'White Lives Matter' rallies flop as hardly anyone shows up

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Just a small aside, thinking of the chilling effect that the capital attack might have had... I haven't heard quite as much about Portland lately, some people suggested that it was something that would stop once the elections were over but I also do hope, maybe it's just wishful thinking, that enough people playing opposite fiddle to QAnon thought 'Wow, I wonder if it looks this bad when we kick off....'. That's something Chomsky beat on a fair amount - ie. how much of a gift AntiFa was to the right.

On the previous page in this thread I went on a rant about how the GOP enablers are helping the rioters. On the day of the insurrection I started a thread calling it woke victory day. You are correct in that the opposite is true. Trump should have not been within 4 points of Biden, the senate should not be a tie, and the republicans should not have gained in the house. I do think the riots were a factor in the GOP’s underserved showing.

Both sides despise each other but need each other. A frustrating and frightening situation.

And the media seems to hate anyone who represents the more reasonable portions of either side, frustrating the situation further.

I've watched some alternative history type videos speculating on if a second American Civil War were to break out who would win. They all seem to miss the mark, whoever starts shooting first would lose.

That said, it's unlikely to be the left who starts shooting first because their goals can't be imposed by force and the militant left has virtually no clout on the left, they're usually dismissed as tankies or red fashies. There might be acts of terrorism connected to causes that are generally aligned with the left but they're typically not conducted to advance 'the left' as a whole but instead they're direct action motivated by a single cause against a single target and don't receive broad support.

A portion of the right might be training and posturing but at the end of the day I don't believe there's enough of them to overthrow the US government even if I believe they represent an ongoing domestic terrorism threat.

Moderates and the establishment don't want to endure the disruption that any sort of major campaign of political violence would subject them to. No matter who it is who makes them feel threatened they'll eventually respond with all the force they can muster and that includes both the military and the police.

Two motives:

One, soundbytes take up less airtime than reasonable arguments.
Two, if everyone except the establishment sounds like an ignorant extremist it's easier to dismiss them and insist the establishment position is obviously the only reasonable one.

Andrew Yang is still a beautiful case of them not being able to do the second and when they couldn't ignore him anymore on the New York mayoral race they've gone to tarring him in really strange ways - which is backfiring because it just doesn't stick with him.

I shouldn't have to explain why white privilege is a real thing, but nevertheless you have to understand there are people out there who really don't like white people. I don't directly encounter that very often (probably a benefit of white privilege) but you have to accept it.

I know this lady whose (white) college-age son wanted to get involved in organizations that opposed racism and most of whose members were black or at least non-white. Then one day, he went to some sort of meeting and was apparently sitting at or near the front, and the woman speaking (a guest speaker I believe) basically pointed to him and made some sort of remark to the effect that his contribution, however sincere, was basically not appreciated. Apparently this was enough to make him give all that stuff up. TBH at that age I might have reacted the same way, but the fact is sooner or later he was going to face such a revelation that some people do feel that way, and deal with it.

Black people have encountered equivalent slights all the time and learned to live with it. If you're white, you might as well learn to deal with the fact that occasionally you'll run into somebody who doesn't particularly like you just because of what you are. It's not fair but it's life. Maybe it's less upsetting to me because a lot of people have disliked me for all sorts of reasons.

I'm not sure anyone ever answered this post directly.

Black Lives Matter means what it says it means. Black. Lives. Matter. Nowhere does that say anything about other lives NOT being important. The only reason BLM became a thing is because a lot of institutions in the U.S. seem to think black lives DON'T matter.

Sometimes that is blatant, but more often it is subtle. Companies aren't stupid enough to tell anyone they won't get hired because they're black, they'll just invent a convenient excuse. Same with landlords looking for tenants, bank managers evaluating loans etc. etc.

The reason there's no need for White Lives Matter is because that's generally the default setting anyway.

[Though it is true that you'll also find businesses that exclusively employ certain ethnic minority groups, too, and they're not necessarily keen on sharing the love with other non-whites. There's a lot of tension between African and Asian groups in some areas. That's not right either, and hopefully will get tackled eventually, but at least it's generally localised rather than happening at state or national level.]

The BLM label was deliberately provocative - yes we are here, yes our lives do matter, stop treating us like we're sub-human. Black lives were seen to be those most undervalued, but that's not to say other discrimination doesn't exist. Just that this was the worst (and therefore most urgent) area to tackle.

Everyone should be treated equally - within reason. Because the system has been rigged for so long against certain groups, I'm afraid that does mean some positive discrimination might be necessary to even things out, because without more black people in positions of authority how will systematic change ever be achieved? You could argue the same for people with AS.

Personally I do draw the line with some of the more ridiculous elements. Should we be obliged not to discriminate against stupid people? Hmmm, I'm not convinced. Though I don't think we should treat them like dirt either. Same with those oddbods who want to identify as a Persian cat or a toaster, I'm not sure we should really be facilitating mental illness instead of treating it.