Are You Showing Support for Black Lives Matter in Second Life?

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

1 hour ago, Cindy Evanier said:

typing... deleting.... typing.... deleting... typing..... deleting

Same. 

[Luna Bliss]

2 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

9 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Alwin, I once received a suspension for a similar type of comment comment, although not even serious about it as you are....I advise you to remove yours so that you don't get one.

thank you for you wise advice, i'm pretty sure you pushed the report button yourself.

nope, it's an extremely rare occasion that I report anyone.

[FairreLilette]

4 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

think you seriously need some pills

Well, you can think that if you want.  But, The Police does stem out of fascism from the church in that we must repent as it's basic principle, the principle of which comes from The Church of England "to purify the Queen's church" into repentance.   Repentance isn't even understood; Jesus asked us to love.  Therefore, our repentance and our turning away from sin comes through love.  

If you don't want to see my posts just ignore them.  

[Gatogateau]

42 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

I checked on the salaries of their Parliament folks - it is apparently 79,468 British Pounds.  That equates to US $101,122.50.

Out Congress folks are paid $174,000 for normal Congress members and up to $223,500 for the leader positions:

I understand why you wrote your response, but for the love of... cupcakes... wtf do British dukes, scandal sheets, etc. have to do with the topic, even obtusely? This is not aimed at you, Lil, but the reason behind it, which was mind boggling in all aspects.

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

I'm starting to think I'm the one who needs some pills to make sense of some of these posts. 

[Luna Bliss]

22 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

think The Police have been a direct result of the fascism that permeates "the church", the Anglican church and it's influence on American churches.  If only people knew and would speak out against this.  America needs to break free from the fascist Anglican Church of England in order to really take back our freedoms and our understanding of Jesus in how Jesus excluded no one.  No one.

What about the puritanical churches during the formation of the US, and the evangelicals we have today?  How do they influence policies and attitudes of the police? What makes the Anglican church so much worse?  I know nothing about them so you'll have to explain.

[Cindy Evanier]

How have we gone from supporting Black Lives Matter to Princess Diana, English slums and the church?

[Gatogateau]

2 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

I had a lot of posts wiped away yesterday, one of which was important enough to write again...

Glad you salvaged this. It was worth reading, well said and well... yeah. Thanks.

[LittleMe Jewell]

8 minutes ago, Gatogateau said:

I understand why you wrote your response, but for the love of... cupcakes... wtf do British dukes, scandal sheets, etc. have to do with the topic, even obtusely? This is not aimed at you, Lil, but the reason behind it, which was mind boggling in all aspects.

I know and I really am trying to just skim past those posts, but every now and then I just am grabbed with the urge to try and set the mind straight on things.

 

 

(maybe I need to temporarily add to my block list).

Edited June 5, 2020 by LittleMe Jewell
damn spelling again

[FairreLilette]

1 minute ago, Luna Bliss said:

What about the puritanical churches during the formation of the US, and the evangelicals we have today?  How do they influence policies and attitudes of the police? What makes the Anglican church so much worse?  I know nothing about them so you'll have to explain.

The Episcopalian Church is the only church in protestant America that I know that has completely separated from The Church of England and it separated over a century ago.  Anglican values are about repentance and a purification of "the Queen's church" although you could replace that with king as well.  The evangelicals of today are indeed Anglican, which is The Church of England.  

Here is a bit about it:

The majority of Anglicans are members of national or regional ecclesiastical provinces of the international Anglican Communion, which forms the third-largest Christian communion in the world, after the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church.

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=are+churches+in+america+anglican&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS784US784&oq=are+churches+in+america+anglican&aqs=chrome..69i57j33l2.6282j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

 

[Skell Dagger]

1 hour ago, Cindy Evanier said:

typing... deleting.... typing.... deleting... typing..... deleting

11 minutes ago, Sylvia Tamalyn said:

Same. 

Me too, and trying to pick my jaw up off the floor while doing so.

[Gatogateau]

I quietly and genuinely ask the following favor: Please stop referring to me & All Lives Matter in the same sentence.  I tried valiantly to make my extremely not racist discussion points and failed miserably due to "dog whistles." I posted an apology because the dog whistles clearly offended people, which was not my intent. My position has not changed even though I was told I was "dead wrong" and to go eff myself. If anyone has bothered to notice, I've STFU on that particular issue. I do not wished to be tarred with the same brush, and no matter how well meaning the references to "not Gato" all that does is make people go "Oh, right, Gato is the clueless, ignorant, racist ******* who didn't understand that there are trigger words" (even though that is far from the case). ty

[Luna Bliss]

3 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

The evangelicals of today are indeed Anglican, which is The Church of England.  

So you are basically saying that a Philosophy which encourages exclusion (as so many churches in the US do), would send out the message that it's okay to have a stratified society where some are placed at the bottom, subject to abuse, thereby contributing to the racial problems?

[FairreLilette]

5 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

So you are basically saying that a Philosophy which encourages exclusion (as so many churches in the US do), would send out the message that it's okay to have a stratified society where some are placed at the bottom, subject to abuse, thereby contributing to the racial problems?

Well, The Police have been horrible to gays and minorities in some cases.  In some states, I'd call them more "lone crazies" or "group crazies" as I don't believe all police are the same but the brutality which is dangerous does need to be and has been addressed in these protests.  I'd say more The Police exists because of one of societies beliefs in that we must repent.  Police used to attempt to beat, literally beat someone into submission.  How much that is practiced still today, I don't know.    

Edited June 5, 2020 by FairreLilette

[Gatogateau]

1 hour ago, Cindy Evanier said:

typing... deleting.... typing.... deleting... typing..... deleting

If that is in response to the post directly above yours, I admit, I had to look.  Honestly? I thought my coffee was my drug of choice this morning but, nah, I want what she's having. Plus, again... :::looks at OP and scratches head::: wtf has that got to do with anything? If it isn't about that post, now I'm curious.  Cat, ya know.

[Innula Zenovka]

59 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

think you seriously need some pills

The late Margaret Thatcher notoriously lacked a sense of humour, and I read, years ago, a lovely story by one of her speech writers in the early days.

The then Labour Prime Minister, Jim Callaghan, had somewhere said he'd not been able to achieve any of his big goals as PM,  but he thought he'd put in place the necessary reforms to his successor would be able successfully to implement his policies (which never happened, of course).    In the course of his remarks, he'd rashly compared himself to Moses, leading the Israelites to the borders of the Promised Land, but unable to enter it himself.

Her speechwriter had her allude to these remarks in the speech and then say, "My advice to Moses is to keep on taking the tablets."

She missed the point completely, and thought it would be much funnier to say "keep on taking the Pill".

Apparently no one dared try to explain it to her, so they eventually persuaded her, against her better judgement, to keep the line, on the grounds that older Conservatives might find references to "the Pill" in questionable taste. 

Edited June 5, 2020 by Innula Zenovka

[Luna Bliss]

3 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

one of societies beliefs in that we must repent.

So the better, or more true Christianity is one in which we are not bad and in need of punishment to atone for our sins?

And perhaps this punishment theme which is so strong in America comes, in part, from a distorted kind of religion?

[Cindy Evanier]

1 minute ago, Gatogateau said:

If that is in response to the post directly above yours, I admit, I had to look.  Honestly? I thought my coffee was my drug of choice this morning but, nah, I want what she's having. Plus, again... :::looks at OP and scratches head::: wtf has that got to do with anything? If it isn't about that post, now I'm curious.  Cat, ya know.

it was to many posts I was about to reply to then thought better of it because it is not going to work

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

19 minutes ago, Cindy Evanier said:

How have we gone from supporting Black Lives Matter to Princess Diana, English slums and the church?

Because some people seem permanently incapable of staying on topic and not derailing threads.

[Gatogateau]

2 hours ago, Janet Voxel said:

A good place to start is checking your state’s voting laws. Is voter suppression a thing in your state?

Glad you specified this, as that was where my mind was headed. A few million pages ago, in an attempt to divert a noisy troll, I mentioned that list of charities I posted even further back. The one for voter registration and fairness really stood out for me as a place to start. I have extremely limited funds and can't give to several.

Also, I was shocked to read in your reply that you didn't have all of teh simpl answers! (gentle, teasing) I thought for sure this whole Gordian knot would be fixed in a jiffy with just some common sense posts in a virtual world forum.

Edited June 5, 2020 by Gatogateau

[Innula Zenovka]

1 hour ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Agreed. Innula is one of the quiet folks I'd love to hear more from.

Be careful what you wish for!

I've been increasingly busy with first life projects over the last few years, but Covid-19 has given me a bit of spare time (and nowhere to go).    I'm generally to be found over at VVO, channeling a cynical and despairing member of the Old Left sitting in Rick's Café Américain in Casablanca (which I guess makes @Cristiano MidnightRick Blaine).

Edited June 5, 2020 by Innula Zenovka

[Amina Sopwith]

40 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

I'm rather concerned about how policing reform in the USA might be managed.

In the UK, because our system of government is far more centralised than is that of the USA, the government can both pass laws relating to police powers, the treatment of prisoners in custody, and so on, and also work with the Association of Chief Police Officers and other local and national stakeholders, to put together national policies, standards and guidance on policing and police training, which are then implemented locally. 

They're able to do this with specific matters such as guidance on the use of various forms of restraint (restraining suspects in the prone position on the ground is flagged as a particularly dangerous practice, because of the danger of  asphyxia, and suspects must be allowed to sit or stand as soon as they are subdued, for example) and on far more general issues such as institutional racism (particularly in the light of the Macpherson Report into the investigation of the racist murder of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence -- https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/feb/22/macpherson-report-what-was-it-and-what-impact-did-it-have).

I'm not saying we've got it right in the UK -- far, far from it -- but at least the levers are all there for Government to start pulling to make things happen on the street and in local police stations.  

Are there equivalent structures and mechanisms there to make that sort of thing happen, be it at the national or the state level?

 

I think another relevant factor is that our police are not armed, and I do believe most of us - police and public - want it this way. Certainly the people I know in the police say they don't want to be armed and their colleagues all feel the same. The idea is that we are policed by consent, not by force, and the police are far, far more than just enforcers of law.

[Luna Bliss]

1 minute ago, Amina Sopwith said:

relevant factor is that our police are not armed

This is so shocking to me that it feels like you're describing a work of fiction.

[FairreLilette]

8 minutes ago, Sylvia Tamalyn said:

Because some people seem permanently incapable of staying on topic and not derailing threads.

 

9 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

So the better, or more true Christianity is one in which we are not bad and in need of punishment to atone for our sins?

And perhaps this punishment theme which is so strong in America comes, in part, from a distorted kind of religion?

Jesus said he was the atonement for our sins and what he asked us to do as his last instruction was to "love one another", not to mention that love is the fulfillment of the law. 

But, as far as KKK, didn't they used to burn crosses and things like that?  A lot of white supremacy could stem from certain church beliefs.  A lot of supremacy stems from certain church beliefs.  

Although if you think I am crazy or if this subject if upsetting you, my intention was not to do that, but rather to really look inside fascism and all it's roots. 

However, if anyone is interested, they can look things up on the internet themselves.  I don't need to keep talking about the church here.  However, I spoke about someone's first off topic remark.  People have a right to answer that remark and I'll leave it at that because I think certain problems are global and reach further than America; South Africa for one.   

Edited June 5, 2020 by FairreLilette

[Amina Sopwith]

3 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

This is so shocking to me that it feels like you're describing a work of fiction.

The idea that an ordinary bobby on the beat could just pull a gun on someone at any moment fills me with sick dread.