Comments

1

Where is Joe Biden?

Well, for one, he was at a Black Lives Matter protest in Delaware this weekend. But that doesn't really fit in with The Stranger's "he's an evil centrist" narrative does it?

2

@1 - Thank you.

3

SLOG covered the demonstrations well. Thank you.

4

I seem to recall another story about a tyrannical fascist megalomaniac hiding out in a basement bunker as ANTIFA super-troops closed in. At least that one ended well.

5

Last night I watched a fuck ton of videos (mostly on Twitter, a platform I do not use) of cops across the country assaulting protesters - people sitting, people walking away, people exercising their rights - cop shoving people, punching people, walking over them, driving over them, even knocking them down, kicking them, throwing them, dragging them, and even having their horse walk on them. I watched them punch people, pepper spray people, scream at people beat people with their hands, with batons, shoot at them with rubber bullets, etc. It was truly horrific.

Here is just one video (that shows numerous incidents
https://twitter.com/whyadore/status/1266960236432130050

All I could do was cry because I couldn't scream.

The police are making this situation 1000% times worse. They are so angry that people are demanding that they be held accountable (once and for all) for their brutality, their militarized policing, their endless and relentless killing of black people that they are lashing out with an gross amount of even MORE brutality. And it's all on video and all being photographed AND THEY DO NOT CARE. So let's not kid ourselves, folks, this problem, that exists because cops keep murdering black people, is being purposely and with malicious intent, exacerbated by cops committing more violence. And they pretty much believe they will get away with all of it otherwise why would they be doing it?

Meanwhile Trump turned out all of the lights in the White House and what? Hid in the basement?

Images of police using violence against peaceful protesters are going viral
Police responded to protests across the nation with excessive force.
https://www.vox.com/2020/5/31/21275994/police-violence-peaceful-protesters-images

Caught on camera, police explode in rage and violence across the US
America’s occupation by militarized police is in full view
https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/31/21276044/police-violence-protest-george-floyd

This is insanity - why are cops dressed like they are in war zones?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=20&v=f3TFV2bTj38&feature=emb_logo

https://twitter.com/JasonChirevas/status/1267219047315374082
Police in most every city in which #protests2020 have taken place have been caught on video assaulting, beating, brutalizing and shooting pepper and rubber bullets at non-violent protesters and members of the media.
Every city.
That’s not an accident.
That’s a directive.

6

Hold on a moment. So Christopher Frizzelle is all up in arms about the police response when a protest devolves into a riot and yet several months ago he was vapidly head over heels for the ultimate protector of bad cops and the consummate corporatist Dem, former CA AG and SF DA Kamala Harris?!

This is how you preserve the status quo.

Just like when you make insane, stupid demands like "When is (Joe Biden) going to come out in favor of reparations?" If I were a writer for a left-leaning alt bi-weekly, this is exactly the kind of rhetoric I would be engaging in if I were getting paid under the table by Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale.

I think Christopher Frizzelle deserves the "Thomas L. Friedman Award for Discredited Media Commentators who Should Just Retire FFS."

8

SPD is a street gang.

11

The Joe Biden bit is an incredibly irresponsible bit of Straw Man journalism. Joe Biden has released multiple statements about this, has talked with organizers and families of victims, and is actively at a black church in Delaware.

Christopher Frizelle needs to edit this bad take, and do the 10 second google search necessary to find what Joe Biden is doing right now.

12

Thank you for the coverage Christopher!

14

It was a rough weekend. I get it. But Chris, you and the Stranger need to drop your little anti-Biden crusade or whatever the fuck it is, like, yesterday. You know damn well he's issued multiple statements on this and even attended one of the protests in Wilmington. There's pictures of it all over the internet. Stop.

16

@ 10,

Regardless of who is responsible for the looting and violence, what else can desperate people do? We've had decades of police terrorizing, harassing, and murdering people of color with impunity, followed by futile peaceful protests, followed by decades of failed police reforms.

The police cannot be reformed, that's obvious. They think the videos are the problem, not the inhuman, systematic victimization of innocent men, women, and children.

Remember the guy that was laying face down on the pavement with his arms outstretched in compliance and surrender? The police shot him anyway.

There is nothing else the people can do in a society that doesn't give a shit in the slightest about the lives of people of color, but openly weeps over smashed windows at the Gap.

Smear the victims, sneer at the protesters, blame the journalists for reporting on brutality and atrocities. That seems to be all that "centrist" America has got left now that the mask is off and the phony rhetoric about equality and freedom is dead.

We need a national Truth and Reconciliation commission if we're going to make it out of this alive, rather than suffer a violent and chaotic Yugoslavia-style collapse.

19

Oh, and it's also worth noting that the same "centrists" that tsk-tsk over smashed windows don't care at all about the white billionaires currently looting the US Treasury for trillions of dollars stolen.

Poor people looting is a national tragedy; white billionaires looting is a statistic.

20

Four, from my Favorite -- Democracy Now: "A Class Rebellion: Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor on How Racism & Racial Terrorism Fueled Nationwide Anger"

https://www.democracynow.org/2020/6/1/keeanga_yamahtta_taylor_protests_class_rebellion

"'America Has Looted Black People. We Learned It from You' Says Women’s March Activist Tamika Mallory"

https://www.democracynow.org/2020/6/1/tamika_mallory_speech_police_brutality

"'My Vanishing Country": Mass Protests Rise from 400 Years of Systemic Racism, Says Bakari Sellers"

https://www.democracynow.org/2020/6/1/bakari_sellers_400_years_systemic_racism

"'“America’s Moment of Reckoning': Cornel West Says Nationwide Uprising Is Sign of 'Empire Imploding'"

https://www.democracynow.org/2020/6/1/cornel_west_us_moment_of_reckoning

21

Where is Christopher Frizzelle?

22

Bringing your child to an event that has a high probability for violence is beyond irresponsible. Maybe the Stranger staff can work on getting the parents reported to CPS.

23

The bit implying Biden is aloof, indifferent, not involved: totally ill-informed and unfair. I mean, do you do any fact-checking at all? Echoing several earlier comments: stop with cheap shots about Biden and do some research. Be a journalist, not a snarky shill for those who hate the Democratic Party.

23

"Intel CEO says: Black Lives Matter."

They're not Alone.
I'm not much on shilling
for KkKorpsAmerikana™
but Credit where it's Due:

"As tensions flared around the country after George Floyd’s death under a policeman’s knee, protesters received support from an unexpected corner: corporate America.

Companies like Nike, Twitter and Citigroup have aligned themselves with the Black Lives Matter movement.

As Netflix posted on Twitter on Saturday: 'To be silent is to be complicit. Black lives matter. We have a platform, and we have a duty to our Black members, employees, creators and talent to speak up.” --Tiffany Hsu; May 31, 2020

Will they corrupt it (seems like when Shareholder Value trumps all human Values we the people and this amazing little Blue Planet are Always the ones that suffer)?

Probably.
But it's a Start.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/business/media/companies-marketing-black-lives-matter-george-floyd.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage

24

Hands up, don't loot! Durkan will turn you into a newt!

Also, reparations, that shit ain't never gonna happen.

26

Is this Biden bashing gonna be the Strangers MO thru the Election? You guys working for trumpfy/the Ruskies? You know, they're not really (mostly) Commies over there any longer.

27

@25 -- the Virus never Sleeps.

The Great Culling of the Herd is
about to begin in earnest. Again.

28

@6 Please point me to when I said I was "head over heels" for Kamala. I've never supported Kamala for president. I have written posts that say her debate performances — especially ones that reduced Biden to a sputtering mess — were effective. She landed punches. She also locked up a lot of brown and black people in California for crimes that never got white people locked up. The only presidential candidate I've been head over heels for this election cycle is Elizabeth Warren.

30

@29 and Hitler at least had the decency to kill himself in his bunker, and Nixon had the balls to go outside and met with Vietnam protestors. Trump really can't do anything right.

31

@29 - The Tough Guy. The biggest crisis he's ever faced has been defaulting on a bank loan.

35

Reparations are extraordinarily unpopular with voters, even Democratic voters. Whatever the merits of the concept, it would be politically irresponsible for Biden to say he supports reparations.

37

@1, @2, @11, @14, @17 Answers to your questions are here: https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2020/06/01/43813129/joe-biden-vows-to-create-federal-police-oversight-and-fight-racism

38

Christopher Frizzelle @28, if the following is not head over heels, I don't know what is:
"I know it's been four days since the Democratic debate, which is like 300 years in Trump time, and President Photo-Op and the blonde jackal and the Junior Mint are all vying for our attention with their dangerous stupidity. But I can't stop thinking about Kamala Harris.
"I'm not alone. All weekend long—all through Seattle's Pride celebration—people in rainbow face paint, people in leather harnesses, people in nothing but jockstraps, were talking about Kamala."

"On a personal note, I was thinking my dream ticket was Warren/Buttigieg, but hmmm, what about..." (picture of Harris with Warren)

https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2019/07/01/40642341/kamala-harriss-stunning-moment-at-the-debate-against-joe-biden

What's next, dreaming about Nikki Haley on a presidential ticket because she can land a few good punches?

And what so aroused Mr. Frizzelle's political erogenous zones as if he were Chris Matthews feeling a thrill up his leg about Barack Obama? The totally disingenuous, race-baiting hit job on Joe Biden that established Harris's credentials as a politician who wasn't afraid to use her ethnic background and identity politics to get ahead. Just like she wasn't afraid to get ahead with the help of her married ex-boyfriend Willie Brown or the California uber-rich she's cozied up to through the years.

In fairness though to Christopher here, his gushing over Kamala Harris and his subsequent running away from it is nowhere near as shameful or out-of-touch as his out-of-the-blue attempt just now to shame Joe Biden over reparations.

39

rolando74 @35, if someone in the Biden campaign is pushing for him to come out in favor of reparations, that's an indication that there's a Trump mole in the Biden campaign.

43

Re: the concern trolling about social distancing - a few things:

Protests could spread COVID-19—but police actions are dramatically increasing that risk
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/6/1/1949364/-Protests-could-spread-COVID-19-but-police-actions-are-dramatically-increasing-that-risk

Protesters are actually wearing masks.

from IA on the Portland Mercury:
Are people really griping about the lack of social distancing amongst protesters who mobilized after a globally televised murder? Really? Wow. It must be nice to live such a privileged existence. But, I'm certain you won't understand just how silly you sound atop that (very) ivory tower where the only obstacle to breathing is the smell of your own natal cleft. Get your head out of there and try a tad bit harder to understand what's happening around you. Give me, and everyone else a freakin' break.

An Article from the Cut:
What’s More Deadly “I’m terrified of the coronavirus… But I had to choose which virus poses the biggest threat. And that’s the police.”
https://www.thecut.com/2020/05/minneapolis-youth-fear-coronavirus-but-protest-anyway.html

And a reality check:
States are opening up and forcing people back to work (when it's not safe). Outbreaks keep happening at food processing plants and Amazon warehouses.

The people protesting are not the ones who are leading the charge for the second wave of COVID-19. Beaches are PACKED, people are flooding into tourist areas not wearing masks, demanding to be allowed into restaurants and hotels, partying and playing and gathering in huge numbers to celebrate their "freedumb."

People are going to the beaches, lakes, and vacation areas, jamming tiny communities that have next to no medical facilities and pretending that they can do whatever they want! They only care about themselves.

All of the people shown on the news at pool parties and bars and outdoor areas living it up like there is nothing to worry about are the next huge wave of sick people and vectors. Many of them have already begun to test positive for the virus and who knows how many people they spread it to while asymptomatic.

By the time July 4 hits, we're going to be well into hundreds of thousands more sick and who knows how many dead.

Until testing can be done on everyone, repeatedly, there will be no end to the cycle of sickness, shutdowns, and stupidity.

44

I've never seen a staff writer get so defensive on Slog comments before. Hopefully, this is just an aberration.

45

@34 - They showed up in Spokane. Protests had been peaceful throughout the day, and a few cops even kneeled before the crowd to show solidarity. In the evening, Proud Boys, 3%ers, and some N. Idaho militia terrorists showed up and started raising hell downtown, leading to tear gas and rubber bullets.

They were bragging about it on social media. Evidently, there's some movement among white supremacists to stoke these riots. I'm not sure about the purpose, but probably to rile up white America against the supposed chaos of black and brown people and begin a race reckoning or some other violent fantasy.


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