Any loot?

Posted: Tue Jun 02, 2020 7:41 pm

With the riots and all I guess someone should have gotten some.

And the looting. I blame videogames. Before Diablo this wouldn't have happened.

Do we even have any :peopleofcolour: here?
I know susan is The King of the flowers.

:bukkakegogglesgirl:

Posted: Wed Jun 10, 2020 4:02 am

The world is crazy and no I'm not a person of colour.

I'm against racism and all and I've for my whole life considered myself leaning toward the left side of the political spectrum, but how do I hate how militantism is everywhere. You can't go out anywhere without being harrassed with all sort of SJW crap, by people thinking they're the first to discover, feel and experiment everything when all it is is a bunch of ungrateful ignorants with no knowledge of history, no sense of history, hiding their narcissism under a veil of modern moralism, and acting like there's never been any worse moment in history to live than today, when it's actually quite the opposite even if very far from perfect.

So no, no looting for me.

Posted: Wed Jun 10, 2020 5:08 pm

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle.

I support the protests, as well as rioting and looting because people are fucked off. Being working class is shit, being working class and a minority is even shitter. We have some a transactional perspective on the rights of other people or the way we use language as if one group loses something at the gains of another, and there is a level of racism that the majority finds acceptable.

Looting is a valid form of action against companies that pay billions to shareholders. And most of the stuff being looted - clothing made in sweat shops in Asia, food made one of a few monopolies that feed you shit, electronics made from recycled parts gathered in toxic dumps by children - is just crap anyway. Rewards to distract you from how shit working is.

I don't really know what SJW stuff is really, I have a mental image of someone overweight with dyed hair, but other than that I'm not sure what they are, I've not met one in person. If its to do with politcal correctness - or not calling someone a retard or swell guy or what have you - I don't see what's wrong with that. Language is a constantly evolving thing, and the internet has accelerated what is and isn't taboo. I think 20 years ago the internet was a more male dominated and reflected that, so with a more diverse range of people on the internet (on the same 6 sites) that challenged perceptions within the male safe space. Soon everything will be taken over by zoomers anyway and they'll make future memes about SJWs and the alt-right, but for now I feel the culture war between these two extremes is inevitable to play itself out.

Abolish the police, close the prisons, dismantle the international arms trade, decriminalise drugs, criminalise landlords, cease the destruction of the environment and intensive farming, remove all borders, redistribute all money and have universal basic income for all, invest in education and culture and so on. If I compromise before I have even started negotiating I have lost.

Posted: Wed Jun 10, 2020 5:41 pm

I totally support the protests as well, they are right to be angry and stuff. I'm totally against discrimination based on everything, colour, gender, sexual orientation. The thing is, I don't give a shit about it and in my mind, equality is just that : not giving a damn about someone's gender, colour, etc, it should be a non-factor. But the way we are engaged in, it's the opposite that's gonna happen, people are only focusing on THEIR identity and brandishing it as a flag, a marker, and in the process they erase a bunch of other differences. Blacks don't all have the same history, same with white people, with males, females, etc, etc.

Still, like I said what I don't like is people versing in militantism, abandonning all form of nuance. Not being open to discussion. My previous post might fall into that pattern but it was mostly ironic and targeted for the DaC audience, and born out of frustration.

Also, the world is not the USA, and each society has their own problems of various importance, but it seems the whole world's conscience is being americanized, we are applying the american template of analysis on everything, and their #1 problems are becoming everyone's by association, while also oversimplifying them.

I also don't think the current level of aggressiveness, even if deserved, will help anything. I don't see how this ends well. We'll end up with people more divided then ever, which will sprout violence, and division, and violence, etc. You want Trump back for another 4 years? We are in the right direction.

Posted: Thu Jun 11, 2020 7:43 am

I thought we were already on the way to having Trump for another 4 years icon_chew

Ideally equality would be along the lines you say, a non-issue. We don't discriminate between white people with blue eyes and white people with brown eyes (unless you're full fash) - however, the mode of identity is a part of culture and how we treat each other. It is like colour blindness ~ meaning people who say 'I don't see this person as black, they are just a person' ~ negates that side of their identity. Just as if I were to say to you 'I don't see you as a man, you are just a humanoid' (replace man with father/Canadian/person with health issues/occupation/whatever). I think our differences make the world more vivid and interesting and should be acknowledged.

I think there is an issue with a lot of lefty people finding this shit out for the first time and trying to police language and being so woke they need to go to bed. I think that can get a bit tiresome and isn't useful as it pushes the idea that if you're say, a white man, whatever you do or say will never be good enough whilst also expected to be 'an ally' and read all the books and volunteer your time and do everything in your power whilst still never being seen as equal to a person of colour due to the history of slavery and imperialism. Which I think, fuck that. It is another form of newspeak.

Though I wouldn't conflate someone on Twitter putting clap emojis between every word with the alt-right, as the former is still clumsily finding their way through linguistics whilst the other want white nationalism. There is little debate or nuance any more, we have reached a stage of just reposting memes back and forth in echo chambers with the hope of scooping up anyone on the fence. I think the 'strength' in fascism is that is has a clearer problem>solution form, whilst the more identity politics obsessives is just a cycle of calling others out and self-flaggelation - to a certain extent. I think both extremes have their side amplified moreso than what people are like as a whole though.

I do however feel that division and action is necessary. For a long time people have been fighting various issues, in this case for black people not to be murdered by the police. Signing some online petition or dunking on someone's racist uncle on Twitter doesn't work, and I'm not so sure on electoralism (vote for one piece of shit or another then wait?) - so the action (and change) that is taking place is positive.

Posted: Thu Jun 11, 2020 9:16 am

The protest are dumb. These aren't angry workers, they're mostly thugs and retards blaming society rather than accepting that they themselves are to blame for the position they're in.

They didn't really start it tho. The woke crowd did. A bunch of spoiled brats expecting everything to be handed to them because they're special.

Go Trump!

Posted: Thu Jun 11, 2020 9:40 pm

Yes, obviously orchestrated to reignite the pandemic eh.

Posted: Fri Jun 12, 2020 6:34 am

As far as challenging the government's monopoly of violence I'm fine with that. No-knock raids need to be illegal and the government should repeal any and all weapon bans. The more capacity of violence the average citizen has the more in line the government is to working in their people's interest. I'm not for riots or violence, myself, but to understand that all authority is derived from violence makes every decision regarding it very important. I'm not really a political person, I have my own beliefs and things that I know most people don't agree with, but as far as random acts of vandalism and violence I'm not in support of any of that. Leave the fucking Confederate statues alone, goddamnit. Erasing history and doing away with anything remotely offensive is some 1984 newspeak shit.

Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2020 11:19 am

I don't see it as erasing history but being apart of history, just as the sacking of Rome by the Vandals or the suppression of artists and writers in Stalinist Russia - the destruction of art sets a beginning and end for a cycle, rather than culture being some static, unchanging thing.

Just as there aren't statues of Hitler, we can still have an awareness of history that isn't based in bronze sculptures of individuals. I'd say public statues usually have zero cultural influence or value, and its only been recently that people are becoming aware as to why they exist in the first place, and through that awareness is a question of why are they there but not something else.

I don't really care about the fate of bad public art. Tear them down, keep them up and surround with statues of slaves, replace them with Goku; they are just physical representations of a much larger clash between a polarised society brought about by economic imbalance due to the hoarding of wealth by baby boomers, probably

Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2020 11:00 pm

I'm curious, have anyone been close to the riots? Heard the gunshots? As an European It all is just vague to me, some crazy footage though.

Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2020 1:51 am

I live on the other side of the country from most of that nonsense. That said I'm like five hours out from Atlanta, shame people down here are acting like that. There isn't a lot of big trouble going down in North Carolina, thank god. I just hope it stays out of my state. There's protests, sure, but I don't have a problem with that in and of itself.

Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2020 6:55 pm

I live in a big city...We have protests pretty much all the time anyway. The recent BLM protests got a little rioty on the first night, but it was predominantly white kids doing all the vandalism. It's been fairly peaceful all around other than that. Plus, we've got a really progressive and diverse police force anyhow that ALREADY had plans to accommodate the majority of the demands being made.

A lot of the small towns around us are throwing fits about "defund the police" but our police department understood the meaning and intent and made changes that were able to appease most from both sides of the issue. Small towns are under the impression we're descending into chaos and scared old white dudes are setting up barricades in the suburbs at the end of their porch to hide from the new boogie-man, Antifa.

One of the other county's sheriffs started a "posse" of "concerned armed citizens." That's going to go about as well as you would think. There's a lot of talk from the "boogaloo boys" and it's absolute nuttery. A lot of the miscommunication and fear mongering is coming from these extreme right and left wing propaganda mills like OAN or Wonkette. FOX "News" went in hard, too...

Most of the local stations are keeping it real, but most folks around here go to cable "news" instead. Even the local newspapers (heavy conservative bias) are pretty straight forward with what's going on and aren't sensationalizing anything.

Weird times we live in when people refuse to believe facts and go straight for that emotional opinion piece.

Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2020 8:32 pm

People believe what they want to believe, they read things that only confirm their opinions. That's always been a thing, though now people are just more aware of it.

Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2020 7:53 am

I am rather intrigued about this while Chaz thing in seattle. Like a Micro communist cosmos.

Within 48h a local warlord arose to 'keep order' and then they ran out of food. You Can't make this shit up.

Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2020 9:14 am

My brother lives in Seattle. I worry about him; he seems like the political kind of asshole that would get swept up in all this.

Also, some assholes tried - keyword is tried, it was dismantled within minutes of it being declared - to start an autonomous zone in Asheville, which I live very close to. I don't like the thought of those kind of irresponsible spoiled hipsters living that close to me. If they were actual competent anarchists that had a clear message, that'd be one thing, but these are the equivalent of ignorant college kids throwing tantrums.

Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2020 2:41 pm

Competent anarchists? 😂

Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2020 8:04 pm

I wish this forum could have youtube links pop up like the good ol days of 2015.

In the UK we've have protests and counterprotests, thumb heads guarding a metal box containing a statue of Winston Churchill and laying offerings of mini-rolls and crisps and the general sense of the population is 'I support BLM buuuuut the timing is kinda off huh there's a pandemic on' icon_chainsaw

Any rights were brought about by (usually violent) protest; the WKND, child labour, women's right to vote, LGBT equality, black slavery in the USA etc. - just writing a letter or posting some shit on the internet does fuck all. I don't know how most people can look at how shit everything is and think 'ah its not that bad though eh'

Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2020 8:04 pm

This.

Some people around here are trying to take down a statue of James McGill in Montreal, because "he was a slaver". I really don't give a shit about McGill, being a french-canadian makes me kind of hostile to anything remotely linked to the british autority, but the guy was rich, founded and funded an important university, and was an overall important figure in the political landscape of Canada and mostly in Montreal. Thus, there is a statue of him on the grounds of the university he founded. But these ignorant college kids throwing tantrums want to take down his statue because he had a few slaves (I read he had 6 slaves!). I mean, if we had to be hostile to anyone who had a few slaves in the history of the world, our heroes would be few. And, I mean, people had slaves since the dawn of time and it was widely accepted by a bunch of people, which doesn't make it ok now, but you have to take this into account when assessing historical figures. People also married their sisters, cousins, fucked 12 year old girls, killed each other, tortured each other. I just read that in the UK some people want to take down Gandhi's statue because he said some derogatory stuff about blacks. Come on. He was born in the 19th century in India, you can't expect Gandhi to be woke and an ally of BLM, LGBTQ+ and whatever.

Like, this is non-sense. And removing statues, especially those of inspiring leaders who had the misfortune of being men of their time, and rewriting history books won't make racism magically disappear.

It's like people are just giving a meaning to their lives by trying to find other people to blame, it makes them feel good (as in good vs evil), important and gives them a purpose, but it all goes nowhere.

Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2020 8:09 pm

I think the idea is that having a statue elevates a figure to be something to be admired (at least in the classical statues most of these are, rather than the more abstract forms of ww2 war memorials in Eastern Europe or memoralising the Rape of Nanking etc.)

For public art to remain relevant and alive it should be temporary. Conflating art and historical education is kinda dumb maybe, I dunno. Not like anyone knows much about history besides the olden days, ww2, the 80s, now.

Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2020 8:18 pm

Yeah but who decides how temporary it is? Random crowds of the day?

Also, if we had to stop elevating every historical figure who was racist, we'd end up with no one. I'm pretty sure every europeans from the 13th century hated the mongols, same with the arabs in the 8th century, etc, etc, this never ends.

I don't know, I just feel like what's happening is a bit short-sighted. It's all anchored in the "now".