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The author might be right about some things, but he is also clearly exaggerating toward his narrative in some others. It wasn't the "Ferguson Protests" as the

The author might be right about some things, but he is also clearly exaggerating toward his narrative in some others. It wasn't the "Ferguson Protests" as the author is trying to put it, it was the "Ferguson Riots", there was looting, violence amongst the people and destruction of public property all around, you can't expect the police to show up in their blue uniform armed only with a baton in those cases.

HillRat 10y ago
Contextually, the employment of literally hundreds of armed troopers in anti-riot gear occurred before any violence at the protests, and the local and state authorities ratcheted up the response in the intervening days. Violence and looting within protest actions is definitely a problem, but it can't be considered in isolation from the behavior of the government towards protesters of all kinds.
- golemotron 10y ago
  Do you see that action by the police as provocation or deterrence?
  - HillRat 10y ago
    At the risk of being facile, I think it was an attempt to deter peaceful dissent that provoked violent protest. Like the execution of Louis Antoine, it was worse than a crime -- it was a blunder. Edit: It's also worth noting that Ferguson is a particularly pernicious example: an exclusively white power structure that functioned as a rentier class, using its government monopoly on force to forcibly extract revenue from an impoverished, ethnically-minority and, for voting purposes, transient population. It's like a midcentury European Marxist's fever dream of problematic class relations embedded in a matrix of structural racism.
  - Zigurd 10y ago
    Police deploy undercover provocateurs in order to discredit protests. At least one at Ferguson was caught on video.
dalke 10y ago
Ferguson involved both protests and riots. More people were involved in the former than the latter. Quoting M. L. King's "The Other America": > These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity. - http://www.gphistorical.org/mlk/mlkspeech/ http://www.gphistorical.org/mlk/mlkspeech/ I can expect the police to not yell out "Bring it, all you fucking animals! Bring it!".
- GunboatDiplomat 10y ago
  Well, let's be honest, justice and humanity is only possible in an atmosphere of respect for law and relative tranquillity. Justice has seldom been found at the head of a mob.
  - dalke 10y ago
    Or, to be honest, on a gunboat? Justice has even less seldom been found when the police, government, and court system have little respect for a political minority.
  - musha68k 10y ago
    You are not wrong in general but for cases like these maybe try to see it more as a "thrown exception" where as per the MLK quote above, the base "promises of freedom and justice have not been met".
    - GunboatDiplomat 10y ago
      It's not a simple problem, true. But I stand by my belief that riots are simply going to provoke a more powerful backlash in opposition to the rioters.
musha68k 10y ago
I'm always wondering if that isn't also a reaction to police force, at least to some extent. Civilized and creative diplomacy more often than not leads to better results than setting the stage with an atmosphere of violence. Also wasn't that incident of escalating violence triggered by executive failure in the first place? Back in school we learned that the separation of powers is one of the defining attributes of a functioning democracy...

HillRat 10y ago

Contextually, the employment of literally hundreds of armed troopers in anti-riot gear occurred before any violence at the protests, and the local and state authorities ratcheted up the response in the intervening days. Violence and looting within protest actions is definitely a problem, but it can't be considered in isolation from the behavior of the government towards protesters of all kinds.

golemotron 10y ago
Do you see that action by the police as provocation or deterrence?
- HillRat 10y ago
  At the risk of being facile, I think it was an attempt to deter peaceful dissent that provoked violent protest. Like the execution of Louis Antoine, it was worse than a crime -- it was a blunder. Edit: It's also worth noting that Ferguson is a particularly pernicious example: an exclusively white power structure that functioned as a rentier class, using its government monopoly on force to forcibly extract revenue from an impoverished, ethnically-minority and, for voting purposes, transient population. It's like a midcentury European Marxist's fever dream of problematic class relations embedded in a matrix of structural racism.
- Zigurd 10y ago
  Police deploy undercover provocateurs in order to discredit protests. At least one at Ferguson was caught on video.

dalke 10y ago

Ferguson involved both protests and riots. More people were involved in the former than the latter. Quoting M. L. King's "The Other America": > These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity. - http://www.gphistorical.org/mlk/mlkspeech/ http://www.gphistorical.org/mlk/mlkspeech/ I can expect the police to not yell out "Bring it, all you fucking animals! Bring it!".

GunboatDiplomat 10y ago
Well, let's be honest, justice and humanity is only possible in an atmosphere of respect for law and relative tranquillity. Justice has seldom been found at the head of a mob.
- dalke 10y ago
  Or, to be honest, on a gunboat? Justice has even less seldom been found when the police, government, and court system have little respect for a political minority.
- musha68k 10y ago
  You are not wrong in general but for cases like these maybe try to see it more as a "thrown exception" where as per the MLK quote above, the base "promises of freedom and justice have not been met".
  - GunboatDiplomat 10y ago
    It's not a simple problem, true. But I stand by my belief that riots are simply going to provoke a more powerful backlash in opposition to the rioters.

musha68k 10y ago

I'm always wondering if that isn't also a reaction to police force, at least to some extent. Civilized and creative diplomacy more often than not leads to better results than setting the stage with an atmosphere of violence. Also wasn't that incident of escalating violence triggered by executive failure in the first place? Back in school we learned that the separation of powers is one of the defining attributes of a functioning democracy...