Episode 274 - Hero Stuff (w/ Thomas Chatterton Williams)

Brie, did I miss something — no more Thursday podcasts ?

Good call

I should have skipped it. This was not a good one.

Trina Perry

Oh, missed the callin since i was asleep already

enter_krzysz

I have studied Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for years and I train regularly. We use chokeholds and we're constantly told never to use them in the street unless it is a life and death situation because when your adrenaline kicks in and you're scared you often lose your sense of time and can easily kill someone as a result. People do not think clearly in situations of physical conflict. It takes a lot of training to have clarity in those moments. I have put people to sleep in sparring unintentionally because they didn't tap and fought the choke. Sometimes, it's hard to tell if it's set. If you get grips around the choking arm you can often create enough space to relieve the pressure of the choke, so I've held on because I thought my opponent was working an escape. And then they go limp because they've gone unconscious. You feel it. It's a horrible sensation. And sometimes it only takes a few seconds if the choke is set and the blood flow to the brain has stopped. As a USMC he knew he was applying lethal force when he applied that choke. He would have been told this clearly many times. I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know what the legal ramifications of his choice are, but I don't think it would be hard to prove he made an informed decision to use lethal force and as a result he killed the man. I don't know the Marine's history. As someone who has C-PTSD I could see him easily experiencing a traumatic flashback watching the man act in a threatening and erratic nature. I understand that there could be all kinds of complications to this moment we're not aware of. But I have been on transit numerous times and people have acted in very threatening ways. I've never stood up and put them in a chokehold because I know it could easily kill them and I would deserve to go to prison. This isn't virtue signaling on my part. People seem to fail to understand that taking a life is a horrible and absolutely final action that can never be undone. People have a right to be safe but they also have to use an appropriate level of force to deal with the situation. We have laws. There is nuance here. You can't simply kill people because they scare you.

I listened but it is really hard to hear the smuggest human on earth.

The two police officers who killed Gongora were white. One of them, Mellone, was under internal investigation in SF, quit the SFPD, and then within days was hired and went to work as a police officer in the town of Antioch. https://www.sfexaminer.com/archives/sf-officer-involved-in-shooting-death-of-homeless-man-quit-while-facing-discipline-landed-new/article_029ebc38-6e04-525e-af7b-65571032edff.html

The San Francisco police claimed that Gongora was charging at them with a knife, which contradicts all six of the eyewitness to the killing. Neither of the police officers were charged. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/24/san-francisco-police-shooting-mario-woods-luis-gongora-no-charges

The killing that Williams refers to in San Francisco was that of Luis Gongora, a homeless Mexican man who was working to send money back to his family in Yucatan, and who was shot and killed by two police officers: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/aug/12/luis-gongora-san-francisco-police-shooting-homelessness

I am a regular user of public transport in Berlin, and worked as security in buses and trains for a while. I would have loved to share some of my thoughts on callin. In general, all training and experience of mine tells me the marine escalated, overreacted and should need to face the consequences for killing someone. It's inexcuseable

enter_krzysz

Not saying this with any virtiol, but having seen that Twitter argument, I have no desire to listen to this guy on this subject. First time in months that I'm skipping an episode.

Kevin

I’m sorry I assumed so much. I do somewhat relate, as I had to trick my mom into moving into an “independent living” facility after years of dementia because she was long past being able to take care of herself at the young age of 70 because of her dementia. Sometimes I still have to be somewhat underhanded to get her to do something that’s best for her. She’s paranoid and thinks I’m against her most of the time. She can be so, so mean. When we think about little old ladies, even when they’re mean and violent, I hope we think about how to provide them with all their needs, despite and even when they’re mean and violent. The nuclear family is just not enough to care for the needs we all have. One mother or even 2 parents isn’t enough to raise children, one adult-child can’t support a mother with dementia, and your family shouldn’t be entirely burdened with your brothers obstacles. Humans are meant to live in groups of people where everyone cares for and looks after each other. Sometimes when I’m in an assisted living facility, one that’s run well anyway, I think it’s the most humane and pleasant place in to be in modern America, because it’s full of people engaging with and helping one another. I guess I’m saying I don’t trust Erik Adams to create assisted living facilities that are run well, but I definitely agree that we need more assisted living facilities. I think if they existed, and were properly funded. People like Neely would eventually trust them enough to go and stay there. When you’re used to having to fight for every need for decades, it can be a long process to learn to accept help from a trustworthy source. I wish your brother could get that from a disinterested party like the government, instead of family. Family is loaded with triggers, even for people who aren’t mentally ill.

Thomas is such an obtuse dummy

I'm sure he's good fun at brunch or whatever but wow TCW is a vile self loathing clown.

It reminds me of how Tony Soprano is always reminding everyone around him “this is a business”. We do business here; we’re not doing humanity.

In Oregon, the weed shops close at 10pm. This means downtown Salem shuts down at 10pm, when it transforms into a hellscape where people in crisis run around stealing and doing all kinds of violence to each other. There’s a man who stays in front of my partner’s salon with a bad foot injury and old traumatic brain injury. He was in a tent until it got stolen. He has SSDI, but someone stole his identity a while back, and the cops who harassed him daily have no interest in tracking down that criminal. The nice white lady who lives in an apartment above the salon has been trying to help him get his SSDI straightened out for him for over 6 months. The neighboring businesses sometimes say something to my partner like “you know there’s a homeless man living in front of your salon?” as though it’s not the most obvious shit in the world. When another stylist complained about the man, my partner said “if you care more about your clients’ ability to pretend homelessness doesn’t exist than the plight of this man, you’re free to find another salon.”

Hi, thank you for the reply. However, the apartment he's refusing is not a shelter. It's a one bedroom, no roommates, private lease that my 68 year old mother has been paying for the past year and he will not stay in. He distrusts the government, doctors, and refuses any treatment or application for benefits. He even threatened to sue our mother for fraud the first time she got him Medicaid and has teeth falling out of his mouth at 40 years old. Our entire family has been supporting him on and off for the past 19 years, as he is not capable of maintaining activities of daily living without assistance. He's been in and out of hospitals, had numerous mental inquest warrants filed, and there just is no help within the system. I appreciate that there are people for whom some assistance would be enough. He's not one of them. In this case, the problem isn't homelessness, it's the mental illness that prevents him from being housed or safe. No one did this to him, but the system is absolutely failing him in refusing to involuntarily commit or care for him. He refuses to clean himself, care for himself, and has paranoid delusions. He's also, very, very mean. I don't expect you to have answer, because no one does.

Kate, I’m so sorry about your brother. I can imagine how hard it’s been on you and everyone else who cares about him. I wonder, however, if the shelter he’s refusing feels to him to be safe and/or anything resembling permanent or even long-term. For myself, I would never accept shelter if it meant I have to give up my pets, belongings, ability to sleep next to my partner, and right to refuse medications. I imagine you would respond “what if it’s that or death?” And I would say then I choose death, and I don’t think it’s overly dramatic at all. The choices between inhumane suffering and death is a false one. If the government we pay our taxes to offered housing to homeless people that treated them like human being (real housing, not abusive 9-hour-max shelters), we might not feel like [T]he only thing that can save” people in crisis is to give up on them altogether.

Big shout out to Bri for her earlier efforts on Rising today. I occasionally check in there and mostly because she's on it now. But wow, what a horrible guest host she had to deal with today! Here's the clip. The woman she had to deal with was an absolute clueless liar and corporate propagandist monster. She looked like a complete moron and appropriately, a "bad faith" actor and apologist for the corrupt ruling class. Bri has the patience and composure I could never have shown in a similar situation. She showed her far more respect than she deserved. Check it out and support her in comments! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m5leIizg1w

Lydia Maria Child

I left this comment on the YT, but figure maybe better odds to get read here: I have a mentally ill sibling, who has been homeless multiple times, is actively refusing safe shelter in exchange for accepting mental health services (such as therapy, and even applying for SSDI; we're not even talking medication refusal) and he will die on the street in this country. I pay taxes, I follow the laws, and I know my brother is a dead man because the government I pay taxes to will not intervene for his well being. I'd wager the professionals who knew him thought Neely was a dead man too. I know my brother will die, whether in a subway car, from exposure, or from "suicide by cop" as he often threatens. Which means, he knows if he threatens the wrong people, whether an armed security person or a good samaritan on public transit, he can GET someone to kill him. And he uses this threat of imminent death to extract resources from the people who cannot force him to get services or remain housed. There are people who do not have the autonomy to make decisions for themselves, and I'm so sick of the "left" bashing people like Eric Adams for wanting beds for these folks. Yes, there will be people in mental health crisis' that have their rights- the right to be in public places- taken away. These are the same folks that you do NOT want exercising their 2nd ammendment rights, and the same folks who need protection from themselves as they harass a neurotic populace who is correct to fear them. This whole conversation on the left is dishonest. When someone shoots up a school they cry about the need for red flag laws, but when people say "we need a place to care for these people, even against their will" they clutch their pearls. The only thing that can save my brother from eventually encountering a Penny or a criminal or a cop who hurts him, is taking away his right to be in that circumstance.

If a person is shouting they are hungry and thirsty, wouldn't it have been a better response to buy the person some lunch instead...

Brian Sullivan

People need to learn what the legal term “murder” means. You can murder someone even if it wasn’t intentional. I don’t necessarily agree with that sentiment morally, but it seems like we only ever have this conversation when a white dude kills someone.

Mel F.