspect their point was that quoted line. I didn’t miss it so much as I just didn’t comment on it when the rest of the comment is just such nonsense.
Do you see how superficial this appears?
In case you didn't know, BLM has been around for a long time and NAACP has been around even longer. The issue of systemic violence against minorities has also been an issue in the American social scene for at least the last 100 years.
People are coalescing into groups more so for non cognitive behaviors than for deliberate premeditated concerns but when confronted by that reasoning deflect. When confronted they don’t deny it or excuse it but instead argue defense of positions that were never in question.
> Do you see how superficial this appears?
Good. That is my point. If you find the subjects that people are protesting about concerning and important you should very much care whether outside observers see something sincere or superficial.
The rest of your comment I agree with 100% and have been repeating this numerous times without directly specifying organizations by name.