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posted by janrinok on Saturday August 08 2015, @08:06PM   Printer-friendly

In what is starting to look like COINTELPRO updated and outsourced for the 21st century, it was recently revealed that cybersecurity firm ZeroFox monitored at least two high-profile Black Lives Matter protest organizers and labeled them as 'physical threats' in secret reports to Baltimore city administrators and to an unnamed 'classified partner' organization at Fort Meade (headquarters of the NSA and other intelligence agencies).

McKesson and Elzie both tell Mother Jones they were "not surprised" that they were being watched. "It confirms that us telling the truth about police violence is seen as a threat," McKesson says. Both activists say they do not know why they were identified as physical threats. McKesson and Elzie live in Missouri, where they helped organize the Ferguson protests. They traveled together to Baltimore for a week and a half during the Freddie Gray protests.

This classification of non-violent political protesters as threats follows the nationwide, FBI-orchestrated purge of the Occupy movement that was legally enabled by labeling them a terrorist threat.


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  • (Score: 1) by eof on Sunday August 09 2015, @05:18AM

    by eof (5559) on Sunday August 09 2015, @05:18AM (#220147)

    I am not going to put any faith in numbers from a web site I've never heard of (particularly one that claims only a foreign journalist could find/report the data), and I'm not going to go digging for crime statistics now. Is there a problem with crime in some black communities? Yes. Does that mean that all black people should be considered armed and dangerous by police (or anyone else)? No. I give the following quote from an interview with Orlando Patterson [salon.com] often because I tire of making the point (I encourage you to read the entire interview):

    One of the points I emphasize in the long, long chapter I wrote is that there’s a real pernicious benefit to see the street culture as the whole of inner-city culture. But the inner city is a very complex culture: You’ve got middle-class folks there with mainstream values, you’ve got hardworking, working-class people with their well-established culture — which is more religious than any other group in America! These people are the most God-fearing group — and I cite the evidence on that — and work hard and so on, and that’s a well-established tradition. And then, of course, you’ve got what used to be called the underclass, the “disconnected street culture,” and then you’ve got hip-hop culture. You’ve got a complex cultural mosaic there. However, the problem is that one of them makes life really miserable for all the rest of the 80 percent of law-abiding people. What we’re going to do about that is critical.

    A lot of people say that inner-city culture is problematic and [it's] not. The tragedy is, the police think every youth in the inner city is like the 20 percent who are creating the problem so they start frisking everybody.

    Regarding efforts to fix problems, as I mentioned before, there have always been such efforts. Some of this is mentioned in an article [chronicle.com] I read today. The featured person thinks that the black community bears some responsibility for the current overreach of the authorities; it is a controversial view, but his work demonstrates my point about efforts within the community. It is interesting that the focus of government efforts when opioids were ravaging the black community was incarceration; now that it is a more general problem the call is for treatment.

    You interject your preconceptions when you claim that the children born out of wedlock are being raised with no fathers and no support systems; the article you cite makes a point to say this is not necessarily the case.

    Finally, quoting statistics is simply the start of understanding what is going on. There is a context which gives rise to the numbers.

  • (Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Sunday August 09 2015, @06:39AM

    by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Sunday August 09 2015, @06:39AM (#220155) Journal

    So in other words you won't believe anything that isn't parroted by HuffPo? Because if you had bothered to look at the links (or hell even use Google) the results are coming from the FBI crime statistics. Are you gonna argue the FBI statistics are racist too? Oh and juust FYI but those stats are AFTER the FBI tried to tilt the field (because they knew how bad they look) by listing anybody Hispanic as white. A black Brazilian fresh off the boat from Rio? According to the FBI he is white now, why? Because they saw how bad the stats looked for Black American males and needed SOME way to fudge the numbers! Several have tried removing the Hispanic numbers and if you do that? The numbers jump to 12 to 1!

    And before anybody jumps in with "systemic racism" or "its poverty" or any of that bullshit? A black man fresh off the boat from Africa, who has no money, a fricking language AND cultural barrier against him which American blacks do not have? He is 300% more likely to reach middle class than an American black in his lifetime and something like 1500% more likely to reach middle class in a single generation! Now why is that? I would argue it is because the American black culture has become toxic with its glorification of violence across the board, glorification of abuse and degradation of women, acceptance and glorification of unwed motherhood, and leaders that push a victim narrative. If you want the numbers you are welcome to look at the stats from the DoJ and FBI [infowars.com] and the facts don't lie, this is an epidemic. The links to the PDFs are right in the middle of the link, help thyself.

    You don't put out a fire by bitching about the paint on the house next door, you fight the fucking fire! And sadly that is EXACTLY what we are seeing here because to say different would go against the political narrative being pushed. Why do cops shoot first with blacks? Because they are afraid of them, but WHY are they afraid of them and not of Whites, Hispanics, Asians, etc? Because of the numbers above. And WHY are the numbers like that? Because you have a toxic culture that glorifies violence and infantilizes blacks [youtube.com] by telling them nothing they do is their fault, nobody to raise them or teach them right from wrong, as the prison shrink in the video says "the emotional maturity of a 10-12 year old". If the cops stopped going into the inner city altogether, do you think the violence will disappear? If the cops had no guns, will the violence go down, or do you think you'd just have a lot of dead cops? You can't solve a problem by only only looking at the symptoms, you have to get to the root, and the root is black teens have become a threat to themselves and to all around them, simple as that. The numbers do not lie.

    --
    ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2015, @06:58AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2015, @06:58AM (#220163)

      Reading your posts is like taking a punch in the gut. It must be 100 times worse to actually be you, living your life filled with such malevolence.

    • (Score: 1) by eof on Sunday August 09 2015, @03:22PM

      by eof (5559) on Sunday August 09 2015, @03:22PM (#220266)

      Could it be because people hold the view that US black culture is toxic that an African immigrant coming to the US is more likely to be successful?

      Speaking of not reading links, you have made no mention of mine, but it doesn't matter. I have made the mistake of following you into a broad discussion of race in America--that was not my intent. Clearly you have strong views that won't be altered by anything I have to offer. Similarly, nothing you have written convinces me that you have arguments that I haven't heard before and found lacking. I do suggest you read more broadly than outlets that support your views.

      Getting back to my original point, McKesson and Elzie have a Constitutional right to protest that is not abridged by the fact that they are black Americans.

      • (Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Monday August 10 2015, @08:22AM

        by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Monday August 10 2015, @08:22AM (#220584) Journal

        Again you are speaking of HuffPo, yes? Because I provided you the FBI and DoJ statistics and what is your reply? By attacking me NOT by arguing your position.

        What we see here is the classic "new progressive" tactic of attacking the messenger, have no comeback? Data not on your side? Not a problem just ignore the evidence and call the person who brought it up names and say they are ignorant, showing the new left for what they are, nothing but partisan hacks.

        So I put it to you once again, I have provided you with the numbers, straight from the FBI and DoJ and these are AFTER they added all Hispanics into the white column BTW, and it still shows you are 7.5 times more likely to be attacked by an American Black than ANY other race So how about instead of merely throwing insults you try actually debating the evidence? Or are you not well read enough and need to "read more broadly than outlets that support your views"?

        --
        ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.