America as Police State

[kaima]

European Perspective
An interview with the German Second Television Station,with

Riots in the United States
-Long time "civil war from above"
Date:
01.06.2020 08:11 a.m.



The protests after George Floyd's death spread across the country. The government is fueling the conflicts rather than mediating them, says protest researcher Margit Mayer.



Members of the National Guard walk past protesters with face masks on May 29th, 2020.


For the fifth day in a row there are violent protests in the United States.
Source: dpa
ZDFheute: The riots in Minnesota are reminiscent of the uprisings in Los Angeles in 1992 and 1965. Is the situation comparable to what it was then?

Margit Mayer: The United States is currently facing a triple disaster: Corona, the associated economic crisis with over 40 million unemployed people who lose their health insurance as a result of the job. Many also lose their homes because they can no longer pay rent or mortgages.

In addition, there is the difficult relationship of the (still) mostly white population with ethnic minorities. The latter is anything but new.

* * * *
Margit Mayer ...
Protest researcher Margit Mayer
... was a professor at the John F. Kennedy Institute in Berlin until 2014, where she specialized in riots and protest movements in the United States. Her book "Urban Uprising" deals with social movements in Europe.

* * * *

ZDFheute: So you need a good crisis manager. Is US President Donald Trump right there?

Mayer: Many institutions that could have addressed these problems have been hollowed out or abolished by the Trump administration. This applies not only to the response to pandemics, but also to facilities created after the Los Angeles riots to combat police violence, as we have seen it now in Minnesota.

There was an organization that repeatedly controlled police stations that violated civil rights. This was severely restricted by Trump's former Justice Secretary Jeff Session. The federal government was no longer interested in controlling urban police stations.




After the death of the African American Floyd, anger over the police violence and racism in the USA breaks out - meanwhile in more than 30 cities nationwide. There are numerous looting and vandalism. The police are tough on it.

Post length:
2 min
Date:
May 31, 2020


Minneapolis is a good example. There, over 2,600 complaints about police violence and institutionalized racism have been registered there since 2012, only 12 of which resulted in disciplinary measures, the most severe of which consisted only of a 48-hour suspension from duty.

Black people were more than 60 percent victims of police violence, they only make up 20 percent of the population. The policeman, who is now charged with murder , had previously had 17 complaints against him.

ZDFheute: What role does Trump's language play now?

Mayer: It's not just his language, it's also his politics. He's out for conflict, not mediation. 100,000 dead by Corona and more unemployed than in the Great Depression and now racial conflicts.

There would be any other government to mediate. What is Trump doing? He creates a mood against governors who are trying to enforce the protective measures he has decided. Now he threatens the National Guard, calls the demonstrators "thugs" (German: brutal, criminal thugs) and calls his followers to counter-demonstrations. He defames all protesters who exercise their right to freedom of expression guaranteed in the first additional article of the constitution.



In the United States, protests and riots against police violence continue to escalate. ZDF correspondent Elmar Theveßen on US President Trump's response to the protests.

Post length:
1 min
Date:
May 31, 2020
ZDFheute: Trump also likes to shoot journalists verbally , now the police are doing the same .

Mayer: Trump and media such as Fox News attack both politicians, especially mayors and governors, who belong to the Democratic Party. And he's been attacking representatives of other media - since he's been in office. It is no wonder that there are now shots at reporters .

ZDFheute: What role does the duration of racial discrimination play? Is there no alternative to riots?

Mayer: Even Martin Luther King called uprisings the "weapon of the unheard." Groups that are not heard in the media, politics or the public can almost only be heard through uprisings. Only when cars and police stations are on fire do the media come and start reporting on the grievances.

The empiricism of past uprisings shows that complaints about discrimination can only be heard, and that governments can only react.



Protests in the United States
-
Corona doesn't stop protesters
In more than 30 U.S. cities across the country, a number of people take to the streets after George Floyd's death. The corona virus pandemic is not stopping them either.

by Alica Jung, Washington
Video length:
1 min
www.zdf.de/nachrichten/politik/proteste-floyd-usa-coronavirus-100.html



Given the massive nature of Corona's current problems, which affect minorities more than whites, it is surprising that most of the demonstrations are rather calm. In most cities, chanting slogans like "Black lives Matter" or "No justice, no peace" remains.

ZDFheute: what's next? Will we soon see civil war-like conditions?

Mayer: The country has long been deeply divided politically and socially. This division has been fueled by the media for several years. Even now, the government and Fox News, for example, are talking about a new level of conflict. The civil war from above has been going on for a long time.

www.zdf.de/nachrichten/politik/usa-ausschreitungen-protestforscherin-100.html?fbclid=IwAR1F3Gh_OEU0RJLbfOd_PsjTsreG5YDMapD6e0j2eakPJHBb80Pgj0brEhg#xtor=CS5-48

The interview was conducted by Jan Schneider . He is an editor in the ZDFheuteCheck team .

[karl]

Kai

My self was speculating as to who and when this was to be brought up. My self//I must reserve judgment for this is an internal issue that is for the Americans to deal out with.

This situation as it has unfolded is be viewed very carefully I must say, for there are dangerious cause and effects for the good ship of America that so far has not occured. For whilst America is so deeply divided and split not only between those of the have and have nots, but to the common good is as it appears, left out for their safety and well being. For as if this is not enough, for with the apparant lack of good sense, the currant virus situation is still in effect. It will be to the future as to the manner mother nature will play upon these folks.

For the matter of who is correct and who is wrong is a matter of both sides pushing against the other to little avail.


Karl

[kaima]

Jun 1, 2020 15:53:01 GMT -7 karl said:

Kai

My self was speculating as to who and when this was to be brought up. My self//I must reserve judgment for this is an internal issue that is for the Americans to deal out with.

This situation as it has unfolded is be viewed very carefully I must say, for there are dangerious cause and effects for the good ship of America that so far has not occured. For whilst America is so deeply divided and split not only between those of the have and have nots, but to the common good is as it appears, left out for their safety and well being. For as if this is not enough, for with the apparant lack of good sense, the currant virus situation is still in effect. It will be to the future as to the manner mother nature will play upon these folks.

For the matter of who is correct and who is wrong is a matter of both sides pushing against the other to little avail.


Karl

Hi Karl,

I guess JJ and I are the only two regulars on this forum that were around during the 1968 era riots in the USA, and what we are experiencing today is to me far worse than what the USA experienced at that time. It is far, far uglier today with a president leading the inflammation and fanning the hatred and violence. I expected such things from the "Banana Republics" of Central and South America, but never in our stable democracy.

I believe Pieter asked what we Americans on the forum thought of events, but I have not been able to relocate that posting.I thought it was likely in the "Chaos" thread, but no, it is not.

I have always believed that racism would never leave us totally,it unfortunately seems to be a human trait. Witness the Europeans in the last century, and that was largely of people of one 'color'. Given the color problems in the USA and Trump throwing gasoline on the flames engulfing us, I am pessimistic. I do not know what route we will take to surviving as a nation until the next election, nor how the election will play out with the current politics in the nation and the crazy man at the helm.

Certainly I never thought that a president would do so much to harm our nation so quickly, nor that a major party would work hand in hand with him. We have lost our position as leader of the world, and largely,as a standard to be looked up to. The Greatness that Trump has brought upon this nation is great shame, dishonor, and a total gutting of our reputation, a swell as a squandering of our wealth.

Of course none of that touches upon our racial problems. With the Obama era it seemed we had made distinct progress, and it was inconceivable that our nation and institutions would crumble so quickly.

In the 1960's I realized that if I had been born Black, I would have died young and angry. Angry at all of the discrimination that was so typical of that and earlier times. Today I would be out there with the demonstrators and perhaps the violent ones, for we have learned what Trump meant as he campaigned and said: "What have you got to lose?"

The answer seems to be "All hope". If you have no hope, if the police can so regularly kill unarmed black people with impunity, there is no incentive to try to work "within the system". I believe this is also the prime recruiting situation for terrorists, no hope. So why not go out in ablaze of glory, expressing that frustration and hopelessness?

The police in the USA are proud of their "Serve and Protect" motto, but it has always struck me as a hollow ideal. It too often a nice motto, and the shootings too common for the motto to be believed. That is just to address sudden, undeserved death. Hoping for some larger degree of equality seems as remote as a star light years away.

It is rather a depressing country to currently live in.

Kai

[JustJohn or JJ]

The unrest has been the most widespread in the United States since 1968, when cities went up in flames over the slaying of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., and rekindled memories of 1992 riots in Los Angeles after police were acquitted in the brutal beating of black motorist Rodney King.

Kai and all,

   I do remember 1968 very well. In November of that year I just returned home from Vietnam. Arriving at the airport was an experience I will never forget. In uniform I was walking from the terminal and was spit on and had trash thrown at me. I was thinking 'I was fighting a war for this country and these fools treat me like this?' I am glad I wasn't armed in any way as the response would have probably been different.

In 1969 I took a position with AT&T Long Lines and worked in downtown Hartford, Connecticut. My office was on the 17th floor. I will never forget that looking out the window to the north was calamitous. They were throwing Molotov Cocktails at their homes, cars and businesses. They were shooting each other. I said this is the the way people are now a days? I was gone for 10 years and everybody has gone crazy? I couldn't believe it. Well, in times like those us US Marines protect our families and homes first. It was a good thing nothing bad happened in my home town.

Two of my best friends in Vietnam were black men. We were companions at arms. There was no racism in our units. I left before I was able to say a very goodby. Now they didn't survive Vietnam so I'll see them in my final duty station.

We have a way in the Marines in times like those. Keep your weapons clean and your ammo dry.

Now we have these so called riots in the middle of a pandemic. I'm sorry if I don't equate this as happenstance. This is purely contrived situation and is going to explode in our faces. Our respective parties of our government have gone batsheet crazy. I do hope that this doesn't get anymore complicated than it is. If 'Marshal Law' is declared we are all on a suicide path. It will be brother against brother again. Sad, very sad that it has come to this.

On another note: Our 50th wedding anniversary of June 20th has been cancelled. We will celebrate it the next time.

Say your prayers at nigh folks.

Jasiu of the North

[karl]

Kai and J.J.

realizing this is some very dark hours for your selves and America. Please though, do not betray hope, for in this dark hour you are the proud sons of America and she needs you now in her time of hurt. It takes people of your high standards she needs now to weather through this storm. Life is not always fair nor the skies sunny, but to those of lesser values to be the cause of this present time will as a candle that burns brightist will use them selves up the quickest.

There will the time this will be over with the destruction repaired, equipment, businesses and buildings repaired. But, there will be the lingering memories that will last for many years to come. As with this, will there be forgiveness in the hearts that suffered? For it of good hope that hatred will not be the victor.

America is not South Africa, for America is the home of the golden people as thought of by those here in Mexico and this is a good thing.

Americans are good people, and strong when the tides of harsh seas and weather begin to pound, those of your selves are the stuff that America is made of. You have my most high confidence of weathering through this for there are those like your selves that will insure this and become stronger..

Karl

[kaima]

The Legacy of our Original Sin

June 2, 2020

By Paul Krugman

Opinion Columnist

These are times of grief for those of us who love America and its promise; I know people who have been spontaneously breaking into tears, and the rest of us are walking around in a kind of stupor.

Demonstrators protest the death of George Floyd on Sunday, May 31, near the White House in Washington.Alex Brandon/Associated Press

Every day, it seems, brings another indicator of our decline: the can-do nation has become a land that can’t deal with a pandemic, the leader of the free world has become a destroyer of international institutions, the birthplace of modern democracy is ruled by would-be authoritarians. How can everything be going so wrong, so fast?

Well, we know the answer. As Joe Biden put it, “the original sin of slavery stains our country today.”

Non-American friends sometimes ask me why the world’s richest major nation doesn’t have universal health care. The answer is race: we almost got universal coverage in 1947, but segregationists blocked it out of fear that it would lead to integrated hospitals (which Medicare actually did do in the 1960s.) Most of the states that have refused to expand Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act, even though the federal government would bear the great bulk of the cost, are former slave states.

The Italian-American economist Alberto Alesina suddenly died on March 23; among his best work was a joint paper that examined the reasons America doesn’t have a European-style welfare state. The answer, documented at length, was racial division: in America, too many of us think of the beneficiaries of support as Those People, not like us.


Now, America is actually a far less racist society than it used to be. In 1969 only 17 percent of white Americans approved of black-white marriage. Even during Ronald Reagan’s first term that number was only up to 38 percent. As of 2013 it was 84 percent. (As it happens, my wife is African-American.)

But as George Floyd could tell you, if he were still alive, racism is far from gone. And while Americans are increasingly tolerant as individuals, racial tensions continue to be exacerbated by cynical politicians, who exploit white racism to sell policies that actually hurt workers, whatever their skin color.

And racial antagonism is, of course, what made it possible for Donald Trump to become president. It’s hard to imagine someone less suited for the job, intellectually and morally. But he’s a very good hater, who has conjured up many demons — there are far more anti-Semitic insults and threats in my inbox than ever before. And his appeal to prejudice has given him a devoted base.

So now we’re at a moment of crisis, when all the good things America stands for are endangered by the poisonous legacy of our original sin. Will we make it through? Honestly, I’m not at all sure that we will.

[JustJohn or JJ]

Here is a part of the problem !!!!

TYT Politics reporter Michael Tracey interviews a "paid protester" from George Soros at a Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-CA) town hall.

[pieter]

Kai/John,

It is true that I asked what the Americans on the forum thought of the events unfolding in the USA right now. Thank you very much Kai and John that you posted your opinions on this. Thank you John for your reply with your personal Marine vet account of the events of November 1968n when you returned and the violence in the North of Hartford, Connecticut. Your perspecitve and opinion are interesting and valid. Kai, seen the investigative and researching person you are with interest in history, your life in the US state Alaska and your knowledge by traveling the USA (many US states), your past professional experience and traveling the world (Europe) and researching scientific historical files and quality news media sources. I can empathise with karl's reply, because we are both North-West Europeans from the same corner of Europe. In that sense the USA, Canada, the non-German parts of Central-Europe, Eastern-Europe and the latin countries in Southern-Europe are alien to us. Although Karl has some experience in the North-West of the US and Canada. The reality of my life and living space is in the prosperous West-Central part of Europe *Western Europe) containing the Benelux (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg), the Northern part of France and the Paris region, Germany, Denmark, Austria and Switzerland. (In that construction Austria is on the border of Western-Europe, Central-Europe - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Europe - and Eastern-Europe - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Europe - in the political sense -huge influece conservative of the Austrian People's Party (German: Österreichische Volkspartei, ÖVP) and the Right-wing populist and National conservative Freedom Party of Austria (Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs) Even in the Netherlands there were and are demonstrations against the police brutality against black people in the USA and racism. Also in Berlin (Germany), Paris (France) and London (UK) there were demonstrations. The political divide is visible all over the Western world and the Global health, finanancial, social-economical and security crisis due to COVID-19 shows old dividing lines of class (the haves and haves not), race, ethnicity, culture, religion, nationality (North-West vs South in Europe, different devides in the USA) and even some old Imperialist and colonialist tendencies.

The Hague (Netherlands)


Groningen (The Netherlands)


Amsterdam(The Netherlands)


I wrote about it before and do it again over here. The 19th and early 20th century was the time that old absolutist Monarchies, Empires, Medieval, Renaissance and class based structures began to crumble or slowly lose power or went to the top level of their power. The British Empire still ruled the waves. The United Kingdom ruled over Canada, South-Africa (Fighting with the Afrikaner Dutch), India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Great Britain optained power over former Ottoman Empire territory in North-Africa and the Middle east. Britain and France still controlled large parts of Africa and the far East (French Indo China, British Singapore and Honkong), net to the Belgians (Congo, Rwanda, Burundi), Dutch (Indonesia, Suriname and the Dutch Antilles), Portuges and Spaniards.

What is the imperialist and colonial connection with today. Today the USA, China, Russia, Brazil, India, Iran, Saoudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Kingdom and France are the Global military, Financial economical and imperialist powers. With China replacing Imperial Japan of the Late 19th century until 1945, Russia being the New Czarist Empire, the UK being the champion of the English speaking world outside the USA and Australia (the former British colonies), France being the champion and leader of the francophone world (Quibec Canada, Wallonia Belgium, the French speaking part of Switzerland and etc.), Saoudi Arabia as a world oil producing country and the leader of the Sunni Muslim world (there are 1,55 Billion Sunni Muslims in the world about 80% of the worlds Muslim polulation). Iran is the lader of the Shia Muslim world (about 250 milion Muslims in the world. 74,000,000–78,000,000 Iranians are Shia Muslim) and in the same time controls the Persian Gulf and Shia Muslim territories in the Sunni Muslim Arab world (Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain) and Shia terriroties in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Azerbaijan, Turkey (there are about 7,000,000–11,000,000 Shia Muslims in Turkey), Saudi Arabia (2,000,000–4,000,000 Shia Muslims, which are heavily oppressed by the Puritinical Wahhabi Sunni Muslim Saudi regime of the Sunni majority country Saoudi Arabia), and other countries. India and Brazil are new upcoming Global, financial-economical, technological (the ICT sector of India) and large population and land mass powers next to Russia, China and the USA. The 21th century shows news Geopolitical balances and shows that the Pax Americana is over. ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Americana )

Kai refered in an intelligent way to the deviding lines of the past. Racism and discrimination and exclusion seem to have become less today, but on that subtle, refined and sophisticated level the racism of exclusion, oppression and and repression still exists. Less sublte and refined is the openly police brutality against African Americans, men, women and teenagers. Trayvon Martin (Sanford, Florida), Atatiana Koquice Jefferson (Fort Worth, Texas, United States), Michael Brown (Ferguson), Sandra Bland (Naperville, Illinois), Eric Garner (New York City), Breonna Taylor (Louisville, Kentucky) and many other African Americans that fell victim to police brutality.


Trayvon Martin


Atatiana Koquice Jefferson


Michael Brown


Sandra Bland


Eric Garner


Breonna Taylor

The USA was a battle ground between French and British English settlers and the British settlers defeated the french and drove them up North to Quebec in Canada. In the USA only the Louisiana French speaking Cajun, Louisiana Creole, Chitimacha, Houma, Biloxi, Tunica, Choctaw, Acadian, and French from Lower Louisiana in the U.S. state of Louisiana show that French past in the South. Also architecture in your Capital Washington D.C. shows that French influence.

The slave trade, treatment of Slaves in the USA, and after the Slave trade the Jim Crow Laws and continued discrimination, racism and violence against the African American community left scrars and deep wounds in the Black community, but also damaged the US societ as a whole. White people having and distored image of themselves and American history as a white European settler history, large parts of the African American community who grew up in the white European American society and nation of the Caucasian majority that surrounded them developped internalised self hatred. Differences between ligter black and blacker black in which the black person with a lighter persuasion has a higher standard and higher position in society. (By that way that exist everywhere where Black people live amongst whites, also in continental Europe, the UK, Australia, Suriname and other countries).

You have the blunt, direct, degrading, insulting, vulgar racism which is visible and you have more refined, subtle and sophisticated forms or exclusion, discrimination and racism in our societies. Like for instance some state institutions, Financial institutions, corporations, multi-nationals, organisations, elitist circles, networks, schools, political parties that exclude black or colored members or make it hard for them to enter these institutions, (white) schools, organisations, parties, clubs, companies, banks, university colleges or multi-nationals. These places in society are lily white exclusive places with a glass ceiling for Black, Colored, female or ethnic minority people.







Thank you very much for your personal replies Kai (Ron) and John. Hope that Jaga and Jeanne will post there opinions about this also.

This message I got from a Polish American family member from the midwest in the USA.

"Past Tuesday June the 2nd 2020: There is a lot of built up frustration on police brutality and the treatment of blacks and lots of looting going on and violent protests. The COVID-19 confinements and Trump making things even worse as people are frustrated. It is very bad across many cities. Even where we live in our subburb (of a large Midwest city, few million people) they looted a Best Buy store. This is not the way with all the violence and damage. Protests should be peaceful, it is a disgrace this is happening in our country.

All of the train lines and streets into the city were closed off. We don’t know how long this will continue. There is a lot of frustration , people that must go to work in city can’t get there, small business owners are getting looted or ruined due to Covid related economic impacts and all that can work from home and now even things were to open up Wednesday probably won’t.

We are all safe, but our daughter (24) is unable to go to work in the city due to the violent protests and street shut downs. There are curfews at night in the city to limit people trying to protest! Many arrests past 2 days."

Cheers,
Pieter

[JustJohn or JJ]

I am not sure what some of these people are thinking such as Joe Biden. I do know that there are hundreds of thousands of veterans that fought the communists in Korea, Vietnam and other countries. Their children grew up with their attitudes. They must remember that to these people communists are a target that they won't forget.

Joe Biden PRAISES China And Communist Party In 2011 Speech
•May 31, 2020

[kaima]

Looks like an architectural safety barrier to me. Those "bricks" look like rock boulders most of us would need two hands to pick up, and a strong back to toss them 5 feet.

[Jaga]

John, while I support the justice for black people in America, your experience is similar to John's father.
Thanks for your story.

John's father was also in Vietnam, his family in that time was stationed in one of the base, John was born in 1968, so he does not remember, but his mother remembers that his sister could not go to school for some time because there were protesters around the base. The soldiers were not responsible for American policies.

John's father was strong conservative, John mother is more mixed, she does not like Trump, but she is hesitant to vote for another party....

+++ I do remember 1968 very well. In November of that year I just returned home from Vietnam. Arriving at the airport was an experience I will never forget. In uniform I was walking from the terminal and was spit on and had trash thrown at me. I was thinking 'I was fighting a war for this country and these fools treat me like this?' I am glad I wasn't armed in any way as the response would have probably been different.

In 1969 I took a position with AT&T Long Lines and worked in downtown Hartford, Connecticut. My office was on the 17th floor. I will never forget that looking out the window to the north was calamitous. They were throwing Molotov Cocktails at their homes, cars and businesses. They were shooting each other. I said this is the the way people are now a days? I was gone for 10 years and everybody has gone crazy? I couldn't believe it. Well, in times like those us US Marines protect our families and homes first. It was a good thing nothing bad happened in my home town.

Two of my best friends in Vietnam were black men. We were companions at arms. There was no racism in our units. I left before I was able to say a very goodby. Now they didn't survive Vietnam so I'll see them in my final duty station.+++

[Jaga]

Kai, Karl, Pieter, I am with you. I hope that the current president would not win. We are lucky that we live in places that are not affected by the protests and destruction. I hope that this new civil rights movement would help black community to get its voice back as well as part of the responsibility for their progress.

[kaima]

Jun 4, 2020 4:57:45 GMT -7 JustJohn or JJ said:

Something very sinister is going on !!!

STAGED! The Mysterious Pallets Of Bricks During The Riots
•Jun 2, 2020

Bricks become fodder for false claims around protests
By BEATRICE DUPUY and ARIJETA LAJKA
yesterday
A pallet of bricks outside a suburban Atlanta home. Stone barriers in front of a Los Angeles synagogue. Northeastern University police officers in Boston unloading bricks from an SUV.

These sights would have hardly garnered much interest two weeks ago.

But as protests spread over the death of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man who died after a police officer pressed his knee into his neck for several minutes, social media users have posted photos and videos of bricks and other materials left on streets with comments suggesting they are part of a deliberate effort to encourage unrest and incite violence at demonstrations.

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The White House boosted the theory on Wednesday with a tweet showing video of stones encased in wire along a busy street, with the statement that “Antifa and professional anarchists” were “staging bricks and weapons to instigate violence.” Antifa, short for “anti-fascists,” is an umbrella term for leftist militant groups. The tweet was later deleted.

The encased stones in the video actually form a security barrier outside a Los Angeles synagogue on Ventura Boulevard. Video and photos of the barrier were shared thousands of times on social media with comments suggesting they were left for protesters. Rabbi Mendel Lipskier, of Chabad of Sherman Oaks, confirmed the barriers were for security at the synagogue. He said they had been there for about a year.

While bricks have been used by some protest agitators to destroy property or attack police officers, there is little evidence that bricks, stones or other materials have been placed at protest sites as part a coordinated effort. The majority of protests in the country were reported to be peaceful.

“What’s happening is people are fighting over who are the good guys and who are the bad guys,” said Omar Wasow, an assistant professor at Princeton University who studies protest movements, discussing the brick claims being shared online.

The Department of Homeland Security said in an intelligence note on Tuesday that they had seen several uncorroborated media reports of bricks being pre-staged at protests but had been unable to verify them.

The posts featuring photos and videos questioning the placement of bricks and other materials have racked up millions of views. Police in many places have responded to the rumors.

Police in Brookhaven, an Atlanta suburb, turned to Facebook and Nextdoor, a neighborhood discussion platform, to address rumors that bricks had been planted in a neighborhood there after a social media post circulated Wednesday showing a pallet of bricks outside a home. A statement with the post said: “They are moving out of the big cities and now planning attacks on people’s houses in Atlanta...... if you live in Brookhaven hopefully you believe in your 2nd amendment rights.”

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Brookhaven Deputy Chief Brandon Gurley said the bricks were delivered for a homeowner’s project, and people immediately began driving by and snapping photos. He said the bricks had nothing to do with protests.

In another example, Northeastern University police took to Twitter to address rumors that a video, viewed more than 2 million times online, showed officers planting bricks to be used at protests in Boston. The video actually showed officers unloading bricks that were removed from a deteriorating sidewalk to be sure they would not be used by protesters.

One of the most widely viewed videos was shared by Reuben Lael, 34, on May 29 on his Instagram story. Lael took a video of himself saying “this a set up” while pointing to a pile of bricks near the George L. Allen, Sr. Courts Building in Dallas, after he said he had stopped a protester from trying to grab one of the bricks. Lael’s video was shared online with posts saying, “This young man says these bricks were conveniently stacked on the sidewalk for them to use! What’s going on here?!.” In response to the claims, the Dallas Police Department told The Associated Press, “At this time, we have nothing to confirm that any bricks were intentionally left for use at protests.”

At the time, Lael said he shared the video to encourage protesters not to engage in the destruction and to protect the real message of the protests, which he says the brick issue has overshadowed.

“To the conspiracy theorists, let’s close the door on the brick scandal and get to the business of saving black lives,” he said.

___

Associated Press writer Jake Bleiberg in Dallas contributed to this report.

____

[karl]

Kai

Thank you for presenting the truth of these bricks and barriers made from heavy rocks encased in heavy mesh wire. This was my impression as to the barrier as a protective structure of some kind and the bricks were placed in a manner for construction purpose.

The matter otherwise as a tool of reporting,is and was simply non-sense but taken seriously by those with untrained manners of observation for what ever purpose.

In the matter of the widely used term of {Black lives matter}is an obvious racial statement, if though the term had been used of {All lives matter} this then is an equal truth for all.

Other then the above, it is to myself to keep my comments to my self in respect to others in the matter of this entire situation that has been staged against the American People.

Karl

[kaima]

Stepping to the side of Police State, here is another aspect of American troubles, withdrawal from Afghanistan.. Pieter, I missed this Police State posting by you, I check "Recent Posts" exclusively, as searching the forum for otherwise new postings is difficult.

Opinion
What Joe Biden and I Saw After the U.S. Invaded Afghanistan
Back when we visited in 2002, there was hope that America could help make the country better.

Thomas L. Friedman
By Thomas L. Friedman
Opinion Columnist

April 18, 2021, 11:00 a.m. ET



Afghanistan in 2005 overlooking the border with Pakistan.
Afghanistan in 2005 overlooking the border with Pakistan.Credit...Moises Saman/Magnum Photos
I was not surprised that Joe Biden decided to finally pull the plug on the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. Back in 2002 it was reasonable to hope that our invasion there to topple Osama bin Laden and his Taliban allies could be extended to help make that country a more stable, tolerant and decent place for its citizens — and less likely to host jihadist groups. But it was also reasonable to fear from the start that trying to graft a Western political culture onto such a deeply tribalized, male-dominated and Islamic fundamentalist culture like Afghanistan’s was a fool’s errand, especially when you factored in how much neighboring Pakistan never wanted us to succeed because it could wrench Afghanistan from Pakistan’s cultural and geopolitical orbit.

Biden was torn between those hopes and fears from the very start. I know because I was with him on his first visit in early January 2002 to postwar Afghanistan. It was just weeks after the major fighting had subsided and the Taliban were evicted from Kabul.

Biden, at the time the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had invited me to come along with him. I kept a diary in the months after 9/11, including of that trip, and published it in 2002, with a collection of columns from that time, in my book “Longitudes & Attitudes: Exploring the World After September 11.”

They were my thoughts, not Biden’s, but we were seeing the same things and sharing many of the same first impressions, which, in many ways persist today.



The diary entry began:

“We flew to Islamabad and then grabbed a U.N. relief flight into Bagram Air Base, 50 miles from Kabul. Joe stayed at the newly reopened U.S. embassy, with no flush toilets or running water, and I stayed at the house being rented by The New York Times, which had only slightly better plumbing but a friendly group of Afghan drivers and cooks who kept the fireplace roaring and the raisin pilaf and warm Afghan bread on the table. My first impression of Kabul? It was Ground Zero East.”

“We might as well be doing nation-building on the moon,” I wrote in the column I published that week. “You see sad and bizarre scenes here: a white donkey galloping down the main street right behind our car; a man with one leg peddling a bicycle; people washing a car with water from a port-a-potty. … The central government is so broke it has less money than most American network crews here, so the government can’t even pay salaries.”

Back to the diary:

“One morning Biden and I went over to the old Soviet Embassy, where thousands of refugees were packed into a beehive of makeshift one-room apartments, heated only by wood stoves and sheltered from the wet cold by plastic sheets. Everyone seemed to be shuffling around in sandals, with blankets for overcoats. Open sewers and mud were their front yards; hollow cheeks and wide eyes marked their faces. … My heart told me to write that America must remain here, for however long it takes, with however many troops it takes, to repair this country, and provide a minimum level of security so it can get on its feet again. It was the least we owed the place, having already abandoned it once after the Soviet withdrawal. We didn’t have to make it Switzerland, just a little better, a little freer, and a little more stable than it was under the Taliban.

“But while my heart kept pulling me in one direction, my head, and my eyes, kept encountering things that were deeply troubling. It started when I went along with Biden to meet the Minister of the Interior for the Interim Government, Yunus Qanooni, who is a Tajik. Behind his desk, where a minister should be hanging the picture of his president (Hamid Karzai, an ethnic Pashtun), he had a picture of Ahmed Shah Massoud (an ethnic Tajik), the leader of the Northern Alliance who was assassinated just before September 11.

“Tom Friedman’s first rule of politics: Never trust a country where a new minister has the picture of his favorite dead militia leader, not the country’s (interim) president, over his desk. It seemed to me that the tribal warrior culture ran so deep in this place, it would be hard for any neutral central government to sink real roots. As I contemplated that militia leader’s picture, I wondered to myself: ‘When were the good old days for government in Afghanistan? Before Genghis Khan? Before gunpowder?’”



Indeed, I wrote in my column that week that I lingered one evening in the famous bookstore of the Intercontinental Hotel, which had an amazing collection of books on Afghan history. As I perused the shelves, I wrote, “I was struck by how many books had ‘Afghan wars’ in the title. I picked up one called ‘A History of the War in Afghanistan’ and discovered it was part of a thick two-volume set that covered only the years 1800 to 1842.” I was also struck by the collection of postcards offered in that bookstore — one in particular. It was a two-part picture; one part was of a shell-ravaged building, and the other part of a damaged hallway, with the roof collapsed and rubble strewn all over the floor. The caption read: “Afghanistan, the looted and destroyed Kabul Museum.”

That is the sign of a country too long at war — when it is producing postcards of the rubble. And that was the question that Biden and I wrestled with throughout that trip: What were the foundations — physical, cultural, political, economic, religious and social — from which Afghans, with American and NATO help, might build a more decent, less corrupt, modern political system? Could the future bury the past there or would the past always bury the future? There were women and students and new, post-Taliban leaders we met with who insisted that the country could overcome its past; the bookstore library cautioned otherwise. Needless to say, we didn’t resolve that question on that trip. I am not sure we have still.


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Credit...Moises Saman/Magnum Photos
The diary: “The day Biden and his staff were supposed to fly out, with me tagging along, bad weather descended on Bagram Air Base, and the U.N. canceled its flight. This was a problem. The Delta Shuttle doesn’t serve Kabul. No U.N. flight, no exit. One of Biden’s security detail managed to get him and the rest of us seats on a U.S. military transport that was supposed to come in late that evening and fly right out, first to Pakistan and then to Bahrain. As a result, we had to sit around Bagram all day with the U.S. Special Forces, who were headquartered there. …

“I looked around the room at the Special Forces A-teams that were there and could see America’s strength hiding in plain sight. It wasn’t smart missiles or night-fighting equipment. It was the fact that these Special Forces teams each seemed to be made up of a collection of Black, Asian, Hispanic, and white Americans. It is our ability to blend those many into one hard fist that is the real source of our power. This is precisely what Afghans have not been able to do in recent decades, and it has left them weak, divided, and prey to outsiders.”


(Reading that particular passage 20 years later I confess that I wonder if we have become more like the Afghans and not the Afghans more like us. Our diversity is only our strength as long as we can forge “out of many — one.” But lately, our parties and politics have become so tribalized it is not clear anymore that we can do that.)

The diary: “Getting out of Afghanistan turned out to be harder than getting in (which I hope will not be a metaphor for U.S. operations there generally). When the U.S. military transport that Joe Biden and friends were supposed to fly out on arrived at Bagram, the U.S. Army captain running the control tower informed the senator that orders had come down from the Pentagon that no civilians were to be allowed on military aircraft. Throughout Biden’s trip, the Pentagon, presumably under orders from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, had denied Biden any help, even though he chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. No planes, no military tours, no nothing. This seemed to be the last straw. Biden was very cool, didn’t throw a tantrum, but was quietly pissed.”



I ended up lending Biden my satellite phone to call Secretary of State Colin Powell, via the State Department operations center, to see if he could help.

“‘This is Joe Biden, could you connect me with Colin Powell?’ Biden asked the State Department operator. A few minutes passed. ‘Colin? Hey, it’s Joe Biden. … Yeah, I’m standing here on the runway at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, trying to get out on a military transport, and they’re telling me that the Pentagon has ordered that no civilians be let on the plane. I’m sorry to trouble you, Colin, but could you give us a hand here?’

“Powell told Biden to hold on for a minute while he tried to get Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld was in church, so Powell tracked down his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz. There were a few more minutes of phone calls to Centcom headquarters in Florida before Powell came back on the phone with Biden.

“‘Joe,’ said the Secretary of State, ‘let me talk to the air traffic controller there.’

“Biden then handed the satellite phone to the air traffic controller with the following words: ‘Captain, the Secretary of State would like to talk to you.’

“It was pitch-dark, but I was sure I saw that captain’s face turn completely white with shock that he was talking to the Secretary of State, a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, no less. All I heard him saying to Powell was, ‘Yessir, yessir, yessir.’ When he was done, he handed back the phone and told Biden, ‘You’re welcome to board, sir.’

“As we strapped into the back of the C-130, the crew shouted that someone was firing tracer bullets at the other end of the runway. … With this big cargo plane empty except for us, it felt like we took off straight up, like a rocket, which was fine with me, since Bagram is almost surrounded by tall mountains that had already claimed two U.S. transports. Three hours later, we landed in Jacobabad, Pakistan, somewhere in the middle of the country, at a Pakistani base being used by the U.S. Air Force. We had a few hours to kill before we hopped a C-17 to Bahrain.

“Talking to the U.S. airmen at Jacobabad was an eye-opener. One of them told us, ‘We don’t have a flight to Afghanistan that doesn’t get shot at by small-arms fire from inside Pakistan somewhere near the border.’



“But Pakistan is our ally in this war, we said. Tell that to the Pakistanis who live along the Afghan border, he shrugged. It was one of those moments when you realize as a journalist that there are a million stories going on in and around this larger war story that you have no clue about.

“It was one of those moments when you get an inkling that you are standing on a story with a false bottom. But when Wall Street Journal reporter Danny Pearl tragically got his throat slit a few weeks later by anti-American Pakistani terrorists, I remembered that conversation at Jacobabad, and suddenly the senseless murder of an American in Pakistan didn’t seem so out of context anymore.”

*
So that was Joe Biden’s and my introduction to Afghanistan. When I interviewed him last December, a month after his election as president, we got talking informally about the Middle East and he asked if I remembered our trip to Afghanistan and all the craziness at the end.

I never forgot it, I told him. Clearly, neither had he.

Our nation’s effort there was worth a try; our soldiers and diplomats were trying to make it better, but it was never clear that they knew how or had enough Afghan partners. Yes, maybe leaving will make it worse, but our staying wasn’t really helping.

Our leaving may be a short-term disaster, and in the longer run, who knows, maybe Afghanistan will find balance on its own, like Vietnam. Or not. I don’t know. I am as humbled and ambivalent about it today as I was 20 years ago, and I am sure that Biden is too.

All I know for sure are: 1) We need to offer asylum to every Afghan who worked closely with us and may now be in danger. 2) Afghans are going to author their own future. 3) It is American democracy that is being eroded today by our own divisiveness, by our own hands, and unless we get that fixed we can’t help anyone — including ourselves.

www.nytimes.com/2021/04/18/opinion/joe-biden-afghanistan-2002.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage