zlacker

Unfortunately, you seem to be right. The Governor of Minnesota admitted precisely that, stating simply that he didn’t want to believe that his own people could act that way.

Scapegoating allows politicians to avoid angering their own constituents, and it also makes it rhetorically easier for politicians to avoid taking the demands seriously.

And a significant fraction (1/6 to 1/3) of arrests have been from out of state. So, the original claims had an element of truth.

But I disagree with you that it’s just “BS”, which would imply a level of cynicism which may exists, but for which you provided no evidence.

>>blake1+(OP)
I wonder what's the mechanism of coordination among various parties for them to converge at the right time and place for a protest?

>>threat+p3
Whatever means of mass communication is at hand? Facebook? Twitter? Whatsapp?

I remember during the 2010 London riots it was alleged that the organisation was happening over Blackberry Messenger, and the government was outraged that RIM refused to turn over decrypted messages to them.

>>pjc50+55
And a few months later they did research on it and it turned out to be driven mostly by television coverage.

>>threat+p3
Riots are a classic coordination problem [1]. Peaceful protests, of course, can use official means of communication. The hard part is how to coordinate violence and looting, which would otherwise preempted by law enforcement. The linked essay is a fascinating read on the topic.

[1] https://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2020/05/on-days-of-disor...