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What’s the Difference Between Kyle Rittenhouse and the Police?

Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2020 11:37 pm
by JQH
Not a lot really, they're both defending a social order based on white supremacy.

Re: What’s the Difference Between Kyle Rittenhouse and the Police?

Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2020 12:27 am
by Bird on a Fire
That's an excellent essay. Thanks for sharing.

Re: What’s the Difference Between Kyle Rittenhouse and the Police?

Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2020 1:24 am
by Boustrophedon
The right wing have been pushing the theory that one of his victims, Joseph Rosenbaum, was a convicted peadophile sex offender, so that's alright that he got shot. I tried to investigate online but got lost in a deep dark rabbit hole of misinformation and untrustworthy sites and had to block a lot of people on facebook.

Re: What’s the Difference Between Kyle Rittenhouse and the Police?

Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2020 7:35 am
by Little waster
Boustrophedon wrote:
Wed Sep 02, 2020 1:24 am
The right wing have been pushing the theory that one of his victims, Joseph Rosenbaum, was a convicted peadophile sex offender, so that's alright that he got shot. I tried to investigate online but got lost in a deep dark rabbit hole of misinformation and untrustworthy sites and had to block a lot of people on facebook.
Which has as much logic as claiming one of the children allegedly abused by Rosenbaum would have grown up to be Future Space-Hitler so that’s OK too.

Re: What’s the Difference Between Kyle Rittenhouse and the Police?

Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2020 7:59 am
by Little waster
Unsurprisingly the DM has taken the line “Rosenbaum shouted at Rittenhouse before he was shot so really he probably deserved it”, it’s ironic that the biggest snowflakes always appear to be from the Right. However not even a whisper of any past wrongdoing from any of the usual suspects who you’d expect to be all over that so it appears to be certainly as false as it is irrelevant.

I did find the following disclaimer from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel https://eu.jsonline.com/story/news/2020 ... 679537002/ suggesting they are aware of the allegations but have refused to report them on the basis they aren’t relevant and, despite their superior investigative resources, have been unable to verify them.

Meanwhile, supposed 2nd Amendment supporters are twisting themselves through all sorts of logic-pretzels to explain away how the third, wounded victim Grosskreutz was actually still in the wrong when he tried to tackle Rittenhouse with a handgun in the immediate aftermath.

So much for the sub-Die Hard cant about “a good man with a gun”. It also goes to show that in the majority of mass shooting cases any “good man with a gun” present would simply be added to the death-count when faced with a better-armed and better-prepared “bad man with a gun” and just exponentially add to the chaos.

Re: What’s the Difference Between Kyle Rittenhouse and the Police?

Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2020 8:39 am
by JQH
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Wed Sep 02, 2020 12:27 am
That's an excellent essay. Thanks for sharing.
On reading it suddenly a lot of things make "sense".

Still haven't a clue what to do about them mind. It makes clear that the spittle flecked rants of the likes of Mike Adams, claiming BLM and Antifa are terrorists, are actually mainstream views in the US. I'm seriously thinking that they are sleep walking into another civil war.

Re: What’s the Difference Between Kyle Rittenhouse and the Police?

Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2020 11:18 am
by FlammableFlower
JQH wrote:
Wed Sep 02, 2020 8:39 am
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Wed Sep 02, 2020 12:27 am
That's an excellent essay. Thanks for sharing.
On reading it suddenly a lot of things make "sense".

Still haven't a clue what to do about them mind. It makes clear that the spittle flecked rants of the likes of Mike Adams, claiming BLM and Antifa are terrorists, are actually mainstream views in the US. I'm seriously thinking that they are sleep walking into another civil war.
I know it's easy to over-read things, especially as magnified by the media, but I am starting to feel a little worried about this too. There's definite entrenchment of positions occurring. I know here there's the Tory/Labour divide, but guns aren't in that mix.

Re: What’s the Difference Between Kyle Rittenhouse and the Police?

Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2020 11:31 am
by Gfamily
FlammableFlower wrote:
Wed Sep 02, 2020 11:18 am
JQH wrote:
Wed Sep 02, 2020 8:39 am
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Wed Sep 02, 2020 12:27 am
That's an excellent essay. Thanks for sharing.
On reading it suddenly a lot of things make "sense".

Still haven't a clue what to do about them mind. It makes clear that the spittle flecked rants of the likes of Mike Adams, claiming BLM and Antifa are terrorists, are actually mainstream views in the US. I'm seriously thinking that they are sleep walking into another civil war.
I know it's easy to over-read things, especially as magnified by the media, but I am starting to feel a little worried about this too. There's definite entrenchment of positions occurring. I know here there's the Tory/Labour divide, but guns aren't in that mix.
I have a suspicion that there's a significant faction that's marching towards a civil war with its eyes open, but they're seen as 'good people'

Re: What’s the Difference Between Kyle Rittenhouse and the Police?

Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2020 11:40 am
by dyqik
Gfamily wrote:
Wed Sep 02, 2020 11:31 am
I have a suspicion that there's a significant faction that's marching towards a civil war with its eyes open, but they're seen as 'good people'
A loud faction is openly calling for that, and turning up in cities heavily armed to shoot protesters.

They aren't a significant number, but they are loud and amplified by the President's fringe media supporters.

Re: What’s the Difference Between Kyle Rittenhouse and the Police?

Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2020 12:02 pm
by Bird on a Fire
In a way it's encouraging. I think the forces of reaction have noticed that there's a huge appetite for change on so many levels, and much of it is happening under its own momentum - women are uniting to take down privileged predators, celebrities are uniting to draw attention to racism, economics now prefers renewable energy to their fossil fuel investments.

They're freaking out because they're losing power and losing control on public sentiment. They know that if people actually united, organised and mobilised en masse they'd be toast. That's why they're loudly and angrily trying to stir up as much division as possible, in particular seeking to divide the working class. And despite the occasional tragedy it doesn't seem to be that successful.

I don't think the US has been on the cusp of such momentous change since the 1960s. Back then, there was a big scary external enemy to frighten people with. Now, the US is the international outlier, and young people who use the internet know this. The only response the beneficiaries of the old order have is to try to conjure up an enemy within. I think they've been a bit too complacent, perhaps even arrogant, and most people aren't buying it.

It does seem like the country (perhaps even the world) might be headed for a "they've got the guns, we've got the numbers" showdown, but obviously I very much hope not.

Re: What’s the Difference Between Kyle Rittenhouse and the Police?

Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2020 12:09 pm
by Bird on a Fire
JQH wrote:
Wed Sep 02, 2020 8:39 am
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Wed Sep 02, 2020 12:27 am
That's an excellent essay. Thanks for sharing.
On reading it suddenly a lot of things make "sense".
It's rare to see an explicit analysis of power these days, but I think it's essential for making sense of the world.

It's not exactly a secret that the US (and much of the world) is controlled by a small class of wealthy capitalists, nor that the process that generates their wealth is and always has been inextricably bound to the exploitation of workers, to racism, to sexism, to incarceration, mass-media propaganda, overseas militarism and so on and so on. But, annoyingly, as soon as you join the dots and point out the big picture and its consequences you get dismissed as a "loony lefty" by people who are clinging to a historically and economically incomplete worldview.

I'd read all the salient points of that essay before, but it's very well written for a mainstream audience, avoiding most of the vocabulary that seems to trigger people.

Re: What’s the Difference Between Kyle Rittenhouse and the Police?

Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2020 12:24 pm
by Woodchopper
JQH wrote:
Tue Sep 01, 2020 11:37 pm
Not a lot really, they're both defending a social order based on white supremacy.
Sorta, but also more complicated. It would be simplistic to portray US police officers as being motivated by white supremacism. To start with, in many departments, white people are a minority.

For example, in the LAPD only 25% of officers of all ranks are white. In the NYPD 47% are white. Its difficult to imagine forces with those demographics being made up of officers who are motivated by white supremacy.

That's not to say that racism isn't a huge problem. Its just complicated.

Re: What’s the Difference Between Kyle Rittenhouse and the Police?

Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2020 12:44 pm
by Bird on a Fire
Woodchopper wrote:
Wed Sep 02, 2020 12:24 pm
JQH wrote:
Tue Sep 01, 2020 11:37 pm
Not a lot really, they're both defending a social order based on white supremacy.
Sorta, but also more complicated. It would be simplistic to portray US police officers as being motivated by white supremacism. To start with, in many departments, white people are a minority.

For example, in the LAPD only 25% of officers of all ranks are white. In the NYPD 47% are white. Its difficult to imagine forces with those demographics being made up of officers who are motivated by white supremacy.

That's not to say that racism isn't a huge problem. Its just complicated.
I think that's why JQH/the article refer to a social order based on white supremacy, rather than white supremacy per se - it's certainly possible for people to accept or defend the current social order without endorsing or noticing its racist underpinnings.

Re: What’s the Difference Between Kyle Rittenhouse and the Police?

Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2020 12:49 pm
by Woodchopper
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Wed Sep 02, 2020 12:44 pm
Woodchopper wrote:
Wed Sep 02, 2020 12:24 pm
JQH wrote:
Tue Sep 01, 2020 11:37 pm
Not a lot really, they're both defending a social order based on white supremacy.
Sorta, but also more complicated. It would be simplistic to portray US police officers as being motivated by white supremacism. To start with, in many departments, white people are a minority.

For example, in the LAPD only 25% of officers of all ranks are white. In the NYPD 47% are white. Its difficult to imagine forces with those demographics being made up of officers who are motivated by white supremacy.

That's not to say that racism isn't a huge problem. Its just complicated.
I think that's why JQH/the article refer to a social order based on white supremacy, rather than white supremacy per se - it's certainly possible for people to accept or defend the current social order without endorsing or noticing its racist underpinnings.
I agree, and there is the whole overlap with class politics as well. I was disagreeing with some of the text of the linked article which mentions white supremicism among police officers. That of course occurs, but it doesn't seem to explain behaviour overall.