@ana Oh Ana do not be discouraged! I too am an empath and I felt your pain. No one here meant to come across as judging, that I am sure. People here are beautiful though we are all works in progress! Your words were heard and your sweet soul is seen. This is a safe place! Trust that you found yourself here for a reason. Please stay! We have much more to learn from each other.
Put my points on a smaller scale: Let's say it's your birthday. Two of your friends weren't invited, but they show up anyway because you haven't returned their calls. One of them takes your cake, throws it on the floor, stomps on it, yells at you, and leaves. The other one yells at you, threatens to punch you in the nose, but keeps yelling instead. A third friend, on hearing this threat, sides with you and punches the second friend in the nose and then leaves. Only one act is violent, and it's not the one with the cake or yelling. None of the friends had a good excuse for their actions, but each of them had their reasons (which is a different debate). There was no act of self-defense, but they both wanted to make a point, they both wanted to be heard. No approach was ideal, and yes, violence occurred, but the real violence was from that third party, not from you or either of the first two friends. Which of these three friends is most accountable, then? I say it's the third one, the one who actually harmed another human being.
Stores and other buildings can be rebuilt and repaired (which requires people to have jobs doing the rebuilding, btw). Jobs will return eventually, and as a taxpayer I do not mind one bit chipping in for insurance - whether property, health or unemployment, of my fellow Americans. The reporter who got shot in the eye will not regain sight in that eye. The 186 people killed by police just in California, since 2013* will not get their lives back. I think the figure for the US is approximately 2600 people of color killed by police since 2014 (sorry couldn't find an exact link to exact data).
It's unacceptable and nothing to date has worked to change it. I don't blame the actual protesters at all. I do blame agent provocateurs, both homegrown and foreign, for escalating the property damage that is leading to violence against people.
Not trying to pile on you, but wanted to reply to you because you replied to me, tagged you so you would return, and this is an open discussion in any case.
"which police intentionally set" --??? Please confirm/clarify!
"there were hundreds of posts saying protesters needed to head to our local malls and riot, So, they boarded up our mall this morning."
--Most likely these posts are coming from outside the country. Read the article in this month's Atlantic about how Russian trolls and bots are very adept at manipulating American behaviors. The Russians are using the alt-right, they already convinced them that civil war is a good idea, now they are working to get the ball rolling, so to speak.
Posted by: @jeanne-mayell
...While I watched the agitators, I thought of how our CIA sent right wing agitators into Latin American democracies back in the 60's to create enough chaos to oust democratic leaders.
That's exactly right. Our government perfected similar operations in Central and South American countries, ordering coups and propping up despicable regimes. And there's plenty of reason to believe that we also sent both right-leaning and left-leaning agitators into the former Soviet Union and East Germany in the 80s and early 90s in order to amplify social unrest and discord in the lead up to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dismantling of the former Russian republics. (That doesn't mean these weren't genuine movements.)
Back at the first of the year when we were all stunned by the operation that killed Qasem Soleimani, I remember reading about how he'd perfected asymmetrical tactics in the Middle East. I could be misguided here, but I have to think the US gave him lots of historical inspiration in that regard.
As a former KGB agent, Putin is notorious for not believing a single civic protest in his country is genuine. To him, they're all foreign operations provoked by the CIA. Of course, nothing is purely black and white. And it's a natural human instinct to eventually rebel against oppression.
Tonight, Confederate monuments are being torn down. And there are reports that Stonewall Jackson's personal battle flag was taken out of the headquarters for the United Daughters of the Confederacy and burned. Good riddance.
@runestoneone I used to live eight blocks south of where George Floyd lost his life. I was in the area today, distributing food, then drove down Hennepin, took Lake through Uptown from the west toward 35w. Everything boarded. The smoke was still in the air. Drove down Nicollet ... things were boarded up all the way to 46th, at which point I got on the highway. There was so much angry graffiti, but also many messages of peace and tributes to George. I am grieving for this city and its people, I'm enraged by the outside elements coming in to cause more harm, and I'm incensed by the individual militarized police who continue to escalate things unnecessarily. Runestone, if you need anything, please let me know and I'll get it to you.
I see self-defense as the one excuse for violence. But I don't see how tearing up your own town is self-defense.
These people are not locals. They are also not black.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10158445817822148&set=a.39754097147&type=3&theater
This man is also not a local. He is also not black. The black ones are the ones trying to stop him from doing what he's doing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYCb17RjUTQ
This is ground zero in Minneapolis, and these are not the people who live there. These are, from all reports, hired guns and other outsiders coming in to cause havoc. The governor of Minnesota, the mayor of Minneapolis,and the mayor of Denver have all said that most of the damage and violence is being instigated by outsiders. I will not assume nor will I state unequivocally that no one from Minneapolis is looting or damaging property; I'm sure there are some who are. However, neither is it wise to assume that just because it's happening there, it's being caused by those who live there.
@Ana, it's a confusing time for all right now. @vestralux and @Laura-f I agree with your points about how white privilege is invisible to those who have it. But it doesn't help if we pit ourselves against each other here in this forum. Instead let's try to educate each other with kindness.
Saw this only just now.
I was attempting to do only that: to educate with kindness. To create a dialogue around a critical subject, and one I feel I have a responsibility to create with other white people. I want this space and all others to be safe for People of Color, for everyone. It has never been my way to pit people against each another, and I don't believe I've done that here, but I welcome being shown how I may have chosen my words poorly so that it appeared that I somehow was.
I'm a double Sagittarius, and am notorious in my family for being "very direct." Statements that wouldn't cause offense for me personally might do so for someone else, and that is absolutely never my intention. This may potentially be a blindspot for me, and I sincerely invite anyone here to point it out to me when and if they see it occur. (Though I may ask for specifics as, again, I am a double Sag.)
I don't want @ana to feel unwelcome, much less to leave on my account! I hope she'll stay in community with us. This is a very difficult time and we're all feeling it, as you said. So we need each other. For encouragement, feedback, support. All of it.
I've been busy trying to focus on things in my personal life that I absolutely must get done (not easy at a time like this), but I thought I'd pop in to say this. I don't feel any overriding sense of panic at the possibility of the White House declaring martial law or enlisting the help of Erik Prince, and I felt the same calm in the weeks leading up to the COVID crisis. As with @vestralux, my guides are letting me know that we have the tools to avert the darkest timelines as long as we stay centered, but that some amount of tumult and downright fear is necessary if we are to slough off our collective shadow. Also, martial law doesn't happen in a vacuum. A centralized cadre can't clamp down on a sprawling nation like the US without setting in motion unintended consequences. Counterproductive unintended consequences (for the White House) can range from a cascading failure in the chain of law enforcement command to a critical mass of everyday people saying "no more" and defanging centralized authorities via mass civil disobedience. Any heavy-handed approach from Washington will elicit an opposite reaction from the people and help drive out the darkness that has been building for decades. As @baba predicted, any decision the president makes will hasten his fall from power.
My two cents about the divorce between Officer Chauvin and his wife: yes, she's trying to escape an abusive relationship. There's nothing nefarious going on here. Not everything is a conspiracy.
There's a feeling of being ground very slowly inside a high-gravity machine until approximately mid-July, when everything seems to speed up very, very fast. I believe a lot of truth will pour out like flour through a sieve from that point onward until after the New Year.
It's interesting you should say this, vestralux, since I've felt since mid-May like we as a collective are moving through molasses. It seemed like spacetime was being compressed to a crawl, and I was about to post about that here, but then the protests started erupting. It still feels like we're moving at a crawl, but that's the point. We have to bear witness to every painful moment.
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@laura-f talking about my own directness, I just have to point out, you're like the bluntest blunt object around here, lady! ;) Pretty sure it's never meant unkindly either.
ETA: And now we have the lovely @allyn to help us all keep to the hard score, so there you go.
Love to all. And please, please stay safe. ?
I just saw tonight that Lincoln Project has a pretty incredible new ad that features the Confederate flag and those who embrace the symbolism of what it stands for, and uses T.'s own words against him, which is pretty easy to do.
The ad pretty bluntly says America or Trump. Choose.
That's where we are.
"which police intentionally set" --??? Please confirm/clarify!
I am not sure where I wrote this to review it, ( I looked, but couldn't find it) so I can't clarify that for you. Can you give me more information on the rest of this post?
For the other parr, yes, I believe that the posts directing people to malls to riot were likely bots.
Well, I'm a double Scorpio, so I see your Sagittarius-ness and raise you one retrograded planet! ?
Never unkind, but sometimes my exhaustion does get the better of me...
Huh, I can't find it either, it was a couple of pages back and my eyes are starting to cross...
No worries, if you remember and/or find it, great, if not, c'est la vie.
As my grandmother used to say "Buona notte gente buona!" (Good night good people!)
As soon as they saw there is no direct path to DJT's reelection, they appear to have engaged tactical Plan B. I actually believe they would have engaged this maneuver during his second term, either way, but the moment is of the essence, and this is their "now or never." It feels bigger than the Dark Enlightenment/Bannon game plan, though. I also wouldn't doubt that it supersedes Russia and possibly jumps right to China in its anti-democratic desires. It's fascism, plus. And I think we should be paying very close attention to what's happening in the tech space in the run up to the election.
I actually find a lot of hope in this idea. The walls are closing in on them, and they know it. We always knew they would do their worst to stay in power, and we are in the thick of it now. I too feel that anything he does -- acting or doing nothing -- will only contribute to his decline.
Case in point: last night #bunkerb!tch was trending on twitter thanks to reports he was holed up in a bunker while protests raged outside the WH. With everything going on, I needed a giggle, and bunkerb!tch did just that. (Sorry for the profanity.)
Much love to all of you and prayers for peace and safety for us all.
I appreciate your kind response Timo... at times we can be so full of ourselves and our need to express it....
None of us has reached Dalai status yet, that I've noticed so far anyway, and if I have missed something in that regard, I know I will be enlightened.
When someone is already self -defensive and trying to express themselves, their growing viewpoint, and may be sensitive to being targeted by too much input, it a wise person who knows how to let it go.
Thank you everyone, for being the kind empathic souls that make this place welcoming, and a true platform for healing light and intuitive discourse, (among other things).
Oh, the Full Moon in Sagittarius is coming up on June 5.... it's going to be opposing the Gemini Sun of course, and of note it is an eclipse that will be forming a strong T-square with... Mars. WooHoo!
Those aspects already seem to be in effect.... ?
Take good care and be safe everyone ?
@vestralux Thank you. Your post resonated with what I've been sensing too. I've got a sense that this is not what it appears to be, although a lot of it is real and legitimate rage and grief. I too feel that things will work out, but I find myself questioning that feeling and hoping it's not just wishful thinking. So many times over the past 3+ years I've thought, this is it, he can't survive this, yet he does. He executes some energetic gymnastics maneuver and all of a sudden, poof! His problem disappears, or is turned back on his adversary. So I am very wary of thinking he's done, and obviously fearful that he'll use this moment in time to advance his dark agenda. So far it doesn't seem to be working as well.
Let's all send positive energy to the light workers here and across the world. Love to all. xoxo
These people are not locals. They are also not black.
Following through on links posted by @tgraff66, on Twitter, there’re videos of men & women dressed from head to toe in black deliberately destroying property. In almost all cases, it’s the peaceful protestors who stop them from further damage. Here’s one.
https://twitter.com/rachael_uriarte/status/1267215784691957761?s=21
But the photos in the second link is the one that needs to be shown widely in media. Protestors have linked arms in a line to protect the sole riot policeman who’s been separated from his squad & would likely have been attacked & stomped but for these brave black men.
https://twitter.com/maseratimain/status/1266737701371478017?s=21