So a bunch of white guys with guns defied the government...

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

Can you just imagine what would have happened if they had been black?

Too bad there isn't some sort of analogous incident when black people defied white authority.

What's that? Oh, right. I forgot...

http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/america-tonight/america-tonight-blog/2013/10/3/philadelphia-thecitythatbombeditself.html

[1StrongBlackMan]

1. There are far, far many more ...

Mountain Meadows Massacre (1857)
Hamburg Massacre (1876)
Greenwood Massacre (1921)
Rosewood Massacre (1923)
Orangeburg massacre (1968)

And literally, 100s others.

[Half-Century Man]

2. The history not taught.

Not taught, nothing learned, society unenlightened, trends intact, and onward into the fray. Boldly going (to stumble) where we have fallen before.

[AnotherDreamWeaver]

3. +100

And the Ludlow Massacre mentioned just days ago: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024847020
and the Herrin Massacre: http://www.democraticunderground.com/11173081

You are right, there are hundreds of others.

[1StrongBlackMan]

8. There was a massacre (land grab) here in Arizona in the 1970s ...

that I cannot recall the name (and google can't find) where a whole Black community (cult, as they were called) was killed, down to the child, by L/E for the crime of having a couple of hundreds of acres of land that some white folks wanted ... that and, because ... well ... they were a cult.

[LittleBlue]

4. I think the modern age is different

Before social media, the government could get away with more.

The government might have been able to spin a massacre in those days, but not today where there will be thousands of Vines within 5 minutes. A bureaucrat's career can be over in 10 seconds in the modern age.

Race is definitely an issue, but I think the bigger issue is media. What happened in the OP could never happen today. At least not in the US, and not without important people losing their jobs. Hell, the only folks who can get away with this nowadays are the CIA types who can classify their activities and thus prevent media scrutiny.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

7. This was 1985

It was on live television.

[JoePhilly]

10. At the time, I lived close enough to see the flames.

If you read the article you posted, look for the part where Ramono Africa explains how the neighbors (mainly black) would not listen to her and the other MOVE members (the family) and join them. The MOVE folks did not appreciate the fact that the other blacks in the neighborhood would not join them in their struggle.

Bottom line, the MOVE folks were terrorizing their neighbors, other black people. Those neighbors had BEGGED the city to remove them.

The article neglects to mention that the MOVE folks also built a bunker on the roof of their row home (wasn't actually their row home) so that they could defend against any advance by the police. As any one from Philly knows, row homes are connected, including the roofs ... if you can get on one roof you can get on all of them on the same block. Which the MOVE folks did.

The bomb that the police dropped was intended to knock down the bunker. The bomb was way too large, and the gasoline that the MOVE folks spread on the roofs as part of their defense, helped spread the fire.

After the fire started, the MOVE folks shot at the firemen who came to put out the fires. The fireman had to pull back.

Inside the house, the MOVE folks had used railroad ties to create a maze, and create defensive positions in side the house. Those made escaping the fire that much harder.

There is no comparison between this and the Bundy situation.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

11. The comparison....

White People With Guns: Let's Back Off and Not Escalate the Situation
Black People With Guns: Got a Spare Bomb?

From the City of Philadelphia's own report on the confrontation: "Dropping a bomb on an occupied row house was unconscionable."

[JoePhilly]

13. No one disagrees with the conclusion of that report.

Can you show me where in that report they claim that the house was bombed because the MOVE folks were black? It doesn't say that because that's not what happened.

What I am telling you is that the bombing of the MOVE house was not done to them because they were BLACK ... and suggesting that to be the case, is simply nonsense.

If you want to use the MOVE bombing in any comparison about how police respond to various situations, a far more accurate comparison point would be the law enforcement response to WACO.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/waco-siege-20-years-on-1838748

In that situation, you have a CULT of white people who have taken up arms illegally (which MOVE did). They both set up a fortified compound. Both were holding children, children who had other parents claiming that the children were being held there illegally (in other words one parent was part of the cult, one was not, child held inside the cult). That was true in WACO and in the MOVE case. Finally, individuals in WACO and at the MOVE compound had fired on the police previously.

In the WACO case, as in the MOVE case, the law enforcement folks basically took the same path. An overly aggressive law enforcement effort that led to many unnecessary deaths.

Using your logic, the WACO folks, being white, would not have died in that "siege". They'd have been treated differently.

There are about a million ways to make the point that white people are treated differently than black people when it comes to law enforcement efforts. You could have used any of them. You picked MOVE.

But using MOVE as a comparison point to the Bundy situation fails to provide any support for that larger argument.

The folks in WACO were white ... and they received the same level of law enforcement effort that the MOVE folks received ... roughly 8 years earlier.

Here's what actually happened in the Bundy case ... law enforcement learned from WACO and MOVE. If they had taken a stronger stand, lots of innocents probably would have been killed. Just like at MOVE, just like at WACO.

That's what happened. And what didn't happen.

The folks at MOVE were not killed because they were black. The folks at WACO were not killed because they were white.

And the folks in the Bundy situation were not killed at all, because in that case, the law enforcement officials correctly determined that taking a more aggressive position would have risked the lives of many innocents.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

14. Oh please...

The deaths at Waco were from a fire set inside the compound by the cultists themselves. Waco was a murder-suicide and not at all comparable to what happened in Philadelphia.

Seriously. Do you honestly think that ANY law enforcement agency would drop a bomb on a neighborhood that was mostly white? The bomb used by the Philadelphia PD contained C-4 explosives, for Christ's sake. Can you imagine an analogous situation with white people where the police would have done that? Of course, you'll have to imagine it, because it's never happened. And it never will.

But I do agree that the right-wing screaming fit that accompanied Waco (and which is still going on today) has certainly made law enforcement more gun-shy (pardon the pun) with regard to groups like the Bundy Cult.

But where's the perimeter around the ranch? We returned the cows that had already been seized?

Did the BLM put a mint under his pillow? Did they apologize for any emotional distress that their attempt to enforce the fucking law might have caused?

The guy has been robbing taxpayers for nearly fifteen years...

[JoePhilly]

15. Now you want to quibble over the mechanism of over-reaction

by law enforcement?

If the MOVE folks had not covered the roof with gasoline, and created a maze inside the house, the bomb, while still much to large for what it was intended to do, would not have created nearly as large a fire ... and if the MOVE people did not shoot at firemen after the fire started, they might have been able to put out the fire before anyone was killed.

Basically, they built their own trap, and then sadly, they got caught in it.

You are trying to claim that the government didn't respond in a militaristic manner in Nevada because the people were white.

To make this point, you reference the MOVE incident which in no manner resembles the Bundy stand-off. The MOVE folks fired on the police and terrorized their neighbors. The folks in Bundy did neither. The MOVE folks were keeping children away from custodial parents. Not happening in Bundy.

You ask why no perimeter? Because no one wants a repeat of MOVE, of WACO, or even Ruby Ridge, that's why. All that was needed was for one of the idiots in Bundy to take a shot at a law enforcement official, and there would be a bunch of dead civilians.

They guy owes the government money. How many dead civilians should we spot the government when the go collect?

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

16. The final report states that the police observed gasoline on the roof

but they dropped the bomb anyway.

And let's be clear on something. MOVE did not open fire upon Philadelphia fire fighters (MOVE was too busy being incinerated to launch a counter offensive at the time). During the course of just one of many lawsuits that were successfully brought against the city, it was revealed that then-Police Commissioner Sambor and then-Fire Commissioner Richmond, who were on the scene, agreed to let the fire burn.

Bear in mind there were also water cannons on site -- the city had poured 640,000 gallons of water into the building earlier in the day hoping to literally "flush out" the MOVE members. Those could easily have been brought to bear from a relatively safe distance.

They were not.

As the final city report put it, fire was used as a "tactical weapon" against an entire neighborhood.

[bottomofthehill]

5. If he was a single mom living in an urban area he would be a welfare cheat

But a white male in the west cheating the government is a hero.......

[nomorenomore08]

6. Deep down they have no real problem with welfare for white folks. Because they believe the survival

of the "white race" is predicated upon slow mass murder (via starvation/neglect and occasional "justified" shootings) of nonwhites.

[JoePhilly]

9. Um, the Mayor of Philly at the time, Wilson Goode, was black.

And the folks in the MOVE home were squatters who were threatening the neighbors, most of whom were also black.

Those same black neighbors were begging the police to do something to remove the MOVE folks.

The way the situation was handled was screwed up, to be sure, but there really is no comparison between MOVE, and the Bundy situation.

[JJChambers]

12. I thought the original stories said a large number of these men were Hispanic