We're on the home run, let's stand together for a blue wave 🤗🌊 (Trump thread #107

[Roussette]

Here we go!

How Stacey Abrams convinced Biden to take Georgia — and her — seriously
If there's one person most responsible for Georgia’s emergence as a competitive state, and most likely to benefit from a Democratic victory, it is her.
www.politico.com/news/2020/11/01/stacey-abrams-biden-georgia-433799

Abrams is unique in the constellation of rising Gen X and millennial stars of the Democratic firmament. She’s more authentically progressive than Julián Castro. She’s more experienced than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She’s more cerebral than Beto O’Rourke. And she’s not as extremely online as any of them. Her best work can be found in places like Foreign Affairs, where she wrote a cogent essay on identity politics, rather than on Instagram and Twitter.

I love Stacey Abrams too! I hope she stays in politics.

I have to admit this is pretty alien to me anyway (because warriors and soldiers are two quite different things in my lexicon, going back to "Beowulf was a warrior, Caesar was a soldier") -- but it seems to be suggesting that the police in Kentucky are being trained to see anyone not a member of the police force as an enemy combatant in some way, and surely that ought not to be the role of the police? They certainly used to be peace keepers, not freakin' warriors.

Beau of the Fifth

Is this a recent change of training, or does it explain police officers being prepared to baton-charge, gas and shoot peaceful civilian demonstrators?

Is this a recent change of training, or does it explain police officers being prepared to baton-charge, gas and shoot peaceful civilian demonstrators?

Police are trained like military in many parts of the country. It's why BLM has so much support...some police act like an invading force in many cities. I watched a video of a UK arresting a woman for speaking in a city square after I'd heard how appalling the arrest was. As an American, I was awed at how peaceful it was and how polite the cop was...I couldn't believe how jaded we've become. We're so used to rough and confrontational interactions with police here.

It is frightening that the USA - always held up as a democratic republic - is now in the throes of one of the messiest elections ever.
If Trump gets reelected, I cannot envisage the next 4 years.

Apart from his threats to disenfranchise voters or win by manipulating the legal process, its the fact that the majority of his personal campaign has been based on pure lies.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime Thanks for the link to that video!

Here's another chilling video from the New York Times about why it's difficult to trust who are the police and who they are protecting. So many scary people have guns here.

www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000007424380/police-black-lives-matter-protests.html?action=click&gtype=vhs&version=vhs-heading&module=vhs&region=title-area&cview=true&t=28

I think I know the one -- if I'm right, the reason it was appalling was that she had official police permission to speak in a time of covid, and there was no illegal assembly going on because only the legal number of other people were in the square at all.

It may help that like American police in the 1960s, British police mostly don't carry guns except for special duties like protecting ambassadors and the like, and most are not trained in their use. So they haven't come to rely on them as a crutch in every situation.

Don't know whether I'm looking forward to a Biden win or dreading a Trump defeat. Interesting times ahead.

I know which one I am, no question.

It may help that like American police in the 1960s, British police mostly don't carry guns except for special duties like protecting ambassadors and the like, and most are not trained in their use. So they haven't come to rely on them as a crutch in every situation.

A family member’s partner is an experienced police officer in the Met. She was telling us about watching him intervene in a fight that was getting ugly outside of a pub recently when he was off duty. She said it was really interesting to watch him defuse the situation and calm everyone down. He managed to break up the fight without having to call for help. When you don’t have recourse to guns, you have to train your officers to manage situations differently.

@Zixxy

Don't know whether I'm looking forward to a Biden win or dreading a Trump defeat. Interesting times ahead.

I understand what you mean. I think Trump will dial the crazy right up to 11, the next few weeks are going to be horrendous

Exactly.....if Trump loses.

But first things first, we need Biden to win.

My reasoning is really simple. I have grandchildren.

I hope Trump doesn't win, because I want them to grow up into a world that is still fit for humans to inhabit, and having someone in charge in America who doesn't just deny climate change but facilitates it constantly is not going to help with that.

I'm place marking, I like to read these threads but as I watch the election unfold I am just too to contribute!

It must also be terrifying to police any community when so many people have guns.

lionheart
It must also be terrifying to police any community when so many people have guns.

Indeed. But that doesn't excuse breaking into a flat without identifying yourself and firing into it as you go through the door (and sending bullets into the flats above and either side as you do so), or throttling an unarmed person until he dies after you have arrested him and while he is on the ground with his hands in plain view, or any of several barbaric things we have seen video of.

Those would and should be subject of a court martial in a fair few armed forces, let alone a police force.

Yes, Asking Most countries have armed police. The dark areas on this map are the ones that don't.

Must admit I was surprised it was so few.

Wow! I had no idea so few countries have armed police.

Unarmed police 🤦‍♀️

@boatyardblues - "When you don’t have recourse to guns, you have to train your officers to manage situations differently."
Really interesting point. Should be drummed into the trigger-happy police forces of certain countries. Though I suppose the change needs to come from the top..

So after a weekend of nothing but election talk, I'm bricking it today. All of my Dem friends are very, very nervous. We feel like there are now pretty much no lengths to which Tump won't go to take the election, fairly or unfairly.

Also a lot of chat about the Latino and Black vote not necessarily going Biden's way, the young voters going independent and Covid and the weather (it's very cold in some parts atm) keeping people away from the polls.

Again it all comes down to the problem that lots of Dems don't really love Biden, but a lot of Repubs seem to LOVE Trump.

Add in a talk with a very smug Trumper acquaintance who's convinced it's 'in the bag', and I feel like hiding under the bed until next week.

theweek.com/speedreads/947279/reuters-equipping-journalists-covering-election-flak-jackets-helmets-gas-masks

Unprecedented.

I'll just put this corny little song here:

Not for one second Across.

But it is another reason in favour of tighter gun controls.

Hello Befuddled.

De-escalation is a powerful skill to teach and principle to embrace.