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Comment by wonderwonder | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if social media has weakened our focus to the point where long term change is difficult. BLM matter had a massive run out the gate and then nothing really changed. The Amir Locke shooting has not really taken on a national protest atmosphere like earlier shooting did. There are just so many things to notice today on social media that its difficult to focus on one. You have both sides politically calling for the end of the world if the other side wins, people acting like Joe Rogan is one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, etc. Everything no matter how niche is presented as an emergency. Human minds can only focus on so many concurrent emergencies so everything just kind of fades away eventually.

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People have a hard time effectively measuring real change. I don't know enough about the instances you cite to speak to them but I have at times tracked my own metrics for things that mattered to me.

Gradual social change is often more persistent than dramatic and obvious change. It's more persistent in part because it goes largely unnoticed.

Change happens all the time yet we tend to feel like whatever is currently the norm is "normal." People are mostly not talented at tracking real change or even noticing it.

We tend to instead notice the crisis du jour.

> BLM matter had a massive run out the gate and then nothing really changed

This is quite incorrect. There have been some pretty large changes in our criminal justice system over the last 2 years.

The main changes have been:

- Reform District Attorneys like Gascon have been elected in many major cities

- Elimination of cash bail in many parts of the US, most importantly New York (we were also very close to eliminating cash bail in California, but bail bond companies invested heavily to stop that)

- Biden appointing a bunch of public defenders to federal courts

Yup, we can credit politicians bending to appease BLM for these disastrous policies. The guy who stabbed the woman 40x in NY this past week had been arrested and released without bail numerous times. Woo-hoo... equity!

It's a massive run they've had, to all our detriment. Fortunately, I think it's all backfiring.

I presume you're hoping he was poor enough that he would have remained imprisoned until his trial, if cash bail were imposed?

No presume he's hoping the woman wouldn't have been stabbed 40x times.

Cash bail wouldn't have prevented him from doing anything if he was rich. How do you propose to address this inequality? Me, I'd prefer we evaluate them immediately to decide if they should remain locked up based on the merits of the case and not how much money they have, and get them into court faster.

This same man was previously arrested over 40 times, 16 of which occured in one day. After a certain point, bail should not have been offered. Even if it had, it should have been ruinously expensive for anyone, no matter how rich.

Whether or not he should have been let out at all is completely independent of the cash bail system, unless you think that the decision of whether or not to release him should be contingent on his financial situation.

Exactly. Too many people confuse "no cash bail" with "no pre-trial jail at all". I'm guessing there is some political messaging involved, sponsored by the bail industry.

Maybe I'm the odd one, but when someone is arrested 16 times in one day, for offenses so minor he can be instantly released, I assume that they're probably suffering from some kind of mental illness and needs help and treatment, which could be provided in a secure environment if they are a danger to themselves or others, but just raising the price of bail seems like a conplete non-solution.

Looked it up, it's another homeless man.

The solution seems to be that if an offender is violent enough then they should not be offered bail, not that bail should be more expensive. The first option addresses violent crime, the second simply punishes poor people. I very much doubt someone that habitually performs violent crimes is going to think to themselves, no violence today, don't want to risk sacrificing my bail money that I may get back in a few months.

> The solution seems to be that if an offender is violent enough then they should not be offered bail

Won't this ruin your life if someone who looks like you commits a violent enough offense, and the police accidentally arrest you for it?

Of course, but by focusing bail on violent criminals or clear flight risks for financial crimes and those with the means to leverage them, you have effectively filtered out a good portion of optimally non violent people who are not a continuing threat to society. Optimally criminal history is part of the decision as well. There will always be issues with innocent people being arrested and held due to the nature of the accusation but no system is perfect. In my opinion holding a person accused of a violent enough crime (think a random assault on a stranger, intent to cause serious injury, etc. vs a fist fight at the bbq) is warranted. The people assaulting Asians on the street, the knockout game, etc. should absolutely be held, no need for bail. Requiring bail for someone accused of stealing diapers should not be required as they are not a threat. Of course everyone's definition of 'good enough' is going to be different and if I ever find myself as that falsely accused person I am sure my opinion would change again.

The per capital crime rates aren’t consistent across races. For example, 6% of the population (black males) are responsible for 50% of all murders.

What will be the reaction to the statistics that white peoples get set free more often than black people because white people tend to commit “victimless crimes” more frequently?

I'm asking in good faith, to be clear:

Can you explain to me the benefit of the elimination of cash bail in new york or point me to resources why the elimination of cash bail is good? I hear a huge earful about how terrible the elimination of cash bail is and pointing at random crimes as caused by this elimination but I hear almost nothing as for the reasons why it was eliminated in the first place.

The idea is that it's immoral to charge people (who have not been convicted of a crime) money to be let out of jail. Cash bail hurts poor people who either can't get the money, or get charged usurious rates to borrow the money.

It's easy enough to find cases where crime could have been avoided if the offender were locked up. Stories of innocent people spending time in jail or losing large sums of money aren't as enticing.

I feel like saying "charge people money" and "losing large sums of money" misrepresents what bail is. It's a deposit that gets refunded to you in full as long as you don't skip town instead of showing up for your trial.

In practice most people are forced to use bail bonds. If your cash bail is set to $150k, you're going to go to a bail bondsman and pay them $15k instead (and lose that 15k forever).

Cash bail is a monstrous creation.

I feel like ignoring that a vast majority of American people live paycheck to paycheck and then pretending people have “refundable deposit” cash piles sitting around is either incredibly disingenuous or the first time you’ve ever thought about poverty

sure, except most people don't have enough money for bail lying around, most can't afford a $400 emergency. So that bail money comes from their family rent / food money. That or they just sit in prison, and lose their jobs. So they may have all charges dropped but still end up financially devastated due to bail.

It's only refunded (minus fees) if you have thousands of dollars lying around. Poor people don't have that. They have to use a bail bond company, which means paying large sums of money they will never get back. Many poor people can't even afford to use a bail bond company and have to stay in jail, or plead guilty to a crime they didn't commit.

> which means paying large sums of money

And in the wonderful cycle of capitalism, that money is then used to fund ballot propositions to keep cash bail in place

I would say it's statism or cronyism rather than capitalism. It doesn't have anything to do with ownership of the means of production.

It's quite literally ownership of assets being leveraged to make more money. It's as indelibly tied to capitalism as any other type of loan.

Unless you meant "cash bail" and not "bail bonds"

Is that due to simple usury or due to cost of risk? In other words, if enough of the bailed pop. skips bail (complete loss for bondsman), that money has to come from somewhere --and that somewhere may be both honest and dishonest criminals as well as innocent suspects.

It's a mix of both.

The bail bond industry (like most "vice" industries) has much higher profit margins than comparable insurance companies: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/05/bail-bo...

The "losing large sums of money" was in reference to taking out a loan to pay the money, they are expensive. I feel like that was pretty clear in my comment.

I live in a country where there is no cash bail (France). Whether you walk free from a tribunal or end up in pre-trial detention is still pretty much based on the whims and desires of racist (and poor-loathing) police, judges and prosecutors. Notably, homeless people are almost systematically locked up for a year or two before they can face trial for what is usually harmless illegal activity they have committed (such as stealing food from a supermarket, or cracking a squat).

Reformism cannot help the people against the judicial system because the judicial system is not broken: it was designed to oppress the poor and the immigrants, and from this perspective it's quite efficient and well-oiled. No amount of good-will reform (short of police/prison abolition) can change much about it. I can admit the situation may be different in the USA, since i hear (from TV shows, sorry) you can be convicted/acquitted by a jury of your peers? If that existed in France (except for the "Assises" court), i can assure you prison population would not have been multiplied in the past decades for what usually amounts to selling weed, stealing from a supermarket, demonstrating against our overlords, or just being an arab/black person walking down the streets when the cops want to beat you up and accuse you of all the wrongs you can imagine.

Keeping a person in jail because they can't afford bail is obviously horrible for that person, and that should be reason enough to oppose it, but it can also be harmful for other people.

A poor person who is finally acquitted after months of waiting in jail is likely to be released to homelessness, unemployment, and debt. They will also be suffering from the mental and physical trauma of their incarceration, which makes it more difficult for them to deal with their situation. Crime may be the only realistic means for them to survive, even if they have never committed a crime before.

Eliminating cash bail doesn't get more people out of jail. It keeps more people in it.

The purpose of pre-trial release is to let those out who are unlikely to cause harm or flee while they await trial.

1) If someone poses no risk, they are released.

2) If someone poses a risk, they are detained.

3) If someone poses a risk and is detained, bail is a tool to allow them out and ensure they return. Without it, you just keep them in jail.

Cash bail certainly provides advantages to those with assets or credit, but this is a separate issue.

> bail is a tool to allow them out and ensure they return. Without it, you just keep them in jail.

This is where it breaks down. I don't think you need bail to make sure they come back.

You can already let those who pose no risk go without bail. What alternative do you propose for people who pose a flight risk?

Denying bail, which is a thing they already do for people who pose a flight risk.

So then you just keep everyone with a flight risk, which is more people than now.

Today those who are a low flight risk can put up collateral to make sure they come back

Unless they are poor. And, again, I don't believe you when you say a monetary stake is required to make them come back.

If a person is proven innocent, they just should get two more questions.

First, they should be asked if they believe the innocent person should be compensated for time and defense costs. Second, if they believe compensation is in order, they should be asked if they believe the prosecutor or the state should pay that bill.

Also NY repealed a state law, 50-A, which is one of the major laws preventing scrutiny and review of police departments and officers. Still more to go on that front though as the newly elected cop mayor rides a minor crime spike as if it were major and attempts to bring back the very prejudice/racist stop and frisk.

Is there anything preventing CA judges from setting bail at $1 in cases where a NY judge will now not set bail?

Judges can't do that because you can't just wholesale eliminate cash bail without other changes as you can't just release everyone. The new laws are necessary to introduce alternatives as part of that elimination.

For example, the law in California would give judges risk scores to switch to a risk based bail system.

Risk scoring has been problematic after AI/expert risk scoring systems produced politically unpalatable results.

It is difficult to see a productive way out of this dilemma since "correcting" the input data is a priori impossible to do in an objective way, and skewing the algorithms will almost certainly produce unintended effects (e.g. a violent criminal being underscored, released, then they victimize innocents again).

Whether the risk score is discriminatory on protected classes can be easily measured. (After implementing a risk score system, is the fraction of bail jumpers equivalent across groups?) I assume that kind of measurement is what prompted the overhaul of cash bail.

But unless the system is either completely perfect (i.e., its predictions are never wrong), or completely worthless because it ignores all input data and always gives the same risk score, then there will always be some measurement that says it's discriminatory on protected classes: https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.01195

The paper you linked to describes three different definitions of fairness that don't agree. I gave a single definition of fairness that is self-consistent.

Yes, if everyone agreed that your definition of fairness were the right one (which I personally do) then there'd be no problem. But in practice there will be people who want to use other ones (in some cases because they want to be able to say it's discriminatory).

A judge in CA could just do that, or even not charge any bail. They have a lot of discretion. However, some judges may decline to offer low (or no) bail. That's where the "no cash bail" elected officials come in. Some DAs, for example, make it policy not to ask for cash bail (and obviously the defense attorneys or defendants will also ask for no cash bail).

->Elimination of cash bail in many parts of the US, most importantly New York (we were also very close to eliminating cash bail in California, but bail bond companies invested heavily to stop that)

Let's have a look at the latest unintended consequences. One example from central New York one man was arrested and released without bail on 16 separate occasions between November and January. [1] This policy is not working for anybody, it isn't helping him, it isn't helping his victims. He would have been better off in jail where he could take some time to cool off.

[1] cnycentral.com/news/local/oswego-county-man-arrested-16-times-in-nearly-three-months-police-cite-bail-reform

Do US courts not have the ability to refuse bail to people like this? You'd have the same problem if he had enough cash to afford bail. It seems like a complete failure of the system for him to even have the option of not being held on remand until trial.

Yes, denying bail was always an option. Bail is non-sensical. Either their alleged crime is severe enough to allow them to be free before sentencing or it's not. Money doesn't need to be involved.

Might be more effective and cheaper to just help homeless people, rather than criminalize them like this.

> This is quite incorrect. There have been some pretty large changes in our criminal justice system over the last 2 years.

Do you have any examples? The biggest changes I've seen lately have been a result of COVID-19 and a judicial reform bill signed by Trump (in contrast to the law & order track record of Biden).

> Reform District Attorneys like Gascon have been elected in many major cities

Yes, and those crazed Red State loonies in San Francisco are trying to recall the king of all progressive DAs, Chesa Boudin. Gascon's next.

When San Francisco has a recall vote coming up for the DA of San Francisco, just decisively ousted progressive school board members, and the entire state had a recall election for the governor, one might imagine the progressive agenda isn't what normal people want. Claim all you want about the right orchestrating these events, but at the end of the day it was registered Democrats who got rid of the board members and it's registered Democrats that will oust Boudin.

For me it was Kony 2012 that taught me this. Here you have every person in the world with a focus on one goal: capture Joe Kony. Did it happen? No.

The internet is a memey money making machine and nothing more.

yes, sell branded merchandise. dropship Q-branded and BLM branded merch. two separate LLCs if you feel you need to. Like how Unilever owns Dove brand and Axe brand. Learn from the Dutch, they've been doing corporations for 600 years.

and derivatives like pitch fork futures.

and cake futures, because eventually they'll get hungry.

okay for the last two I was being facetious but for the first two I am dead serious.

It's called recouperation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recuperation_(politics)

I’m doing my part!

Thanks for that, didn't know it had a name.

> Everything no matter how niche is presented as an emergency.

It's "appeal to emotion", and it works.

> Amir Locke

This event was one administration too late to make a splash, unfortunately.

> BLM

They got exposed as Marxists, and everyone started distancing themselves, thankfully.

>They got exposed as Marxists, and everyone started distancing themselves, thankfully.

What does that mean though? Why would Marxism be a signal for avoiding the movement?

I don't know anything about Marxism.

Ideology responsible for millions of deaths by USSR, Communist China, Pol Pot and other similar regimes.

In its own terms, Marxism seeks an end to alienation and exploitation. That is to say, the Marxist vision is to create a utopian society. Heaven on Earth.

When heaven doesn't come, you need a scapegoat, and the Marxists start killing people.

Ukrainian pogroms, Great Leap Forward, Khmer Rouge, there's enough examples to be convinced that Marxism is inherently genocidal.

Because in America anything that isn’t Capitalism is viewed as the enemy after decades of propaganda against the USSR.

Marxism is socioeconomic analysis of class structures. Marx and Engel’s book Capital is largely a critique of capitalism. Vladimir Lenin expanded on these ideas with methods to transition to a communist society (another thing Marx wrote about). After Lenin died Stalin took power over the USSR and committed atrocities against mankind, fighting Nazis, and leading the country through an industrial revolution. Mao expanded on these ideas in China and is still on track with their 100 year plan written ~70 years ago (as far as I know).

Dismissing Marxism is good for capital and the ruling class as it views BLM as its enemy.

The whole notion of class struggle only serves to divide people and allow marxists to seize power. Lenin was not less evil than Stalin. USSR really really sucked (I was born in USSR).

Kids, don't do Marxism, not even once.

> After Lenin died Stalin took power over the USSR and committed atrocities against mankind

The Red Terror campaign under Lenin killed over a million people. Let's not pretend Stalin is the only one responsible for atrocities.

> Mao expanded on these ideas in China

Under Mao's brain-dead economic policies, China suffered the worst man made famine in history. China's recent acendency only came about after Deng Xiaoping's far reaching economic reforms. The idea that China is still following Mao's plan is ridiculous.

I am like a baby when it comes to political and cultural thought. I apologize if my questions are stupid.

Is Marxism a form of Socialism? And are the failings of the implementations throughout history a direct result of the ideology itself?

Read “The Gulag Archipelago”

It will fundamentally change how you view that system.

It shows that the Bolshevik Revolution really was bottom up. They implemented the teachings of Marx down to the letter. The violence and death was considered necessary by Marx himself.

The gulags started under Lenin and were simply continued under Stalin.

Most interestingly, people were so indoctrinated into the Marxist religion that they could be charged for a crime they knew they didn’t commit, be tortured for the required 6-9 months, sentenced to 10-25 years in a Gulag, find out that almost everyone else was innocent (often just captured to fulfill the prison quota), somehow survive the process, and come out the other side still singing the praises of the people and system that did all this to them.

Marxism is the most dangerous cult the world has ever seen and is responsible for more death and suffering than any other organization that has ever existed.

I would like to preface my comment the idea that I have limited knowledge of this entire field.

So it seems that leaders who have tried to implement Marxist ideas have committed great atrocities. Did they commit those atrocities in the name of Marxism, or were they corrupt and used Marxism as a guise for totalitarist actions?

Because class struggle is such a Hot Topic in Marxism, is the above the reason why the idea of class struggle is completely dismissed in America? The reason I ask is because there is a good long history of employers taking advantage of employees. And those employers having government support to do so. Although, most of my examples come from 1850-1920, there are still some issues that working people face today from their employers and the government. Unions aside, did the atrocities committed by Marxists contribute to stigma against questioning the status quo?

The people who lived through those times almost universally agree with its claims. The modern Marxists in the US claim they do not know what they are talking about. Personally, I was thoroughly convinced after reading for myself.

Read or listen to The Gulag Archipelego and decide for yourself. Given the HUGE political push in this direction, you should at least become acquainted with those who went there before, what happened to them, and why they believe it happened. This book tells stories of hundreds/thousands of people who survived that system and passed them on to be written in this book (which was itself something worthy of outright execution in Russia at that time).

Please understand my lack of education in this subject.

According to other comments Marxist governments have committed heinous crimes. I have asked questions about whether or not those crimes are the result of Marxism or the people who enforced it.

I understand that there is a large stigmatisation against criticizing capitalism and the free market in America. Capitalism and free market politics seem, as I have no real education for this type of thing, as though they've become symbols of America. And symbols and ideology are usually venerated.

I am left to wonder a few things:

If Marxism truly is responsible for suffering at scale, then why are there people still fervently attached to the idea? Is it a lack of historical context? Is it the same kind of idea why some people become neo-nazis; some romanticized ideation how the world should work?

Further despite any of this, why do people still espouse the idea of class distinctions? (This sounds like a very right sounding question).

Regardless of any political or economic theory or ideas, I personally think that there is a distinction between the interests of people who work for a wage ,the "average"person, and the people who govern / own property/production/govern. To dismiss this would ignore the whole industry of lobbying. With which the entire point is to further corporate interest in government. Whereas these interests may not necessarily be maligned against the average person, they are not in the interest of the average person.

I apologize for my ramblings as I don't have anybody to discuss this with. My final question becomes this: is Marxism a flawed system but still has some good ideas in it?

>If Marxism truly is responsible for suffering at scale, then why are there people still fervently attached to the idea? Is it a lack of historical context?

As a citizen of a former eastern bloc country, there is more than one reason. The first and most straightforward is the group who held jobs under socialism that barely created any economic value. Since being unemployed for a longer period of time was a criminal offense, a lot of these "bullshit jobs" were created to keep everyone occupied. These people had a rude awakening when a free market based economy had no need for their work.

The second group of people that are deeply disillusioned by the current status quo for various reasons. This group is much harder to define as their ideals combine both economic and social reform. I recommend reading Theodore Kacynski's Industrial Society and It's Future where he articulates his opinions better than I could in this reply. One notable catchphrase of this group is "real communism hasn't been tried" which is followed up by denying the atrocities committed by the soviets.

It's also a brand and national symbol in some places like you mentioned with capitalism. China is a de-facto capitalist dictatorship that is only socialist in name.

>is Marxism a flawed system but still has some good ideas in it?

Of course it has some good ideas. Nothing is black and white. And besides, one man's seized property is another man's government issued living space :^)

If you read the story of famous marxists on wikipedia (Lenin & Mao for example), you'll see a lot of parallels with the movement. The BLM org corresponds to Red Guard probably: the core force of the movement. That's why I think they've chosen a fist as their symbol (can you imagine a peaceful organisation rooting for unity using this symbol?). And just like other marxist regimes, those at the top quickly give up ideals, and start enriching themselves (I'm talking about that house shopping spree of the former BLMGN leader).

Marxism is a failed 19th century socioeconomic/political philosophy with a nine figure body count. Like Nazism, it is to be avoided at all costs.

> Why would Marxism be a signal for avoiding the movement?

Because lots of people have been affected by propaganda (both Leninist and capitalist) equating Marxism with Leninism (and it's descendants), and Leninism has a legitimately horrifying track record.

So is Marxism a victim of being connflated with people masquerading as Marxist committing atrocities?

> They got exposed as Marxists

How so? What are the signals of Marxism within the BLM movement?

What's the difference between Marxism & just unrealistic idealism?

One clear difference is the leaders enriching themselves without advancing the welfare of the people they claim to be promoting.

> One clear difference is the leaders enriching themselves without advancing the welfare of the people they claim to be promoting.

Ah yes that thing that famously only happens in Marxist political regimes.

"What's the difference between Marxism & just unrealistic idealism"

Difference between Marxism and unrealistic idealism, not between Marxism and other political regimes.

But I'd love to see an example of a Marxist regime bigger than a kibbutz that does not display that pattern, if you have one.

This is a nebulous question you are just going to move the goalposts whatever answer I give seeing as every political regime in history has some degree of enrichment for its leaders. This leaves aside the whole "name a successful example except for these successful examples"

Yeah, I couldn't come up with one, either.

Kibbutzim are questionably successful at best - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz_crisis for example, but they seem to be an upper scalability limit.

One of the BLM founders literally described herself and another founder as "trained Marxists". However that doesn't mean the movement itself is inherently Marxist. Hopefully we can all agree that Black lives do matter, even if some of the movement leaders hold abhorrent political views on other unrelated issues.

https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/jul/21/black-lives-m...

I do find it a bit odd though how someone who describes herself as a Marxist now owns multiple luxury homes.

https://www.blackenterprise.com/blm-co-founder-patrisse-khan...

Is it really that odd that someone in a position of prominence in a capitalist society who has a large income from many jobs is able to buy things? Marx himself sure didn't walk around in a loin cloth demanding people give up all worldly possessions so I'm not sure how this is a valid criticism.

> This event was one administration too late to make a splash, unfortunately.

Nice try but Black Lives Matter started after the Michael Brown shooting, which was during the Obama administration.

correction: first started after George Zimmerman was acquitted on murder charges for killing Trayvon Martin, which the year before Michael Brown was killed, still during the Obama administration.

> They got exposed as Marxists, and everyone started distancing themselves, thankfully.

What?

My understanding is that it's more of a collection of local initiatives.

It’s not like the NAACP that has a central leadership and a board.

> Everything no matter how niche is presented as an emergency

A phrase I heard recently for this is "Klaxon culture", and it seems to fit. Effectively, what used to be called information warfare, which was mainly practiced on enemy populations by military agents during war and near-war, has become a democratized, routine tool of domestic politics.

It destroys community, and atomizes populations, among other nasty consequences. I know for me, I have ended up ignoring "real" issues I would have had interest in trying to help with, because I was ignoring the bullshit-machine.

Welcome to the future.

I have seen this in real life, my sister cut off contact with my family as we differed with her over a couple social issues. Not even differed, we just did not take them as seriously as she did. Have not spoken to her in over 3 years. Pretty strange.

I’ve seen this happen. Usually the person who leaves calls the others Nazis, un-evolved, redneck, whatever. It’s a strong sense of superiority.

I’m curious to see how long, if ever it takes for the average person who does this to realize they over-reacted, or how long it takes for the other party to see the light.

I'd say its almost certainly true that foreign actors are playing a large role in encouraging its appearance in domestic politics.

But the biggest driver is the mainstream media who no longer have a business model (destroyed by the internet). So now they just generate fake controversy as cheaply as possible, to attract eyeballs for advertisers. And there is nothing cheaper than opinion. Hot-button issues like racism etc are perfect for this.

>its almost certainly true that foreign actors are playing a large role in encouraging its appearance in domestic politics

I would say it's foreign and domestic actors.

> The Amir Locke shooting has not really taken on a national protest atmosphere

Well, remember - BLM has been around since 2012 (when Trayvon Martin was shot). They did sponsor some protests here and there (Michael Brown, Freddie Gray) but didn't capture the entire country until 2020. So what was different? I really think it was two things: Donald Trump and corona virus lockdowns. The protests were likely 50% Donald Trump protests and 50% an excuse to get out of the house after having been locked down for a year. Now we don't have either thing, so we're back to "normal" for BLM.

I'd say it was 1/4 Trump 1/4 lockdowns 1/4 the emotional visual imagery of the knee on the neck 1/4 social media penetration of 2020s compared to 2012

I think that the fact that we had irrefutable video evidence of it happening (as opposed to e.g. Martin or other "well the officer thought he had a gun" events) made it much easier to gain traction in the public consciousness. There was no split-second-bad-decisions that could be claimed (such as when officers shot the man for not obeying conflicting commands), just multiple minutes of sickening brutality.

> and 50% an excuse to get out of the house after having been locked down for a year.

Let's not mess up the timeline - at that point it had only been like two or three months.

Internet discourse will never resemble the church in its capacity to pursue political ends. Sometimes these ends are a good, sometimes, to many people, they are a wrong, but that structure gets people in the habit of concentration and concentrated effort.

For all my dislike of BLM, it is hard to argue that they did not have impact on culture, nation psyche or even law framework. I agree with your 'next emergency' characterization though.

A few decade ago nobody really cared about black history month in Canada — it was basically a non event. Now I see black history month based ads and programs on TV all the time in Canada. Black issues have a disproportionate media and culture presence in Canada given the small proportion of black people in Canada. You also see numerous Canadian companies making statements regarding black issues and events. You never hear about Asian history month or Native American history month. You also never hear Canadian companies making statements regarding Native issues and events such as the genocide of Native people and culture just a few decades ago. In Canada BLM has greatly raised the profile of black issues and somewhat effectively pushed the “silence is compliance” narrative which many companies have bought into.

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