i think you realize it, but you're letting some cultural racism get to you. the truth is white people do the same shit when they go out and protest - check out some footage from seattle (1999) or quebec city (2003).

there's lots of thinking that it might even be "state provocateurs" responsible for the violence, although what i've seen out of baltimore suggests the average protester's age is roughly 17....

she's right - you come down on them with batons, you make things worse. a lot worse. property can be replaced. hopefully, she also sets up some kind of rebate system for people without insurance in order to socialize the losses.

you middle class white suburbanites don't understand what you're dealing with, or the potential consequences if it gets out of control. be happy they've got a smart black woman in charge, instead of a trigger happy white macho doofus.

regardless of who escalated the situation, the reality is that serious political protests aren't organized by high school students. this is an issue - violence between youth and police - that is going to escalate all over the continent, and in europe as well. this is systemic. it's inevitable. and it's worth attention. but i don't think it has the slightest thing to do with police brutality, or systemic racism, or anything else to do with freddy gray. it has to do with technological unemployment.

this is a discussion that often arises in protest movements: is property damage an effective means of protest? after a debate or exchange, the two sides tend to agree to disagree under an ideological position called diversity of tactics.

my own position is that i don't think it's productive, and in most cases it's ideologically inconsistent with a rejection of property rights. i've never been in the situation where i'm standing beside somebody that smashed in a window. but, i think i'd be likely to yell at the person until they agree to reverse the damage. if i knew the person, i'd bug them for years until it got done. i'd argue that tort law is the ideal way to deal with issues of damage to personal property, or attacks on collectively owned property.

that said, i'd support the tactic if i thought it had some positive end point. consider smashing through a holding cell, for example. or destroying some carefully calculated political photo op.

as many others have pointed out, this is counter-productive and very difficult to spin in a positive manner.

but, i want you to take a close look at the participants. they're children. and, i'd suspect few really understand the issue. perhaps children looting a 7/11 is just that. nor should you be surprised when they steal slurpees and chocolate bars. they're kids.

this is a big deal, certainly. but i don't see a political protest. i see kids out of control.

it does make sense in context. the class divisions in the country are pretty dramatic right now, and wealthy whites are legitimately concerned about violent revolts by the working class. a lot of it is racialized, but the video seems to be more about class. consider ferguson, or even occupy.

you might be on to something, but you're misreading it. as capitalism collapses, the wealthy have every reason to be concerned about riots. and those riots may very well happen as a result of mass unemployment. and we may very well get a police state out of it...

whenever i see these bombing videos, i'm struck by how obvious it is that these targets are not related to isis.

sometimes it's hard to tell what they're hitting. other times it isn't, and they're hitting targets that are obviously military in nature: hangars, barracks, etc. some of the targets seem to be farms, and are likely covers for something else.

you see the same thing in syria. these targets were not built by isis - they're often clearly several decades old, and often clearly military in nature.

so, what are they actually doing? are they purposefully abolishing the military infrastructure in these countries? and why?

the easy way out is that they've been taken over by isis. but hangars and barracks in the middle of nowhere are not exactly strategic for a group without aircraft that seeks to control the transit points. you could probably find me an example where this is true, but the claim that this is true, generally, is rather dubious.