hey I still love yous guys from Philly, I din't mean nuthin by it. I enjoyed every minute I lived there and at times I still get homesick but just dont want to do that cold anymore

Tell me ...Do you still have girls in bikinis this time of year?

Tony1970

Titusville, FL

December 2003

DEC 19, 2003 09:47 AM

Eraser_X said:

Tell me ...Do you still have girls in bikinis this time of year?

well currently No, the temp dropped dramaticaly the past few days but about a week ago it was possible.

Stiles said:
Y'know, maybe it's just me, but MOVE :

putting up PAs to shout obscentites 24/7,
fortifying their building as a bunker,
putting a drum of gas on the roof,
threatening repeatedly to burn down the neighborhood,
filling their backyard with human waste,
walking around with guns visible,

etc.

...is just asking for problems with the police, especially with their past history with the PPD. If they really were back-to-nature, etc - as they claimed to be - then they would have left the city following the first debacle and settled elsewhere. The fact that they continued to harass and intimidate their neighborhood indicates to me that they were spoiling for a fight, and they got it, in spades. The MOVE members banked on a weak or absent police response to their provocation, and that turned out to be a very poor choice.

Our mayor at the time, Wilson Goode, was completely incompetent, IMHO. The decision to bomb the house was insane, especially considering the authorities had good reason to believe the drum on the roof contained gas. The descision to let the fire burn was also insane. As i watched that block go up (it was on live TV all day here in Philly, from shortly after the failed warrant attempt), I thought the people running the show were doing things as wrong as they could.

I feel for the kids who died. They had nothing to do with this. The adults involved should have been arrested and tried to prove their guilt or innocence.

Ultimately, though, I can't help but think that provoking the PPD in the manner they did was was asking for the kind of sledgehammer-on-a-fly response that happened, as tragic and wrong as it was.

MOVE wanted attention,publicity and notoriety - and they got it.

You get no argument from me there, MOVE is a Messianic cult with a persecution complex. It just seems to me that about the dumbest option on the board in dealing with that is actually persecuting them.

smithers_jones

I'm lost

November 2003

DEC 19, 2003 11:14 AM

[sarcasm] You know, the main problem in America is racism against the white man. What's a cracker gotta do to catch a break?! What can't this guy be more like Wil Smith? Someone ought to sit this Mr. Shabazz down to watch a few episodes of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. [/sarcasm]

["Such horror oh such a farce/A little bit of broken glass/You should think yourself lucky that this was done/You'll have something you can whine about for years to come"]

[Edited on Dec 19, 2003 by smithers_jones]

fatelvis5

Philadelphia, PA

OLD SKOOL

DEC 21, 2003 12:50 PM

reprobate said:

Yes, MOVE wanted publicity... and got it, unfortunately so did the 250 brand-spanking new (as of May 1985) homeless. You'll get no argument from me that MOVE was esentially asking for some sort of police action, but I think it would be hard for anyone to argue that torching 60 extra homes and killing five children could be, perhaps, a little excessive?

Also, while I will continue to argue against people sticking boots up whitey's ass, I think it would be just as ignorant an idea to believe or assume that blacks in the US (ESPECIALLY Philadelphia) have anything resembling equality.

Tori

SUICIDEGIRL

Pennsylvania, USA

DEC 24, 2003 02:41 AM

You know, there is a specific reason why we don't go after the NBPP or
any other black person deemed as racist. For one thing they lack two
things white racists have: electability and a body count. For another,
everytime someone goes after those idiots, every other black person,
legitimate or otherwise, gets lumped into that circle, even those that
started off being critical of them. It doesn't help much that whenever
we do call them out they become the only black people we see. Next
thing you know we have to defend ourselves by defending them. When you
see that those going after the Malik Zulu Shabazzaes in the world are
almost exclusively on the right, and the right has their own problems
dealing with their own backyard, the concern is suspect. That brings us
to the third reason why we don't go after them. Nationalism is a
defense mechanism, nothing more. It is something that people use to
rally their troops and build a weapon out of. A strength in numbers
routine. Now every form of black nationalism in this country is a
direct response to white nationalism in this country, which white
conservatives have been quite sucessful using. I think of the fact that
in the late 80s, early 90s, Black Nationalism was all over the place,
and it forced a lot of doors open. Today, they have more of a prominent
part in today's society (could be better though...), but the
nationalism that fueled it was shelved. That means it was simply a way
to force hands, and there wasn't any real hatred of other races behind
it. It was about empowerment for many of them. I don't like that. I think
they need different weapons, but when it keeps being presented to them (and all
of us regardless of race) as the way the game is played and the way to
get ahead, it's an uphill battle to fight. You want to see black racism
go away, you have to put the white racists down. You have to make it as
unsucessful as you can get it...BOTH the unspoken and the blatent kind.
Do that, and everything that comes behind it will wither on the vine.

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