Black Lives Matter plans to disrupt Twin Cities Marathon

voting truths wrote:

People vote democrats because they want other people to pay their way or because they have too much money and feel guilty.

People vote republican because they are sick and tired of working their butts off to pay people to coast through life

I vote democrat (or at least have recently) and I don't want other people to pay my way and I don't have too much money to where I feel guilty.

Swing and a miss.

OldPolarrBear wrote:

Honestly, poor political strategy on their part. As a left of center democrat, my sympathy with the BLM movement begins to wane when I hear about protests like this. I get the whole race relations, police brutality, profiling thing. I really do. But blocking a marathon is just shooting yourself in the foot.

^^THIS^^

GOP Wins wrote:

OldPolarrBear wrote:

Honestly, poor political strategy on their part. As a left of center democrat, my sympathy with the BLM movement begins to wane when I hear about protests like this. I get the whole race relations, police brutality, profiling thing. I really do. But blocking a marathon is just shooting yourself in the foot.

^^THIS^^

Agreed. This kind of reminds me of the "critical mass rides" that were popular a few years ago. I am all for cycling. I think it should be safe to bike, and I support use of transportation funding for bicycle infrastructure. But when cyclists decide to intentionally shut down a road by riding slowly in a group of 60 spread across all three lanes of a road, they're just being obnoxious and they are not bringing anyone over to their cause.

Same thing here. Behaving obnoxiously isn't the way to get your point across.

This group, on their FB page, has gone out of their way to make it clear that they do not want to listen to any dissenting opinions. Several people (rather pathetically) have gone out of their way to say they would support BLM if the group turns this into a more productive protest, but even they get shot down (usually with some reference to their whiteness.). Opinions that disagree with the group end up being deleted. The only people who really stand to gain from this ridiculous spectacle are the Republican Party. I am not suggesting that the Democratic Party condones this behavior or this form of protest, but (like it or not) groups like this are linked (in many people's minds) with a general sense of entitlement among certain people (not just blacks) that is an unfortunate bi-product of social welfare programs. There will always be some people that abuse the system. In this case, the people that are abusing the system are going to end up cutting off the hand that feeds them. The best possible case scenario is that this time next week 3/4 of the BLM group from St. Paul are sitting in jail. Meanwhile, if you wouldn't donate to Al-Qaeda or another terrorist group because they planned a peaceful protest, then why would you donate to BLM just because they agreed not to violently disrupt a marathon? BLM are domestic terrorists. If they were dressed in white hoods (like half the people on LRC it seems) then the media would have no trouble calling them out on their atrocious behavior.

actually not a swing and a miss. you not giving an explanation is a swing and a miss.

So do you not know why you vote democrat? I would guess it is social reasons which really just means you are not bright enough to see the larger issues. Please do not recreate. We need you out of the gene pool

I was planning on running this race - I trained for it - but now feel that it is more important to join the protests. we must make change. I encourage all runners to do the same.

#blacklivesmatter wrote:

I was planning on running this race - I trained for it - but now feel that it is more important to join the protests. we must make change. I encourage all runners to do the same.

This is one of the more pathetic attempts at trolling that I have seen in a long time.

Even if they do pull this stupid stunt, I think it will fail miserably. Think about it. A few hundred people standing still trying to stop several thousand that are moving forward and have momentum. Once the log jam begins and more and more runners start coming in, even if they have to walk and loose 30 seconds, the runners will just overwhelm the protesters and move on through until they're past. And if anyone laid a hand on me while I was trying to "walk" through a crowd, that's grounds for assault charges and I would sue the heck out of them. I think BLM has greatly underestimated the drive and stubbornness of most runners.

Personally though, I would just plow them over.

left letsrun because of the racism, I come back for 1 minute and of course what do you find on the first page? the typical thread with all of you losers sperming your racism all over the place. f this board, never coming back.

French Dawg wrote:

Read the article, maybe I missed something but why are they trying to ruin a road race full of people that haven't done anything to them as a way to get what they want? Seems a little silly to me.

Exactly. The demographic staging the protest commits the most crimes in my city, but I'm not running around interrupting their dominoes or dice games.

Run Them 2 Jail wrote:

...a general sense of entitlement among certain people (not just blacks) that is an unfortunate bi-product of social welfare programs. There will always be some people that abuse the system...

I am not for the interruption of the marathon in any way.

I do feel that blaming "social welfare programs" is misguided. Most people wouldn't be using those programs if the largest companies in the US weren't the biggest abusers of social welfare. Stop subsidizing the Walmart's of the country.

voting truths wrote:

actually not a swing and a miss. you not giving an explanation is a swing and a miss.

So do you not know why you vote democrat? I would guess it is social reasons which really just means you are not bright enough to see the larger issues. Please do not recreate. We need you out of the gene pool

It was a swing and a miss, because you made a statement that was patently incorrect, as I pointed out.

I didn't go into the details because you have shown yourself to be incapable of a reasonable discussion. While my economic leanings are centrist, I recognize that we have been in a recession and restrictionist monetary policies (conservative) are not the best remedy for such a plight. As for social policies, yes, I generally am more frequently on the left, though not uniformly. In the recent elections, there hasn't been a republican platform that aligns very closely with my positions.

As for this St. Paul group, they are an awful organization that either doesn't have a concrete and valuable mission, or are just incompetent in organizing events to meet such a mission.

Unbelievable wrote:

If they arrive in time for the elite runners they will be impeding AFRICAN runners who are actually trying to work hard and support their families.

The lives of Kenyans and Ethiopians do not matter to BLM. They are not African AMERICANS.

Protests like these are so dumb that it almost makes me wonder if conservatives are funding/participating. It's similar to how liberals should be funding the Trump campaign right now. Things like this are so obviously bad for the moderate majority of America that bounces between the two parties. Neither liberals nor conservatives can appear to have their extremists taking control of their political parties. FWIW if this St. Paul organization isn't official then I'm skeptical who is pulling the strings. BLM should try to get some kind of legal injunction, not that you can really copyright BLM.

voting truths wrote:

actually not a swing and a miss.

Please do not recreate.

Strike two!

NotPossible wrote:

Even if they do pull this stupid stunt, I think it will fail miserably. Think about it. A few hundred people standing still trying to stop several thousand that are moving forward and have momentum. Once the log jam begins and more and more runners start coming in, even if they have to walk and loose 30 seconds, the runners will just overwhelm the protesters and move on through until they're past. And if anyone laid a hand on me while I was trying to "walk" through a crowd, that's grounds for assault charges and I would sue the heck out of them. I think BLM has greatly underestimated the drive and stubbornness of most runners.

Personally though, I would just plow them over.

This...and even if a hundred or so of them block the road, runners will simply veer off course to run around them...even if that means running over private property for a few seconds. Summitt Ave. isn't narrow enough to be completely blocked without stepping onto private property and that's where you get yourself arrested.

I feel so disgusted every time I let my mind wander back to thinking about these hooligans. My only peace comes from trusting that this time next week, they're going to be sitting in county jail waiting for an arraignment.

Randy,

If you were in a city that was hosting a race with Black Lives Matter protesters, would you personally impede or block runners from finishing?

Honestly, maybe I'm confused, but the course rules explicitly state no one without a bib is allowed on the course. And after Boston, the security at Twin Cities is pretty tight. So the police should have no issues hauling protesters off the course or blocking them from entering, right? Obviously it will require a lot more manpower than the usual marathon security, but still.