A subdued man has his neck kneeled on by a cop. He dies. Footage goes viral. Minneapolis burns to the ground. A police precinct is captured by a mob and burned. Other mobs in other cities try to repeat. During a pandemic, no less.

Politics aside, my family is probably thinking this is the end of the world. Everything that has happened for the last four years tells them this is it: Jesus finally comin’. Only he’s not coming. He’s been “nigh, even at the gates,” for almost two whole millenia. I know the gospels said he comes in an hour when you don’t suspect, but Jesus... The first generation of Latter-day Saints didn’t think they would all pass away before he came back, but they did and he didn’t.

Since the holy body first disappeared, reactionary disciples of Christ have from time to time convinced themselves that his return was closer than it was and then made total asses of themselves in extreme acts of faith that only make sense if the consuming fire of the second advent is at hand. Only it never comes, and those folks are left to themselves and how stupid they look... if their act wasn’t suicidal. Those idiots are always with us, only now we live in a sub-era of the nuclear era when those guys are getting bolder and bolder with how much of reality they dare to deny because either the ethnic diversification of their country or the rise of the “Nones” scares them to death. Or both.

The president has called for us to start a new nuclear arms race. The United States may begin to test nuclear explosions on this earth once again, and this will be overseen by a man who (as far as the reporting is accurate) said he would nuke a hurricane in an attempt to dissipate the storm front, and people permit this insanity to govern us because some of them are crazy and the others are too burnt out by all the stupid shit going on right now to organize a bipartisan coalition to fight back against the crazies.

World leaders from the past who Boomers on both sides of the aisle should have noticed have given press conferences basically begging the United States not to reignite the nuclear arms race. But we’re gonna, I guess.

It seems like the end of the world is going to go down exactly like my family always thought it would. There will be wars and rumors of wars, social unrest on scales never before seen, fire and smoke, the sea heaving beyond her bounds, and finally it will all end in fire. The difference though is that at no point will the zombie Jew Yeshua Ben Yosef from the 1st century AD show up riding a flying flaming chariot down from the clouds to save his elect — everyone will die, and it will all have been completely avoidable. It will be a pointless end to the human race, and there will be no do-overs, no safety nets, no spirit world where we all mingle after mortality and laugh about all the mistakes we made. It just ends. All of it.

Reason is the still small voice the human family should be cultivating. It’s the only way we make it through all these great ethnic, religious, and technological changes happening right now and come out the other side without blowing everything up and ruining the earth for our kind. When the Chinese communists are the voice of reason — you know... the people erasing Tibet, subduing Hong Kong, slaughtering the Uighurs, running a digital police state that would make Orwell blush, and the source of way too many novel pathogenic outbreaks —- then your country has gone off the rails. America was something special in the world, but maybe we’ve been too cozy for too long. We’ve gotten stupid and entitled to a hilarious degree, and the world is watching in horror as an unrivaled superpower with enough nukes to decimate the globe seven times over threatens to descend into either anarchy, civil war, or theocracy.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/30/2020 10:48AM by Cold-Dodger.

If the end of times is here, how come there isn't a mass caravan of the members of the COJCOLDS headed to Missouri.

You'd think with Rusty and all his cohorts would be leading the way.

They could all drive, gas is cheaper than it's been in years and there's plenty of it. They'd save all the wear and tear on the hand carts.

And on top of everything else, the Gulf of Mexico water is about 5F above normal, increasing the odds of a very big hurricane sometime this summer.

Karma needs an aspirin,

Headline : "White supremacy groups are hoping to leverage George Floyd's death into their longed-for 'race war'"

Looting and burning ?
Video shows the instigators clearly. They are white. Organized with walkie talkies.

https://twitter.com/Dovewoman1/status/1266746749072408578



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/30/2020 12:42PM by Dave the Atheist.

Yeah right so? There are Antifa's, just like they were in Seattle, just like they were in Ferguson, etc. Wake up Dave.

Wake up, Ted.

How's that Putin working out for you radical right wing extremists.

For what it's worth, a friend just texted me that he thinks antifa is in this little town I'm holed up in for a few months.

Of all things, he says they came over from Utah. Cars all over with Utah licenses plates. Strange.

You talk like "Antifa" is actually a thing rather than only in radical right wing extremist imaginations.

Maybe I do Dave. The problem is I was simply repeating something somebody said to me.

You could not talk to somebody who knows less about Antifa and what it is or isn’t than me. I know nothing. I’ll google it when I finish working out.

But I do like hearing that from you. It’s nice to think that there isn’t anybody in this little town out to do something bad.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/30/2020 08:54PM by jay.

So you parrot stuff you hear because you don't care about truth. Did I miss anything ?

I repeat things I hear all the time. And you probably won’t talk to anybody that’s wrong more often than me. I’m mistaken about all kinds of things every single day.

What we are watching, Dave, is the reorganization of US politics.

A few decades ago there was a deep rift between whites and blacks/Latinos. That division is starting to break down. We've long known that young people are not preoccupied with race, think gay people are--incredible as it may seem--human beings, etc.

What happened in Minneapolis is that the majority of protestors those first nights were young white people. That makes sense given that blacks comprise only about 7% of the city's population, but the white predominance was striking. The same pattern is manifesting in other cities. There is a nascent convergence of interests, an incipient alliance, between young whites and blacks of all ages.

Thus the tectonic plates have shifted and a new fracture is opening between older whites and younger whites. That is an important development, one that should have the GOP anxious, for that party is fast losing the younger generation.

There is in the emerging alliance an opportunity to rebuild society, to stop over the medium-term the racial violence and institutional discrimination that are the legacy of America's original sin.

I’m living this right now, and trust me God ain’t coming. It is outsiders taking advantage of genuine outrage. Neighborhoods have been decimated, it will takes years to come back.

The cop is a flat out murderer, and I hope the place him in the general population and let Karma sort it out.

Cold-Dodger wrote a good post that could go either way - an interesting analysis of Mormon beliefs and the reactions of Mormon family members, or too political for this board. It depends on which aspects we choose to emphasize.

Re Last Days: I concur that many Bible believers of various sorts will think/hope this is it. Armageddon is coming and they will be going to glory. Even as a JW I could not eagerly anticipate the end of the world - I thought of all those who, according to the theology, wouldn't make it through the Lake of Fire etc. I didn't see how one could rejoice in that. And the "sin" of many would be only that they held differing beliefs. Seems overly harsh to punish them forever for a clash of opinion about the interpretation of this or that obscure verse.

My BIL told me yesterday that he knows many BACs who also think/hope this is it. I can't get into that mindset - I don't understand why it is appealing at all. He said they fully expect to wake up in heaven.

It's a good time for as many of us as possible to keep things in perspective. Both the reality of what's occurring and the wave concept of rinse and repeat that occurs throughout history.

It's too bad that more Bible-believing people don't focus on the Peace parts instead of the war scenarios. I guess that is a faint hope of mine and, as I've been told many times, I'm a bad Christian for objecting to the battle-eager types. For them, war = heaven - heaven in *their* near future at least and to hell with everybody else, literally.

I can't get behind such beliefs.

It's all a matter of interpretation and emphasis anyway. Nobody knows the day or hour - or what is actually going to happen. I think a certain over-intensity and frenzy of belief can cause a lot of problems.

One of my friends lives near the police station that burned. I've been quite concerned about her.

Somehow we have had very few injuries and no deaths. My fear is that will change.

About 20% of the rioters arrested were actual Minnesotans. If not for outsiders, that police precinct and all of those burned out buildings would probably be intact today. The idea that a police precinct could fall to a mob scares everyone in power. They will respond accordingly. In spite of their training, the police are not set up to be warriors. They rely on a peaceful populace, which Minneapolis failed to provide when they didn’t take the involved officers into protective custody while the DA investigated. Let me guess. They won’t do that again.

The governor is right. What’s going on now has nothing to do with George Floyd. He was an unwitting Archduke Ferdinand. Now if we can avert a civil war, I’ll consider us lucky. Creating a huge population with nothing to lose while throwing gasoline on the fire of economic inequality is a recipe for disaster. The scientists who study these things understand the existential threat. As with the virologists, they aren’t listened to because the cult of Trump, like most cults, is anti-science.

People used to think they were suffering for something. Then the money printing started. Trillions just like that. Yup, that’s right. You didn’t have to work like a dog to survive. Kids didn’t have to go hungry. You could have had decent healthcare. They could have treated you right if they wanted. They just don’t want to. That’s the disillusionment. It’s come at a bad time.

Bradley, do you have any sources for your assertion that the protesters in the first two or even three nights were 20% Minnesotan? That seems like a significant observation it is true, but I'm not sure that anyone was checking drivers licenses or otherwise had any basis for making that statement.

Help me out if you can.

That data was obtained from police arrests. Out-of-state agitators and provocateurs.


St. Paul Mayor: "every single person we arrested last night, I’m told, was from out of state."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/30/2020 06:44PM by Dave the Atheist.

Walz - the governor of MN

https://www.kare11.com/article/news/local/george-floyd/minnneapolis-leaders-speak-on-riots-george-floyd/89-8dfdf050-39ef-4af8-8f00-0b0074df8fe2

Thank you.

I'm not sure how he would know that, but it's good to see the source.

Maybe ex Mormons raised in a cult still see the doomsday scenario playing out more easily than most.

We’ve got things to work on. Our society has been steadily progressing with occasional setbacks. But things are better than they were 40 years ago and they’ll be better 10 years from now.

Someone asked about her black grandson on another thread. And what he could anticipate in the future. I think he can look forward to an incredible future. I know it’s easy to take this one snapshot and feel like everything’s wrong, but if you look back over time and you see the changes that have occurred in our society, I think there’s good reason to expect a lot of good things in the future.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/30/2020 04:04PM by jay.

I think there are events taking place that appear to be on a world wide scale. The pandemic, climate, ect. but I hardly think that events taking place in the US are necessarily indicative of a world wide melt down. It is difficult for many Mormons to grasp but I don't think the world revolves around what happens here.

Knowing about is not the same thing as having it happen in your own neighborhood and does not make it universal. Besides, CNN does not broadcast straight American coverage. The world may be aware of rioting here but they don't translate that to mean it will travel to them. Sadly, many people around the world have come to accept these events as typical of America.

Well said. To paraphrase Tolstoy, all great countries are alike but each dysfunctional country is dysfunctional in its own particular way.

American exceptionalism is factual in multiple senses, one of which is profound racial, class, and other divisions that are nowhere near as severe in comparably wealthy countries. Another is the ideology of American exceptionalism itself, the religion of American superiority, that prevents the United States from addressing its problems effectively.

This orgy of self-immolation will not spread much abroad, since most of the rest of the world has never embraced many of the American cultural absurdities that are now in motion. What is occurring before our eyes is an American drama and requires an American denouement. The world will look on, appalled, but it will not go down the same path.

True I think LW. The world watches America closely, but violence will not 'spread' as a result. Each country has its own political dynamic, and protest arises for different reasons and takes its own form under each culture.

In the UK, for instance, poor leadership in the pandemic is resulting in general despair, but not in generalised riots.

America has a history of occasional race riots, which sometimes correspond with other social movements. In this case, severe inequality and sudden unemployment, combined with a failure of governments to deal sensibly with the health crisis, could mean an extended run of trouble. Eventually law and order will be restored, and hopefully the anger will be targeted towards democratic remedies.

As a side note, it is always amusing to observe religious hard liners in the US assuming that local problems will precipitate the second coming, as if God is watching Fox News and gradually losing patience with American politics, not noticing the constant wars and famines going on around the globe...

> America has a history of occasional race riots,
> which sometimes correspond with other social
> movements. In this case, severe inequality and
> sudden unemployment, combined with a failure of
> governments to deal sensibly with the health
> crisis, could mean an extended run of trouble.
> Eventually law and order will be restored, and
> hopefully the anger will be targeted towards
> democratic remedies.

I think this is spot on.

There are short-term and long-term remedies. In the short term, it is essential that police are arrested, charged and jailed just like everyone else. The notion that the ex-inspector and his son in Georgia were not charged for months, and that the Minneapolis murderer and his abettors were not immediately charged on probable cause and jailed, is astounding.

After immediately arresting the "suspects," as if that arms-length is necessary given the videos, the authorities should have established a powerful and visual presence on the streets. The withdrawal of the police in Minneapolis was a tremendous error. The better move would have been to bring in the national guard instantly. So the murderers would be jailed and charged and there would have been enough "police" on the streets to discourage the turn to violence and vandalism. The combination of laxity regarding the torture/murder of a black man and the absence of law enforcement was exactly the wrong policy to pursue.

Over the longer term, the national leadership has to shape up, or be shaped up, as you suggest. And there must be extensive, long-term efforts to redress the income and wealth inequalities, neutralize racial and ethnic imbalances, and restructure the economy so that large groups of minorities--including the poor white workers who don't realize that they too are a distinct "minority" of disenfranchised people--have some hope for the future.

That is what true leaders would do. It is how a cohesive community can be built.

That’s it!

Unfortunately, I think what’s happening is exactly what the man at the top wants. And will find out how deep that support is. I don’t think it’s enough to hold back the title wave that’s coming. I hope.

No easy task, unfortunately, and there will be lots of pain along that path.

Interesting perspective and I find it enjoyable to learn what other people think. I'm not sure what our "American cultural absurdities" might be? If it's nationalism and pride for our land then other countries certainly have that, and even more so. We are a racially diverse and wealthy nation which up until recently there weren't many large populous nations as diverse (except perhaps Australia and Canada) that were doing well. Mexico is certainly diverse and they aren't doing near as well with GDP.

But even with the systemic problems of a lot of people who are diverse the miracle is that we still have a higher gdp per person than other large wealthy countries. We are doing better than the Germans, the Japanese, the Russians, the Koreans. All who supposedly have a higher national IQ than the US. Why would that be?

What makes America more 'Exceptional' than anyone other country is that we have attracted the best ideas, and the most moral people on the planet to live here, and also most of the life changing technologies are created here by the smartest people on the planet who we recruited. It's the miracle of the free market system. It's intellectual capitalism.

There must be a reason that so many people from around the world want to come here. And do.

"they aren't doing near as well with GDP."
Oh please tell us how our GDP is doing.

> Interesting perspective and I find it enjoyable to
> learn what other people think. I'm not sure what
> our "American cultural absurdities" might be?

Guns, the weakness of the social safety net, the absence of a basic national health system, special privileges like tax exemption for religions, the notion that Ammon Bundy and others can reject laws they don't like, "qualified immunity" that makes it almost impossible to hold police accountable for what would get others thrown in jail for years, Manifest Destiny. There are others.


-------------------
> If
> it's nationalism and pride for our land then other
> countries certainly have that, and even more so.

Nationalism is different from patriotism for the simple reason that "nation" is an ethnic and cultural term. As soon as people move from commitment to their polity and their community to commitment to their "nation," you get in trouble. Nationalism in the United States, to the extent it exists, is racism and hostility to believers in other religions.


----------------
> We are a racially diverse and wealthy nation which
> up until recently there weren't many large
> populous nations as diverse (except perhaps
> Australia and Canada) that were doing well.

Australia and Canada hardly count as "diverse," so that canard can grow wings and fly away like a canary. As for doing well economically, one day you might look that up. There are a dozen or so countries that are wealthier per capita than the US.

You should also look at the prevalence of poverty by nation, the United States does considerably worse than that. The standard measure of distribution is the Gini Coefficient, which is the ratio of wealth held by the top 20% to the bottom 20%. By that measure, the United States is in the bottom third of countries globally--it is the only OECD economy with huge pockets of third-world penury. And that poverty--particularly among minority groups but also, emphatically, among the poor white people who predominantly supported Trump in the last election--is ripping the country apart.


-----------------
> All who supposedly have a higher national
> IQ than the US. Why would that be?

I have no idea what that means or how you could measure it.


-----------------
> What makes America more 'Exceptional' than anyone
> other country is that we have attracted the best
> ideas, and the most moral people on the planet to
> live here, and also most of the life changing
> technologies are created here by the smartest
> people on the planet who we recruited. It's the
> miracle of the free market system. It's
> intellectual capitalism.

Yeah, this sort of "rah rah" exceptionalism is exactly what I am decrying. It is bullshit. The United States has at times had excellent thinkers and innovators. At other times it has driven those people out--as the US is about to do with Chinese students--and jailed them like the Japanese in World War Two or all Asians in the early 20th century. By throwing up new barriers to entry, the US guts itself as surely as Spain did when it expelled the Jews and the Muslims in the late 15th century.

And yes, slavery, racism, and individual access to the means of violence are American ideas. They hardly count as "the best ideas"--unless you mean that with unintentional fatuity like some who have spectacularly claimed to have "the best words."

macaRomney Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ...What makes America more 'Exceptional' than anyone
> other country is that we have attracted the ... most moral people on the planet to
> live here...

An interesting generalization.

Impossible to measure "the most moral people", I'd think. Easier to point out some who are not so much.

I don't see the most, the biggest, the best, the brightest as all being collected within one nation. Just like "truth" isn't the purview of a single religious group.

To think otherwise is to think too small, imho.

Americans who think like this should read a little more widely and travel more.

Ya think?

"self-immolation" was one of Ayn Rand's favorite terms.

Oops!

I have inadvertently admitted my cultural Fascism. Now no one will believe my claims to cultural Marxism!

I'm still trying to figure out what "conservatism" is.

It used to have a meaning: fiscal restraint, strong national defense through alliances and intelligence as well as hardware, respect for the constitution and the separation of powers. You know, "conserving" the country's strength, resources, and institutional values. Now it just means loyalty to a man.

That's why I prefer cultural Extremism. The terms--Marxist, Fascist, Nazi--mean nothing but sound cool. I'm not as advanced in the art of the vacuous as Jordan and some others, but there is always hope.

I remember where I was and EXACTLY what I was doing when I heard that brutal racist bastard died.

None of this police brutality or lynching is new. Every generation of my family has dealt with it and continues to do so.

America is going to have to reckon with its original sin. The longer we wait, the more likely it is that our country will burn to the ground. Maybe it should. I think we need a do over.

*** Admin note ***
One of the mods removed this post for being somewhat inflammatory. I agree that it is inflammatory, but also that it's responding to far more inflammatory issues. I'm putting it back up. Plus, it's hard to deny that Frank Rizzo was a brutal, racist bastard.
CZ (admin)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/01/2020 05:01PM by Concrete Zipper.

While people with little skin in the game and without their lives on the line bloviate about this and that often from a sympathetic point of view, I decided to express my joy, yes, joy(!) when people vandalized Philadelphia's version of a confederate statue. Actually there are two. The first one is a statue of Frank Rizzo, one of the most brutal, racist, and homophobic mayors we've had. The other is of Christopher Columbus. He gets his just deserts from time to time.

This country *will* burn in one form or another until *we* address the original sin of slavery. Period.

We could use a do over. Maybe we'd rise from the ashes cleansed.

Yes, Beth, yes!

If not now, when?

https://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-fire-next-time/summary



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/30/2020 09:21PM by Beth.

"If we do not now dare everything, the fulfillment of that prophecy, re-created from the Bible in song by a slave, is upon us: *God gave Noah the rainbow sign, No more water, the fire next time!*

--James Baldwin--
--The Fire Next Time--

Headline : "Wife of George Floyd's Killer Files for Divorce"

How come I never hear any white television talking heads say "Mr. Kaepernick, I guess you were right all along.

I guess a bunch of white people owe you a major apology.

We are sorry we didn’t listen to you. And we’re sorry we ruined your career.

Could you help us solve this mess anyway ?"

I guess because you’re not listening. Plenty of white talking heads were saying it from the time he first kneeled.

"The governor is right. What’s going on now has nothing to do with George Floyd. He was an unwitting Archduke Ferdinand. Now if we can avert a civil war, I’ll consider us lucky. Creating a huge population with nothing to lose while throwing gasoline on the fire of economic inequality is a recipe for disaster. The scientists who study these things understand the existential threat----as with the virologists, they aren’t listened to because the cult of Trump, like most cults, is anti-science."
---

Speak for yourself, John. (Which, of course, we all do.) The world IS NOT falling apart, which can easily be seen by those who know history.

Mostly, it gets down to "blame the cult of Trump". But, that's OK, because he has broader shoulders than most politicians, and usually comes back with something rational to say--and a solution for the problems which which he has to deal.

"something rational to say" ... such as ...

> Mostly, it gets down to "blame the cult of Trump".
> But, that's OK, because he has broader shoulders
> than most politicians, and usually comes back with
> something rational to say--and a solution for the
> problems which which he has to deal.

Wow. That's a gem.

1) It isn't Trump's shoulders that are broad.

2) He rarely says rational things; his whole career is based on emotional appeal.

3) "A solution?" Where is your problem solver? What has he said about the protests other than 1) "when the looting starts, the shooting starts" and 2) if anyone gets too close to the White House he'll hit them with dogs and "unbelievable" weapons?

Get a grip. Trump has no solutions. Trump has nothing to say.

Exactly..."they usually come back with something rationale to say" as in Biden explaining Trump's COVID 19 debacle. The problem according to this Democratic nominee is that the POTUS doesn't have enough intercourse with the world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91ohifzjk1M

Do you know the primary definition of "intercourse?" Because that word makes perfect sense in the context unless you don't understand it.

America's original sin is the belief in white supremacy.

There would be no slavery without the belief in white supremacy.

There would be no slaughter of indigenous peoples without the belief in white supremacy.

There would be no racism against any people of color without the belief in white supremacy.

I couldn't understand why we worshipped a god that was used to keep us good little slaves who would receive a heavenly rest and reward.

The real fight is against internalizing what we're told daily. It's an irresistible pull.

The fight is against believing that we *are* inferior, stupid, ugly, bad.

I need to watch Beychella and dance out my pain.

Beth Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I need to watch Beychella and dance out my pain.

Sorry, Beth, for your pain. Thank you for being willing to try and explain it to us.


Leonard Cohen - Dance Me to the End of Love:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGorjBVag0I


Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic till I'm gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love

Kaepernick protested peacefully every Sunday, and they fucking crucified him. And here we are.

There violent protests in downtown SLC. Curfew at 8 pm until Monday.

One guy got out of his vehicle with bow and arrows in hand, was attacked by demonstrators, who then flipped and burned his vehicle.

Second vegicle is burning. That's all I know so far. I hear sirens.

Here you go ...


https://ksltv.com/438520/man-detained-after-brandishing-bow-car-lit-on-fire-by-protesters/

"The headline should read “man gets out of his car and attempts to murder protesters with bow and arrow, hilarity ensues”



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/30/2020 11:20PM by Dave the Atheist.