Chaos in USA

[boing]

John
Anything I say to a closed mind like yours is going to be treated as conspiracy theory so why should I bother? The documentation is there, I'm not going to do all of your work, I had enough of that approach with K&C. If you need some reading look at Bill Clinton's Morocco speech story and read between the lines, it's not too subtle.

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[Undried Plum]

Driving a rental car, I once asked a local how I could get to the Verrazano Bridge. I was directly underneath its shoreside parapet on the far (from whence I came) shore, having taken a wrong turnoff or two from the pike.

He said "You can't get to where you want to go from here. You should go back to where you came from and start again. Mebbe a different direction at some point".

I thought that was quite philosophical, coming from someone who was probably a descendant of someone who had probably passed through the gates of Ellis Island.

[TheGreenGoblin]

The bishops in charge of St John’s Church of were ‘outraged’ after priests from the Episcopal Diocese of Washington were removed by armed riot police before Donald Trump photo.

At least 20 priests and lay volunteers from the diocese were at St John’s Lafayette Church throughout the day to support nearby protesters with water, snacks and hand sanitiser.

Reverend Gini Gerbasi, rector of a nearby church in Georgetown, was packing up supplies shortly after 6pm when armed police began expelling demonstrators from Lafayette Park and the church patio, she told Religious News Service.

She said police in riot gear carrying black shields pushed into the patio of the church as people around her began crying in pain, saying they were hit with nonlethal projectiles.

“I was suddenly coughing from the tear gas. We heard those explosions and people would drop to the ground because you weren’t sure what it was,” Ms Gerbasi said.

“They turned holy ground into a battleground.”

They fled the scene, leaving behind medical supplies, and regrouped several blocks away to nearby K Street when she saw on her phone photos of Mr Trump in front of the church holding a bible.

“I am outraged,” the Right Reverand Mariann Budde, the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, which St John’s Church is a part of, said in a statement.


The president just used a Bible and one of the churches of my diocese as a backdrop for a message antithetical to the teachings of Jesus and everything that our church stands for.

“To do so, he sanctioned the use of tear gas by police officers in riot gear to clear the churchyard.”

St John’s Church, which had been damaged in riots earlier this week, was also unaware of the president’s surprise visit, saying in a statement they were “shocked and appalled” at the violent clearing of Lafayette Square to make the visit possible.

The Independent

[G-CPTN]

A little research will reveal that the incident with the cop kneeling on the guy's neck wasn't the first assault as there is video of 'action' in a police vehicle (the black guy not visible) where cops were laying-in to whoever was inside the vehicle before they were removed and then restrained by the cop kneeling on his neck for eight minutes, after which he 'fell silent'.

Floyd in struggle with cops in back of police car.

Arrest of George Floyd

Reprise.

[PHXPhlyer]

I saw both the Reverend and the Bishop interviewed.
They have every right to be outraged by Trump's stunt. Everyone remotely involved at the WH should be ashamed and embarrassed.
Of course we all know that that will not be the case.

PP

[boing]

I would say that the average American education is bad and getting worse. The reasons for this are multiple but you can reasonably trace them back to the 60's plus psycho babble where it was decided that any discipline applied to a child would inhibit their creativity and lead to unfathomable psychological damage. The result has been zero studying effort and examination grade inflation owing to a desire not to hurt little Johnnie's self image. Liberal teachers, probably the majority, are more than willing to go along with this theory. Meanwhile the curriculum has been gutted with all useful learning being replaced by PC social studies. Inevitably the diminution of useful studies like geography and basic mathematics makes the resulting product look dim by our standards.

There are still schools that turn out well educated children and lack of knowledge does not necessarily equate to lack of intelligence but you have to look in the appropriate group to find these people since they are not usually to be found waiting on tables.

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[boing]

PP

They have every right to be outraged by Trump's stunt. Everyone remotely involved at the WH should be ashamed and embarrassed.
Of course we all know that that will not be the case.

Not in anyway condoning what happened but it is most likely that Trump's handlers and press people were behind the mess. It really is pretty unlikely that Trump assessed the situation personally and gave instructions so it is stretching things to call it "Trump's stunt". He probably had not even arrived on site when all this happened.

Now, you can always use the argument that the Boss sets the tone.

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[TheGreenGoblin]

Blackhawk helicopters hovered over protesters, their powerful rotors shaking storefront windows and snapping tree branches.

The US military choppers shined their bright spotlights on the crowd, covered in the tan paint scheme that conjures memories of America’s post-9/11 misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Only this scene wasn’t playing out in a country most Americans would have a tough time pointing out on a map. This was Washington, DC, the alleged capital of the allegedly United States of America

As if that show of force wasn’t enough to make even the most cynical of Washington veterans more than a little antsy and depressed and concerned, another military deployment was perhaps even more troubling on Monday night.

Like the Blackhawks he deployed to harass the protesters reacting to the death of George Floyd, a black man, at the hands of white police officers in Minneapolis, Army General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was in his battle fatigues as he patrolled the streets of Washington. Defence Secretary Mark Esper was also out there as the Pentagon, in his words, sought to “dominate the battlespace.”

Battlespace, eh?

Your correspondent covered the Pentagon and the congressional-defense-industrial base for 13 years. When Esper and senior military officials speak about the “battlespace,” trust me, they are talking about “dominating” it with lethal force.

“I think the sooner that you mass and dominate the battlespace, the quicker this dissipates and we can get back to the right normal,” Esper told a group of governors earlier Monday in a call initiated by the White House. Donald Trump made similar comments on that call as he drafted the US military to help put down protests by American citizens inside US cities, including its capital.

Imagine then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates or then-Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen agreeing to an order from then-President Barack Obama to direct DC National Guard troops to use force against American citizens when almost exclusively white conservative citizens came to DC to protest the healthcare bill he later signed into law.

Try picturing Gates or Admiral Mullen agreeing to walk with President Obama to a church without seeking permission from its leadership, had the 44th president ordered federal law enforcement officers to use rubber bullets and tear gas on those conservative protesters.

I know. I know. Back in those Tea Party days, the conservative protesters were not joined by a group of instigators who looted office buildings and downtown stores. That is a fair point. The looting was unacceptable. But so, too, is turning Washington into Damascus just because the president was angry about television news coverage of his response to the protests and businesses having to close just after opening after the coronavirus lockdown.

Having covered Gates and now-retired Admiral Mullen for so many years, I doubt either would have agreed to what Esper and General Milley did just 24 sad hours ago. I would place a large wager than one or both would have refused the order and either resigned or forced Obama to fire them.

Since neither the current defence secretary or Joint Chiefs chairman did so, we’re left to assume – no, conclude – that both agreed fully with Trump’s instinct to quell the protests by, in his words during an evening Rose Garden address, “dispatching thousands and thousands of heavily armed soldiers, military personnel, and law enforcement officers to stop the rioting, looting, vandalism, assaults, and the wanton destruction of property.”

One thing this former defense reporter learned while covering the US national security apparatus was it wastes a lot of taxpayer monies – willingly, and members of both political parties are complicit in what has become a weapons acquisition scam. But another is this: The best senior uniformed officers and civilian Pentagon leaders are those who are reluctant to use military force.

They know how risky it is, in terms of both blood and treasure. They know how difficult it is to untangle American forces from conflicts once they start – this set of defence officials have studied and truly learned the lessons of Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. And they know that injuring or killing civilians, no matter where their troops are operating, comes with grave and unpredictable consequences.

“I was appalled to see him in his battle dress. Milley … should not have walked over to the church with Trump,” Michael Hayden, a retired Air Force four-star general and former CIA director tweeted.

General Milley did not change into his battle fatigues after Trump’s Rose Garden address and stroll to St John’s. Rather, the country’s top military officer was dressed for battle as he walked behind the commander-in-chief to a church in Washington, DC, over some broken windows.

Trump in the Rose Garden described protests in Washington as a “total disgrace.” What happened in DC, my home for over 18 years, was truly disgraceful. The president and the Pentagon leadership he installed when their predecessors sometimes defied his hardline whims turned it into a “battlespace.”

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith of Washington state on Tuesday summoned Esper and General Milley for a hearing next week to explain all that happened on a surreal and disturbing Monday.

A hearing is not enough. A public slap on the wrist won’t start reining in a military and federal law enforcement apparatus this correspondent always has feared would eventually bend our president’s every dangerous notion and order.

The secretary and chairman now have proven that fear is a reality. They were, frankly, too willing – enthusiastic, even – to go along with Trump’s boldest move yet against his countrymen. Smith and others should demand they resign. Not next week. Immediately.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/tr ... 45396.html

[TheGreenGoblin]

The fugly side of a supposed Democracy!

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/tr ... 45396.html

The apotheosis of the banana Republic!

[Undried Plum]

Inevitably the diminution of useful studies like geography and basic mathematics makes the resulting product look dim by our standards.

I have family connections in a posh bit of Long Island.

I was asked to give a talk to a class of students who were of a niece's age, in what in the UK would be called Sixth Form.

The teacher had asked me to talk a bit about the differences of the structures of state and of governance between the US and the UK.

I agreed.

I started off by saying that I knew that my British accent was a bit strange to them and I asked them all to immediately put their hand up if I said anything that they did not understand or agree with. I told them that in some things I would tell them there would be some things that they would disagree with. I asked them to immediately put their hand up when that happened.

To kick off with, I started to get them onside with a little joke. Hoping to get an instant audience participation.

I pulled down a rollmap of the world which was behind me. I pointed to New Zealand and I said that this bit is Scotland and this bit is England. I did it upside doubledown: North Island for Scotland a South Island for England, hoping for a laugh or a recognition that I might be taking the piss out of any stoopid ones in the class.

I'd hoped for a laugh.

To get the thing going, I said: Does anyone disagree with me yet?

Not one demurral, despite the fact that I had deliberately got those two island/nations are a hemisphere arseabout tit.

Not one of those studes, most of whom were going on to quite prestigeous East Coast universities later that summer, had noticed that I was was pointing to the opposite end of the Earth from what the nations I had said I was going to talk about.

Not one.

I could see that they really weren't feigning their ignorance.

I could also see that at the back of the classroom their lady teacher, who was non-stupid and non-ignorant, was putting her face between her two palms on her thighs.

That was when I realised just how bad the Murricane education system is, at the best of levels.

[Undried Plum]

That bloke in the middle looks so much like the gum-chewing nut-job in Dr Strangelove!

[Dushan]

To reinforce BenThere's POV.

... the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
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[FD2]

Here we have the same contenders butting heads time and again. The Americans and newer Americans defending what they see as a great system and a president who must always be right, even when he's now seen as a lumbering fool by the rest of the world. Americans are not more or less stupid than any other people on the planet but they are insular in that they are content to stay in their own country and not venture into unsafe or strange foreign parts of the world, as is witnessed by the number who actually hold passports. I expect asking for directions in remote areas of many countries would get the same response - if you've no reason to go to a place outside your locality then why bother yourself?

I've been to the States five times times - two of them just passing through - and outside the obnoxious attitude of several staff at LAX I always found the people from Florida, Texas and the rest of California to be friendly and generous to a fault. I witnessed extreme poverty when I ventured off the beaten track on a day off during a simulator trip to West Palm Beach - rows of rotting wooden tumble down shacks along a dirt track contrasted strongly with the huge mansions down the road in Palm Beach. That disgusting inequality is something that I hate but can be excused every time by the reply 'well they can always reach the top if they want to'. Problem sorted then.

There is, as in many other countries, endemic racism, but coupled with it a tendency to over-react to events and lash out with greater force than necessary. On a minor scale I witnessed the way the Shore Patrol dealt with a drunk sailor in Hong Kong. The drunks were lined up and sitting on the pavement waiting for the liberty boat to take them back onboard their carrier on an R&R visit from Vietnam. One man said something to an SP man and was beaten senseless with a large night stick and left unconscious and bleeding on the pavement. He had never risen from a seated position. A bit of an over-reaction indeed.

I was delighted to read that the six cops who tasered and pulled the young college couple from their car in Atlanta have been charged and I'm surprised that some of them are black. If you can't beat them join them I suppose. Likewise I was impressed that the church leaders in the States have the balls to criticise Trump for his pathetic bully boy antics in waving a bible in front of a damaged church after getting his boys to tear gas and rubber bullet the demonstrators out of the way. It's such a pity that the church leaders in the UK don't have balls that big, as they've missed so many things that really deserve their criticism over the years - I think they feature on the WTF UK thread.

At the end of the day though, when all's said and done etc etc, it's their system right or wrong and if it doesn't work then it's up to them to change it and no amount of bellicose rhetoric on our part will alter that, no matter how strongly we feel about events there. Maybe the next revolution will sort the problem out, but at present it's heading in the sort of direction that Putin would use to discipline his people.

[Dushan]

That little "passports" thing pops up every so often by people who don’t realize how big and rich America is. Millions of people , from all over the world, come every year to New York, Vegas, LA, SFO, Florida, Alaska, and a thousand places in between. Americans don’t need a passport to go to any of those, plus they have all of Canada to visit, also without the passport. I believe Mexico too. So you can look down on them for not having passports but that doesn’t mean they cannot, and don’t, visit many worthwhile destinations that the rest of the world can only dream of, and a minuscule minority achieves. Just driving from one end of Texas to another is almost as far as Berlin to Moscow. And you don’t need a passport

[PHXPhlyer]

Dushan:
Passports needed for both Canada and Mexico now. At least a few years; don't remember exactly it took effect.

PP

[John Hill]

John
Anything I say to a closed mind like yours is going to be treated as conspiracy theory so why should I bother? The documentation is there, I'm not going to do all of your work, I had enough of that approach with K&C. If you need some reading look at Bill Clinton's Morocco speech story and read between the lines, it's not too subtle.

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I will take that as a 'NO' then! NO you do not have anything to justify the hatred of Hillary.

[ExSp33db1rd]

.......and outside the obnoxious attitude of several staff at LAX

Agree ! (With knobs on )

That was when I realised just how bad the Murricane education system is, at the best of levels.

Clearly Americans are no longer being taught how to read - judging by the number of times I have narrowly missed being "assaulted" by one of the new accursed electric scooters being ridden on the sidewalks of a California coastal resort near Los Angeles, despite clearly bearing a notice "not to be ridden on the sidewalk " However, being married to an American I can also appreciate the better points of life in the USA, and could happily live there - if I could afford medical bills !

[Dushan]

Dushan:
Passports needed for both Canada and Mexico now. At least a few years; don't remember exactly it took effect.

PP

Oh, well... I have my Nexus card. $50 and it’s good for 5 years. You sail through, no questions asked, but you need a passport to start with.

[FD2]

Dushan - yes the passport thing does arise from time to time and I couldn't agree with you more. The USA and Canada between them have a remarkable diversity of climate and geography and if one is not inquisitive one needn't go any further afield for a holiday. Before I get too old I'd love to visit the place my mother was brought up on Vancouver Island and maybe do some fishing there. However, the big attraction of holidays for me has been the possibility of visiting a place where they speak a different language and eat different food. It was that curiosity to see other places in the world without our security blankets that motivated us, even though a lot of holidays with the family were also spent in the UK.

A few years ago when there was trouble in the Middle East I remember several film stars were unwilling to travel to Cannes for the film festival because it was too close to that scary war zone. Sad.

[ExSp33db1rd]

I've mentioned before, working in Singapore and living in an apartment named Hawaii Towers, my wife received mail from the then largest Telecom provider in the USA initially addressed to : Singapore, Hawaii. Singapore, Malaysia ( nearly right ) Singapore, Hong Kong, and ... wait for it ... Singapore, Spain !! Fortunately the USA Post Office were more on the ball, some had been edited, and some had initially been returned to sender and re-addressed. Visiting California and announcing that I am from New Zealand, a frequent answer is .. Oh, part of Australia ?

As has been mentioned, the USA is varied enough to satisfy the travel needs of the majority of the citizens, they don't need to know what exists beyond the borders of New York and Los Angeles, so don't bother to learn about the Big Wide World Out There.

( No offence intended to the obviously more cosmopolitan, present company, intended )