241–250 of 325 posts
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The previous two comments where about tribalism. I think tribalism has a lot to do with this forgetfulness of inconvenient facts
If your point is that people on both the right and the left are capable of immoral behavior and that we should condemn, I agree with you! I think I missed the point you were trying to make because it appeared that you were only highlighting and correlating heinous acts from one person who supported a position that you disagree with.
But this is a thread about BLM, so I'm bringing up an issue related to that.
For a personal take, I avoid any tribe where I see this forgetfullness and will point it out. This behaviour is gaslighting and can be a traumatic experience
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> In fact, republicans/conservatives could hardly get any better support for their claim that BLM supporters are radical marxists. I've read a lot of lists of demands, and most of them seem reasonable to me, and I suspect more would seem reasonable to the general population than you think. I have yet to encounter the demand that private property be abolished in favor of collective ownership, or much else that conform…
> They're only "Marxist" in the sense that a certain American demographics calls anyone and anything they disagree with "Marxist." Except for, y'know, the founders of BLM explicitly describing themselves as Marxists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCghDx5qN4s&feature=youtu.be...
What she didn't do is describe BLM as Marxist, or its purpose as advancing Marxism. I listened to the entire rest of that video and the only thing that was mentioned in regards to BLM was advocacy for black issues, not Marxism.
So no, BLM still isn't Marxist even if its founders are.
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> In fact, republicans/conservatives could hardly get any better support for their claim that BLM supporters are radical marxists. I've read a lot of lists of demands, and most of them seem reasonable to me, and I suspect more would seem reasonable to the general population than you think. I have yet to encounter the demand that private property be abolished in favor of collective ownership, or much else that conform…
I generally agree on that point, but that doesn't necessarily matter to public perception. The general public isn't particularly educated on how exactly Marxism might be defined in a textbook. Rather, in terms of public perception, Marxism is probably best defined as "a bunch of loony leftist ideas". Some of these demands fit that bill perfectly. Secondly, many BLM protestors are clearly brandishing symbols that are…
The public has been effectively propagandized and made to turn against one another rather than a corrupt system. If you accept the thesis that endemic racism and corruption in the American justice system exists, that the reason for the anger behind these riots and protests is legitimate, then your personal ideological polarity shouldn't matter.
Unfortunately, it's easy to get people to dismiss the movement wholesale by associating it with the specter of Marxists and Angry Black Men.
And that still leaves reasonable demands being ignored. If you don't support completely defunding and disbanding the police, you could agree that de-escalation training and shifting of funding priorities might be effective. That doesn't need to be slotted into a left-wing political agenda.
>Secondly, many BLM protestors are clearly brandishing symbols that are associated with Marxist/Communist ideology, many self-identify as "Marxist", and even officially they refer to each other as "comrades":
And a lot of BLM protestors, likely a large majority, aren't and don't. There's a difference between some Marxists supporting the movement and the movement itself being Marxist or having a Marxist intent. Black Lives Matter is clearly not about Marxism.
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I think this article bolsters his point that Reason is trending toward authoritarian efforts. A quick look-up of the article's author shows her media appearances tend to be on authoritarian media outlets. She also has some history of trying to raise hostility against reform movements (eg: MeNeither's support of sex predators).
Trending towards authoritarianism? It seems like the article is reasonably accurate about an under-reported aspect of the protests. Namely the intimidation tactics against reporters by “protesters.” And it’s written by a reporter that lived in Portland. Edit: since I can’t respond below - I’m questioning the accuracy cause it seems like people are quick to label things “authoritarian/fascist” when they don’t really r…
You seem to have taken an observation of authoritarianism as a de-facto challenge to the accuracy of the reporting.
That's an interesting thing to do.
Sounds a lot like "embedded journalism", i.e. a nicer term for propaganda. You write what they like, you document what is approved by their media operations, and you're silent on anything they do that makes them look bad.
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> They're only "Marxist" in the sense that a certain American demographics calls anyone and anything they disagree with "Marxist." Except for, y'know, the founders of BLM explicitly describing themselves as Marxists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCghDx5qN4s&feature=youtu.be...
OK, she describes herself as a "trained Marxist." What she didn't do is describe BLM as Marxist, or its purpose as advancing Marxism. I listened to the entire rest of that video and the only thing that was mentioned in regards to BLM was advocacy for black issues, not Marxism. So no, BLM still isn't Marxist even if its founders are.
That doesn’t compute. An organization is ultimately inseparable from the real ideological positions and goals of its leadership. The entire 20th century is replete with examples of front groups, secretly working for the extreme positions held by their founders while using rhetoric that the public would view as more middle-of-the-road, and enlisting supporters and low-level employees that remained apart from the founders’ thought. (Marxist, capitalist, whatever – such front groups existed on both ends of the ideological spectrum of the Cold War era.) Why should we believe that a contemporary organization like BLM cannot be the same?
You can certainly argue that the ordinary people protesting in a general BLM-inspired movement are not necessarily to be identified ideologically with the founders of the BLM organization. But the criticisms of the BLM organization remain valid. And participants in the general movement who attend protests led by the BLM organization can be accused of unwittingly lending support to extreme positions, of neglecting their duty to look into who exactly has planned and organized a particular event beforehand.
Those of us who protested the Iraq War in certain street protests that turned out to have been organized by Communist parties for their own shady purposes, have been burnt and we don’t want antiracism protestors to be exploited in the same way.
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That’s some absurd hyperbole. Death? These people are scared of going to jail. They know they are breaking the law and they know if they get caught they could go to jail.
They only go to jail if they are judged to have committed crimes in court. I wonder if antifa gives similar due process rights to the people it accuses and attacks?
The mainstream news reporting on Portland (and other regional rioting) got to the point where they were bald-faced lying about peaceful protests standing in front of burning buildings. The most charitable interpretation I can think of is that these professional journalists think that their readers can’t understand a nuanced world of gray and need everything reduced to black and white. There can be a concept of “BLM”…
Obviously this is to control the narrative. Why would they shoo and have "minders" ala repressive regimes? Is it because "fake news" (that'd be a tough sell coming from the left who question that assertion). Is it because they don't want people to see the underbelly of the movement or at least the bad elements in their movement? What we do know is that if you are an organization looking for change, if you're not very…
What does this mean?