Seems that looting and rioting is essentially all over -- just our masters still doing *that* looting, hollowing out the economy and only the pigs rioting.
And with summer, an election coming, significant unemployment and Donnie and his party's historic, deadly mishandling of the pandemic -- and cops still killing Black people for no better reason than they want to -- I hope to see the demos continuing for months.
In speaking about both the global nature of the protests and the surprisingly strong support for them by white people, Jeet Heer observed on Twitter that “there's probably a deeper connection between the pandemic and the uprising than the obvious ones. Botched responses to the pandemic demonstrated to many that the powers-that-be don't care about them, which broke the social contract. The kindle was ready to spark.”
I'm waiting for Trump to begin calling on the militia movement to "counter" the BLM protests by showing up armed, ready, and pre-pardoned for the violence they want to commit.
I was amused at CNN referring to “small towns like Boise,” whose metro area has >700,000 people. Our little cowtown (pop. 15,000—are we big enough to qualify as a hamlet?) had a demonstration too.
"St. John’s, even with its windows boarded up, looked handsome in the sun-"
That's a damn fine phrase my friend. A few times a year I'll sit down to one of your columns, ready to get my snark on-a few sentences in I realize" Hey, this isn't funny!" It's true and thoughtful, moving and informative.
Report from Lafayette, California, a usually sleepy, mostly white and affluent bedroom community suburb of San Francisco: My son attended the rally held downtown yesterday (I would have, too, but didn't want to risk the 'rona, given my advanced age and my wife's immunodeficiencies), and it was, in his words, "wild." The mostly white crowd was chanting, marching and singing; at one point, he said, local high school students were calling out their classmates, by name, for being racist (!). BLM has now officially become mainstream, and in spite of a few of my wife's Midwest relatives linking to Candace Owens on Facebook, almost all of the response has been positive.
"Righteousness — not in the sense we associate with self-righteousness, but true righteousness, the real thing as seen in the holy book Trump profaned last week — spreads among the people like a song, and the song shakes down the walls."
Sing it, brother! That song coming from the tens of thousands taking to the streets is filling this old cynic's heart with hope.
Nice report from DC. Even this old lefty got a dose of nostalgia when I was caught up in a daytime march down 2nd Ave. last week, and again at a post-curfew evening march down York a couple of nights later. The latter began as a protest outside Gracie Mansion, but I have no idea how the other one came about. I was just out getting hot dogs and joined in for a few blocks, which is all my old feet would allow. The vibe was upbeat and defiant, but there were a zillion cops in SUVs, unmarked cars, motorbikes, and bicycles "escorting" the after-curfew protesters. I hope the mostly young marchers didn't get trapped later on by white cop swine from Long Island who were using the asinine Cuomo/De Blasio as an excuse to crack heads. I'm sure the police violence on TV gave a few equally old cops retired on the taxpayer's dime in Tom's River their own frisson of nostalgia, but I could be wrong. I remember those fucks when we were young, and I bet it's probably a lot more than a few.
Over 200 people marched downtown here, generally masked and six feet apart. Local news emphasized the peacefulness, to reassure the white majority that the looting rioters had stayed away. In a town this size it's almost impossible not to have at least one friend who's a cop or sheriff's deputy, and maybe that sort of integration is as important as the racial kind. You can't be Big Racist Cop and not be widely known for it. The last community and police discussion here was about the prejudice against Southeast Asians (a larger group than African Americans), and I only hope the channels opened then will be available to address anti-black prejudice, too.
So that's my optimism for the week. Fuck Bill Barr and hope he accidentally sprays himself with Counter Assault Bear Deterrent.
Righteous column, Roy. The word "righteousness" has been misappropriated by many Christians who take it to mean "acting the right way (i.e., the way we want)"; sort of a neo-Puritanism of not cussin', not drinking, not fornicating. Righteousness, to these people, is entirely defined in the negative.
N. T. Wright and other theologians would disagree--the original meaning in both Hebrew and the Greek translations of Hebrew was probably closer to "justice" than anything else. The word meant "standing up for what is right" rather than "following a list of arbitrary rules set up by the powers that be." Fred Clark has (as usual) a very good take on this idea.
Thanks for this Roy! My son told me about a protest happening yesterday (Sunday) here in sleepy Olney MD, starting just 5 minutes from our house, so Keith and I joined him and his girlfriend and what appeared to be throngs of our neighbors. It turned out that there were actually 3 marches occurring simultaneously here. Our crew occupied the post office and our unincorporated town's big central intersection before joining up with the other two groups for a teach in down at the Harris Teeter. It was mostly white people, with a lot of families and high schoolers. We recognized several neighbors. Didn't see any police until the end and then they were mostly blocking off roads for us - no riot equipment visible.
I live in Hollywood and yesterday's protest passed under my window -- for almost two hours. When the tail was finally passing, I looked on the news and saw the head of the march was about a mile west. A mile of people! I also saw the crowd estimated at 10,000. Friends, 10,000 is not even close to what this was. Today I feel genuinely proud of America, and as I type this, I realize it's a feeling that's been absent a while. Absent ever since, oh, the day that [much less than] half of us decided, "Hey, let's put the racist shitgibbon in charge" and the electoral college said "Handled!" Today, I really do feel like maybe we still got it. Maybe we won't collapse into Panem or Gilead or Oceania or flippin' Mordor.
Wonderful!
Seems that looting and rioting is essentially all over -- just our masters still doing *that* looting, hollowing out the economy and only the pigs rioting.
And with summer, an election coming, significant unemployment and Donnie and his party's historic, deadly mishandling of the pandemic -- and cops still killing Black people for no better reason than they want to -- I hope to see the demos continuing for months.
We showed up in Philly.
In speaking about both the global nature of the protests and the surprisingly strong support for them by white people, Jeet Heer observed on Twitter that “there's probably a deeper connection between the pandemic and the uprising than the obvious ones. Botched responses to the pandemic demonstrated to many that the powers-that-be don't care about them, which broke the social contract. The kindle was ready to spark.”
Now this is the kind of report-atorial I would pay to read in the New York Times (instead of unconstitutional fascism from certain senators).
Obligatory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLYOOezs3DA
I'm waiting for Trump to begin calling on the militia movement to "counter" the BLM protests by showing up armed, ready, and pre-pardoned for the violence they want to commit.
Thanks for the real journalism Roy. My subscription is vindicated once again.
I was amused at CNN referring to “small towns like Boise,” whose metro area has >700,000 people. Our little cowtown (pop. 15,000—are we big enough to qualify as a hamlet?) had a demonstration too.
"St. John’s, even with its windows boarded up, looked handsome in the sun-"
That's a damn fine phrase my friend. A few times a year I'll sit down to one of your columns, ready to get my snark on-a few sentences in I realize" Hey, this isn't funny!" It's true and thoughtful, moving and informative.
I like those columns.
I gotta say- I stand with Mitt.
Didn't see that coming!
Report from Lafayette, California, a usually sleepy, mostly white and affluent bedroom community suburb of San Francisco: My son attended the rally held downtown yesterday (I would have, too, but didn't want to risk the 'rona, given my advanced age and my wife's immunodeficiencies), and it was, in his words, "wild." The mostly white crowd was chanting, marching and singing; at one point, he said, local high school students were calling out their classmates, by name, for being racist (!). BLM has now officially become mainstream, and in spite of a few of my wife's Midwest relatives linking to Candace Owens on Facebook, almost all of the response has been positive.
"Righteousness — not in the sense we associate with self-righteousness, but true righteousness, the real thing as seen in the holy book Trump profaned last week — spreads among the people like a song, and the song shakes down the walls."
Sing it, brother! That song coming from the tens of thousands taking to the streets is filling this old cynic's heart with hope.
Nice report from DC. Even this old lefty got a dose of nostalgia when I was caught up in a daytime march down 2nd Ave. last week, and again at a post-curfew evening march down York a couple of nights later. The latter began as a protest outside Gracie Mansion, but I have no idea how the other one came about. I was just out getting hot dogs and joined in for a few blocks, which is all my old feet would allow. The vibe was upbeat and defiant, but there were a zillion cops in SUVs, unmarked cars, motorbikes, and bicycles "escorting" the after-curfew protesters. I hope the mostly young marchers didn't get trapped later on by white cop swine from Long Island who were using the asinine Cuomo/De Blasio as an excuse to crack heads. I'm sure the police violence on TV gave a few equally old cops retired on the taxpayer's dime in Tom's River their own frisson of nostalgia, but I could be wrong. I remember those fucks when we were young, and I bet it's probably a lot more than a few.
Over 200 people marched downtown here, generally masked and six feet apart. Local news emphasized the peacefulness, to reassure the white majority that the looting rioters had stayed away. In a town this size it's almost impossible not to have at least one friend who's a cop or sheriff's deputy, and maybe that sort of integration is as important as the racial kind. You can't be Big Racist Cop and not be widely known for it. The last community and police discussion here was about the prejudice against Southeast Asians (a larger group than African Americans), and I only hope the channels opened then will be available to address anti-black prejudice, too.
So that's my optimism for the week. Fuck Bill Barr and hope he accidentally sprays himself with Counter Assault Bear Deterrent.
Righteous column, Roy. The word "righteousness" has been misappropriated by many Christians who take it to mean "acting the right way (i.e., the way we want)"; sort of a neo-Puritanism of not cussin', not drinking, not fornicating. Righteousness, to these people, is entirely defined in the negative.
N. T. Wright and other theologians would disagree--the original meaning in both Hebrew and the Greek translations of Hebrew was probably closer to "justice" than anything else. The word meant "standing up for what is right" rather than "following a list of arbitrary rules set up by the powers that be." Fred Clark has (as usual) a very good take on this idea.
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2014/07/29/on-justice-vs-righteousness/
Thanks for this Roy! My son told me about a protest happening yesterday (Sunday) here in sleepy Olney MD, starting just 5 minutes from our house, so Keith and I joined him and his girlfriend and what appeared to be throngs of our neighbors. It turned out that there were actually 3 marches occurring simultaneously here. Our crew occupied the post office and our unincorporated town's big central intersection before joining up with the other two groups for a teach in down at the Harris Teeter. It was mostly white people, with a lot of families and high schoolers. We recognized several neighbors. Didn't see any police until the end and then they were mostly blocking off roads for us - no riot equipment visible.
I live in Hollywood and yesterday's protest passed under my window -- for almost two hours. When the tail was finally passing, I looked on the news and saw the head of the march was about a mile west. A mile of people! I also saw the crowd estimated at 10,000. Friends, 10,000 is not even close to what this was. Today I feel genuinely proud of America, and as I type this, I realize it's a feeling that's been absent a while. Absent ever since, oh, the day that [much less than] half of us decided, "Hey, let's put the racist shitgibbon in charge" and the electoral college said "Handled!" Today, I really do feel like maybe we still got it. Maybe we won't collapse into Panem or Gilead or Oceania or flippin' Mordor.