[Crimson Dynamo]

Originally Posted by Jack_

The evidence and facts actually stack up against your pretend argument, but you know that already

well when they arrive i will let you know

[empire]

there is a section of black americans, who want to start a race war with white americans, this has been hidden for years, the number of white americans killed by the cops is at the same number as the black americans, the media is still hushing this up, even so, black policeman have killed alot of there fellow black brothers, the whole thing has been hijacked by black racial supremacy groups, what the public should of said from day one, cops who kill unarmed people, should face the death row, but because these guys who just killed 5 police officers have just made the situation worse,

[microscope]

Isn't it usually the case that when a police officer arrests or assaults or kills a black man or woman, they tend to play the race card straight away. They say "You killed him/her coz he/she was black". They say "You picked on him/her and arrested him/her coz he/she was black". They seem to interpret the situation the way that they see it through their rose-tinted spectacles, as if they can mind-read or something!!

Generally any police officer will arrest, assault or kill a man or a women who they believe is breaking the law and may be a danger to others, regardless of skin colour. The only racism is in the eye of the beholder or spectator who is black themselves and thinks every non-black police officer is racist.

The black man who went out with premeditated murder on his mind is nothing more than a murdering scumbag than needs a torturous type of capital punishment to make him suffer. I have no sympathy for him whatsoever or any other vigilante types who go after police officers who are out there risking their lives every day to save other people, just because they get it into their heads that their arresting actions are always racially motivated.

[Ninastar]

Originally Posted by LeatherTrumpet

i stick with evidence and fact not mass hysteria and mob justice

If you cant deal with that , tough

What I find strange is that more white people have actually been killed by cops than any other race this year, yet no one seems to be protesting over that?

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/n...gs-us-database

[Northern Monkey]

From the news it seems like he was a lone nutter.Ex military.They found bomb making materials and rifles in his home.He said he was "upset with white people" and he "wanted to kill white people specially officers".They believe he was a lone gun man and it was a peaceful protest.

[Maru]

This is #2 for us. We went through it with the first time with Goforth. My husband works for the Sheriff's Office and is a detention officer doing CIRT for the Mental Health Unit at the jail. I have another close family in the same building as well and we know a bunch that are on the streets.

The gas station where the Goforth shooting occurred is a place our close friend frequented while on patrol and it very easily could've been him. The Goforth's lived down the road and we are in the same district. It affected a lot of people in the community here so there was a huge outpouring of support from the community, which helps. We are still reeling from Goforth. These conversations sadly have become daily for us. There is high turnover right now where my husband is stationed so he is working insane hours. So some days he works 16 hour shifts and he's doing 2-3 of those a week. The turnover was bad before, but it's even worse now. I worry about him pumping gas or walking into a store with his uniform on.

You can understand how so much hate and vitriol is being spread if you listen/read our national mainstream media. Most of you are in the UK, so you don't know about our insanely outrageous media coverage. For example, with our local media Houston floods like crazy and we are no stranger to natural disasters, but as soon as water starts to enter people's homes, there's a helicopter, a crew and a phone call with a local neighbor describing the flowing water situation and a photo from Twitter of the cat floating away on a couch plastered all over the net and TV. Everything is sensationalized and over-hyped. It is embarrassingly excess.

National media is basically tabloids disguised as real news on TV 24/7. It is 95% entertainment, 4.9% headlines, .1% facts. 100% of the coverage is Donald Trump, BLM, evil law enforcement, dead people, mass shootings and constant coverage of celebrity deaths (like Anna Nicole Smith, who cares ). Donald Trump gets more coverage than the superbowl. A racist self-absorbed prick's opinion is more important than delivering the facts around majorly important issues. Ok.

If you listened to national media all day you would think our society has gone insane, but it's a major distortion of life here that people eat it up because it adds color and meaning to their otherwise mundane lives. Disenfranchised people want other people to blame. Businesses want other parties to be responsible for their failures. The public hear that actual effort won't fix the issues, but getting attention and promoting violence will (by suggesting people will arm themselves or go to the streets). The internet is a little better (depends on the station) because people read for content but even lately that's become more filler... thanks to Facebook cutting off the stream of cash flow to smaller outfits and ad-blockers.

Also, there is an high likelihood that the candidates and organizations pay a ton of people to post on websites which further adds to the distortions and vulgar sensationalism. Go on the Daily Mail and see how many people are turning unrelated news into conversations about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in comments section. If you click on some of them, you'll notice some of their posting histories are highly suspect. (also who has the money or time to care about spending all day commenting on news sites about politicians? Seriously.) Why would the media filter out those commentors if they're contributing to click rates? The same reason Facebook will have dead people follow brands, paid sponsorship.

That means for every much needed discussion about racism, you have an overly inciteful commentor writing "coded" messages towards in very particular personas in to distort the public's perception. Mix in a few actual crazies and it looks like the country is going seriously to pot and then legitimately people read these commenters thinking they are real posters and become really angry.

This kind of "sponsorship" is now common on social media. Let's not forget too the online media who have "guest bloggers" posting articles from a very biased POV.

"Are online comments full of paid lies?"
http://www.computerworld.com/article...aid-lies-.html

A thriving industry of paid-for user comments pollutes social networks with fake opinions. Even Samsung does it

"Paid Commenters Hired By Fox News To Spread Right Wing Talking Points Across The Net"
http://addictinginfo.org/2013/10/27/...lood-internet/

Facebook will make your dead friend "like" stuff.

"Why are dead people liking stuff on Facebook"
http://readwrite.com/2012/12/11/why-...f-on-facebook/

"FB fans aren’t seeing your posts (and how to fix it)"
http://alwaysupward.com/blog/fb-fans...how-to-fix-it/

It’s no conspiracy. Facebook acknowledged it as recently as last week: messages now reach, on average, just 15 percent of an account’s fans. In a wonderful coincidence, Facebook has rolled out a solution for this problem: Pay them for better access.

As their advertising head, Gokul Rajaram, explained, if you want to speak to the other 80 to 85 percent of people who signed up to hear from you, “sponsoring posts is important.”

In other words, through “Sponsored Stories,” brands, agencies and artists are now charged to reach their own fans—the whole reason for having a page—because those pages have suddenly stopped working.

This is a clear conflict of interest. The worse the platform performs, the more advertisers need to use Sponsored Stories. In a way, it means that Facebook is broken, on purpose, in order to extract more money from users. In the case of Sponsored Stories, it has meant raking in nearly $1M a day.

Let's not forget the filter bubble by way of Google through way of Personalized Search results... i.e. we generally only see views we agree with

Filter Bubble - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble

A filter bubble is a result of a personalized search in which a website algorithm selectively guesses what information a user would like to see based on information about the user (such as location, past click behavior and search history[1][2]) and, as a result, users become separated from information that disagrees with their viewpoints, effectively isolating them in their own cultural or ideological bubbles. Prime examples are Google Personalized Search results and Facebook's personalized news stream. The term was coined by internet activist Eli Pariser in his book by the same name; according to Pariser, users get less exposure to conflicting viewpoints and are isolated intellectually in their own informational bubble. Pariser related an example in which one user searched Google for "BP" and got investment news about British Petroleum while another searcher got information about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and that the two search results pages were "strikingly different".[3][4][5][6] The bubble effect may have negative implications for civic discourse, according to Pariser, but there are contrasting views suggesting the effect is minimal[6] and addressable.[7]

So Americans on social media popularize the issues, even though not all social media websites are playing fair in publishing them. The media then dissects this into a persona, neglecting most of the facts and only picking it apart for entertainment/sensation value and then uses a baiting headline to incite reactions and then self-aggrandizing groups or political figuers such as the NRA, NAACP, Tea Party, Donald Trump, etc polarize the issues further to get attention and control perception because who cares about facts when they can push their platform and make $$$. Lather, rinse, repeat.

That last bit is the most important part and has gotten really out of control in the US the past several years. The media is becoming more and more nationalist and comments/retweets on my Twitter are starting to read like obituaries. We're not as dire as the media portrays, but it's the media that gives a platform to much of the vitriol that incites the violence. It started to get really bad after 9/11, we massively over-reacted to it politically and militarily and the media has been riding on a polarized public ever since.

Oh and voter apathy among minorities and moderates does not help. I was shocked to read Brexit voting population percentage was 70%+.... that would be a miracle here. We are lucky to get more than 50% of the population to vote in a general election. Far far less in a primary.

[Ninastar]

Originally Posted by Maru

This is #2 for us. We went through it with the first time with Goforth. My husband works for the Sheriff's Office and is a detention officer doing CIRT for the Mental Health Unit at the jail. I have another close family in the same building as well and we know a bunch that are on the streets.

The gas station where the Goforth shooting occurred is a place our close friend frequented while on patrol and it very easily could've been him. The Goforth's lived down the road and we are in the same district. It affected a lot of people in the community here so there was a huge outpouring of support from the community, which helps. We are still reeling from Goforth. These conversations sadly have become daily for us. There is high turnover right now where my husband is stationed so he is working insane hours. So some days he works 16 hour shifts and he's doing 2-3 of those a week. The turnover was bad before, but it's even worse now. I worry about him pumping gas or walking into a store with his uniform on.

You can understand how so much hate and vitriol is being spread if you listen/read our national mainstream media. Most of you are in the UK, so you don't know about our insanely outrageous media coverage. For example, with our local media Houston floods like crazy and we are no stranger to natural disasters, but as soon as water starts to enter people's homes, there's a helicopter, a crew and a phone call with a local neighbor describing the flowing water situation and a photo from Twitter of the cat floating away on a couch plastered all over the net and TV. Everything is sensationalized and over-hyped. It is embarrassingly excess.

National media is basically tabloids disguised as real news on TV 24/7. It is 95% entertainment, 4.9% headlines, .1% facts. 100% of the coverage is Donald Trump, BLM, evil law enforcement, dead people, mass shootings and constant coverage of celebrity deaths (like Anna Nicole Smith, who cares ). Donald Trump gets more coverage than the superbowl. A racist self-absorbed prick's opinion is more important than delivering the facts around majorly important issues. Ok.

If you listened to national media all day you would think our society has gone insane, but it's a major distortion of life here that people eat it up because it adds color and meaning to their otherwise mundane lives. Disenfranchised people want other people to blame. Businesses want other parties to be responsible for their failures. The public hear that actual effort won't fix the issues, but getting attention and promoting violence will (by suggesting people will arm themselves or go to the streets). The internet is a little better (depends on the station) because people read for content but even lately that's become more filler... thanks to Facebook cutting off the stream of cash flow to smaller outfits and ad-blockers.

Also, there is an high likelihood that the candidates and organizations pay a ton of people to post on websites which further adds to the distortions and vulgar sensationalism. Go on the Daily Mail and see how many people are turning unrelated news into conversations about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in comments section. If you click on some of them, you'll notice some of their posting histories are highly suspect. (also who has the money or time to care about spending all day commenting on news sites about politicians? Seriously.) Why would the media filter out those commentors if they're contributing to click rates? The same reason Facebook will have dead people follow brands, paid sponsorship.

That means for every much needed discussion about racism, you have an overly inciteful commentor writing "coded" messages towards in very particular personas in to distort the public's perception. Mix in a few actual crazies and it looks like the country is going seriously to pot and then legitimately people read these commenters thinking they are real posters and become really angry.

This kind of "sponsorship" is now common on social media. Let's not forget too the online media who have "guest bloggers" posting articles from a very biased POV.

"Are online comments full of paid lies?"
http://www.computerworld.com/article...aid-lies-.html


"Paid Commenters Hired By Fox News To Spread Right Wing Talking Points Across The Net"
http://addictinginfo.org/2013/10/27/...lood-internet/

Facebook will make your dead friend "like" stuff.

"Why are dead people liking stuff on Facebook"
http://readwrite.com/2012/12/11/why-...f-on-facebook/

"FB fans aren’t seeing your posts (and how to fix it)"
http://alwaysupward.com/blog/fb-fans...how-to-fix-it/



Let's not forget the filter bubble by way of Google through way of Personalized Search results... i.e. we generally only see views we agree with

Filter Bubble - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble



So Americans on social media popularize the issues, even though not all social media websites are playing fair in publishing them. The media then dissects this into a persona, neglecting most of the facts and only picking it apart for entertainment/sensation value and then uses a baiting headline to incite reactions and then self-aggrandizing groups or political figuers such as the NRA, NAACP, Tea Party, Donald Trump, etc polarize the issues further to get attention and control perception because who cares about facts when they can push their platform and make $$$. Lather, rinse, repeat.

That last bit is the most important part and has gotten really out of control in the US the past several years. The media is becoming more and more nationalist and comments/retweets on my Twitter are starting to read like obituaries. We're not as dire as the media portrays, but it's the media that gives a platform to much of the vitriol that incites the violence. It started to get really bad after 9/11, we massively over-reacted to it politically and militarily and the media has been riding on a polarized public ever since.

Oh and voter apathy among minorities and moderates does not help. I was shocked to read Brexit voting population percentage was 70%+.... that would be a miracle here. We are lucky to get more than 50% of the population to vote in a general election. Far far less in a primary.

Very, very well said.

[Mystic Mock]

Originally Posted by Munchkins

Why am i not surprised many are using this as an excuse to completely discredit the blacklivesmatter movement and tar them all with the same brush
This was exactly the situation they needed, so they could exploit
Yes this is a tragedy, but this does not discredit the amount of police brutality towards POC in America. Both are tragic
Seeing many now trying to label blacklivesmatter as an extremist movement is just tragic

This was all I wanted to say really.

Thanks Munchkins for saving me time.

[Mystic Mock]

Originally Posted by microscope

Isn't it usually the case that when a police officer arrests or assaults or kills a black man or woman, they tend to play the race card straight away. They say "You killed him/her coz he/she was black". They say "You picked on him/her and arrested him/her coz he/she was black". They seem to interpret the situation the way that they see it through their rose-tinted spectacles, as if they can mind-read or something!!

Generally any police officer will arrest, assault or kill a man or a women who they believe is breaking the law and may be a danger to others, regardless of skin colour. The only racism is in the eye of the beholder or spectator who is black themselves and thinks every non-black police officer is racist.

The black man who went out with premeditated murder on his mind is nothing more than a murdering scumbag than needs a torturous type of capital punishment to make him suffer. I have no sympathy for him whatsoever or any other vigilante types who go after police officers who are out there risking their lives every day to save other people, just because they get it into their heads that their arresting actions are always racially motivated.

I'm not defending what happened to the Police Officers, but one of the black men that got shot was shot eight times, there was footage showing him running away from the Police Officer so he wasn't going to attack him.

Of course does it mean that these innocent Police Officers that weren't involved in the case should be shot dead? Of course not, but I can understand this BlackLivesMatter group's frustration at what's going on in their country.

[arista]

That last Evil Sniper Was so Tooled Up,
that Police Chief had to use the bomb detection Robot
with a "Bomb on it" - Fair play as he would have taken more Cops with him.

[Ammi]

Originally Posted by Ninastar

What I find strange is that more white people have actually been killed by cops than any other race this year, yet no one seems to be protesting over that?

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/n...gs-us-database

..it's not really the volume of those killed by the police though, Caitlin...whether there have been more white people than black people..?...it's whether those white people were 'justifiably' killed and whether there was no alternative because of the threat they were being at the time ...it seems that sadly too often, black people are killed by the police when there have been alternatives to loss of life in those situations...so that would be the comparison to make...

[Ammi]

..excellent insight and heart-felt post, Maru...I can't imagine how it must be for you when your partner is out in his working day.....

[Ammi]

Originally Posted by microscope

Isn't it usually the case that when a police officer arrests or assaults or kills a black man or woman, they tend to play the race card straight away. They say "You killed him/her coz he/she was black". They say "You picked on him/her and arrested him/her coz he/she was black". They seem to interpret the situation the way that they see it through their rose-tinted spectacles, as if they can mind-read or something!!

Generally any police officer will arrest, assault or kill a man or a women who they believe is breaking the law and may be a danger to others, regardless of skin colour. The only racism is in the eye of the beholder or spectator who is black themselves and thinks every non-black police officer is racist.

The black man who went out with premeditated murder on his mind is nothing more than a murdering scumbag than needs a torturous type of capital punishment to make him suffer. I have no sympathy for him whatsoever or any other vigilante types who go after police officers who are out there risking their lives every day to save other people, just because they get it into their heads that their arresting actions are always racially motivated.

..no, it's usually the case when OTT/unnecessary and inappropriate to the situation force is used and when loss of life results without any other alternatives being explored, which are all very definite duties and pledges of police officers...and oh, look it just happens to be a black person again which it's being applied to...

[Ninastar]

Originally Posted by Ammi

..it's not really the volume of those killed by the police though, Caitlin...whether there have been more white people than black people..?...it's whether those white people were 'justifiably' killed and whether there was no alternative because of the threat they were being at the time ...it seems that sadly too often, black people are killed by the police when there have been alternatives to loss of life in those situations...so that would be the comparison to make...

We wouldn't know whether they were 'justifiably' killed or not though, because no one kicks up a fuss about it when they are white.

This sounds like I'm one of those 'WHITE LIVES MATTER!!!!!!!!' people but I'm not. I hate those people.

I'm just saying that I don't think its a race thing like people claim it is. If it was, there would be far, far many more POC killed than white people.

Perhaps we do need to look more into who we do employ as a police officer. But again, its a tricky one, we will never know how difficult it is to be an officer. I once watched this and I thought it was pretty interesting.

Youtube video

[Ammi]

...your partner/child/sibling/friend goes out for their working day and never returns again, I can't even begin to imagine how it is for the loved ones of those police officers right now.....

[Ammi]

Originally Posted by Ninastar

We wouldn't know whether they were 'justifiably' killed or not though, because no one kicks up a fuss about it when they are white.

This sounds like I'm one of those 'WHITE LIVES MATTER!!!!!!!!' people but I'm not. I hate those people.

I'm just saying that I don't think its a race thing like people claim it is. If it was, there would be far, far many more POC killed than white people.

Perhaps we do need to look more into who we do employ as a police officer. But again, its a tricky one, we will never know how difficult it is to be an officer. I once watched this and I thought it was pretty interesting.

Youtube video

...but that's the thing though of what has just sadly happened, Caitlin..we do know because police officers have been shot dead because they were white officers...families of white people wouldn't not shout out loud about it if they felt that a loved one had lost their life because of the colour of their skin...hang on, let me watch your vid...and morning.....

[Ammi]

.....hmmm, see though that's only really showing situations when it would be appropriate to draw weapons and sometimes use them..(although it's still whether an officer has shot to kill when he could have disabled..)...someone coming toward him in the way that is shown is most definitely 'threatening'...but would he shoot in the chest or in the legs because a shot to the chest would raise the chances more of a death shot... where the guy had a hidden knife..?...he was disarmed of that knife in a training situation that could be compared to the recent case, with the guy with the gun in his pocket..?..he was pinned down and unable to draw or use any weapon he may have had but was still shot to death...and Tamir Rice was shot and killed within seconds of the police officer's arriving on the scene with no attempt at any other alternative...the vid is only really showing 'no alternative' situations...

[Ammi]

Originally Posted by Northern Monkey

Well why don't they just make their slogan 'black lives matter too' to stop any confusion?Having a slogan like that which implies that only black lives matter is bound to cause controversy.
Some of these blm people actually do think that only black lives matter and are racist.Those are the ones who give blm the bad reputation they have and detract from their cause.Most black people are killed by other black people but they don't go protesting over that.

..BLM is a raising of awareness though, NM...and like any raising of awareness of anything, it's not saying that any comparisons aren't of equal importance, just that it's focusing on something in particular ...I mean, we don't say 'this is a Race for Life for breast cancer because we feel that breast cancer is of more importance than any other cancer', type thing..it's just that the focus of raising awareness in anything is..well, focused on one thing, I mean always, surely .....so the use of 'too' is not really necessary and shouldn't be...that in itself would seem to me to justify more than anything else, the BLM campaigners....so it's understandable the frustrations and (yes anger..)..felt with 'all lives matter' because it completely dismisses any thought at all...


....slightly off topic but just because the #gorillalivesmatter thing has been mentioned and I hadn't heard of that until this thread....I found that quite interesting as well, the way the media attention in the immediate after days were very focused on the boy's family in terms of delving into their background and his dad being an ex drug addict and having a criminal record etc.../I didn't see any relevance at all to what happened and the death of Harambe....that we had so much negative information/background given about the family...

[Ithinkiloveyoutoo]

Originally Posted by Munchkins

Why am i not surprised many are using this as an excuse to completely discredit the blacklivesmatter movement and tar them all with the same brush
This was exactly the situation they needed, so they could exploit
Yes this is a tragedy, but this does not discredit the amount of police brutality towards POC in America. Both are tragic
Seeing many now trying to label blacklivesmatter as an extremist movement is just tragic

That's it. It was originally founded by 3 black women that wanted equality. This is the main message of BLM.

[Ithinkiloveyoutoo]

Originally Posted by Ammi

..it's not really the volume of those killed by the police though, Caitlin...whether there have been more white people than black people..?...it's whether those white people were 'justifiably' killed and whether there was no alternative because of the threat they were being at the time ...it seems that sadly too often, black people are killed by the police when there have been alternatives to loss of life in those situations...so that would be the comparison to make...

And that is it. People don't seem to get it.
PS- I am skeptical about the numbers we are presented with in terms of deaths. There was a percentage that Trump shouted out which turned out to be false. So it really needs to be paid attention to, who is releasing these numbers.

[kirklancaster]

Originally Posted by Ammi

..it's not really the volume of those killed by the police though, Caitlin...whether there have been more white people than black people..?...it's whether those white people were 'justifiably' killed and whether there was no alternative because of the threat they were being at the time ...it seems that sadly too often, black people are killed by the police when there have been alternatives to loss of life in those situations...so that would be the comparison to make...

ABSOLUTELY SPOT ON. No one should ever underestimate the brain and insight inside that beautiful exterior Ammi.

[kirklancaster]

Originally Posted by Maru

This is #2 for us. We went through it with the first time with Goforth. My husband works for the Sheriff's Office and is a detention officer doing CIRT for the Mental Health Unit at the jail. I have another close family in the same building as well and we know a bunch that are on the streets.

The gas station where the Goforth shooting occurred is a place our close friend frequented while on patrol and it very easily could've been him. The Goforth's lived down the road and we are in the same district. It affected a lot of people in the community here so there was a huge outpouring of support from the community, which helps. We are still reeling from Goforth. These conversations sadly have become daily for us. There is high turnover right now where my husband is stationed so he is working insane hours. So some days he works 16 hour shifts and he's doing 2-3 of those a week. The turnover was bad before, but it's even worse now. I worry about him pumping gas or walking into a store with his uniform on.

You can understand how so much hate and vitriol is being spread if you listen/read our national mainstream media. Most of you are in the UK, so you don't know about our insanely outrageous media coverage. For example, with our local media Houston floods like crazy and we are no stranger to natural disasters, but as soon as water starts to enter people's homes, there's a helicopter, a crew and a phone call with a local neighbor describing the flowing water situation and a photo from Twitter of the cat floating away on a couch plastered all over the net and TV. Everything is sensationalized and over-hyped. It is embarrassingly excess.

National media is basically tabloids disguised as real news on TV 24/7. It is 95% entertainment, 4.9% headlines, .1% facts. 100% of the coverage is Donald Trump, BLM, evil law enforcement, dead people, mass shootings and constant coverage of celebrity deaths (like Anna Nicole Smith, who cares ). Donald Trump gets more coverage than the superbowl. A racist self-absorbed prick's opinion is more important than delivering the facts around majorly important issues. Ok.

If you listened to national media all day you would think our society has gone insane, but it's a major distortion of life here that people eat it up because it adds color and meaning to their otherwise mundane lives. Disenfranchised people want other people to blame. Businesses want other parties to be responsible for their failures. The public hear that actual effort won't fix the issues, but getting attention and promoting violence will (by suggesting people will arm themselves or go to the streets). The internet is a little better (depends on the station) because people read for content but even lately that's become more filler... thanks to Facebook cutting off the stream of cash flow to smaller outfits and ad-blockers.

Also, there is an high likelihood that the candidates and organizations pay a ton of people to post on websites which further adds to the distortions and vulgar sensationalism. Go on the Daily Mail and see how many people are turning unrelated news into conversations about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in comments section. If you click on some of them, you'll notice some of their posting histories are highly suspect. (also who has the money or time to care about spending all day commenting on news sites about politicians? Seriously.) Why would the media filter out those commentors if they're contributing to click rates? The same reason Facebook will have dead people follow brands, paid sponsorship.

That means for every much needed discussion about racism, you have an overly inciteful commentor writing "coded" messages towards in very particular personas in to distort the public's perception. Mix in a few actual crazies and it looks like the country is going seriously to pot and then legitimately people read these commenters thinking they are real posters and become really angry.

This kind of "sponsorship" is now common on social media. Let's not forget too the online media who have "guest bloggers" posting articles from a very biased POV.

"Are online comments full of paid lies?"
http://www.computerworld.com/article...aid-lies-.html


"Paid Commenters Hired By Fox News To Spread Right Wing Talking Points Across The Net"
http://addictinginfo.org/2013/10/27/...lood-internet/

Facebook will make your dead friend "like" stuff.

"Why are dead people liking stuff on Facebook"
http://readwrite.com/2012/12/11/why-...f-on-facebook/

"FB fans aren’t seeing your posts (and how to fix it)"
http://alwaysupward.com/blog/fb-fans...how-to-fix-it/



Let's not forget the filter bubble by way of Google through way of Personalized Search results... i.e. we generally only see views we agree with

Filter Bubble - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble



So Americans on social media popularize the issues, even though not all social media websites are playing fair in publishing them. The media then dissects this into a persona, neglecting most of the facts and only picking it apart for entertainment/sensation value and then uses a baiting headline to incite reactions and then self-aggrandizing groups or political figuers such as the NRA, NAACP, Tea Party, Donald Trump, etc polarize the issues further to get attention and control perception because who cares about facts when they can push their platform and make $$$. Lather, rinse, repeat.

That last bit is the most important part and has gotten really out of control in the US the past several years. The media is becoming more and more nationalist and comments/retweets on my Twitter are starting to read like obituaries. We're not as dire as the media portrays, but it's the media that gives a platform to much of the vitriol that incites the violence. It started to get really bad after 9/11, we massively over-reacted to it politically and militarily and the media has been riding on a polarized public ever since.

Oh and voter apathy among minorities and moderates does not help. I was shocked to read Brexit voting population percentage was 70%+.... that would be a miracle here. We are lucky to get more than 50% of the population to vote in a general election. Far far less in a primary.

I am not usually a lover of long, comprehensive posts Maru - But this is SO superbly written and your points so relevant, that I just have to applaud you.

[arista]

Originally Posted by Ithinkiloveyoutoo

And that is it. People don't seem to get it.
PS- I am skeptical about the numbers we are presented with in terms of deaths. There was a percentage that Trump shouted out which turned out to be false. So it really needs to be paid attention to, who is releasing these numbers.

Sure but once the sound bite is out there
it gets its own river to flow in

[Mystic Mock]

Originally Posted by Ninastar

We wouldn't know whether they were 'justifiably' killed or not though, because no one kicks up a fuss about it when they are white.

This sounds like I'm one of those 'WHITE LIVES MATTER!!!!!!!!' people but I'm not. I hate those people.

I'm just saying that I don't think its a race thing like people claim it is. If it was, there would be far, far many more POC killed than white people.

Perhaps we do need to look more into who we do employ as a police officer. But again, its a tricky one, we will never know how difficult it is to be an officer. I once watched this and I thought it was pretty interesting.

Youtube video

If there was a substantial amount of white people being shot dead by The Police for no reason whatsoever then the News would report it.

[Tom4784]

Originally Posted by Ninastar

What I find strange is that more white people have actually been killed by cops than any other race this year, yet no one seems to be protesting over that?

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/n...gs-us-database

The difference is that they were more likely to be lawful shootings, given how the phrase 'Black Lives Matter' causes certain white people to froth at the mouth in rage how do you think they'd react if a white person was executed by the police in a similar fashion to these killings? There'd be riots.

If what happened to Tamir Rice happened to a white child there'd be calls for blood.

There's an imbalance here, I'm not against lawful killings if there's no other way but considering it feels like there's a new incident like this happening every other week it feels foolish to deny there's a problem. Nothing will change if we bury our heads in the sand but if the american people take a stand against Police Brutality then it benefits everyone.