On Cory Doctorow’s Pluralistic pluralistic.net/2020/06/0…

Ella Jones is Ferguson’s first black mayor.

=-=-=-

Why do protests become violent?

…police escalation leads to violence. Sending police to protests in riot gear begets riots. Tear-gas begets violence. These are the findings of scholars and blue-ribbon panels alike.

They are roundly ignored by police.

There’s a feedback loop: violent suppression of protest leads to militancy among protesters; this is the pretence for more violent suppression. We know this, we just don’t act on it.

Instead, “We live in a world where trained cops can panic and act on impulse, but untrained civilians must remain calm with a gun in their face.”

=-=-=-

“Dressing up cops like they’re on patrol in Mosul isn’t just a bad policing, it’s also incredibly expensive.” Dressing a cop in military gear costs “more than enough to outfit 55 front-line health-care workers in top-of-the-range PPE.”

=-=-=-

Zoom wants to help the FBI spy on you.

pluralistic.net/2020/06/0…#more-920