Riot Reflections – 1jun20 (updated)

‪"Black votes matter to many politicians — more so than black lives. That is why such politicians must try to keep black voters fearful, angry and resentful. Racial harmony would be a political disaster for such politicians."‬ Thomas Sowell (and an oft-cited tenet of Rebane Doctrine)

George Rebane

Well, given what we see in the streets, we can safely conclude that the pandemic lockdowns are over, and all business are open except those that have been boarded up or burned down.

Starting with local police departments, all fielded LE units/agencies are now conducting defensive operations to preserve themselves.  They are no longer out there to protect persons or property.  The compelling explanation for this kind of CYA behavior is that they don’t see support from their political leaders, the law-abiding public, and most certainly not from the protesters and rioters.  Law enforcement today stands politically abandoned.  They are indicted by a long history of law enforcement ‘mistakes’ that recently have culminated in the outrageous public murder (execution?) of George Floyd, a black petty criminal, by the Minneapolis police, and the killing of Breonna Taylor, an innocent black woman gunned down in her own home by Louisville Metro Police mistakenly raiding her house in the middle of the night.  Both should be seen as preventable crimes by institutions that have lost sight of their reason for being.

No one has really determined the make-up of the legitimate protesters in the streets, nor if they are the same ones who turn into destructive rioters after the peaceful phase of their demonstrations are concluded.  Does the non-violent cohort then go home to be replaced by the violent ones who mostly conduct themselves as Antifa members?  (To my knowledge, Antifa is still a distributed national protest movement that shares literature, values, dress, street tactics, …, but having no common leadership, managed funding, or central control.)  From the reports from the media and police on the scene, the non-violent protesters appear to morph into violent rioters at some point, mostly after the sun goes down.  Today the violent are all masked (perhaps because of the pandemic) and therefore act with impunity because their anonymity is secure.  In the meantime, the cities’ progressive political leaders are desperately looking for the illusive out-of-town white supremacists who are really the instigators of looting and burning.

Today’s street conflicts are also culturally confused and confusing.  There is no common social contract in evidence among the street borne polyglot.  Everyone is doing their own thing, milling from here to there or just idly standing by and watching the show.  Some have come with prepared signs with the usual slogans demanding justice and change.  But when interviewed, no one has a clue as to what exactly needs to be done to bring about the change and the new age of justice.  Moreover, no one even thinks that there need be some deeper thought behind the demands on the displayed placards – their histrionics are sufficient unto themselves.

If really pressed for specifics, black leadership in the media can drill down no deeper than spout the Democratic Party talking points – ‘Shut down white supremacy and white privilege.’  This is the closest that any leftwinger can come to specifying what needs to be done to bring about the “change” that the protesters are demanding.  What white supremacy should be shut down how?  Which white privileges should be legislated into criminality?  And their political party and political leadership are equally clueless as to what specific and feasible programs should be implemented across the land to prevent future Floyds and Taylors being killed at the hands of various law enforcement agencies.

In the meantime, there is political hay to be made in this election year that has already given our Left so much ammo against President Trump and the Republicans.  For a party without a single viable idea of how to better respond to the virus, let alone how to revive the economy, all they have to offer is solution-free partisan vituperation to convince their constituents and light-thinking lackies that a new glorious age will spontaneously start if we can only get Trump out of the White House, Republicans out of Congress, and pack SCOTUS with an enlarged bench of progressive justices.  The rest will miraculously take care of itself under a distended government that will redistribute the country’s wealth, hire more of the unemployable incompetents, pay everyone regardless, and become the major player in our economy – i.e. socialism on steroids.

When the dust settles, what will the gutless politicians do with police departments that are becoming more insular and frustrated as they are charged with keeping the peace in public environments ever more conflicted in values, mores, attitudes, perceived pasts, fearful futures, …, all existing under a shroud of confusing, contradictory, unknown, and variously interpreted and randomly enforced laws, regulations, and codes that become more impenetrable by the day?  The cop on the beat can no longer reliably predict anyone’s behavior, and must therefore become a programmed automaton who survives his shift by avoiding conflicts and strife whenever possible, and when not, then apply one-size-fits-all rules in the most self-defensive and often ruthless manner possible.

[update]  We just finished watching the evening news that covered the ongoing demonstrations from several big cities across the country.  The President made a ‘law and order’ speech in which he separated those lawful protesters from the thugs, looters, arsonists, and now killers on our streets.  We hear people of all ranks, starting with the Floyd family, calling for the violence to stop, that such behavior is not serving the memory of their murdered son George, nor anything good that hopefully would come out of this after the dust settles.  The politicians calling for calm and calling out the rioters are all from the Right.  The only political leader voices from the Left are using this ongoing national tragedy to attack the administration, and to further divide us and convince all that there is no hope of unity in the future.  They realize more than any of us that those on the streets are their imperturbable constituents, loyal voters, and their very political lifeblood – they can do no wrong.

If a progressive wanted to counter any of this shameful behavior by their political leaders, one need only ask, ‘Where are the Pelosis, Schumers, Obamas, Bidens, Jacksons, Sharptons… with their messages of peace and calm, calling for the protesters to abide by the law and rioters to stand down?’  The only words from their and their lamestream lackies’ mouths do nothing but throw fuel on a raging partisan fire, and give their imprimaturs to the lawlessness on the streets by pledging their solidarities from which are absent any condemnation of the riotous mobs.  Even the word ‘riot’ is not in their vocabulary when they occasionally stray from lauding the “just protests” on our cities’ streets.  In Democrats’ eyes, it is all one homogeneous nationwide protest against Republican racism and social injustice.  For them this indeed is one helluva crisis not to let go waste.

Comments

[rlcrabb]

Since I don't have two days to wade through all these comments, I'll post this in case no one else has... https://www.militarytimes.com/opinion/commentary/2020/06/04/when-to-hold-the-line/?fbclid=IwAR1e5y8TxeXvUspbMGdbQj3Q43rxGGAEpc58NnerBk7mDIgryBgWshanFlc

[Walt]

No problem RL,, just let the lowlifes of society pillage and loot, till there is nothing left. The honest citizen be damned.
If theu get hurt or killed in the prosess,, OH WELL.....

The LIB Mayors and Govenors are doing a fine job hiding under rocks...
So when does this become Trump's fault for doing nothing?

[scenes]

Just for fun, a pic of the Marines in Los Angeles in 1992, a much smaller affair than the current one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Los_Angeles_riots#/media/File:Marine_deployment_to_L.A.jpg

and the Army after Katrina:

https://api.army.mil/e2/c/-images/2010/09/12/85400/size0-army.mil-85400-2010-09-13-080951.jpg

Ya know, you just can't catch a break. The cops can't do crowd control because they are all evil murderers (ACAB, like the graffiti in NC sez), same with the state police, the national guard and Army can't do anything cuz they aren't trained. I guess we'll just to make every day a sale day at Target (a poor name it turns out).

Walt, remember all the bitching and complaining about the 'stinkass' sign (printed up either by some local lowlife or some unnamed theatre company) and how darned dangerous those crazy Nazis are? lol. Not a peep once the DNC's street army gets rolling.

[Walt]

I was waiting for this. Using kids as shields.
https://www.the-sun.com/news/930715/police-investigation-protester-cop-tear-gas-son-george-floyd/
What parent in his or her right mind would bring a child knowing what is likely to happen?
Oh.. Yes... A LIBERAL.

[Don Bessee]

The woke mob is coming for your kids legos -

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/06/04/toymaker-lego-asks-retailers-to-pull-police-firefighters-white-house-figures-from-shelves/

;-)

[scenes]

re: DB@2:00

I just ran into that a while ago. Too funny. My immediate thought was to buy them all up.

Now that Year Zero is cranking up, and the Blue Mob has decided that the police are the enemy, it might be illegal to sell those on eBay. Eventually though they'll be worth a pretty penny.

(Did I post this?) I was thinking about the Crack KVMR News Team Studio and couldn't help but imagine this situation...

https://twitter.com/AmiHorowitz/status/1267908030206816259

DUDE, THEY'RE THROWIN' ROCKS!! WUH??!! THAT'LL RUIN THE BEER PONG DUDE!!!

[Bill Tozer]

@ 11:52 am

I was quite upset that Bubba sent the US Marines into Haiti to clean up the trash on their streets. First time in USMC history that our Marines were sent to be the garbage truck drivers for a foreign country.

Anyway, I have changed my tune. I now have no problem with the USMC being sent to our shithole cities to clean up the garbage and scum. Street sweepers. :)

[scenes]

Planning goes on within the Blue Mob Army general staff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGBh0ON7vqI

[scenes]

I'm starting to think I need to build a collection of the better Blue Mob hijinks.

https://twitter.com/OrwellNGoode/status/1268205549495214080

[Bill Tozer]

Mark D. Levine
@MarkLevineNYC
Let's be clear about something: if there is a spike in coronavirus cases in the next two weeks, don't blame the protesters.

Blame racism

[George Rebane]

RL 1121am - "...the decision to use the U.S. military in any situation in which they are likely to come into direct confrontation with American citizens should only be taken as a last resort." The op-ed writer of this piece is woefully short on what's been going on in the cities. In that he joins all those who decry that the use of National Guard troops ranges somewhere between unnecessary and unconstitutional. What none of these critics seem to pick up on is the absence of any solution that they can think which comes between an overwhelmed police that no longer can even protect their own ranks and the 'last resort'.

Since our esteemed Bob Crabb posted this latest critique of the President and governors, I invite him to reveal what comes between the police having shot their wad and the 'last resort'. From all this vituperation it appears that all you leftwingers seem to have the answer to that in you hip pockets, please enlighten us. Or will you again send in the crickets?

Here's something apropos to get the old thinker going.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/santa-monica-police-chief-petition-resign-looting

[Todd Juvinall]

Mayor Garcetti went to his knees Monica style to show the left is is all in with them. LA used to elect men with backbones bit now they are pusssies./

[Bill Tozer]

“Havent seen this many shockingly stupid, self-contradictory and irrational arguments since about half the country believed that Bret Kavanaugh was suddenly unmasked as a secret serial gang rapist from during his catholic high school days”

https://twitter.com/BuckSexton/status/1268390217146347521

“It’s the Russian plan“—-Susan “walls are closing in” Rice. Boy, she floated that lead trial ballon to deaf ears. Thud. Wonder who she floated it for? Obama, or Hillary or Yolanda, international woman of mystery.

[scenes]

GeorgeR: "Or will you again send in the crickets?"

I expect they'll kneel to the looters first.

Here's a nice little video I ran into. It's sort of sad really, but makes a fine tone poem of the friction between Western Civilization and the new, improved mind virus that is taking hold. In the UK, but in this matter our problem is their problem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGpoyy9CPjk

[scenes]

TJ@3:30PM " LA used to elect men with backbones bit now they are pusssies."

I honestly don't think that's the issue.

The difference is that you can choose Trump (and, by extension, traditional culture) or not-Trump (and, by extension, destruction followed by the imaginary building of some new wonderful thing). It's more of an enemy of my enemy sort of thing than it is cowardice.

[Bill Tozer]

Recommended and not long. That was then, this is now.

DAN HENNINGER’S GRAND SLAM

“Since the 1960s, essentially little has changed in the neighborhoods at the center of those long-ago urban riots. By current telling, they are about as poor, as crime-ridden, as under-educated and in poor health as they were when LBJ said he would change them. That means five decades of stasis and stagnation in America’s most marginalized places, virtually all of it under Democratic—now “progressive”—political control.

The failure of the liberal model is by now so embarrassing that the current owners of that model have created an alternative universe of explanations, such as blaming it on American settlers in the early 17th century or the nonexistence of “justice.”

This is worse than 1968, because the political system is now engaged in a systemic act of forgetting. Let’s forget that this policy failure has happened or why. Let’s forget, for instance, that the people living in New York’s public housing are overrun with rats, unlit hallways and no heat in the winter. Let’s forget that many blacks have indeed been left behind—by a well-documented migration since 1990 of black Americans out of northern cities and Los Angeles into the South, where they have gone in search of economic opportunity. Let’s forget, despite a massive per annum outlay on Medicaid—some $593 billion in 2018—that black Americans still have a higher incidence of chronic disease.

Simply performing a cut-and-paste on 50 years of U.S. political history is an act of nihilism. Pummeled by activists and the media with constant accusations of “systemic racism,” as this week, and despite what many thought were 50 years of good-faith efforts on racial conciliation, people go numb, concluding that the solution being offered now is, literally, no solution.“

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/06/dan-henningers-grand-slam.php

[scenes]

For your viewing pleasure.

re: Santa Monica

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbxTqyW8yI0

Mayhem starts about 5 minutes in.

#lootingforgeorge

[rlcrabb]

I don't have a problem with the National Guard coming in to help out. My friends who have served in that area tell me it's difficult to direct outsiders who don't live in or know the community.
And I have no sympathy for looters and those who are itching to off a cop, no matter what name they go by.
It's heartening to see the protestors who joined ranks with police to thwart the destruction of neighborhoods. Likewise, kudos to the cops who took a knee in support of the original intent of the demonstrations. Anything that helps to deescalate the anger is welcome news.
As usual, I'm supposed to come up with a solution for events that have stymied everyone from the president down to the precinct captain. Sorry to disappoint you. I only offered another view on the Insurrection Act to consider.

[Walt]

We see just where elected LIB priorities stand. Let the destruction and looting continue. You get what you vote for.
Trump tries to do something to restore order and LIBS get pissed.
So.. This inserection will be Trump's fault just how?
I'm sure a Leftie can find a good excuse.

[George Rebane]

rl 601pm - what seems to keep getting past you Bob is the overarching principle of criticism that you and yours are shouting across the land. You bitch about what is being done now in some desperation to hold back the wreckers of civilization - e.g. augment/replace police who can't/won't stop the wreckers with the National Guard - and only offer insane solutions like "defund the police" (which major city mayors like DeBlasio and Garcetti are on their way to do). Your correct answer should have been, 'Yes, the police are overwhelmed and doing their best, and they clearly need some back-up which can only come from some form of the military, it isn't the desired solution, but it's the best now available. So let's keep looking for better ones while continuing to use what we have.' But you and yours don't say anything like that, and instead you and your political leaders back the rioters and explicitly support groups that embrace political and societal goals like the ones I posted here.
https://rebaneruminations.typepad.com/rebanes_ruminations/2020/06/scattershots-3jun20.html

That's why there is no middle ground.

And I apparently missed what in your remarks was "another view on the Insurrection Act" that has not been widely expressed in these pages and nationwide. Again, I stand ready to educated and display appropriate remorse.

BTW, I don't want to demand of you what I wouldn't/couldn't do myself. So if you find ANYTHING in the 13+ years of RR that I have bitched about and not offered an alternative solution, then please point it out. I will apologize, and immediately fill the void.

[Don Bessee]

The modern red guard, brown shirts, Italian black shirts all rolled into one -

https://www.breitbart.com/radio/2020/06/04/dinesh-dsouza-antifa-black-lives-matter-lefts-paramilitary/

;-)

[Don Bessee]

Re the above -

https://www.breitbart.com/crime/2020/06/04/vox-writer-apologizes-for-criticizing-calls-to-abolish-the-police/

;-)

[L]

Don, you forgot their think tank, Occupy Wall Street, who tested the waters before the others were unleashed. Interesting times...

Our side has plenty of firepower- 37,000 NYC cops means a completely do-able 5,000 man strike force available 24/7 to hunt down and incarcerate this scum. The problem is a complete lack of responsible Democrat leadership, personified in the 'mayor'.

Without a workable set of rules of engagement, the 82nd Airborne can only embarrass itself. Only as a last resort should they be asked to do what the citizen's elected governments refuse to do.

With it, the cops can easily get it under control. It means breaking bones and the occasional fatality among the self-styled revolutionaries, but as we are lectured, sometimes eggs (heads) need to be broken. We should take their nostrums at face value and do unto them before...

[Don Bessee]

Antifa on the city council no less -

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/jeremiah-ellison-minnesota-ag-keith-ellisons-son-dismantle-minneapolis-police-department

;-)

[Don Bessee]

@949 - Same people, new disguises.

;-)

[Don Bessee]

The true face of the wokeser NYT -

The Times’ capitulation comes in contrast to other op-eds it has published.
The paper stood by its decision to recently publish an op-ed by the leadership of the Taliban, which harbored the terrorist group al-Qaeda, which is responsible for the 9/11 attacks and the deaths of more than 2,000 American troops in Afghanistan.

The paper has also published op-eds by authoritarian leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The paper has even published an op-ed by Adolph Hitler.

Former White House official Andrew Surabian mocked the Times:
FOR CONTEXT: The @nytimes has literally previously published ADOLPH HITLER, VLADIMIR PUTIN & the Dep. Leader of THE TALIBAN…but Tom Cotton is too much?

Congrats to all the phony “journalists” hyperventilating about this all day, you did a good job exposing yourselves as hacks!

https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2020/06/04/editorial-by-mob-nyt-leadership-loses-control-over-its-own-newsroom/

;-)

[scenes]

I think I like this NYT Year Zero kerfuffle.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/woke-nyt-staffers-revolt-after-paper-publishes-tom-cottons-send-army-column

https://twitter.com/bariweiss/status/1268628680797978625

Thank goodness we have Kneelin' Mary to keep us on the straight and narrow 'round here.

I'll tell you one thing, you can certainly see why Zombie movies and TV shows grabbed the public zeitgeist

https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/14984641/2020/06/looting.png?w=994

[scenes]

re: quoted Breitbart@10:29pm

Huh. Sometimes you find a little nugget of truth even in the onslaught of stuff you see in the comment section to an article...

"Notice the left's 'peaceful protests' (leftist slang for riots and looting) began just as evidence of the coup against President Trump and the USA was finally coming out. "

[George Rebane]

DonB 1029pm - As we know, the NYT of yesteryear is long dead and buried. Today it is the Progressive Pravda. However, there is nothing inconcistent in their embracing tyrants' op-eds, and reject Sen Cotton's viewpoint. After all, the former achieved in their countries what our Left is on the road to achieivng here. These men were and their memories still are role models for each successfully brought about a fundamental transformation to collectivism.

[scenes]

"As we know, the NYT of yesteryear is long dead and buried."

Simply a regime change going through obvious stages. Like that Bari Weiss woman said in her twitter feed:

"I've been mocked by many people over the past few years for writing about the campus culture wars. They told me it was a sideshow. But this was always why it mattered: The people who graduated from those campuses would rise to power inside key institutions and transform them."

It's tempting to look at WWI-era Russia for hints of our future, but the lack of an urban industrial working class will skew the result I think. Perhaps weaponized POC can serve the same purpose that factory workers did for the Russian Social Democrats. I'm not at all sure about how a non-authoritarian (traditional) Right can withstand an authoritarian (by definition) Left, but something is bound to spring up as a countermeasure. It's baked into the cake of humanity.

[Bill Tozer]

"As we know, the NYT of yesteryear is long dead and buried." BULLSHIT!

The NYT buried the Holocaust with little to nil mention of it out of the publisher’s fear the paper would be labeled pro-Jew. Solution, put a paragraph or two on occasion on page 15 as part of the War coverage. That was yesteryear. Today, their board and editorial staff is loaded with anti-Semites. The NYT is a wind sock.

[Bill Tozer]

re: defunding the police. Poverty does not cause crime. Crime causes poverty.

PLEASE DON’T GO

“Riots are terribly destructive, but most of the damage does not occur overnight. It plays out over a period of years. Sadly, much of the progress that has been made by minority business owners and by minority neighborhoods in recent decades has been wiped away by rioters, looters and arsonists.”

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/06/please-dont-go.php