A.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆Jan 28, 2023
It's extraordinary how brutal police are willing to be, the lengths to which they are willing to go, the solidarity they are willing to show, in order to deliver to Black U.S. citizens—the protection of whom is their ostensible jobs—the clear message, "we are at war with you."
Show threadA.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆

Even more extraordinary how patient Black citizens have been, staying so peaceful, despite having been given the message "we are at war with you."

Even more extraordinary how aggrieved police & those who align w/them are, when citizens finally agree "yes, you are at war with us"

Jan 28, 2023 at 12:10pmWeb
Show threadA.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆Jan 28, 2023

I'm told that the most important thing in the wake of this latest in an unbroken string of brutal state sponsored murders of citizens by police is that the situation does not become violent.

It's a telling response to a string of brutal state-sponsored murders of citizens by police.

Specifically, it's telling that some people see violence as their exclusive property, and that they consider the police to be institutionally entrusted with its proper administration.

Show threadA.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆Jan 28, 2023
To say "the situation must not become violent" is to suggest that an endless string of state-sponsored murders of citizens by police does not represent a violent situation; that the application of violence so far has been appropriate, or at least undisruptive to the normal order.
Show threadA.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆Jan 28, 2023

Police exist, ostensibly, to keep the peace, but they have scorn for peace. It's those the police wage war upon who believe in peace.

The peace won't be broken by protesters this week. It's been broken all along. Protest simply breaks it in ways comfortable people can't ignore.

Show threadA.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆Jan 28, 2023

If a protest becomes violent, that is the failure of our ostensible peacekeepers. If police are unable to meet riot with any means beyond violence, that is a double failure. If they never even make the attempt, that is utter failure.

Every riot is a police riot.

Show threadA.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆Jan 28, 2023

Policing is a failed institution, if what you want is an institution that keeps peace.

Police behave and talk and carry themselves in society exactly as if they think they were hired to wage war, not keep peace.

Who hired them? We did. I did.

We should fire them

Show threadA.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆Jan 28, 2023

We don't need—shouldn't want—an army to wage war on our fellow citizens. We need peace. We don't have it. So, our keepers of the peace have failed.

So they are a failed institution.

So we should end it. and re-imagine.

If we don't want that, we can't be thought to want peace.

Show threadA.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆Jan 28, 2023
My mission shouldn't be parsing the increasingly muddied report of violence, to assign blame to fellow citizens rising up against systemic generational oppression. It should be recognizing that ALL violence belongs to this ostensible peacekeeping institution, that insists on war.
Show threadTAIJan 28, 2023
@JuliusGoat I think change never comes if this is the counter to it. They will always triumph with brutality in the face of this. A child's logic seems to go better at the root of the problem, skin in the game (war) . let the leaders fight. More realistically, make them the primary targets 1st, watch how quick the desire for war fades. What mythical rule protects them. makes them untouchable. Meanwhile entire population, innocent , powerless....even children are fair game. leaders are safe??/
Show threadSirNapalotJan 28, 2023
@JuliusGoat
Our police were once called keepers of the peace (not really) now they’re law enforcement.
Enforcement is key.
Show threadRicardo HarvinJan 28, 2023
@SirNapalot @JuliusGoat When it's understood that in the context of policing "peace" and "law" have meant and will always mean "order", then one must ask, "whose order", and then truth can become apparent.
Show threadtom4okstateJan 28, 2023
@JuliusGoat they behave like the only class of citizens domestically that have been given authority, increasingly unchecked authority, to employ violence as part of their day to day existence. A power that is corrupting.
Show threadRichardOntarioJan 28, 2023
@JuliusGoat Unfortunately after 9/11 the government militarized your police The government gave them military power over you and with that came the ability to kill you. Military police are different from civilian police for obvious reasons. This is why your police today are trained to shoot you in the chest first, not deescalate and why they use military hardware to do their jobs. GW Bush put all this in place but no one has rescinded it either. Now it will be impossible.
Show threadA.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆Jan 28, 2023
OK, let's give up.
Show threadApti2dJan 28, 2023

@RADC @JuliusGoat At root; there's a far more critical infrastructure that's failing in the US: public education.

"Ignorance is the ultimate enemy" -History

Accurately targeting aptitude was far easier and efficient in early America. But that crucial pattern has inverted into Aggression Displacement far outweighing scalable proficiency, necessary to sustain one of the largest, wealthiest nations in history.

This pattern has been further entrenched by an overextended duopoly, and increasingly 'greedy' control of infrastructure like fossil fuels, pharma, banking - and now agriculture with inflation/price gouging.

Short of making #BehavioralScience #CoreEducation; this pattern will continue to 'exclude more middle', and cause a Singularity/collapse from the aforementioned polaric vacillations.

Show threadRichardOntarioJan 28, 2023
@apti2d @JuliusGoat I’ve read your essay and can only conclude you’re BLAMING THE CITIZENS for being indoctrinated and ignorant
Show threadApti2dJan 28, 2023
@RADC @JuliusGoat I listed the sectors that are most accountable. The US weights trickle-down economics more heavily than Scandinavian countries with better integrated education.
Show threadMeecheJan 28, 2023
@JuliusGoat Time to stop allowing veterans and soldiers to become police. Two completely different jobs. Training as a soldier should actually disqualify one from joining the police because that training is detrimental to policing.
Show thread336816 🇨🇦🌻🐕🏈♿️☯️♋️🏳️‍🌈🖖Jan 28, 2023

@JuliusGoat

It is a time for me to be sensitive to the murder of Tyre by police officers.

The institution of policing must be reformed (#PoliceReform), and we need to divide what exists now into two divisions, one of Community Citizen Peace Emisaries, and a Department of Extreme Violence Prevention, Murder and Organized Crime Policing.

That war is out there to be found of interest to a minority of people, still needs to be dealt with, as does Community Justice Building in communities. This I hope is the reforms you and I and others can create.

Show threadSasha AkhaviJan 28, 2023
@JuliusGoat Humans haven’t yet invented a social structure that eliminates violence; the best we’ve come up with afaik is to designate some people who can under some circumstances be violent without reprisal, and then try to have democratic oversight of those ppl & circs. We currently lack that oversight, bc police have succeeded in resisting it. Idk how we could have laws wo enforcement or enforcement wo ultimate threat of violence, but @ very least enforcers must be overseen.
Show threadEl PresidenteJan 28, 2023

@JuliusGoat

For defenders of the status quo, especially conservatives, violence is only bad when those who've been wronged commit it.

They'll use every excuse to justify violence by agents of the state. Those who were violated are always at fault in some way.

They are as much of a problem as the police forces that see themselves above the law and reproach.

Show threadJ.H.NoyesJan 28, 2023

@JuliusGoat
Historically speaking, violence has been the answer to abuses of this nature. Goes all the way back to the thetes' rebellions of Ancient Greece. Sometimes the only way to get someone to respect your boundaries is to put the fear of God into them. We've seen this applied in our own age following officer mass casualty events. It's a time honored phenomenon--populations willing to bear the pain of self-defense eventually enjoy decreased rates of predation.

@gwaldby