Conflict erupts at Minneapolis, L.A. protests over George Floyd death

[loomer]

Can we not acknowledge both: that some of the violence is a result of legitimate grievances (whether or not it is the most effective tactic is a separate debate), and that some of it is being done by outside agitators to discredit or hijack the protests?

So long as we do so in a way that recognizes the legitimate grievances and doesn't paint a dichotomy between 'real (read: non-violent) protestors' and 'outside agitators', yes. There's absolutely no problem recognizing that there's various shitheels who want to stir shit up. Somehow this point has been lost even though I've acknowledged it in every post on the subject.

I do understand that some people may be making these claims with less than honest motives, but both statements are true, and I don't see why we can't acknowledge the presence of outside agitators and extremists while also acknowledging the legitimate grievances of the protesters. Especially as one of the likely motives of these agitators, in infiltrating the protests, is to discredit them, by having their acts falsely attributed to the protesters.

This is another key point. Where the claim is coming from members of the community, it's one thing (and that's where you'll get accurate reporting of when various boogaloo fuckwits, white 'anarchists' (read: shitheads who think anarchism = anarchy), and plain ol' shit stirrers are causing trouble) but the claims I've been responding to are ones authored primarily by the establishment that has a vested interest in quieting the revolt - by mayors, police chiefs, governors, and the AG. One even went so far as to insinuate that some of it is down to cartels and 'foreign influence', for which there is approximately zero evidence.

Also, just in case people have somehow missed it where I've said it elsewhere, this is not to say there aren't undercovers deliberately stirring shit up. The reason not to credit the party line of 'outside agitators' because of their presence is that the undercovers are inserted to give weight to the claim of 'outside agitators' and thereby delegitimize the movement. Accepting the party line of 'by golly these people are only violent because of outside agitators' when they put agitators in plays into their hands, and it is this duplicity that must be resisted because it will be used to justify increased force and things like, say, the President declaring all anti-fascists to be terrorists. It redirects the focus away from legitimate rage rooted in the community and steals agency and the implicit threat of further rebellion that the revolts rely on for impact.

This is the point I've made repeatedly and which seems to have been neatly swept under a rug: Unless and until there is compelling evidence that none of this rage is rooted in the community, any claim from those in authority that creates a 'good protestor, bad radical' divide should be viewed with the deepest skepticism if not outright rejected. This point does not entail ignoring the presence of undercovers and fascists - it just means not allowing them, as a tiny part of the overall uprising, to define it and delegitimize the rage while legitimizing violent crackdowns on the protest as a whole.

*I also wonder, and I acknowledge that I may be totally off-base here, if some of the looting is simply down to the fact that a quarter of the country is unemployed right now, the government is not providing adequate aid, and burglary under cover of a riot is literally the only way some people can acquire things that they need because they haven't had a pay check in two and a half months. This isn't meant as a critique of the looters by the way- when unemployed and struggling people take what they need from those who have more, my sympathy is generally with them.

A good chunk of it is probably exactly that, and when you start asking around Black twitter, there's a whole damn lot of people who'll agree with the proposition, and then a few people with theories on looting as social protest. One of those theories has a very nice pedigree, as it goes:

Urban riots are a special form of violence. They are not insurrections. The rioters are not seeking to seize territory or to attain control of institutions. They are mainly intended to shock the white community. They are a distorted form of social protest. The looting which is their principal feature serves many functions. It enables the most enraged and deprived Negro to take hold of consumer goods with the ease the white man does by using his purse. Often the Negro does not even want what he takes; he wants the experience of taking. But most of all, alienated from society and knowing that this society cherishes property above people, he is shocking it by abusing property rights. There are thus elements of emotional catharsis in the violent act...

It is also noteworthy that the amount of physical harm done to white people other than police is infinitesimal and in Detroit whites and Negroes looted in unity.

A profound judgment of today's riots was expressed by Victor Hugo a century ago. He said, 'If a soul is left in the darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.'

I'm sure we all know who said that, right?

[loomer]

Now, I mentioned relatively mainstream figures, so let's have an op-ed from the mainstream from the other day.

Don't understand the protests? What you're seeing is people pushed to the edge

What was your first reaction when you saw the video of the white cop kneeling on George Floyd’s neck while Floyd croaked, “I can’t breathe”?

If you’re white, you probably muttered a horrified, “Oh, my God” while shaking your head at the cruel injustice. If you’re black, you probably leapt to your feet, cursed, maybe threw something (certainly wanted to throw something), while shouting, “Not @#$%! again!” Then you remember the two white vigilantes accused of murdering Ahmaud Arbery as he jogged through their neighborhood in February, and how if it wasn’t for that video emerging a few weeks ago, they would have gotten away with it. And how those Minneapolis cops claimed Floyd was resisting arrest but a store’s video showed he wasn’t. And how the cop on Floyd’s neck wasn’t an enraged redneck stereotype, but a sworn officer who looked calm and entitled and devoid of pity: the banality of evil incarnate.

Maybe you also are thinking about the Karen in Central Park who called 911 claiming the black man who asked her to put a leash on her dog was threatening her. Or the black Yale University grad student napping in the common room of her dorm who was reported by a white student. Because you realize it’s not just a supposed “black criminal” who is targeted, it’s the whole spectrum of black faces from Yonkers to Yale.

You start to wonder if it should be all black people who wear body cams, not the cops.

What do you see when you see angry black protesters amassing outside police stations with raised fists? If you’re white, you may be thinking, “They certainly aren’t social distancing.” Then you notice the black faces looting Target and you think, “Well, that just hurts their cause.” Then you see the police station on fire and you wag a finger saying, “That’s putting the cause backward.”

You’re not wrong — but you’re not right, either. The black community is used to the institutional racism inherent in education, the justice system and jobs. And even though we do all the conventional things to raise public and political awareness — write articulate and insightful pieces in the Atlantic, explain the continued devastation on CNN, support candidates who promise change — the needle hardly budges.

But COVID-19 has been slamming the consequences of all that home as we die at a significantly higher rate than whites, are the first to lose our jobs, and watch helplessly as Republicans try to keep us from voting. Just as the slimy underbelly of institutional racism is being exposed, it feels like hunting season is open on blacks. If there was any doubt, President Trump’s recent tweets confirm the national zeitgeist as he calls protesters “thugs” and looters fair game to be shot.

Yes, protests often are used as an excuse for some to take advantage, just as when fans celebrating a hometown sports team championship burn cars and destroy storefronts. I don’t want to see stores looted or even buildings burn. But African Americans have been living in a burning building for many years, choking on the smoke as the flames burn closer and closer. Racism in America is like dust in the air. It seems invisible — even if you’re choking on it — until you let the sun in. Then you see it’s everywhere. As long as we keep shining that light, we have a chance of cleaning it wherever it lands. But we have to stay vigilant, because it’s always still in the air.

So, maybe the black community’s main concern right now isn’t whether protesters are standing three or six feet apart or whether a few desperate souls steal some T-shirts or even set a police station on fire, but whether their sons, husbands, brothers and fathers will be murdered by cops or wannabe cops just for going on a walk, a jog, a drive. Or whether being black means sheltering at home for the rest of their lives because the racism virus infecting the country is more deadly than COVID-19.

What you should see when you see black protesters in the age of Trump and coronavirus is people pushed to the edge, not because they want bars and nail salons open, but because they want to live. To breathe.

Worst of all, is that we are expected to justify our outraged behavior every time the cauldron bubbles over. Almost 70 years ago, Langston Hughes asked in his poem “Harlem”: “What happens to a dream deferred? /… Maybe it sags / like a heavy load. / Or does it explode?”

Fifty years ago, Marvin Gaye sang in “Inner City Blues”: “Make me wanna holler / The way they do my life.” And today, despite the impassioned speeches of well-meaning leaders, white and black, they want to silence our voice, steal our breath.

So what you see when you see black protesters depends on whether you’re living in that burning building or watching it on TV with a bowl of corn chips in your lap waiting for “NCIS” to start.

What I want to see is not a rush to judgment, but a rush to justice.

Source

I don't think we can really accuse Kareem Abdul-Jabbar of being some kind of radical on the fringe, since he's a well-respected commentator on race and politics. We might quibble over whether celebrities are still in touch with their communities but that's a different issue.

[loomer]

The dickhead who drove a truck into a crowd of kneeling protestors has been charged. It's only assault, which seems low, but as I am not an American lawyer I don't know the details on whether he could feasibly be charged with attempted homicide thanks to the divergence between US law and much of the rest of the Anglosphere's. I would certainly think he could be (and that he should be), and it does seem like the kind of thing dangerous driving and intent to do harm with a vehicle laws were instituted for.

[mr friendly guy]

Journalist Keith Boykin has now reported on twitter that he was arrested by NYPD despite telling them he was with the press.
https://mobile.twitter.com/keithboykin/ ... 8570219520

Another black journalist arrested. What a shocker from the land of the free.

[The Romulan Republic]

Can we not acknowledge both: that some of the violence is a result of legitimate grievances (whether or not it is the most effective tactic is a separate debate), and that some of it is being done by outside agitators to discredit or hijack the protests?

So long as we do so in a way that recognizes the legitimate grievances and doesn't paint a dichotomy between 'real (read: non-violent) protestors' and 'outside agitators', yes. There's absolutely no problem recognizing that there's various shitheels who want to stir shit up. Somehow this point has been lost even though I've acknowledged it in every post on the subject.

Fair enough.

This is another key point. Where the claim is coming from members of the community, it's one thing (and that's where you'll get accurate reporting of when various boogaloo fuckwits, white 'anarchists' (read: shitheads who think anarchism = anarchy), and plain ol' shit stirrers are causing trouble) but the claims I've been responding to are ones authored primarily by the establishment that has a vested interest in quieting the revolt - by mayors, police chiefs, governors, and the AG. One even went so far as to insinuate that some of it is down to cartels and 'foreign influence', for which there is approximately zero evidence.

While I won't assume that a claim is false because it comes from, say, an elected official or law enforcement, I would agree that such claims generally need to be examined carefully, and corroborated by other sources.

I wouldn't personally be surprised by the presence of foreign influence, since I recall, for example, stuff like Russia setting up rival protests on both sides after the 2016 election. I do not, however, imagine that outside interference is the primary force driving these protests and riots. This is a familiar tactic in other countries (it is standard practice for non-western authoritarian regimes to blame any protests or uprisings on Western/American operatives), and I wouldn't be surprised to see it employed in reverse here (especially given how much the American Right now draws from Putin's playbook).

Also, just in case people have somehow missed it where I've said it elsewhere, this is not to say there aren't undercovers deliberately stirring shit up. The reason not to credit the party line of 'outside agitators' because of their presence is that the undercovers are inserted to give weight to the claim of 'outside agitators' and thereby delegitimize the movement. Accepting the party line of 'by golly these people are only violent because of outside agitators' when they put agitators in plays into their hands, and it is this duplicity that must be resisted because it will be used to justify increased force and things like, say, the President declaring all anti-fascists to be terrorists. It redirects the focus away from legitimate rage rooted in the community and steals agency and the implicit threat of further rebellion that the revolts rely on for impact.

This is the point I've made repeatedly and which seems to have been neatly swept under a rug: Unless and until there is compelling evidence that none of this rage is rooted in the community, any claim from those in authority that creates a 'good protestor, bad radical' divide should be viewed with the deepest skepticism if not outright rejected. This point does not entail ignoring the presence of undercovers and fascists - it just means not allowing them, as a tiny part of the overall uprising, to define it and delegitimize the rage while legitimizing violent crackdowns on the protest as a whole.

That makes a lot of sense. I admit that I have some difficulty following the argument that by blaming the violence on outsider agitators, one is justify attempts to paint all of the demonstrators as terrorists or engage in violent crackdowns upon them. To me that seems somewhat counter-intuitive. I suppose painting those demonstrators who engage in violence as outsiders would make it easier to justify violent crackdowns against them, specifically.

I don't doubt that much of the violence is due to legitimate anger against police violence from the black community. I don't know that I'll ever be comfortable with condoning violence against bystanders, or against those who are not bearing arms or engaged in violence themselves, though I take your point below that there has been fairly little violence thus far from protesters except against police. But neither do I feel comfortable judging the feelings or actions of those who are revolting against centuries of systemic abuse. To echo the line from Hugo you quoted below, the system bears ultimate responsibility, not the rioters.

A good chunk of it is probably exactly that, and when you start asking around Black twitter, there's a whole damn lot of people who'll agree with the proposition, and then a few people with theories on looting as social protest. One of those theories has a very nice pedigree, as it goes:

Urban riots are a special form of violence. They are not insurrections. The rioters are not seeking to seize territory or to attain control of institutions. They are mainly intended to shock the white community. They are a distorted form of social protest. The looting which is their principal feature serves many functions. It enables the most enraged and deprived Negro to take hold of consumer goods with the ease the white man does by using his purse. Often the Negro does not even want what he takes; he wants the experience of taking. But most of all, alienated from society and knowing that this society cherishes property above people, he is shocking it by abusing property rights. There are thus elements of emotional catharsis in the violent act...

It is also noteworthy that the amount of physical harm done to white people other than police is infinitesimal and in Detroit whites and Negroes looted in unity.

A profound judgment of today's riots was expressed by Victor Hugo a century ago. He said, 'If a soul is left in the darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.'

I'm sure we all know who said that, right?

Les Miserables? Been a while, but I think I recognize the line.

And yeah, that all makes sense.

[loomer]

White militias have apparently established roadblocks in parts of regional and suburban Washington, which is concerning. Not a surprise that the first active militia patrols and checkpoints are springing up in the PNW, since it's full of militiatypes, nazis, and general assorted reactionaries, libertarians, and other dickheads.

[The Romulan Republic]

White militias have apparently established roadblocks in parts of regional and suburban Washington, which is concerning. Not a surprise that the first active militia patrols and checkpoints are springing up in the PNW, since it's full of militiatypes, nazis, and general assorted reactionaries, libertarians, and other dickheads.

Yeah, the Northwest has a strong Right-wing separatist militia movement. In case anyone's forgotten, Oregon had the Bundy stand-off a while back, and the stand-off when the Republican state legislators went awol.

Washington actually had a state rep charged with domestic terrorism- there was a thread on him a while back.

[PainRack]

People are, of course, free to discount my position if they genuinely think that the people I'm listening to are wrong and totally unrepresentative, but I'd like to make a point here.

The basic dynamics of splitting a movement into 'good, peaceful protestors' and 'dangerous outside radicals' is not unique to the United States by any stretch. The attempt to discredit legitimate grievances by insinuating that the real protestors would never do anything violent takes place almost any time you see a significant riot against the status quo where violence is employed by non-state actors. Remarking on this requires no special expertise in the American context - a general awareness of tactics used to divide and control protest movements is sufficient.

Where that expertise is helpful is in analyzing the racial dimension, but on that front, it bears mention that it's not just Black, Brown and Indigenous anarchists who are upset about the 'outside agitators' canard. I listen more to anarchists and communists because that's where my contacts are, but it takes very little effort to find even relatively mainstream figures in the African-American communities of the cities that are in revolt refusing to denounce the violence as being solely the work of outside agitators - which is precisely what various governors, mayors, police chiefs, and the AG are claiming is the case - because, while there are always opportunistic shitheads who come in to loot and stir shit up, much of the anger involved is both real and rooted in the community, and putting the potential for violence solely onto outsiders both denies the African-American community agency and diminishes the threat implicit in any revolt.

The combination of this - where I've been looking at what those people are saying in the context of history and a general understanding of social movements and tools used against them - is where I am apparently 'foreignsplaining' (by... listening to Black, Brown and Indigenous anarchists and accepting their positions?) the canard of the outside agitator because I am an Australian and thus, cannot possibly understand American culture despite being steeped in it daily thanks to America's global cultural hegemony and actively listening to Americans on the elements that require local understanding. That's what's more or less laughable.

Now, I note you mention 'the actual black community members cited' and contrast them to my 'second hand info'. Well - on what basis are you dismissing the actual Black community members (and make no mistake: anarchists are members of their communities) that I've been talking to and listening to, who are part of these same communities, as not being 'actual black community members'?

Ok.

1. Get off your high horse. Look carefully at Bean, Broomstick or my statement. Nowhere did we mention that outside agitators delegimatized the protests OR that there isn't actual anger and violence going on. So. Perhaps if you stop being so aggressive and offended by a fucking strawman, we can have a civil discussion?

2. Any citations? You keep saying black anarchists say that oh, the violence is totally all from our community, not outside agitators. Where's your evidence ? You cited a report which none of us dispute, that only 20% arrested are from outside.

However, you then ignore Bean cite that Bugaloo, an accelerationist movement IS interested in agitating more violence, and said movement is not just a Nazis white supremacists movement, but one focused on guns and 2A rights, so, we also might be seeing Black Panthers 2.0.

Right now, you have nebulous 'I spoke to black anarchists" vs us citing articles with tweets and verifiable statements from black community members. Do you understand WHY we asking you to justify your stance? Or do we have to bring out the rulebook again on standards of evidence ?

Note, you can clear this up by actually justifying your position. That and stop fucking the strawman in public. We get your point. Your post however goes so far as to keep saying outside agitators, police agents are unimportant.

But WHY? Outside agents have seized on valid protest movements and hijacked them for their nefarious purposes before. So, why are you dismissing that an accelerationist movement, backed by white supremacists are trying to stoke the flames higher ?

Do we have to talk about how Communists has hijacked unions or Capitalism taking the stance of worker welfare for their own purposes? Such as Mac teaching their workers how to apply for food stamps as welfare ?

[loomer]

Can we not acknowledge both: that some of the violence is a result of legitimate grievances (whether or not it is the most effective tactic is a separate debate), and that some of it is being done by outside agitators to discredit or hijack the protests?

So long as we do so in a way that recognizes the legitimate grievances and doesn't paint a dichotomy between 'real (read: non-violent) protestors' and 'outside agitators', yes. There's absolutely no problem recognizing that there's various shitheels who want to stir shit up. Somehow this point has been lost even though I've acknowledged it in every post on the subject.

Fair enough.

This is another key point. Where the claim is coming from members of the community, it's one thing (and that's where you'll get accurate reporting of when various boogaloo fuckwits, white 'anarchists' (read: shitheads who think anarchism = anarchy), and plain ol' shit stirrers are causing trouble) but the claims I've been responding to are ones authored primarily by the establishment that has a vested interest in quieting the revolt - by mayors, police chiefs, governors, and the AG. One even went so far as to insinuate that some of it is down to cartels and 'foreign influence', for which there is approximately zero evidence.

While I won't assume that a claim is false because it comes from, say, an elected official or law enforcement, I would agree that such claims generally need to be examined carefully, and corroborated by other sources.

I wouldn't personally be surprised by the presence of foreign influence, since I recall, for example, stuff like Russia setting up rival protests on both sides after the 2016 election. I do not, however, imagine that outside interference is the primary force driving these protests and riots. This is a familiar tactic in other countries (it is standard practice for non-western authoritarian regimes to blame any protests or uprisings on Western/American operatives), and I wouldn't be surprised to see it employed in reverse here (especially given how much the American Right now draws from Putin's playbook).

So, this is another one of those spots where we need to be clear what we're saying. Are various people who run botnets taking advantage? Absolutely - but as you say, it's not the real driving force. And that's the distinction between delegitimizing the protest versus acknowledging the fact that there are other groups trying to use it to stir shit, whether we allow it to overtake the actual causes in the popular conception and thereby justify repression or just keep a watch on it to check it where possible. The claims that foreign influence and cartels are involved are intended to do the former, not the latter, because they're paired with a 'law and order' mentality and attempts to establish a schism between 'good protestors' and 'bad outside agitators'.

Also, just in case people have somehow missed it where I've said it elsewhere, this is not to say there aren't undercovers deliberately stirring shit up. The reason not to credit the party line of 'outside agitators' because of their presence is that the undercovers are inserted to give weight to the claim of 'outside agitators' and thereby delegitimize the movement. Accepting the party line of 'by golly these people are only violent because of outside agitators' when they put agitators in plays into their hands, and it is this duplicity that must be resisted because it will be used to justify increased force and things like, say, the President declaring all anti-fascists to be terrorists. It redirects the focus away from legitimate rage rooted in the community and steals agency and the implicit threat of further rebellion that the revolts rely on for impact.

This is the point I've made repeatedly and which seems to have been neatly swept under a rug: Unless and until there is compelling evidence that none of this rage is rooted in the community, any claim from those in authority that creates a 'good protestor, bad radical' divide should be viewed with the deepest skepticism if not outright rejected. This point does not entail ignoring the presence of undercovers and fascists - it just means not allowing them, as a tiny part of the overall uprising, to define it and delegitimize the rage while legitimizing violent crackdowns on the protest as a whole.

That makes a lot of sense. I admit that I have some difficulty following the argument that by blaming the violence on outsider agitators, one is justify attempts to paint all of the demonstrators as terrorists or engage in violent crackdowns upon them. To me that seems somewhat counter-intuitive. I suppose painting those demonstrators who engage in violence as outsiders would make it easier to justify violent crackdowns against them, specifically.

So, the very basic logic is this. You have a revolt going on, but a lot of people across the nation are undecided on how to feel about it. It's upsetting, but the cause is really upsetting too. So they might be down to go and march, but probably not to engage in revolutionary action. While they're out there marching with revolutionaries, they wind up talking to them, seeing what they're saying, and being informed of what's going on. They might not join them, but popular support for them increases.

From the perspective of the establishment, this is a very bad situation to have - so you need to discredit the revolutionaries, and neuter the protests. The easiest way to do that is to spin up a false divide between 'our community' of 'peaceful protestors' and 'violent outsiders' who are 'taking advantage'. Suddenly, those people who were unsettled but somewhat sympathetic are uneasy about the prospect of scary outsiders and dangerous anarchists and my god, even antifa! Maybe they march, but they don't buddy up with the revolutionaries. They become less inclined to listen to stories of police abuse from the front lines of the protest. You've successfully distanced the majority from the minority who form the hard core of the protests - the activists, the organizers, the people who've just had enough and can't take it anymore, the anarchists and socialists and communists who came out in solidarity with them.

Now you can act against the hardcore minority by ramping up the rhetoric and pressure. You keep hammering the button that they're outsiders, that our community doesn't riot, so that if it doesn't peter out you can deploy the jackboots in full force. The people who might have cared are now hardened against this, because these are, afterall, dangerous outsiders and extremists who can't be trusted, so while violence is of course regrettable, well, sometimes it's necessary to protect the community. Meanwhile, all the other protestors who've refused to distance themselves from their cousins and friends are caught up in the same net. But because you've engineered a perception that the violence is because of outsiders, when they complain, the fencesitter shrugs - 'well, you shouldn't have been rioting', 'why did you listen to those communists', 'you're just an anarchist, you got what was coming to you', 'if only you'd just stayed peaceful'.

The trick is to shift and expand the rhetoric. First, the trouble is just a small fraction of outside agitators. Then, as the fencesitter contingent becomes less sympathetic, the trouble expands to be outside agitators and their stooges. Then comes the delegitimization of the entire uprising, using very simple logic that the people have had yelled at them throughout the duration and in its immediate aftermath (and which we still see in the lionization of early 60s MLK versus post-67 MLK): 'Peaceful protests, not riots, are legitimate. Riots are bad, and people who riot are bad. This was a riot, therefore, the people involved were bad and it was illegitimate.'

I don't doubt that much of the violence is due to legitimate anger against police violence from the black community. I don't know that I'll ever be comfortable with condoning violence against bystanders, or against those who are not bearing arms or engaged in violence themselves, though I take your point below that there has been fairly little violence thus far from protesters except against police. But neither do I feel comfortable judging the feelings or actions of those who are revolting against centuries of systemic abuse. To echo the line from Hugo you quoted below, the system bears ultimate responsibility, not the rioters.

The vast majority of what violence there has been has directed at property, to boot. When you dig into it, there's a pattern to what's been targeted - banks, large chains, and so on. Property damage (which I'm happy to call violence even though other leftists often refuse to) as political protest is a large part of what's going on when you look past the looters (who are themselves sometimes engaged in a warped discourse, to borrow from MLK.) When you follow up the stories about specifically black-owned and POC-owned small businesses that have been destroyed, they're usually collateral damage and not active targets, and very often they had even anarchist protestors trying to keep the opportunistic looters away from them. Naturally, this dimension is missing from most coverage.

A good chunk of it is probably exactly that, and when you start asking around Black twitter, there's a whole damn lot of people who'll agree with the proposition, and then a few people with theories on looting as social protest. One of those theories has a very nice pedigree, as it goes:

Urban riots are a special form of violence. They are not insurrections. The rioters are not seeking to seize territory or to attain control of institutions. They are mainly intended to shock the white community. They are a distorted form of social protest. The looting which is their principal feature serves many functions. It enables the most enraged and deprived Negro to take hold of consumer goods with the ease the white man does by using his purse. Often the Negro does not even want what he takes; he wants the experience of taking. But most of all, alienated from society and knowing that this society cherishes property above people, he is shocking it by abusing property rights. There are thus elements of emotional catharsis in the violent act...

It is also noteworthy that the amount of physical harm done to white people other than police is infinitesimal and in Detroit whites and Negroes looted in unity.

A profound judgment of today's riots was expressed by Victor Hugo a century ago. He said, 'If a soul is left in the darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.'

I'm sure we all know who said that, right?

Les Miserables? Been a while, but I think I recognize the line.

And yeah, that all makes sense.

Not just Les Mis. That's MLK in '67 in the rest of the quote. It's one of those speeches that people don't quote so often, because MLK had to be sanitized to help re-establish the drumbeat of 'good people do not riot. peaceful protest is the only way forward. do not kill your masters.'

[PainRack]

Snip
.'

Are you going to address Broomstick, Bean and my point that there are people, including the President of the United States who has an interest in stoking up violence so a race war/violent crackdown can occur ?

[loomer]

People are, of course, free to discount my position if they genuinely think that the people I'm listening to are wrong and totally unrepresentative, but I'd like to make a point here.

The basic dynamics of splitting a movement into 'good, peaceful protestors' and 'dangerous outside radicals' is not unique to the United States by any stretch. The attempt to discredit legitimate grievances by insinuating that the real protestors would never do anything violent takes place almost any time you see a significant riot against the status quo where violence is employed by non-state actors. Remarking on this requires no special expertise in the American context - a general awareness of tactics used to divide and control protest movements is sufficient.

Where that expertise is helpful is in analyzing the racial dimension, but on that front, it bears mention that it's not just Black, Brown and Indigenous anarchists who are upset about the 'outside agitators' canard. I listen more to anarchists and communists because that's where my contacts are, but it takes very little effort to find even relatively mainstream figures in the African-American communities of the cities that are in revolt refusing to denounce the violence as being solely the work of outside agitators - which is precisely what various governors, mayors, police chiefs, and the AG are claiming is the case - because, while there are always opportunistic shitheads who come in to loot and stir shit up, much of the anger involved is both real and rooted in the community, and putting the potential for violence solely onto outsiders both denies the African-American community agency and diminishes the threat implicit in any revolt.

The combination of this - where I've been looking at what those people are saying in the context of history and a general understanding of social movements and tools used against them - is where I am apparently 'foreignsplaining' (by... listening to Black, Brown and Indigenous anarchists and accepting their positions?) the canard of the outside agitator because I am an Australian and thus, cannot possibly understand American culture despite being steeped in it daily thanks to America's global cultural hegemony and actively listening to Americans on the elements that require local understanding. That's what's more or less laughable.

Now, I note you mention 'the actual black community members cited' and contrast them to my 'second hand info'. Well - on what basis are you dismissing the actual Black community members (and make no mistake: anarchists are members of their communities) that I've been talking to and listening to, who are part of these same communities, as not being 'actual black community members'?

Ok.

1. Get off your high horse. Look carefully at Bean, Broomstick or my statement. Nowhere did we mention that outside agitators delegimatized the protests OR that there isn't actual anger and violence going on. So. Perhaps if you stop being so aggressive and offended by a fucking strawman, we can have a civil discussion?

See, it's weird to me that you're accusing me of building a strawman when this has been my consistent argument - you know, the thing that people are objecting to - rather than something I've suggested you've done. The reason to be cautious of the outside agitator rhetoric is that it is used by establishment figures to delegitimize protest movements (especially those that come out of the Black communities of America) and the underlying anger. I have at no point suggested that you, Bean, or Broomstick are suggesting the protests are illegitimate because of it. I have instead expressed skepticism of the argument, advanced by establishment figures and repeated here, that outside agitators are responsible for the violence and that the community as a whole only wants non-violent protest.

There is a very important distinction between these two things.

2. Any citations? You keep saying black anarchists say that oh, the violence is totally all from our community, not outside agitators. Where's your evidence ? You cited a report which none of us dispute, that only 20% arrested are from outside.

However, you then ignore Bean cite that Bugaloo, an accelerationist movement IS interested in agitating more violence, and said movement is not just a Nazis white supremacists movement, but one focused on guns and 2A rights, so, we also might be seeing Black Panthers 2.0.

Right now, you have nebulous 'I spoke to black anarchists" vs us citing articles with tweets and verifiable statements from black community members. Do you understand WHY we asking you to justify your stance? Or do we have to bring out the rulebook again on standards of evidence ?

I don't ignore the existence of the Boogaloo boys at all. I acknowledge that they're a factor, along with other right wing reactionaries and undercover cops, in stirring shit. Are you even reading my posts? I'll also note that, for a fella complaining about strawmans, you just built one: I haven't said there are Black anarchists going 'yes this violence is 100% on us' at any point, but rather, that there are plenty of Black, Brown and Indigenous anarchists rejecting the 'outside instigator' canard even while recognizing, just like I am, that there are shit-stirrers in play.

As for Black anarchists (we'll throw some commies in too), how about redspecter00? sheabutterfemme? William C.? ztsamudzi?

Edit:
Shit, I can't even call Bree Newsome an anarchist but here she is rejecting the outside agitator canard. Like I said earlier, it's a sentiment that you can find even closer to the political mainstream.

Note, you can clear this up by actually justifying your position. That and stop fucking the strawman in public. We get your point. Your post however goes so far as to keep saying outside agitators, police agents are unimportant.

Again, there is no strawman, and if you're seeing one, you have grossly misinterpreted my posts.

I have also not stated that police agents are unimportant. I have stated that the existence of shit-stirrers, reactionaries, and undercovers is not proof of the outside agitator canard being legitimate. Do you understand the difference?

But WHY? Outside agents have seized on valid protest movements and hijacked them for their nefarious purposes before. So, why are you dismissing that an accelerationist movement, backed by white supremacists are trying to stoke the flames higher ?

I am dismissing the argument advanced by establishment figures that most of the violence is coming from outside agitators, not that accelerationists of different stripes exist. Again, are you actually reading my posts?

Do we have to talk about how Communists has hijacked unions or Capitalism taking the stance of worker welfare for their own purposes? Such as Mac teaching their workers how to apply for food stamps as welfare ?

I mean, we can if you like, but first you'd need to understand the actual history and structure of the outside agitator canard, and bluntly, you don't seem to.

Snip
.'

Are you going to address Broomstick, Bean and my point that there are people, including the President of the United States who has an interest in stoking up violence so a race war/violent crackdown can occur ?

You'll notice that my point is literally that this rhetoric is a tool for delegitimizing movements to increase the legitimacy of the use of force against it (and with it, the designation of the 'outside agitator' as enemy. Like, say, declaring all anti-fascists terrorists, perhaps?) in the eyes of the greater public while neutering the possibility of the uprising catching on further. Like, seriously, dude. Are you reading my posts at all?

[loomer]

The National Guard has been deployed to Boston. That's, what, ten, twelve cities under military policing now?

[loomer]

Apparently while we've been having this spat the AFL-CIO hq has been set on fire.

[The Romulan Republic]

Trump has apparently been spending some time hiding in a secure White House bunker. So much for the strong man.

[The Romulan Republic]

An interesting article from a black law professor and former federal prosecutor on the difficulties with charging and convicting police:

https://washingtonpost.com/opinions/202 ... -easy-part

Paul Butler is the Albert Brick Professor in Law at Georgetown University. A former federal prosecutor, he is the author of “Chokehold: Policing Black Men.”

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has finally been arrested for the murder of George Floyd. Now comes the hard part.

As the case against him moves from the court of public opinion to the Hennepin County District Court, prosecutors will face significant challenges in securing a conviction. To many, the third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter charges filed against Chauvin seem insufficient, understandably so. My assessment, as a former prosecutor who specialized in cases involving corrupt law enforcement officers, is that they represent a reasonable step on the road to justice.

Good morning ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Eight minutes and 46 seconds. That’s how long Derek Chauvin kept his knee on the neck of George Floyd, while Floyd said over and over “I can’t breathe” as the life drained from his body.

Two minutes and 53 seconds. After Floyd’s body went limp, and another officer could not detect a pulse, that’s how long Chauvin continued to use his knee to compress Floyd’s neck.

Chauvin was charged after videos showed him with his knee on Floyd’s neck, ignoring Floyd’s cries and bystanders’ pleas to stop. He was taken into custody after protests across the country. As a black man, I didn’t know it was so hard to get arrested.

Live updates on Minneapolis

As a former prosecutor, though, I am well aware of the difficulty of convicting a police officer. The odds are against it. Since 2005, approximately 100 officers have been charged with homicide for using deadly force in the line duty. But most of those officers walked; the charges were dismissed or they were acquitted.

As of 2019, there had been only 35 convictions, almost all for manslaughter or negligent homicide, not murder. Cases with police officers as defendants stand in stark contrast to cases with civilian defendants, where prosecutors win trials or obtain guilty pleas in upward of 90 percent of cases.

Prosecuting an officer is fraught from the beginning. The “blue wall of silence” means that other police officers, often the main witnesses, are frequently uncooperative or hostile. Supreme Court rulings governing use of deadly force encourage jurors to evaluate the evidence from the perspective of the police officer.

Even when jurors are convinced a crime was committed, they are often reluctant to convict because they think it’s unfair to punish police officers for making mistakes when trying to do their jobs.

In light of these hurdles, the decision about what crime to charge is crucial.

Crimes are divided into two elements: act and intent. The act requirement in homicide is causing a death. Even this is likely to be an issue in the Floyd case, because the coroner’s report indicates Floyd had preexisting conditions that may have contributed to his death. There is likely to be medical expert testimony on both sides, but the jury should use its common sense: it’s highly unlikely that Floyd just happened to die while Chauvin was pressing on his neck, a risky technique banned by many departments.

Proving intent is more difficult. The punishment for homicide is based on what the defendant’s mind-set was at the time of the death. People who kill accidentally, such as drunk drivers, are usually charged with negligent homicide. People who kill in the heat of passion or recklessly are guilty of manslaughter. Murder is the most serious grade of homicide.

Benjamin Crump, the attorney for Floyd’s family, has said the family “expected a first-degree murder charge” and that the charges should be increased to “reflect the true culpability of this officer.”

But under Minnesota law, to win a first-degree murder case, the prosecutor would have to prove that Chauvin intended to kill Floyd. For third-degree murder, the jury must only find that Chauvin’s actions were “eminently dangerous” and displayed “depraved” indifference to human life. That’s why I would start by describing the unspeakable cruelty of Chauvin crushing the life out of Floyd while Floyd narrates his own demise, calling out for his deceased mother and asking Chauvin to “please, please” release him.

Then I would go to the videotape. No case against an officer is a slam dunk, but prosecutors rarely have the quality of evidence they have here.

I am sympathetic to the desire to see punishment that reflects the gravity of the crime. First-degree murder in Minnesota carries a life sentence; 25 years is the maximum for third-degree murder. But police officers don’t usually get the maximum sentence in any case.

And a convicted murderer is a convicted murderer. That is far more likely with the third-degree charges because the prosecution has less to prove.

Meanwhile, there are risks on the other side. An acquittal in a case like this would be a crushing defeat not just for the prosecutors, but for all Americans who hope to see justice done. This is a case that prosecutors must win — and a third-degree murder conviction is better than no conviction at all.

Clearly, anything less than a first degree murder conviction for all four officers is going to be unacceptable for a lot of people. But unless we really are talking about full-scale revolution, overthrow the laws and the courts and write a new constitution, or even start holding summary executions, and I think very few people right now are seriously looking to do any of those things, then whatever justice these officers face will have to come through the laws and the courts. And one point in particular struck very hard: they cannot afford to fail to get a conviction. Not only would it be immensely demoralizing to millions of people, but it would probably just set the whole nation burning again.

They HAVE to convict. Which is a really scary thing because when you have a non-show trial, you can't possibly guarantee that outcome. All it takes is one juror of twelve having doubts, and we get a hung jury.

So from the prosecutors' perspective, even if they are genuinely want to hold these cops accountable, a third degree murder charge may be their best bet to actually make something stick.

Of course, the fact that it is so hard to get a conviction against a cop (and far too easy to get convictions in general, and especially against black people) is something that needs to change.

[madd0ct0r]

Loomer, without getting into quote spaghetti, you see to be arguing at cross purposes with the others.

You are talking about the techniques a competent leviathan would use to prevent the protests-organisors spiral effecting change.

Everyone else is talking about the techniques of accelerationists unopposed by an incompetent leviathan.

The subject-object-intent tripods are different.

[loomer]

It's stirring to see the protestors toppling confederate monuments. It's rather less stirring to see law enforcement officials erect a thin blue line flag at a county courthouse.

snip

The systemic bias towards police is a huge and depressing issue, yes. This one should be a slamdunk if it weren't for the politicization of human dignity and the undercurrent of white supremacy that runs through the American justice system. As you note, all it takes is a couple of jurors who - in this case, almost certainly for ideological reasons - dissent to prevent a conviction and turn what should be a clear conviction into a miscarriage of justice.

[loomer]

Loomer, without getting into quote spaghetti, you see to be arguing at cross purposes with the others.

You are talking about the techniques a competent leviathan would use to prevent the protests-organisors spiral effecting change.

Everyone else is talking about the techniques of accelerationists unopposed by an incompetent leviathan.

The subject-object-intent tripods are different.

I think part of the problem may be that I'm not just talking about Trump and a few accelerationists, but the establishment as a whole - the governors, mayors, police chiefs, and so on - who are employing these tactics. So while we might rightly categorize our leviathan as basically headless at this point, I think it has enough muscle memory left to employ these tactics. The 'outside agitators' technique is old, well established, and reliable - and it requires relatively little centralized coordination outside of the state level to function.

That being said, it may not just be muscle memory, in our analogy. The push against Black activism has been ongoing for years, as has the push against antifa, so the infrastructure has already been put in place. IGD has a good little overview of it (though I note that IGD can at times be a little iffy in their angle on things) that goes into how the body of our leviathan has been primed to exploit Black people as an enemy, limit the potential threat posed by another Ferguson-like uprising under ordinary circumstances, and exploited and built (it's a nasty little feedback loop - it existed already but it's been fed thoroughly by the Trump administration) hysteria and confusion over antifascist activity. So while we might have a missing head, we might have enough of a vestigial brainstem to make use of all that investment.

[The Romulan Republic]

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio's daughter was arrested protesting. An NYPD union which previously declared the NYPD "at war" with de Blasio then doxed her by releasing her arrest report, including personal information, on Twitter. Twitter locked the account until the post was taken down:

https://gizmodo.com/nypd-union-doxes-ma ... 1843813751

A New York City Police Department (NYPD) union known for its controversial attacks against Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted out the personally identifying information of his daughter on Sunday night, including a residential address and her New York State ID number.

The tweet by the Sergeants Benevolent Association (SBA), which in February claimed that members of the NYPD were “declaring war” against De Blasio, attacked the mayor’s daughter, Chiara de Blasio, for being arrested during an “unlawful assembly” on Saturday night.

Multiple news outlets reported that NYPD arrested De Blasio, the younger, during the fifth night of nationwide protests over the police-killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man whose alleged murder at the hands of four Minneapolis police officers sparked protests and violent clashes with authorities in dozens of major cities.

The SBA, run by union boss Ed Mullins, Mayor De Blasio’s fiercest critic, included a photo of a computer screen which appeared to be his 25-year-old daughter’s arrest report. The report included her date of birth, New York state ID number, and various biographical details, such as height, weight, and citizenship status. It also included an apartment number and home address, which appeared to be Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s residence (though the zip code did not match.)

Twitter’s policies expressly forbid users from posting personal information, including identity documents, including government-issued IDs. Posting home addresses “or other identifying information related to locations that are considered private” is also forbidden.

The SBA’s tweet remained up for more than an hour before eventually being taken down after a several users (including this reporter) flagged the tweet for abuse. The account was temporarily locked until the tweet was voluntarily deleted.

Twitter has yet to respond to a request for comment. Gizmodo reached out to the mayor’s office and will update if we get a response.

Although his duties relate almost entirely to the operations of one of New York City’s most highly visible police unions, Mullins, a former NYPD sergeant of Brooklyn’s 67th Precinct, continues to receive a taxpayer-funded salary of $133,524, according to the Gothamist.

Mullins’ views on policing and his frequent attacks on the mayor’s office are widely viewed as controversial. He has a history of defending the stop-and-frisk program under former Mayor Mike Bloomberg, a racial-profiling operation that civil rights leaders hold as chiefly responsible for dramatically worsening the relationship between minority communities and the NYPD.

Under stop-and-frisk, Blacks and Latinos were disproportionately targeted more than 5 million times by the NYPD between 2002 and 2013, when U.S. District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin ruled the practice unconstitutional. Mullins has called the practice “productive” and “an effective policy.”

The SBA’s latest attack on De Blasio and his daughter came day after the mayor defended the NYPD’s aggressive and often violent tactics while facing off against protesters in Brooklyn. Video on social media showed two NYPD vehicles plowing into a crowd of demonstrators who were throwing traffic cones and other objects, knocking some to the ground.

De Blasio’s description of the incident did not match footage of it circulating online. While he claimed it was “inappropriate for protesters to surround a police vehicle and threaten police officers,” video clearly shows the police vehicles were not surrounded. One of the vehicles was in forward motion nearly the entire time with no one standing behind it. Protesters were only occasionally to the rear of the other vehicle.

De Blasio attempted to walk back some of his statement on Sunday, saying he did not like what he saw “one bit.”

The protests over George Floyd’s death have gone for six days, spreading further and further. Some 40 cities are now holding daily protests, including in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where Floyd was killed. Incidents of arson and looting have been commonplace after dark and prompted both curfews and deployment of National Guard in multiple cities.

Footage captured during the day, however, has shown dozens of incidents of police officers appearing to break the law on their own—in some cases violently shoving peaceful demonstrators for no apparent reason or attacking them as they retreat with punches, kicks, clubs, pellet guns, tear gas, and concussion grenades. Members of the news media appear to be prime police targets, with countless journalists and news crews reporting they’ve been attacked and shot with “less-lethal” rounds while holding their press badges high in the air.

Some of the most alarming footage taken shows police officers exploding with rage at random civilians walking on sidewalks far from protests with no apparent reason, hitting them in the face with pepper spray and shoving them before casually walking away. Police have struck protesters with vehicles in other cities, as well.

One video, taken in Minneapolis on Saturday, captured masked police officers clad in black escorted by a military Humvee firing what appeared to be paint canisters directly at a woman standing on her porch in a quiet neighborhood. Just before firing, one of the officers can be heard screaming: “Light ‘em up!”

The Humvee appeared to belong to the National Guard, which had deployed at Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz request earlier in the day. In an email to Gizmodo yesterday, however, the National Guard declined to confirm ownership of the vehicle.

Update, 3:00 am ET: The following tweet was posted Sunday night at 11:13pm and appears to show an NYPD officer drawing a gun on demonstrators who are fleeing in the opposite direction.

[PainRack]

You'll notice that my point is literally that this rhetoric is a tool for delegitimizing movements to increase the legitimacy of the use of force against it (and with it, the designation of the 'outside agitator' as enemy. Like, say, declaring all anti-fascists terrorists, perhaps?) in the eyes of the greater public while neutering the possibility of the uprising catching on further. Like, seriously, dude. Are you reading my posts at all?

But none of us dispute that. Note how Broomstick and myself both take pains to repeat that the protests are people being heavily upset at the racism involved and voicing it out .

Essentially, your post says

"Saying outside agitators exist and is commiting violence is a means of delegimatizing the protest."

What we ARE saying is that

"Outside agitators, with support from elements of the President of the United State, to Neonazis, white supremacists and for all we know, Russia is trying to delegimatized the protest "

Can you see the difference?
You saying saying the rheoteric is trying to invalidate the protest.
We saying outside agitators are trying to seize the protest and abuse it for their purposes, in the meanwhile invalidating the social injustice and racism that prompted the protest.

Note that in your reply that said agitators exist, you still trying to tie it back to saying they exist is invalidating the protest.
No. The agitators are trying to invalidate the protest.

[loomer]

You'll notice that my point is literally that this rhetoric is a tool for delegitimizing movements to increase the legitimacy of the use of force against it (and with it, the designation of the 'outside agitator' as enemy. Like, say, declaring all anti-fascists terrorists, perhaps?) in the eyes of the greater public while neutering the possibility of the uprising catching on further. Like, seriously, dude. Are you reading my posts at all?

But none of us dispute that. Note how Broomstick and myself both take pains to repeat that the protests are people being heavily upset at the racism involved and voicing it out .

Essentially, your post says

"Saying outside agitators exist and is commiting violence is a means of delegimatizing the protest."

What we ARE saying is that

"Outside agitators, with support from elements of the President of the United State, to Neonazis, white supremacists and for all we know, Russia is trying to delegimatized the protest "

Can you see the difference?
You saying saying the rheoteric is trying to invalidate the protest.
We saying outside agitators are trying to seize the protest and abuse it for their purposes, in the meanwhile invalidating the social injustice and racism that prompted the protest.

Note that in your reply that said agitators exist, you still trying to tie it back to saying they exist is invalidating the protest.
No. The agitators are trying to invalidate the protest.

You're still confused as to what I'm saying. Here is what I'm saying:

The rhetorical device of the 'outside agitator' as employed by the establishment to delegitimize the protests, regardless of its veracity, and any claim that the violence is primarily instigated by 'outside agitators' (except the police) should be viewed with skepticism or rejected unless strong evidence is presented that this is the case.

Saying shit-stirrers and undercover police/far-right provocateurs exist does not invalidate the protest - as you note, I've been saying that basically all along, since we moved out of the extremely basic 'is this true?' 'nah' level. Saying that most of the violence is coming from them is part of the outside agitator rhetorical device, as it is a splitting technique used to say that the 'community' only wants peaceful protests and therefore anyone who instigates violence is an outsider/being manipulated by outsiders.

I think perhaps it might be helpful if I note again here that when I am discussing the idea of outside agitators, I am discussing very specifically the idea that most or all of the violence is being driven by small groups of outsiders - whether they be antifa, white supremacists, anarchists, boogaloo bois, russians, the cartels, or just plain dickheads - and that the community in itself contains no elements that are participating in directing and driving this violence and is thus being manipulated by some kind of external force, whether it's to delegitimize the protests or ignite further conflict. That is the outside agitator canard - that the community consists of 'good (read: peaceful, non-destructive) protestors' who are being tricked or manipulated by 'bad radicals' and 'outside agitators' and that is why there is violence. This is the crucial point you don't seem to be reading: the argument that the outside agitator canard is inaccurate is not saying there aren't any, but rather, that they aren't steering the uprising as a whole or in large part.

This is not a statement that there are no outside influences whatsoever or that there aren't groups with their own agendas within the protests that are taking advantage. Again, of course there are - but there is very little evidence that they're a significant part of the uprising, let alone that they're steering most of it. The claim is being made by the establishment and repeated despite this lack of significant evidence. This is dangerous precisely because it simultaneously limits mass support for the uprising and provides a false justification for intensified responses - again, take the example of the POTUS declaring all anti-fascists to be terrorists in response to the idea that 'antifa' is infiltrating the protests and instigating violence.

Essentially, we're discussing two different problems. Yes - we all agree there are dickheads taking advantage. That isn't in debate from anyone, as far as I can tell. What I'm getting at is that the language of the outside agitator has been deployed by the establishment - consider that it first re-entered the news on this one with the Governor of Minnesota, the AG, and the Mayor of St. Paul - to discredit the militant wing of the uprising, and must be treated with skepticism until strong evidence that this is the case arises.

[mr friendly guy]

Anonymous has now said they will be doing something. Well if the police think its ok to dox their political opponents, well, lets just say if Anonymous does the same I will be playing the world's smallest violin.

[loomer]

Anonymous has now said they will be doing something. Well if the police think its ok to dox their political opponents, well, lets just say if Anonymous does the same I will be playing the world's smallest violin.

It certainly couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of people.

[loomer]

There is a fresh fatality, unfortunately. Doubly concerning if the official line is accurate and there was an actual exchange of gunfire.

[Ace Pace]

Anonymous has now said they will be doing something. Well if the police think its ok to dox their political opponents, well, lets just say if Anonymous does the same I will be playing the world's smallest violin.

Anonymous is a nothingburger and a nice collective name for nothing.

I expect hackatavists will be busy but honestly I doubt anyone professional will do anything in the next few days. It'll be too busy, too much chance at collateral damage and actually have the FBI investigate.