The WOKE Thread (Merged from WTF?)

[Breckey]

Plate carriers and AR-15s are understandable. The issues is that they look and act like the military when then have a very different mission. Wearing black/blue/khaki would have a very different message when interacting with the populous.

CBP and other federal agencies have the uniforms. Are these agents that aren't kitted up with the latest and greatest from Crye less effective in their duties?

[VTguy]

9 minutes ago, Breckey said:

Plate carriers and AR-15s are understandable. The issues is that they look and act like the military when then have a very different mission. Wearing black/blue/khaki would have a very different message when interacting with the populous.

CBP and other federal agencies have the uniforms. Are these agents that aren't kitted up with the latest and greatest from Crye less effective in their duties?

That's a fair point. I'd agree that multi-cam is a ridiculous look for cops and agents working a protest in Portland, Seattle or any other urban area. From my limited understanding, the guys we're seeing in the news are HSI SRT, USMS SOG and CBP BORTAC. These are dedicated tactical teams at the federal level and I'm guessing the multi-cam is simply what they have on hand. They aren't regular cops. They certainly wouldn't be my first choice for riot control duties. But their deployment is limited and anecdotal in the context of the greater debate about police militarization. They aren't representative of the 800k or so street cops around the US. 

[AirGuardianC141747]

Agencies are should always be held accountable to their leadership down to the individual. Perceptions are everything and everyone can spin it to their narrative. Regardless of tensions, civil disobedience, uncivil disobedience/thuggery, whatever. Most will think twice attacking armor vs less confrontational everyday wear so it’s situation dependent. Of course after our sand wars for decades they do have plenty of mil surplus goods, including armored vehicles so once again everything is situation dependent. Gun, knife, simple or complex protesting - I definitely don’t want to be in their shoes.

At least their tasers are visible vs any one of us outside the wire would never be issued one. A remnant of their duties with a show of force. They should be able to protect themselves, but it’s the public’s eye that seems to be the squeaky wheel like the arsonists/vandals/criminals that managed to have capture that same eye/focus in support of their agenda.

Just some thoughts not lighting a torch.

Edited July 27, 2020 by AirGuardianC141747

[Lord Ratner]

What a cool conversation. I wanna thank the black guy for participating. Really adds a lot.

 

I think the biggest part missed is that racism is human nature. If you disagree, you probably haven't spent much time in other parts of the world. It's *everywhere.*

Like so many other negative elements of human nature it takes tremendous effort to overcome. We're doing that, and in fact is working. America is, systemically, no longer racist. There are no laws, organizations, or functions that discriminate based solely on skin color.

But like all major societal changes, the time required to get from point A to point B isn't measured in days, months, or years, it's measured in generations. And for better or worse, we probably need one or two more generations to die off before we truly get there. But step one is to fix the system, which we largely have.

There's no justice for the past. The racists and their racist acts will not be avenged, they will fade into the past. I think that's why we have such incendiary rhetoric about the evils of modern America from the experienced activists. They *know* that America has gotten better, but they're worried that if they admit it, everyone will nod approvingly and move on, without holding the perpetrators to account. They want justice for what was done to them and their families, and it's getting between them and the mission. Understandable.

My fear is that the intentional misrepresentation of the systemic reality by motivated activists in America will disenfranchise the youngest generation of white kids who have no experience or attachment to the racist past. They look at their lives and experiences and see nothing like what the older generation screams about. They look around and say "what else can I do?" And it's never enough.

We have to remain vigilant in keeping racism at bay, but we also need to be patient and allow the species to evolve in thinking. It's not fair, it's just life. Until then, shame the racists into oblivion, and let their kids inherit a better country.

[AirGuardianC141747]

Very well put. and I hope they inherit a better country whatever that may be and maybe it will morph into something more suitable for their mindset/future lifestyle, etc. As generations turnover like the way of the Dodo, hopefully the issues at hand will be eradicated. A few remaining in the fold should remind/lead/recount events in history what it was like to show the way forward. Those never having a taste of what racism, socialism, dictatorship - basically anything, may or may not have a good reference to draw from so history may repeat itself. Granted their is some goodness to never having tasted 31 Flavors and making your own assessment. Hate lies in all ages, it’s the mindset that needs to be recalibrated. No answer how, but time has the tendency to weed out most everything.
 

Agree with Lord Ratner - Regardless of what’s going on here, it’s a far better place than so many other areas of the world.

[GrndPndr]

3 hours ago, VTguy said:

That's a fair point. I'd agree that multi-cam is a ridiculous look for cops and agents working a protest in Portland, Seattle or any other urban area. From my limited understanding, the guys we're seeing in the news are HSI SRT, USMS SOG and CBP BORTAC. These are dedicated tactical teams at the federal level and I'm guessing the multi-cam is simply what they have on hand. They aren't regular cops. They certainly wouldn't be my first choice for riot control duties. But their deployment is limited and anecdotal in the context of the greater debate about police militarization. They aren't representative of the 800k or so street cops around the US. 

CIRG also.  Mostly multi-cam, some blue.  They have interesting air assets too.

[arg]

13 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

 

 

 

There are no laws, organizations, or functions that discriminate based solely on skin color.

Affirmative action?

 

[TreeA10]

Statement read to AF promotion boards in the mid 90's: "Special consideration should be given to women and minorities for possible past discrimination."

[ViperMan]

On 7/16/2020 at 6:40 PM, brabus said:

Concur. Now can we get back to when that Japanese kid down the street is going to pay me my owed reparations for Pearl Harbor? I’ve suffered long enough...

You mean the movie Pearl Harbor, right? I agree, I'm still traumatized.

[ViperMan]

On 7/18/2020 at 9:16 AM, brawnie said:

Since this is an anonymous forum where people share anonymous thoughts, I'd like to hear why you all are planning on voting red this year? Specifically, what policies are actually making you interested in the republican platform? Because I can't find many convincing ones? I voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004 and McCain in 2008, but since ~2009, I feel republican views have shifted out of line with my own.

I think your frame is backwards. This isn't an election for things. It's an election against things.

[Negatory]

That’s one way to look at it. I’m sure both sides see it that way to a large extent. I’m sure it’s been that way for many many elections.

It’s one of the large problems with the two party “lesser of two evils” election system we have. Now you don’t have to backup what policies you stand for - you can just say what you don’t want and hope it turns out okay.

[arg]

Pretty well known(except for Biden) that his VP pick will be a black chick. Racism?

[Guardian]

Preferentially pick someone based on genitalia or skin color and not ability for the appearance of equality or inclusiveness.....

I’m not sure. That’s a tough one.

[dream big]

On 7/29/2020 at 4:12 PM, brawnie said:

That’s one way to look at it. I’m sure both sides see it that way to a large extent. I’m sure it’s been that way for many many elections.

It’s one of the large problems with the two party “lesser of two evils” election system we have. Now you don’t have to backup what policies you stand for - you can just say what you don’t want and hope it turns out okay.

How has a Trump presidency hurt you or anyone you know? How has your life changed from 2008-2016? I ask these questions to most Trump haters and I usually get something alone the lines or “He said mean things.”  
 

This is a President who has been attacked for crazy talk such as pulling out of Syria and Afghanistan (STS.). I thought liberals were anti war? Or was that only a fad to make Bush look bad in the 2000s?

[Negatory]

4 minutes ago, dream big said:

How has a Trump presidency hurt you or anyone you know? How has your life changed from 2008-2016? I ask these questions to most Trump haters and I usually get something alone the lines or “He said mean things.”  
 

This is a President who has been attacked for crazy talk such as pulling out of Syria and Afghanistan (STS.). I thought liberals were anti war? Or was that only a fad to make Bush look bad in the 2000s?

I have quite a few. And I know that all it takes is for you to quote the one thing you disagree with for you to feel like I’m entirely wrong, but I encourage you to suppress that notion and respond in kind.

It’s given my friends the courage to unabashedly post QAnon videos without a second thought. It’s allowed for people I once respected to just say “do your own research” and “fake news” about things that are scientifically proven, such as vaccines, global warming, or even eugenics. It’s allowed my friends that I grew up with in the South to feel comfortable saying “Why shouldn’t I be able to tell a black person I’m proud of the fact that I’m white?” The culture of discourse over the last 3 years has markedly worsened. People don’t feel like they have to back up anything. “The president doesn’t, why should I?“

A byproduct of the Trump presidency is that anti-intellectualism and racism has been allowed to grow significantly and unabashedly in the last few years. And these are people I know. As one comedian said, “not all Trump supporters are racist, but all racists are Trump supporters.” On top of that, he’s not doing anything to try to calm down tensions. I have a gay brother in law that was assaulted for the first time while out with his partner. It makes me feel like I live in a less unified country.

On top of that, we have made no effort to improve our economy for the future, we have no significant effort to build infrastructure for me to live in in for the next 50 years, we’ve added more debt to the national debt and balance to the federal reserves than anyone, we’ve started an irrational trade war with China that we are going to lose based on poor planning - my family owns a soybean farm and have absolutely loved the last few years (sarcasm) - we pulled out support for the Kurds (after I spent 9 months of my life flying directly over them protecting them) in an irrational and unguided Middle East plan. Foreign policy is now just say “America First,” forget the “haters,” and disregard the last 30-40 years of geopolitics.
 

America has slashed long term plans when it comes to Global Warming, which is a thing. In the last week we saw sea temps that were 10 degrees F above baseline near the poles. There is no plan to deal with rising wealth inequality in America - and that directly affects everyone. Tax cuts haven’t enabled me or my friends to create significant wealth, instead enabling us to earn pennies less when productivity has increased orders of magnitude. Our economy is almost entirely services based and only getting worse, and Trumps best publicized bet at fixing it is bring back coal mining. Ygbsm. Good luck with our airline jobs when they get automated. My nieces and nephews have no ability to actually earn money or move out of their house when they graduate college anymore due to lack of job prospects. I think I recently read a statistic that more people 18-34 are living with their parents than with a partner for the first time in history. America is trying isolationism in 2020, which sounds cool on paper - only care about yourself - but doesn’t work when China and Russia are laying seeds for productive alliances in Africa, Asia, and South America over the next 100 years. Our foreign policy vision is terrible, and it will affect the future of America if we try to maintain this course. We need fundamental national strategy change if we want to maintain our statuses as a superpower.

In 2008-2016 we did make some progress as society and in the world, in my opinion. Only about 2 people here have actually talked about what they liked in this presidency, whereas everyone else (I’m pretty sure you included) just says that I’m wrong and won’t answer my initial question. I still don’t understand what policies the majority of Republicans push for that have been enacted in the last few years, and I’d love to hear them.

[herkbum]

As one comedian said, “not all Trump supporters are racist, but all racists are Trump supporters.”

I quit reading after this quote. Such an asinine statement.


Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

[BashiChuni]

1 hour ago, brawnie said:

we’ve added more debt to the national debt and balance to the federal reserves than anyone

interesting statement

[Negatory]

53 minutes ago, herkbum said:

 

I quit reading after this quote. Such an asinine statement.


Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

 

Predictable

[Negatory]

39 minutes ago, BashiChuni said:

interesting statement

Balance to the federal reserves balance sheet, does that make it more clear? Expected to hit upwards of $10T this year.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttrends.htm

[brickhistory]

I'll give you the wild spending point.  Shameless and so Weimar Republic like.

As to most of your other points about, paraphrasing, "if the president does it, why can't I?"

So can I surveil my political enemies using instruments of national power?

Can I execute a US citizen based just upon my say-so?

I assure you that many, many people felt as you do now but about the previous president who was very, very divisive.  But were called a racist if they disagreed.  Neat trick, that.

I look at criminal justice reforms under the previous administration and to this one and note who actually did something.

I look at foreign relations as conducted under the several previous administrations and this one and pick the America first bent of this one.

I look at violence spiking and the perpertrators of it and note which "side" supports and which doesn't.

No doubt I'll get a "typical," or "racist," or "Ok, boomer," since I disagree with your view point.

Trump vs. Biden/whoever will actually be President.  Based on past performances, I know who has actually accomplished "things."  Agree or not with those things, one of those two (plus) candidates has a track record of accomplishments and is a billionaire.  The other has been a Washington politician for 40 years and is a multi-multi-millionaire.

[FLEA]

1 hour ago, brawnie said:

I have quite a few. And I know that all it takes is for you to quote the one thing you disagree with for you to feel like I’m entirely wrong, but I encourage you to suppress that notion and respond in kind.

It’s given my friends the courage to unabashedly post QAnon videos without a second thought. It’s allowed for people I once respected to just say “do your own research” and “fake news” about things that are scientifically proven, such as vaccines, global warming, or even eugenics. It’s allowed my friends that I grew up with in the South to feel comfortable saying “Why shouldn’t I be able to tell a black person I’m proud of the fact that I’m white?” The culture of discourse over the last 3 years has markedly worsened. People don’t feel like they have to back up anything. “The president doesn’t, why should I?“

A byproduct of the Trump presidency is that anti-intellectualism and racism has been allowed to grow significantly and unabashedly in the last few years. And these are people I know. As one comedian said, “not all Trump supporters are racist, but all racists are Trump supporters.” On top of that, he’s not doing anything to try to calm down tensions. I have a gay brother in law that was assaulted for the first time while out with his partner. It makes me feel like I live in a less unified country.

On top of that, we have made no effort to improve our economy for the future, we have no significant effort to build infrastructure for me to live in in for the next 50 years, we’ve added more debt to the national debt and balance to the federal reserves than anyone, we’ve started an irrational trade war with China that we are going to lose based on poor planning - my family owns a soybean farm and have absolutely loved the last few years (sarcasm) - we pulled out support for the Kurds (after I spent 9 months of my life flying directly over them protecting them) in an irrational and unguided Middle East plan. Foreign policy is now just say “America First,” forget the “haters,” and disregard the last 30-40 years of geopolitics.
 

America has slashed long term plans when it comes to Global Warming, which is a thing. In the last week we saw sea temps that were 10 degrees F above baseline near the poles. There is no plan to deal with rising wealth inequality in America - and that directly affects everyone. Tax cuts haven’t enabled me or my friends to create significant wealth, instead enabling us to earn pennies less when productivity has increased orders of magnitude. Our economy is almost entirely services based and only getting worse, and Trumps best publicized bet at fixing it is bring back coal mining. Ygbsm. Good luck with our airline jobs when they get automated. My nieces and nephews have no ability to actually earn money or move out of their house when they graduate college anymore due to lack of job prospects. I think I recently read a statistic that more people 18-34 are living with their parents than with a partner for the first time in history. America is trying isolationism in 2020, which sounds cool on paper - only care about yourself - but doesn’t work when China and Russia are laying seeds for productive alliances in Africa, Asia, and South America over the next 100 years. Our foreign policy vision is terrible, and it will affect the future of America if we try to maintain this course. We need fundamental national strategy change if we want to maintain our statuses as a superpower.

In 2008-2016 we did make some progress as society and in the world, in my opinion. Only about 2 people here have actually talked about what they liked in this presidency, whereas everyone else (I’m pretty sure you included) just says that I’m wrong and won’t answer my initial question. I still don’t understand what policies the majority of Republicans push for that have been enacted in the last few years, and I’d love to hear them.

Your critiques on his part policy seem to fall in line to a media agenda to paint them as irrational and misguided. Your an officer dude, you have to be able to read between the lines on some of this stuff and realise POTUS doesn't make those decisions in a vacuum and media has no way of knowing what the environment around those decisions are. People bring him researched options and he makes choices. Usually the people that bring him choices are informed and briefed by career employees and not appointees. There is a circle in Washington that has been discussing the same shit for years. It's a mix of federal employees, academics and senior uniformed members. 

I can name a dozen reasons why all of your policy critiques were GREAT ideas although I don't personally agree with 100% of them. So before you discount the country for anti-intellectualism I'd suggest you review your own geopolitical playbook and figure out why some of these things could have been a good step for the country because you automatically assume the items you listed were "bad things". 

I think the current POTUS has the best geo-political strategy we've seen since Bush #1 up to the point he ended the Cold War. Leagues better than Clinton, Bush #2 and Obama. Why? Because Trump recognizes there are capacity limits for our foreign influence and being the only world super power, especially one bogged down for 20 years by a counter terrorism quagmire, doesn't give you carte blanche to effect the world any way you want.

I got other news for you too man, foreign policy is America first. That is the basis of Western sovereignty and is nearly universally agreed upon by ethicist and academics who discuss the role and purpose of a state. Every country's government acts in their own interest. If you think Germany, the Kurds, South Korea or any of these other partnerships we broke glass on think we are "friends" you are full of it. They are going to stab us in the back the moment our interest misalign.

Trump's vision is quite simple. America's best bet at influencing foreign politics is by being a stalwart example of domestic statecraft for other countries to model. Focus on ourselves first, and our virtue and prosperity will become attractive enough for other countries to model. But if you want to go adventuring all over the third world to build partnerships, my question is, who's going to pay for it? You complain about rising deficit but then half your post levies complaints that we aren't spending enough. 

Speaking of economic ironies, you bemoan the fact that jobs are stagnant and trending to a service economy but also bemoan withdrawal from environmental protection agreements and a trade war with China. Can you not see that these things are interconnected? A business only does one of two things. It either provides goods, or it provides a service. If we aren't providing goods, we have to provide a service. The US is trending to a service economy because it is too expensive to setup industrial manufacturing here, hence no goods. One reason that it is expensive is because of strict EPA laws that mandate companies have to front cost for compliance and how their waste is handled. For a while we were able to float on certain tech sectors because China didn't have the technological know how to upstart this on their own. But since we decided to allow 20 years of industrial espionage in an effort to preserve "a good relationship" we have now lost that edge as well. Bro, the world isn't sunshine and roses. You can have your EPA laws and warm fuzzies with China, but don't wake up pissed you are working at Starbucks at 35 then. You made a choice. 

But I think what annoys me about your post most of all is your use of the term progress. Because you don't recognize when you say that you mean progress by YOUR standard. What you don't realise man, is this all comes down to values, and in general Americans have the same values but they tend to order them differently. So when you say "progress" you have belittled every single person who doesn't order values the same as you do. You don't think conservatives love the environment? Bro have you been to a Cabellas? However, a some conservatives are making the concious decision that people having means to put food on the plate is a higher value than protecting a climate that we honestly have little understanding of how it's change will impact global sustainability. Some people are making a concious choice that economic prosperity is the most important thing to get control of first and then interest can be taken in foreign influence, the environment, etc....

[Guardian]

Rocked it Flea!

Personal opinion. Trump is the best president we have ever had. By leaps and bounds. And he doesn’t put up with drama or victim culture. Which is why the current mix of politics is so explosive. Because there is a lot of that on the left right now.

[Negatory]

Appreciate the actual responses. I disagree with some points, obviously, but at least we are talking about policy now.

Ill respond later.

[Sua Sponte]

1 hour ago, Guardian said:

Rocked it Flea!

Personal opinion. Trump is the best president we have ever had. By leaps and bounds. And he doesn’t put up with drama or victim culture. Which is why the current mix of politics is so explosive. Because there is a lot of that on the left right now.

Politics is so explosive right now because both sides would rather yell into their respective echo chambers with their tribalism and throw insults to the opposing side. This is fueled by the media craving of ratings spinning a story to conform to their narrative. 

Edited August 6, 2020 by Sua Sponte

[Sua Sponte]

1 hour ago, brickhistory said:

 

Can I execute a US citizen based just upon my say-so?

 

Very interesting analysis on the topic.

https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5571&context=flr