Disturbing video has surfaced of a black suspect, Javier Ambler,
killed in an encounter with police last year. The arrest took place during the
filming of an episode of A&E's "Live PD" television show
George Floyd & Rayshard Brooks: The Aftermath
Disturbing video has surfaced of a black suspect, Javier Ambler,
killed in an encounter with police last year. The arrest took place during the
filming of an episode of A&E's "Live PD" television show
Minds are like parachutes.
They only function when open.
They only function when open.
Wilfred Reilly @wil_da_beast630
I can confirm that the letter in the thread below was sent to me and
Tom Sowell. It's really worth reading, in a time of widespread panic.
UC Berkeley History Professor's Open Letter
Against BLM, Police Brutality
and Cultural Orthodoxy
Dear Professors,
I am one of your colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley. I have met you both personally but do not know you closely, and am contacting you anonymously, with apologies. I am worried that writing this email publicly might lead to me losing my job, and likely all future jobs in my field.
In your recent departmental emails you mentioned our pledge to diversity, but I am increasingly alarmed by the absence of diversity of opinion on the topic of the recent protests and our community response to them.
In the extended links and resources you provided, I could not find a single instance of substantial counter-argument or alternative narrative to explain the under-representation of black individuals in academia or their over-representation in the criminal justice system. The explanation provided in your documentation, to the near exclusion of all others, is univariate: the problems of the black community are caused by whites, or, when whites are not physically present, by the infiltration of white supremacy and white systemic racism into American brains, souls, and institutions.
Many cogent objections to this thesis have been raised by sober voices, including from within the black community itself, such as Thomas Sowell and Wilfred Reilly. These people are not racists or 'Uncle Toms'. They are intelligent scholars who reject a narrative that strips black people of agency and systematically externalizes the problems of the black community onto outsiders. Their view is entirely absent from the departmental and UCB-wide communiques.
The claim that the difficulties that the black community faces are entirely causally explained by exogenous factors in the form of white systemic racism, white supremacy, and other forms of white discrimination remains a problematic hypothesis that should be vigorously challenged by historians. Instead, it is being treated as an axiomatic and actionable truth without serious consideration of its profound flaws, or its worrying implication of total black impotence. This hypothesis is transforming our institution and our culture, without any space for dissent outside of a tightly policed, narrow discourse.
A counternarrative exists. If you have time, please consider examining some of the documents I attach at the end of this email. Overwhelmingly, the reasoning provided by BLM and allies is either primarily anecdotal (as in the case with the bulk of Ta-Nehisi Coates' undeniably moving article) or it is transparently motivated. As an example of the latter problem, consider the proportion of black incarcerated Americans. This proportion is often used to characterize the criminal justice system as anti-black. However, if we use the precise same methodology, we would have to conclude that the criminal justice system is even more anti-male than it is anti-black.
Would we characterize criminal justice as a systemically misandrist conspiracy against innocent American men? I hope you see that this type of reasoning is flawed, and requires a significant suspension of our rational faculties. Black people are not incarcerated at higher rates than their involvement in violent crime would predict. This fact has been demonstrated multiple times across multiple jurisdictions in multiple countries.
And yet, I see my department uncritically reproducing a narrative that diminishes black agency in favor of a white-centric explanation that appeals to the department's apparent desire to shoulder the 'white man's burden' and to promote a narrative of white guilt.
If we claim that the criminal justice system is white-supremacist, why is it that Asian Americans, Indian Americans, and Nigerian Americans are incarcerated at vastly lower rates than white Americans? This is a funny sort of white supremacy.
Even Jewish Americans are incarcerated less than gentile whites. I think it's fair to say that your average white supremacist disapproves of Jews. And yet, these alleged white supremacists incarcerate gentiles at vastly higher rates than Jews. None of this is addressed in your literature. None of this is explained, beyond hand-waving and ad hominems. "Those are racist dogwhistles". "The model minority myth is white supremacist". "Only fascists talk about black-on-black crime", ad nauseam.
These types of statements do not amount to counterarguments: they are simply arbitrary offensive classifications, intended to silence and oppress discourse. Any serious historian will recognize these for the silencing orthodoxy tactics they are, common to suppressive regimes, doctrines, and religions throughout time and space. They are intended to crush real diversity and permanently exile the culture of robust criticism from our department.
Increasingly, we are being called upon to comply and subscribe to BLM's problematic view of history, and the department is being presented as unified on the matter. In particular, ethnic minorities are being aggressively marshaled into a single position. Any apparent unity is surely a function of the fact that dissent could almost certainly lead to expulsion or cancellation for those of us in a precarious position, which is no small number.
I personally don't dare speak out against the BLM narrative, and with this barrage of alleged unity being mass-produced by the administration, tenured professoriat, the UC administration, corporate America, and the media, the punishment for dissent is a clear danger at a time of widespread economic vulnerability. I am certain that if my name were attached to this email, I would lose my job and all future jobs, even though I believe in and can justify every word I type.
The vast majority of violence visited on the black community is committed by black people. There are virtually no marches for these invisible victims, no public silences, no heartfelt letters from the UC regents, deans, and departmental heads. The message is clear: Black lives only matter when whites take them. Black violence is expected and insoluble, while white violence requires explanation and demands solution. Please look into your hearts and see how monstrously bigoted this formulation truly is.
No discussion is permitted for nonblack victims of black violence, who proportionally outnumber black victims of nonblack violence. This is especially bitter in the Bay Area, where Asian victimization by black assailants has reached epidemic proportions, to the point that the SF police chief has advised Asians to stop hanging good-luck charms on their doors, as this attracts the attention of (overwhelmingly black) home invaders.
Home invaders like George Floyd. For this actual, lived, physically experienced reality of violence in the USA, there are no marches, no tearful emails from departmental heads, no support from McDonald's and Wal-Mart. For the History department, our silence is not a mere abrogation of our duty to shed light on the truth: it is a rejection of it.
The claim that black intraracial violence is the product of redlining, slavery, and other injustices is a largely historical claim. It is for historians, therefore, to explain why Japanese internment or the massacre of European Jewry hasn't led to equivalent rates of dysfunction and low SES performance among Japanese and Jewish Americans respectively. Arab Americans have been viciously demonized since 9/11, as have Chinese Americans more recently. However, both groups outperform white Americans on nearly all SES indices - as do Nigerian Americans, who incidentally have black skin. It is for historians to point out and discuss these anomalies. However, no real discussion is possible in the current climate at our department. The explanation is provided to us, disagreement with it is racist, and the job of historians is to further explore additional ways in which the explanation is additionally correct. This is a mockery of the historical profession.
Most troublingly, our department appears to have been entirely captured by the interests of the Democratic National Convention, and the Democratic Party more broadly. To explain what I mean, consider what happens if you choose to donate to Black Lives Matter, an organization UCB History has explicitly promoted in its recent mailers. All donations to the official BLM website are immediately redirected to ActBlue Charities, an organization primarily concerned with bankrolling election campaigns for Democrat candidates. Donating to BLM today is to indirectly donate to Joe Biden's 2020 campaign. This is grotesque given the fact that the American cities with the worst rates of black-on-black violence and police-on-black violence are overwhelmingly Democrat-run. Minneapolis itself has been entirely in the hands of Democrats for over five decades; the 'systemic racism' there was built by successive Democrat administrations.
The patronizing and condescending attitudes of Democrat leaders towards the black community, exemplified by nearly every Biden statement on the black race, all but guarantee a perpetual state of misery, resentment, poverty, and the attendant grievance politics which are simultaneously annihilating American political discourse and black lives. And yet, donating to BLM is bankrolling the election campaigns of men like Mayor Frey, who saw their cities devolve into violence. This is a grotesque capture of a good-faith movement for necessary police reform, and of our department, by a political party. Even worse, there are virtually no avenues for dissent in academic circles. I refuse to serve the Party, and so should you.
The total alliance of major corporations involved in human exploitation with BLM should be a warning flag to us, and yet this damning evidence goes unnoticed, purposefully ignored, or perversely celebrated. We are the useful idiots of the wealthiest classes , carrying water for Jeff Bezos and other actual, real, modern-day slavers.
Starbucks, an organisation using literal black slaves in its coffee plantation suppliers, is in favor of BLM. Sony, an organisation using cobalt mined by yet more literal black slaves, many of whom are children, is in favor of BLM. And so, apparently, are we. The absence of counter-narrative enables this obscenity. Fiat lux, indeed.
There also exists a large constituency of what can only be called 'race hustlers': hucksters of all colors who benefit from stoking the fires of racial conflict to secure administrative jobs, charity management positions, academic jobs and advancement, or personal political entrepreneurship.
Given the direction our history department appears to be taking far from any commitment to truth, we can regard ourselves as a formative training institution for this brand of snake-oil salespeople. Their activities are corrosive, demolishing any hope at harmonious racial coexistence in our nation and colonizing our political and institutional life. Many of their voices are unironically segregationist.
MLK would likely be called an Uncle Tom if he spoke on our campus today. We are training leaders who intend, explicitly, to destroy one of the only truly successful ethnically diverse societies in modern history. As the PRC, an ethnonationalist and aggressively racially chauvinist national polity with null immigration and no concept of jus solis increasingly presents itself as the global political alternative to the US, I ask you: Is this wise? Are we really doing the right thing?
As a final point, our university and department has made multiple statements celebrating and eulogizing George Floyd. Floyd was a multiple felon who once held a pregnant black woman at gunpoint. He broke into her home with a gang of men and pointed a gun at her pregnant stomach. He terrorized the women in his community. He sired and abandoned multiple children, playing no part in their support or upbringing, failing one of the most basic tests of decency for a human being. He was a drug-addict and sometime drug-dealer, a swindler who preyed upon his honest and hard-working neighbors.
And yet, the regents of UC and the historians of the UCB History department are celebrating this violent criminal, elevating his name to virtual sainthood. A man who hurt women. A man who hurt black women. With the full collaboration of the UCB history department, corporate America, most mainstream media outlets, and some of the wealthiest and most privileged opinion-shaping elites of the USA, he has become a culture hero, buried in a golden casket, his (recognized) family showered with gifts and praise. Americans are being socially pressured into kneeling for this violent, abusive misogynist. A generation of black men are being coerced into identifying with George Floyd, the absolute worst specimen of our race and species.
I'm ashamed of my department. I would say that I'm ashamed of both of you, but perhaps you agree with me, and are simply afraid, as I am, of the backlash of speaking the truth. It's hard to know what kneeling means, when you have to kneel to keep your job.
It shouldn't affect the strength of my argument above, but for the record, I write as a person of color. My family have been personally victimized by men like Floyd.
We are aware of the condescending depredations of the Democrat party against our race. The humiliating assumption that we are too stupid to do STEM, that we need special help and lower requirements to get ahead in life, is richly familiar to us. I sometimes wonder if it wouldn't be easier to deal with open fascists, who at least would be straightforward in calling me a subhuman, and who are unlikely to share my race.
The ever-present soft bigotry of low expectations and the permanent claim that the solutions to the plight of my people rest exclusively on the goodwill of whites rather than on our own hard work is psychologically devastating. No other group in America is systematically demoralized in this way by its alleged allies. A whole generation of black children are being taught that only by begging and weeping and screaming will they get handouts from guilt-ridden whites.
No message will more surely devastate their futures, especially if whites run out of guilt, or indeed if America runs out of whites. If this had been done to Japanese Americans, or Jewish Americans, or Chinese Americans, then Chinatown and Japantown would surely be no different to the roughest parts of Baltimore and East St. Louis today. The History department of UCB is now an integral institutional promulgator of a destructive and denigrating fallacy about the black race.
I hope you appreciate the frustration behind this message. I do not support BLM. I do not support the Democrat grievance agenda and the Party's uncontested capture of our department. I do not support the Party co-opting my race, as Biden recently did in his disturbing interview, claiming that voting Democrat and being black are isomorphic. I condemn the manner of George Floyd's death and join you in calling for greater police accountability and police reform. However, I will not pretend that George Floyd was anything other than a violent misogynist, a brutal man who met a predictably brutal end.
I also want to protect the practice of history. Cleo is no grovelling handmaiden to politicians and corporations. Like us, she is free.
[/b]
David Reaboi
@davereaboi Jun 12
If ⁦@FoxNews drops Tucker, turn off Fox and don’t turn it back on.
Tucker Carlson Advertisers Depart After ‘Black Lives’ Comment
By Gerry Smith June 11, 2020,
Disney, Papa John’s, T-Mobile latest to pull spots from show
Carlson says moment is ‘definitely not about black lives’
Walt Disney Co., Papa John’s International Inc. and T-Mobile US Inc. said this week they would no longer advertise on his show after he sparked an uproar in addressing the global protests over police brutality and racial inequality.
“This may be a lot of things, this moment we are living through,” he said Monday on his Fox News show, “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” “But it is definitely not about black lives and remember that when they come for you, and at this rate, they will.”
FULL STORY:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... es-comment
Minds are like parachutes.
They only function when open.
They only function when open.
The shooting of is reminiscent of the murder of Walter Scott,
the South Carolina man who was shot and killed by North
Charleston police Officer Michael Slager.
The shooting is also similar to the death of California rapper Willie Bo
who was fatally shot by police while sleeping in his car outside of a
Taco Bell in Feb. 2019.
The Wendy's which was the scene of the shooting
has now been set ablaze.
Soundtrack on this version allows precise
timing of the use of taser and gunshots:
More Eyewitness testimony says that Rayshard Brooks
was non-violent for 20 minutes interaction with police:
Minds are like parachutes.
They only function when open.
They only function when open.
anyone heard anything about the nation-wide fireworks psyop in the US?
at least dozens, possibly hundreds of cities, large and small, with the same thing going on--loud and numerous fireworks between the hours of 8pm and 2am, every night. pallets of fireworks are being distributed... sleep deprivation, desensitization to things that go "boom" and "bang", etc. it started very shortly after these protests started...
clearly this a coordinated psyop of some sort... like bait-bricks times 1,000. seems a prelude to a hot war...
at least dozens, possibly hundreds of cities, large and small, with the same thing going on--loud and numerous fireworks between the hours of 8pm and 2am, every night. pallets of fireworks are being distributed... sleep deprivation, desensitization to things that go "boom" and "bang", etc. it started very shortly after these protests started...
clearly this a coordinated psyop of some sort... like bait-bricks times 1,000. seems a prelude to a hot war...
Can't be beat, won't be beat, etc.
Hearing a range of theories on this.and i wrote:anyone heard anything about the nation-wide fireworks psyop in the US?
at least dozens, possibly hundreds of cities, large and small, with the same thing going on--loud and numerous fireworks between the hours of 8pm and 2am, every night. pallets of fireworks are being distributed... sleep deprivation, desensitization to things that go "boom" and "bang", etc. it started very shortly after these protests started...
clearly this a coordinated psyop of some sort... like bait-bricks times 1,000. seems a prelude to a hot war...
1. What you basically just said.
2. It is to destabilize black communities specifically. (Nikole Hannah-Jones of the NYT/1619 Project fame is perpetuating this theory on Twitter)
3. It's the cops. Protesting budget cuts or calls of "we don't need you".
4. It's people protesting and showing solidarity with BLM.
5. People are bored. Stuck at home.
6. More people are noticing what always happens anyway because they can't go out on the weekends.
7. There is a surplus of fireworks being sold on the black market because July 4th is #cancelled.
I am more inclined to believe #5-#7 as closer to the truth.
I do expect there to be an uptick of incidents of violence and skirmishes through November (and beyond) but I expect it to be more like the late 60's early 70s (which if anyone here is old enough to recall, not me, were apparently fucking crazy). There will be many strange offshoot groups and cults on the left and right. Antifa and Proud Boys will probably seem tame by comparison. Think: Weather Underground, Manson Family. Whether this is perpetuated by intelligence agencies is another story (and quite possibly correct).
In my opinion, the idea that this will lead to another civil war is still definitely fake news.
This is all very tame compared to say...the Chinese Cultural Revolution, or 1860s USA, 1920s labor riots, or countless race riots. These statues coming down and fireworks going off are nothing by comparison.
I don't love Vox...but this is a decent summary of everything I just listed , and they make the point that it really isn't nation wide. Mostly NYC and Boston. Friends confirm in both cities that it is happening, but can't tell if it's actually that different from prior years:
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/6/22 ... ern-cities
Thanks @bri for your reply, and for that article which I'll read today. I appreciate your insight, and one thing that BFN has taught me over the years is to be objective and find credible sources before reaching conclusions.
One theory that isn't on your list is on the top of mine. The "boogaloo" movement is behind this, and it's a prelude the civil war they are actively planning to incite.
It's not mainly NYC and Boston. this is happening in dozens of cities, and there is no doubt that it is way above and beyond the "normal" fireworks usage during this time of year. I can confirm that in my city. Every night. Not just sparklers and Roman candles but M-80s, and continuing most nights until 2am. Fireworks complaints are up thousands of percentage points. I've seen many posts on facebook and Twitter with comments from people in literally dozens of cities saying the same thing.
Most people writing about it from those dozens of cities seems to believe "it's the cops / fire dept", and there is some proof there.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 79871.html
note here the mention of "fireworks" being part of what was seized. also, it should be clear that these are the people (other than police) initiating violence / turning protests into riots. There is so much proof of that I won't even bother.
https://abcnews.go.com/ABCNews/feds-cha ... d=71059377
The FBI, who infiltrates every far left and far right group operating on american soil, believes they plan to escalate violence.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/1 ... -dc-329771
And the boogaloo movement itself is pretty openly using these exact tactics and not hiding their intentions.
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2020/05 ... you-think/
One theory that isn't on your list is on the top of mine. The "boogaloo" movement is behind this, and it's a prelude the civil war they are actively planning to incite.
It's not mainly NYC and Boston. this is happening in dozens of cities, and there is no doubt that it is way above and beyond the "normal" fireworks usage during this time of year. I can confirm that in my city. Every night. Not just sparklers and Roman candles but M-80s, and continuing most nights until 2am. Fireworks complaints are up thousands of percentage points. I've seen many posts on facebook and Twitter with comments from people in literally dozens of cities saying the same thing.
Most people writing about it from those dozens of cities seems to believe "it's the cops / fire dept", and there is some proof there.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 79871.html
note here the mention of "fireworks" being part of what was seized. also, it should be clear that these are the people (other than police) initiating violence / turning protests into riots. There is so much proof of that I won't even bother.
https://abcnews.go.com/ABCNews/feds-cha ... d=71059377
The FBI, who infiltrates every far left and far right group operating on american soil, believes they plan to escalate violence.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/1 ... -dc-329771
And the boogaloo movement itself is pretty openly using these exact tactics and not hiding their intentions.
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2020/05 ... you-think/
Can't be beat, won't be beat, etc.
Antifa and Proud Boys will probably seem tame by comparison.
Almost forgot about the Boogaloo boys.
That would be a perfect example of what I said in the above quote.
https://www.voanews.com/usa/race-americ ... -civil-war
My guess is that they're a heavily infiltrated group, or will be.
Minds are like parachutes.
They only function when open.
They only function when open.
What you are about to see is part of a two year undercover investigation
into the leftist radicalization embedded within the climate justice movements,
which played a part in the resent unrest in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
In this first video, we are going to show how the Sunrise Movement played
an instrumental role in carrying out mayhem in the name of bringing about
the Green New Deal.
https://www.millennialmillie.com/post/u ... preplanned
On the surface, the Sunrise Movement is group of peaceful young activists
fighting for a “Green New Deal”. On a deeper level, they are a gateway to
radicalization teaching young activists how to exploit tragedy, including
one’s own victimization, for political gain.
https://www.millennialmillie.com/post/u ... rtion-ring
Minds are like parachutes.
They only function when open.
They only function when open.