Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

Gravitycollapse

(8,155 posts)
Sun Dec 21, 2014, 02:30 AM Dec 2014

We are caught up in a violent machine...

A machine with other machines attached. There are the machines of justice and the machines of injustice. There are the machines of racial equality and machines of the racist status quo.

Out of this system of machinery comes intellectual and psychic chaos. More importantly, this chaos leads to death and destruction. Whether it's a black youth with his hands in the air or two officers sitting on patrol, what we are looking at is a conflict between systematic, objective violence and subjective violence. Although, one clearly is more severe than the other.

All of this can be and has been predicted by postcolonial minds. The systematic, objective violence structurally inherent to the social and legal order falls upon the backs of the oppressed. At some point, there is a break and the violence overflows; it begins to leach into the other communities. It will flood back into the community of gatekeepers, in this case being police officers themselves.

Today, that violence, the status quo, burst out of it's normal channel and took two more victims.

This is not an attempt to diminish anyone's death. In fact, I see the cause of all of these deaths as the racist authoritarian state in its many forms.

What have we lost today? I think the better question is what did others lose. The families of these officers lost a part of their lives, just as the families of murdered black boys and girls, women and men, lost a part of their lives. That is the abject horror of the system we live in.

The system is not a moralistic venture. It is a faceless machine, devoid of conscience, too expansive and hideous to maintain it's own course. Some of us let it get to this point through exploitation and greed. Others simply did nothing to stop it.

But it would be folly to assume this will end before there is anymore bloodshed. Many more will die; most we will hear nothing about precisely because the defense mechanisms of the ruling order obscure the body count.

In the end, however, we have to remember what is at stake. We are talking about human beings, who love and are loved. We are talking about human beings who make mistakes and, sometimes, do nothing in the face of injustice. We are talking about human beings who do not deserve to die with a bullet in their head. They deserve to go home at night to their mothers and fathers and husbands and wives and sons and daughters.

They deserve to go home. What are we going to do to make sure they get home safe?

3 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
We are caught up in a violent machine... (Original Post) Gravitycollapse Dec 2014 OP
The Violent Machine Exists - To Propagate Fear - Fear Facilitates Control - Control Enables Greed cantbeserious Dec 2014 #1
I am thinking KT2000 Dec 2014 #2
Right, big change --an armed public and a militarized police marions ghost Dec 2014 #3

KT2000

(20,544 posts)
2. I am thinking
Sun Dec 21, 2014, 03:19 AM
Dec 2014

of the Civil Rights movement, Anti-war movement, Women's movement - which all brought about change.
The difference now is that the population is armed to the teeth, incited to anger by hate media, and left so many marginalized that their power now rests with their weapons.
How do we change that?

marions ghost

(19,841 posts)
3. Right, big change --an armed public and a militarized police
Sun Dec 21, 2014, 04:06 AM
Dec 2014

we have "left so many marginalized that their power now rests with their weapons" --Exactly !

How do we change that?

It has to be a mass movement against this insanity. Without that, nobody listens. Nobody acts.

Latest Discussions»General Discussion»We are caught up in a vio...