starting strength gym
Page 357 of 3003 FirstFirst ... 2573073473553563573583593674074578571357 ... LastLast
Results 3,561 to 3,570 of 30027

Thread: COVID19 Factors We Should Consider/Current Events

  1. #3561
    Join Date
    Aug 2015
    Location
    Yucaipa
    Posts
    110

    Default

    • starting strength seminar april 2024
    • starting strength seminar jume 2024
    • starting strength seminar august 2024
    Quote Originally Posted by Matt James View Post
    Also, more to the topic at hand, cloth masks aren't very effective against tear gas, either.
    Can confirm. I learned this while reporting from the RNC in St. Paul in 2008. Here's a protip I picked up from the Anarkiddies: if you dip your bandanna in white vinegar, you are now immune to tear gas. Just don't forget your swimming goggles and you're good to face tank all the tear gas your heart desires. Flash bangs, on the other hand, are a horse of a different color...

    Quote Originally Posted by Yngvi View Post
    I didn't read the article you posted, but other sources have said Castille was shot by a Latino man named Jeronimo Yanez.
    Not sure what sources you're quoting, but Jeronimo Yanez is not latino at all. He is half White and half Native American (the first name should be a dead give away to anyone who's paying attention).

    Nonetheless, you bring up an interesting point here--in the racial hierarchy of police brutality, in the Twin Cities especially (St. Paul is home to the largest urban Native American community in the US), both Latinos and Native Americans rank far above Black folks in terms of treatment by police. For all intents and purposes, Latinos and Native Americans enjoy the same benefits as White folks do when it comes to encounters with the police--you are not assumed to be a threat by default until you prove otherwise. I cannot remember the last time an innocent, unarmed Latino or Native person was murdered in cold blood by a White cop.

    Quote Originally Posted by Yngvi View Post
    This is the central issue and one that has repeated itself; Was Floyd/Castille/Australian woman murdered because of racism or a government that has become overbearing, heavy-handed and unaccountable?
    These two phenomena are not mutually exclusive in the least. Separate but Equal and Apartheid are textbook examples of how government sponsored racism and overreach frequently go hand-in-hand.

    Quote Originally Posted by Gerald Boggs View Post
    From one rural perspective, this is just another day in the life of the cities. It's even become predictable: cop kills black man, protesters fill the streets, something happens and then the looting and burning begins. It's also like so much of what's in the news, it has little or no effect on our lives. Sure, you hear folks express some outrage, but I hear more emotion during a football game.
    To be fair, its this type of rural perspective that makes us city slickers think you country bumpkins live in a vacuum removed from the time-space of the rest of the world. Cops kill black people frequently, even in more rural areas, with little more than a performatory outrage that lasts no longer than a few days. The last time I recall anybody even filling the streets in protest against the police killing of a black man, was in response to Tamir Rice in 2014, and he was 12 years old... Looting and burning hasn't taken place in reaction to police brutality against a black man since 1992, over 25 years ago. The previous time before then was in Watts in 1965, 55 years ago. You'd literally have to have been living under a rock for the last quarter century to think that what's going on in cities across the US right now happens more than once in a generation. It has happened 3 times in the last half century but somehow this appears to be a daily occurance? The mind boggles...

    Importantly, what the three events have in common that separates them from every other instance of police brutality against black people is that they occurred during the worst economic crises of the last century; the great inflation, the bush recession, and the covid depression. The importance of emphasizing this distinction cannot be understated: People only act out in such extravagant fashion when you take away their livelihoods. Unemployment is what causes looting, period. Racial tension certainly does its fair share to exacerbate the situation, but without the underlying economic disruption there is almost never rioting, looting, and wholesale destruction.

  2. #3562
    Join Date
    Jun 2019
    Posts
    474

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Noah Ebner View Post
    Long overdue but thanks very much for this info, Robert. I've heard medical professionals allude to the fact that they know for certain which patients are non-citizens and always wondered how this was possible in California where citizenship status is virtually a protected category.



    You are correct, Yngvi--I misspoke. What I meant to say was the United States has never had an official language.



    Thanks for querying this point Rip and let me be perfectly clear that I agree entirely with what you've said. Also, full disclosure: I haven't seen the entire 8 minute video, only the clips that have circulated on the news wires. In case it wasn't clear from my original post, these scum deserve all the punishment that's coming their way.

    However, proving malice on the part of a white police officer who murders a black man in an all white court in Minneapolis--one of the most systemically racist cities in the US--is likely not going to happen. As a reminder, when the Philando Castille case happened, police chiefs from all over the county almost uniformly condemned the actions of the piece of shit that shot Castille 7 times at point blank range in front of his girlfriend and infant child for no good reason at all. In that case, the white officer that shot an innocent black man was acquitted, because, well, racism. (Compare this to when the black Muslim Minneapolis police officer shot the innocent white woman a year later and got 12.5 years, lest anybody accuse me of race-bating).

    To reiterate, I agree completely that what those cops did was inexcusable, racist, and unquestionably malicious. But how I feel about the world and what I know about it are two different things. Not only did I live in Minneapolis for 5 years, but I'm also the son of a deputy city attorney; I know both Minneapolis and the insidious and unrelenting racism of the criminal justice system intimately well. As unfortunate as this reality is, I simply don't see it as being very likely that these cops will get anything worse than a slap on the wrist when all is said and done.

    Especially considering that so far, even after the city has been burning for three days, only one of the officers involved has been arrested and he was charged with murder in the 3rd degree, which is somewhere below involuntary manslaughter according to Minnesota law: "without intent to effect the death of any person, caus[ing] the death of another by perpetrating an act eminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind, without regard for human life". Like I said initially, if anything, they'll stick him with negligence and he'll get a unjustly light punishment, as unfortunate as this likely scenario is. As it stands now, the case against him does not look very strong, even on the watered-down charges that have already been brought against him, considering the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's autopsy has essentially exonerated him of any blame in Mr. Floyd's death.
    Quote Originally Posted by Noah Ebner View Post
    Can confirm. I learned this while reporting from the RNC in St. Paul in 2008. Here's a protip I picked up from the Anarkiddies: if you dip your bandanna in white vinegar, you are now immune to tear gas. Just don't forget your swimming goggles and you're good to face tank all the tear gas your heart desires. Flash bangs, on the other hand, are a horse of a different color...



    Not sure what sources you're quoting, but Jeronimo Yanez is not latino at all. He is half White and half Native American (the first name should be a dead give away to anyone who's paying attention).

    Nonetheless, you bring up an interesting point here--in the racial hierarchy of police brutality, in the Twin Cities especially (St. Paul is home to the largest urban Native American community in the US), both Latinos and Native Americans rank far above Black folks in terms of treatment by police. For all intents and purposes, Latinos and Native Americans enjoy the same benefits as White folks do when it comes to encounters with the police--you are not assumed to be a threat by default until you prove otherwise. I cannot remember the last time an innocent, unarmed Latino or Native person was murdered in cold blood by a White cop.



    These two phenomena are not mutually exclusive in the least. Separate but Equal and Apartheid are textbook examples of how government sponsored racism and overreach frequently go hand-in-hand.



    To be fair, its this type of rural perspective that makes us city slickers think you country bumpkins live in a vacuum removed from the time-space of the rest of the world. Cops kill black people frequently, even in more rural areas, with little more than a performatory outrage that lasts no longer than a few days. The last time I recall anybody even filling the streets in protest against the police killing of a black man, was in response to Tamir Rice in 2014, and he was 12 years old... Looting and burning hasn't taken place in reaction to police brutality against a black man since 1992, over 25 years ago. The previous time before then was in Watts in 1965, 55 years ago. You'd literally have to have been living under a rock for the last quarter century to think that what's going on in cities across the US right now happens more than once in a generation. It has happened 3 times in the last half century but somehow this appears to be a daily occurance? The mind boggles...

    Importantly, what the three events have in common that separates them from every other instance of police brutality against black people is that they occurred during the worst economic crises of the last century; the great inflation, the bush recession, and the covid depression. The importance of emphasizing this distinction cannot be understated: People only act out in such extravagant fashion when you take away their livelihoods. Unemployment is what causes looting, period. Racial tension certainly does its fair share to exacerbate the situation, but without the underlying economic disruption there is almost never rioting, looting, and wholesale destruction.

    Such an erudite and wordy post, all to justify the unjustifiable position that is at the heart of the Conservative/Liberal divide: criminals are victims and not at fault for their actions.

    Defending indefensible looters and hoodlums?

    How unfortunate and pathetic a position to hold!

  3. #3563
    Join Date
    Aug 2015
    Location
    Yucaipa
    Posts
    110

    Default

    This is the best article I've read about the problem of US policing, hands down: If you want real change, don't try to 'reform' the police. De-fund them | Alex S Vitale | Opinion | The Guardian

    Castrate these assholes and the problem of abuse disappears. This is not expanding government, its reapportioning it. Until the Libertarian fantasy magically becomes a reality, this is the best possible solution available given the tools at hand.

  4. #3564
    Join Date
    Feb 2012
    Location
    Village of Afton, Virginia
    Posts
    947

    Default

    Fix it, better? It's even become predictable, Something happens, protesters fill the streets, something happens and then the looting and burning begins. Yes, it's easy to think we “County Bumpkins” live in a vacuum, but that's just a way of dismissing our opinions. The reality is we simple country folks have often traveled the world and experienced or seen far worse than anything that's happening in the USA, and when put in perspective, realize it doesn't matter. The cities are just being cities, and in a little while, their energy and attention will fade.

    “People only act out in such extravagant fashion when you take away their livelihoods.” Nope, people will act out, every chance they get, any reason being good enough. I learned this back in 1989 when reading about the Virginia Greekfest riots. Collage students rioted and looted stores, when asked why by a journalist, one student replied “Because the police dissed us”

    It's not unreasonable to believe Jeronimo Yanez is Latino, every newspaper article I looked at yesterday and a quick check today, list him as such. And for what it's worth to know, Jeronimo is a Spanish name, as is the origin of Geronimo's

    And speaking of perspective: While people talk about Minneapolis, 10 suspects have opened fire on officers elsewhere without much discussion – Law Officer

  5. #3565
    Join Date
    Jun 2013
    Posts
    1,110

    Default

    These are PAYtests...not protests. There's nothing organic about it. It's astroturf.

    By the time we learn this, the insurgents will have created yet another crisis to occupy the news...and thus, our undivided attention.

    I will not move on from the COVID19 fraud.

  6. #3566
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    North Texas
    Posts
    53,557

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Noah Ebner View Post
    This is the best article I've read about the problem of US policing, hands down: If you want real change, don't try to 'reform' the police. De-fund them | Alex S Vitale | Opinion | The Guardian
    This is a silly article, because it completely ignores the individual personalities involved, and it assumes that all Policemen are just empty vessels waiting to be filled with the latest LE Psychology wisdom emitting from some bullshit Criminal Justice professor operating under a federal grant. Here's the actual deal: if you look at the totality of police relations with the public, you will see that the most dangerous situation a law-abiding citizen will ever find himself in is a Law Enforcement Contact. Doesn't matter if the cop is white or black, or the contact is white or black (Australian women get murdered too), the issue is what we call Cop Shit. Not Racism.

    If cops pull over black people disproportionately, it can be more logically explained by the fact that young black men commit a higher percentage of crime than young white men in urban areas than it can be by Racism, and this is just the fact, sorry. The reason for that fact is largely cultural, i.e. a bunch of young assholes start hanging around together and encouraging criminal behavior. Like MS13 -- remember them? Not black, just vicious animals from a different culture. Different cultures generate different forms of behavior, and you know this to be true even if you have a political agenda that prevents you from agreeing with the observation. The Swiss behave differently than the Kosovars. This is merely Pattern Recognition, and is learned by everybody, cop or not, if they're paying any attention while they grow up.

    Yet law enforcement as a whole has millions of productive contacts with taxpayers every year, because most of the cops are not prone to Cop Shit. Cop Shit is what happens when the wrong individuals become LEOs. Training is not the issue. If the kids we all went to school with -- the one who got beat up in gym class, and his buddy, the one who beat him up in gym class -- decide that they are going to get even by beating other people up, or that they really like beating people up, and they figure out that being on the Police Department is a perfect way to indulge themselves at very little personal risk, then that Police Department has a problem than cannot be solved after the guy is hired. They now have a Bad Cop. We all know them, we've all watched them operate: power mad and thirsty for blood, perfectly willing to shove people around who don't need shoving, the guy who writes you for 6 over, and the guy who beats your ass into the back seat of the car after you're already handcuffed. And they're not particularly concerned about your race.

    That guy puts all the rest of the people in the department in a terribly shitty position, like the 3 guys who stood around watching Chauvin with his knee on the neck of a face-down handcuffed man for 8 minutes, doing nothing about an obvious problem. These guys may well have thought, "Fuck, Derek, do you need to do this to the guy??? We're on video, you know!" But they stood there anyway. They should have intervened, and that is a very bad problem, but Chauvin is the real problem. And he can't be trained out of that.

    He should have been screened out. He wasn't. Screening procedures are flawed. He should have been fired after about the 5th complaint several years ago, but he wasn't. Personnel retention procedures are flawed. His fellow officers should have sorted him out with HR or the Chief of Police, ("He's gonna fuck us up, Chief. He's gonna kill somebody who doesn't need killing. The man is out of control. You gotta fire him!") but they didn't. Peer review procedures are flawed. In essence, the Bureaucracy under which Police Departments operate is the problem, because Bureaucracies are carefully designed to prevent accountability for bureaucrats.

    But make no mistake: Cop Shit is the problem in this particular situation, and Racism gets the blame, because Racism is more useful across a much bigger political spectrum. Noah is right when he says that Racism is not just a Southern thing, but the United States is the least racist place on earth, and if you don't believe that you have not traveled and you don't know Asians, Blacks, Mexicans, or anybody different from you. You may have noticed that people like to be around people who are like them -- this isn't "Racism," the problem, it is human nature, the fact.

    Now, imagine being a small business owner in a city where you were locked down for a couple of months, you lost your means of making a living because of your local government, your employees are suffering, your landlord is breathing down your neck. And now, Cop Shit in one fucked up metropolitan area triggers the frustrations of millions of people in a similar situation to yours, local government fails to control a riot (arguably one of the very few legitimate uses of force from government, and certainly more legitimate than measuring 6-foot spacing between people standing in line to pay for what little toilet paper they can find), even though they were perfectly willing to arrest a barber for cutting fucking hair, and what remains of your business is burned to the ground. Frustration is a woefully-ass inadequate term here.

  7. #3567
    Join Date
    Jun 2015
    Location
    Garage of GainzZz
    Posts
    3,297

    Default

    Rip, don’t forget the media loves these kinds of situations, too and will inflate them to epidemic proportions, pun intended.

    A no-knock raid on the wrong house owned by the wrong political demographic that results in all manner of terrible will see the talking heads blaming the kid injured by the flash grenade or the owner for not restraining his now-shot dog.

    Flip the team, riots in major cities across the country.

  8. #3568
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Kingwood TX
    Posts
    8,914

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Rippetoe View Post

    Yet law enforcement as a whole has millions of productive contacts with taxpayers every year, because most of the cops are not prone to Cop Shit. Cop Shit is what happens when the wrong individuals become LEOs. Training is not the issue. If the kids we all went to school with -- the one who got beat up in gym class, and his buddy, the one who beat him up in gym class -- decide that they are going to get even by beating other people up, or that they really like beating people up, and they figure out that being on the Police Department is a perfect way to indulge themselves at very little personal risk, then that Police Department has a problem than cannot be solved after the guy is hired. They now have a Bad Cop. We all know them, we've all watched them operate: power mad and thirsty for blood, perfectly willing to shove people around who don't need shoving, the guy who writes for 6 over, and the guy who beats your ass into the back seat of the car after you're already handcuffed. And they're not particularly concerned about your race.

    That guy puts all the rest of the people in the department in a terribly shitty position, like the 3 guys who stood around watching Chauvin with his knee on the neck of a face-down handcuffed man for 8 minutes, doing nothing about an obvious problem. These guys may well have thought, "Fuck, Derek, do you need to do this to the guy??? We're on video, you know!" But they stood there anyway. They should have intervened, and that is a very bad problem, but Chauvin is the real problem. And he can't be trained out of that.

    He should have been screened out. He wasn't. Screening procedures are flawed. He should have been fired after about the 5th complaint several years ago, but he wasn't. Personnel retention procedures are flawed. His fellow officers should have sorted him out with HR or the Chief of Police, ("He's gonna fuck us up, Chief. He's gonna kill somebody who doesn't need killing. The man is out of control. You gotta fire him!") but they didn't. Peer review procedures are flawed. In essence, the Bureaucracy under which Police Departments operate is the problem
    Yep, anyone who has served on the front lines of either of our recent wars knows "Derek Chauvin." That same guy makes his way into every Army and Marine Corps infantry unit around. The vast majority of guys join for fairly noble reasons - service to country, adventure, escape a dead end home life, etc. A small segment of the population joins because they'd really like to kill someone. Not in defense of the country, or democracy, or whatever.....but because they just wanna kill somebody. A few join for other reasons, but when presented with the opportunity to kill (and perhaps not have to answer any questions about it) - it's an magnetic pull they can't resist. It's a very small segment - but it exists. And it's a good reason to not use the military for police action. Since we know those guys are there.....the chances of unjustified murder in an overseas theater is about 100%. The "Derek Chauvin" in Iraq was the guy who'd put a bullet in a civilian sweeping his front porch with a broom and later claim "it looked like a rifle." Derek Chauvin in Iraq was the guy who'd light up a car full of civilians with a .50 cal at a vehicle check point, because the car "was acting suspicious". Ask me how I know. "Derek Chauvin the Marine", didn't waste the guy with the broom or the car full of civilians because they were Arabs. Or because they were Muslim. It wasn't in defense of his country, democracy, or even his buddies. He did it because he wanted to kill someone. The intoxicating power of authority is irresistable for many. And the highest level of the intoxicantion for the authoritarian is to take a life without consequence.

    His authoritarianism grows with his rank. Usually guys like this are not well liked or respected by those in their charge. As NCOs and Staff NCOs, these are the guys that are complete and unnecessary dickheads to the 18 year old PFCs in their unit. Not enforcing harsh punishments in the name of good order and discipline, but because they simply like being harsh dickheads to those that can't do anything about it. And worse....they like being seen doing so. I'm sure Derek Chauvin enjoyed the gasps and screams of those on the sidewalk that were horrified at what he was doing. It added to his intoxication.

    These people exist. They find their way into the military and police. You can't educate this out of them with racial sensitivity training. You can't train them out of this with better procedures. I'm guessing it was against MPD protocol to pin a guy down by the neck with your knee, while he's handcuffed and not resisting.

    You have to screen them out. And when they make their way in, you have to get them out. When they fuck up (on a small scale) you punish them....but you also get them out. These guys don't start with murder. They start with smacking the guys head into the door frame of the squad car when putting him into the back seat. Or tightening the cuffs a bit more than they need to be. It grows from there.

    If you are gonna educate, you educate other officers to look for this shit and report it.

  9. #3569
    Join Date
    Jan 2014
    Location
    RS WY
    Posts
    980

    Default

    See how easy it was for the media to change the topic of discussion, even in this thread?

    And y'all think you're not being controlled...

  10. #3570
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    North Texas
    Posts
    53,557

    Default

    starting strength coach development program
    Quote Originally Posted by Satch12879 View Post
    Rip, don’t forget the media loves these kinds of situations, too and will inflate them to epidemic proportions, pun intended.
    The media holds 95% of the responsibility for this whole thing, starting 4 months ago. Look at this insane shit: George Floyd protests: Police erupt in violence nationwide during the third night of protests.

    This is NOT The Babylon Bee. But you literally cannot tell from the headline.

    Quote Originally Posted by wiigelec View Post
    See how easy it was for the media to change the topic of discussion, even in this thread?

    And y'all think you're not being controlled...
    Well, the media didn't change the topic. I allowed you guys to change it. Allowed. I love that word. Note the thread title. It's been a good discussion so far, and one that you can't read just anywhere.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •