Trump admits he had suspect executed in street by U.S. Marshals: "they didn't want to arrest him"

20 Likes

I too am supportive of BLM protestors. I even was one.

Joe Biden is too, I think. It’s on his website. Not the front page, mind you. You have to click an arrow 4 times before it becomes visible. And even then, he doesn’t actually name check the movement. He doesn’t give it a complete tile all to itself either. “Advance racial equity in the new economy.”

Well, that’s certainly strident! BLM was all about the economy, after all.

Wait…

Just my rant in reply.

I think you’re asking the right question. “Fighting how?”

Some BLM protests achieved some very real things at the local level, especially where they raised enough visibility to give organizations like NAACP leverage to force changes. But protests aren’t enough. As the First VP of our local branch says, “Don’t start marching unless you’re marching to a table somewhere to negotiate something permanent.” He just means have a plan and a clear objective. And our branch has been really effective in every fight we’ve taken on, especially in the last ten years or so.

But nothing is going to stick unless we change who’s in charge.

So there’s the objective. Next is a means to reach the objective.

So Soapbox [check]
Ballot Box [in progress]

Currently, there’s hope that democratic process will still work. If they don’t the next stop is not the “ammo box,” that’s just a ridiculous distraction that would only feed the monster.

The next stop if the election is stolen, or fails to achieve the will of the majority one way or the other is the thing authoritarians really fear: A pervasive and resilient general strike. Shut the machine down. Don’t get up until they’re gasping for air. They’ve spent decades vilifying strikes for exactly this reason.

So the work right now is to organize, organize. Get to know every group and person you can who might support justice and democracy. Start meeting and planning (safely and virtually) to talk about things like food security for strikers, non-violent protest and ways to get the word out. The left is most effective when we’re not just a mirror of the right with a different mascot.

At least that’s how I see and what folks around here have up to since 2016.

Just my two bits.

(edit: Realized that this could be construed as implying that the NAACP is a partisan organization. It’s not. It’s political, but not partisan. Issues not candidates)

23 Likes

Thank you. This is the most encouraging thing I’ve read all day.

And just to be clear, I’m not talking about reaching for the “ammo box” just yet. I think a couple of dozen AOC’s in the Congress and a handful in the Senate would be far more effective. But sadly, she doesn’t seem to have many people in DC who are on her wavelength. One can dream…

As she’s mentioned on a few occasions, she doesn’t need them to be, just us, sending more to join her. :slight_smile: Hang in there. It’s a good time to be alive, because we can’t doubt we’re needed for something important.

10 Likes

“Was…” as in past tense?

23 Likes

They’ve been a little thin on the ground around here lately. But if they have one, I’ll show up.

To be fair on this whole execution thing, I suppose it’s entirely possible that the Marshalls were trying to apprehend the suspect as part of their normal business, with trump knowing absolutely nothing about it since he takes no interest whatsoever in anything that executive branch he supposedly runs actually does. And that one (or more) of the marshalls simply was incompetent and over-eager on the trigger, and then trump decided to try to turn it into bragging opportunity after he heard about it, because that’s what he does. Otherwise, we’d be forced to conclude that trump was actually involved in some day-to-day action of his administration, and that he wasn’t lying about it.

I dont know where ‘around here’ is for you, but the internet goes everywhere.

You can find links to support BLM and the DSA easily.

https://blacklivesmatter.com/

14 Likes

45 used US Marshals as a hit squad. He admitted it today. The only reason any US citizen would condone this is they don’t believe they would ever be on the receiving end of the guns. Don’t believe that. Voting for the “wrong” candidate has been more than enough to get oneself killed in other countries with hit squads.

19 Likes

Voting, assuming it goes as it should, however doesn’t solve the police problem; there will still be armed fascists around, with cops closing an eye or both, if not openly helping them.
I’m afraid this is becoming an example of “all legal remedies are ineffective, and effective remedies are illegal”.
Honestly, I can’t think of any possible solution that wouldn’t imply being executed or imprisoned for life.

2 Likes

You’ve managed to construct an entire narrative to forgive trump with no evidence and contrary to what trump himself has admitted.

Why do you live defending fascism?

6 Likes

what’s also nice is that the one of the “marshals” who shot him wasn’t like a sheriff or anything. he was a correctional officer. because, apparently, it’s perfectly normal to deputize a whole bunch of people from different agencies who don’t normally work together, who aren’t trained even as actual police, and send them in to capture people considered to be fugitives.

oh yeah, and the suspect was interviewed the day before about how he was afraid of militia retribution, so they all showed up in unmarked cars wearing camo and didn’t announce themselves for… reasons.

18 Likes

This is terrible😡

4 Likes

First of all, I have not been defending fascism or death squads in this thread. And I take great offense at you accusing me of such a thing. I was, after all, the one originally accusing trump of sending out death squads early in the thread. And I have not created any narrative to forgive trump, because it is not possible to ever forgive such a horrible stain on humanity. The sooner his stroke or heart attack comes, the better off we all will be.

That said, I still feel I must take back my original accusation of trump organizing death squads like I originally accused him of in the beginning of the thread, since that presumes that he takes any interest in the running of the executive branch, which after some sober thought, I realize he’s never done and is not capable of doing. He certainly condones violence of any kind against people he doesn’t agree with, since he has done that every day since long before he was president, and he will be quick to turn a blind eye to it, and possibly pardon (or try to) anyone who gets convicted of it. But I do not think he actually bothered to send out the marshalls as an assassination squad, no matter how much he now may be bragging about it.

3 Likes

Yeah, I feel similarly.

Which is something to be fair to, I guess? :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

7 Likes

Considering the suspicious absence of (bodycam) video, perhaps parallel construction of the “missing video” could be used to as a force of good to paint the US Marshals in a bad light and gaslight/destroy their capability of trying to claim qualified immunity from this incident.

8 Likes

The shooters were locals, deputized into service for the Fugative Task Force.

They are being investigated locally in the Seattle suburb where the shooting took place.

15 Likes

The President is explicitly sending the message across the country that “extrajudicial executions are not only acceptable, they are necessary for maintaining order and protecting ‘real’ Americans.” His supporters, from law enforcement agencies to right-wing racist militias, are just following his lead.

It really doesn’t matter if he explicitly ordered this particular execution. The end result is the same.

26 Likes