Tag: riots

These People Want To Convince Everyone That Looting Is A-Okay

Looting is okay because it’s “reparations”

First, there was the woman who spoke after the Magnificent Mile in Chicago was looted so ferociously that Mayor Lori Lightfoot pulled the drawbridge open to keep people out of the downtown area. I recently wrote:

According to a Black Lives Matter activist and organizer, Ariel Atkins, it was just “reparations.” Atkins believes that anything the looters wish to damage or steal is owed to them. She made the radical statement at a solidarity rally in front of a Chicago police station, where people were gathered to support those who had been arrested.

“I don’t care if somebody decides to loot a Gucci’s or a Macy’s or a Nike because that makes sure that that person eats. That makes sure that that person has clothes,” Ariel Atkins said at a rally outside the South Loop police station Monday, local outlets reported.

“That’s a reparation,” Atkins said. “Anything they want to take, take it because these businesses have insurance.” (source)

At a time when more people than ever in the United States were willing to get on board and protest police brutality and racial violence, entitled statements like the one made by Atkins have served to return us to a place of absolute division. (source)

Atkin’s statement was made at a solidarity rally in front of a Chicago police station where people were gathered to support those who had been arrested for pillaging the Windy City.

Keep reading

NPR promotes insane book celebrating looting and riots

Vicky Osterweil’s new book, In Defense of Looting: A Riotous History of Uncivil Action, is a social justice justification for property damage and theft. This book promoting riots is a number one new release on Amazon, a mega-corporation that benefits every time a local shop gets torched.

Osterweil’s book is a celebration of looting in the name of anti-racist action directed at dismantling whiteness and property ownership.

Speaking to NPR’s Natalie Escobar, Osterweil made the point that looting during the course of riots is a redistribution of wealth, not theft, and that property damage, too, is simply a way to reapportion assets which she deems necessary in an unequal society.

Keep reading

‘Mostly Peaceful’ Rioting And Looting Is Helping Trump’s Campaign

‘Mostly peaceful protests’ are like the ‘moderate rebels’ in Syria – propaganda constructs that do not exist in the real world. The people who owned the burning cars and who’s businesses were destroyed will not be relieved by such phrasing.

Joe Biden’s attempt to swing Republican voters to his side has failed. At the same time he has rejected many of the issues progressives favored. This will hurt the election turn out the Democrats will need. Add to that the unrest which plays into Trump’s hands. The Democrats who fear that are right:

“There’s no doubt it’s playing into Trump’s hands,” said Paul Soglin, who served as mayor of Madison, on and off, for more than two decades. “There’s a significant number of undecided voters who are not ideological, and they can move very easily from Republican to the Democratic column and back again. They are, in effect, the people who decide elections. And they are very distraught about both the horrendous carnage created by police officers in murdering African Americans, and … for the safety of their communities.”

Trump, of course, is positioning himself as the antidote to urban unrest. “So let me be clear: The violence must stop, whether in Minneapolis, Portland or Kenosha,” Vice President Mike Pence declared in his Republican convention speech Wednesday night, with Trump looking on. “We will have law and order on the streets of this country for every American of every race and creed and color.”

Republicans had chided Joe Biden and other Democrats for not calling out the violence in the aftermath of the Blake shooting. Biden immediately addressed the shooting, but didn’t condemn the ensuing violence until Wednesday in a video posted on social media.

Keep reading

Minneapolis Tells Residents With Riot-Wrecked Buildings They Can’t Clean Up Until They’ve Paid Their 2020 Property Taxes in Full

Today the Minneapolis Star Tribune takes a long look at one reason why the aftermath of rampant destruction, as yet untended to, continues to haunt the city. As social scientists understand, such riot damage can have dire effects on development and poverty in an area for decades down the line. But one city policy in Minneapolis is ensuring, for now, that even early faltering attempts at clearing the rubble can’t move forward in many cases.

You see, you can’t rebuild or do anything useful with your land until you’ve cleared off the rubble left on it by the rioting. And you can’t do that without a permit, of course. Minneapolis is a city of order, after all.

And you can’t get the permit without paying off your 2020 property tax bill in full. As a result, only around 20 wrecked buildings have been demolished, according to the city.

The city, enforcing a state law at its discretion, is holding this demand for a full tax payment over the head of property owners trying to get themselves and the city back to something approximating normal. Owners of destroyed stores are finding they can’t even get an estimate as to what the cleanup will cost from contractors without the permit, though the paper reports costs ranging from $35,000 to as much as $400,000 for a strip mall just to get debris cleared.

Keep reading

Vandalism Is Violence: Destructive Riots Are Not ‘Just Property Damage’

Well, many left-wing journalists, activists, and commentators who are politically sympathetic to the rioters have argued that rampant destruction isn’t really a problem, because it’s “just” destruction of property, not violence against people.

One person who makes this argument is Oakland-based “racial justice organizer” Cat Brooks, who was interviewed by the New York Times.

“I don’t consider property destruction violence,” Brooks said in defense of the rioting and vandalism in her city. “Violence is when you attack a person or another living, breathing creature on this planet. Windows don’t cry and they can’t die.”

Meanwhile, New York Times writer Hannah Nicole-Jones, founder of the controversial “1619 Project,” has also defended the destruction of property and argued that it doesn’t constitute violence.

“Violence is when an agent of the state kneels on a man’s neck until all of the life is leached out of his body,” she said. “Destroying property, which can be replaced, is not violence. To use the same language to describe those two things is not moral.”

Keep reading

Black Lives Matter protesters vandalize Oakland mayor’s home; she accuses them of terrorism

The Democratic mayor of Oakland, California, accused vandals who left Black Lives Matter messages spray painted at her home of trying to “terrorize” her and her family.POLL: Do you think the 2020 presidential debates are still going to happen?

The incident occurred early Tuesday morning outside Mayor Libby Schaaf’s house.

Witnesses say that 30 to 40 protesters dressed in black fired off projectiles and firecrackers during the vandalism. They spray-painted messages on the mayor’s stone wall, sidewalk and garage, including “Defund OPD,” “homes 4 all,” and “blood on your hands.”

A neighbor of the mayor told KGO-TV, “I know there’s a lot of unrest and frustration and I sympathize with that, but this was jarring and felt like to another level.”

A spokesperson for Schaaf released a statement condemning the vandalism.

“This attack designed to intimidate the Mayor and strike fear into her family, will not stop her from advocating for the policies she believes are in the best long-term interests of her beloved hometown,” said Justin Berton.

“Like all Oaklanders, she supports passionate protest but does not support tactics meant to harm and terrorize others,” the statement concluded.

‘A wake up call to Libby’

The Sacramento Bee reported that a post at the San Francisco Independent Media Center’s website contained a message from someone claiming responsibility for the vandalism.

“Last night we sent a wake up call to Libby and a call for action to the whole Bay Area. We left a note on her garage, and treated her to a nice fireworks display and the musical notes of pots and pans and assorted noisemakers,” read the message.

“Our message to Libby and other elected officials is simple: You have the power to take the boot off our necks — so we have the duty to struggle against you until that boot is lifted,” they added. “You can’t hide from your responsibility!”

The message included four demands from the group. They called for the defunding of the Oakland Police Department, cancellation of rent, “Homes for All,” and “Drop the Charges,” without elaborating.

Police are investigating the vandalism.

Keep reading

‘Patently Unconstitutional’: Portland Judges Are Barring Arrestees From Attending Public Protests As A Condition of Release

In a move that legal experts say is “patently unconstitutional,” federal authorities in Portland are arresting people for minor offenses and then barring them from attending any future protests as a condition of their release, ProPublica reported Tuesday. According to the report, at least 12 people arrested in connection with the demonstrations were expressly prohibited from being present at any future public demonstrations as they await their days in court.

In one instance, the conditions of release issued by the U.S. District Court in Oregon for a defendant whose offense was “fail[ing] to comply with the lawful direction of federal police officers” stated that “Defendant may not attend any other protests, rallies, assemblies or public gatherings in the state of Oregon.”

Keep reading

The Feds Are Still the Jackbooted Thugs We Were Warned About

Federal law-enforcement agents brutally enforcing the government’s will against a segment of the population on the outs with the current administration are “jack-booted government thugs,” the National Rifle Association (NRA) charged in communications with its membership. Questioned by the press, the gun-rights group’s Wayne LaPierre defended the heated words, saying “they are a pretty close description of what’s happening in the real world.”

But that was in 1995, and the federal agents in question were (very much still) out-of-control agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Now booted-and-helmeted Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents battle protesters in Portland over the protests of local officials, adding fuel to the fire of violent demonstrations there and in a growing number of other cities. Yet the NRA and other past critics of federal overreach are silent.

The NRA’s tough 1995 language came at a time of increasing government restrictions on self-defense rights, including the 1994 “assault weapons” ban. Gun opponents pushed hard at the state and federal level to limit the types of firearms that Americans could own.

Enforcement of restrictive laws brought complaints about the government’s methods. As early as 1982, even before federal misconduct at Ruby Ridge and Waco, a report by the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution concluded that “enforcement tactics made possible by current federal firearms laws are constitutionally, legally, and practically reprehensible.”

That was the climate in which the NRA wrote in a fund-raising letter that “not too long ago, it was unthinkable for federal agents wearing Nazi bucket helmets and black storm trooper uniforms to attack law-abiding citizens.”

Twenty-five years later, “heavily armed men in camouflage fatigues advanc[ed] in a skirmish line along downtown Portland’s Main Street at 2 a.m., firing tear gas at fleeing crowds,” The Oregonian reports. “Federal officers clearing out nearby Lownsdale Square, yanking shields from some people and striking others with batons. Uniformed government agents pulling at least two people into unmarked vans off city streets for questioning.”

Keep reading