There Goes the Neighbourhood
Further to this comment here, Laurie Penny wants us to know that she knows more than the Ferguson jury:
Meanwhile, Gateway Pundit has coverage of the ongoing violence.
As you can see, nothing says “we are righteous and entitled to deference” like smashing and looting a local woman’s cake shop. And smashing and looting the mini-market that Michael Brown robbed and then running away laughing, and looting the local phone shop, and burning down the local pharmacy, and burning down the local auto spares business, and the local pizza restaurant, and the local beautician’s, and then shooting at the firemen who are trying to put those fires out before other people lose their livelihoods too. You know, for “social justice.”
Other locals, however, have taken the high road – by bragging on Facebook about those lovely new shoes that were sourced somewhat mysteriously during the commotion. Note the new owner’s chosen hashtags: #NoJustice. #GotMine. Here’s a fellow protestor expressing his grief via the classic medium of big screen TV theft. And when words alone can’t express the woe, there’s always the option of carjacking the elderly and then running them over.
Here’s an innovation by our betters on the left. Disapproval of “riot-shaming” is now a thing, apparently, and we mustn’t tut at people behaving like savages. Gawker’s Matt Bruenig, who writes about “economic justice,” goes further and says riots are a good thing, a way to chastise the police, and therefore we need more of them. Presumably, Mr Bruenig doesn’t expect himself ever to be on the receiving end of the violence and looting he endorses. Similar sentiments are aired by budding intellectual Laurie Penny, who reminds us that we mustn’t “condemn the violence of citizens hungry for justice.” So what to do? Well, fear not, Ms Penny and her chums are having a huge meeting about “what happens next.”
Again, it’s worth noting that Laurie’s “huge meeting” and much of the protesting is based on the assumption that those doing the meeting and protesting know better than a jury that spent months studying the evidence and then made a decision according to the law. To assume one knows better than the jury – based on less information – is both begging the question and an act of hubris that’s hard to top. And yet many of the people doing it imagine themselves as righteous, even heroic.
Updated via the comments, which, as so often, is where the action is.
Meanwhile, in Portland we see banners that read “The rule of law is a joke,” “Wake up Amerikkka” and “Rebellion is justified” being waved about by people who, like Laurie, believe that they know better than a jury that spent months studying the evidence. And who then go on to assert their high moral principles by obstructing cars taking people to hospital and being hysterically aggressive towards random police officers. Irony isn’t the word.
‘Oppressed people of Palestine standing up for the oppressed people of Ferguson. Truly beautiful picture!’
https://twitter.com/endapartheidx/status/536999183946092544
Surprised she didn’t manage to get a climate change reference in there, too.
Oh, and disapproval of “riot shaming” is now a thing among our betters. Because one mustn’t disapprove of people behaving like savages.
Also, “Building a jail is building hate.”
I was listening to Clive Stafford-Smith (British very leftwing anti-death penalty lawyer who worked in the US) talking about how he’d be defending someone and the jury had “lynch-mob ties”.
I’d be real curious to know what constitutes a “lynch-mob” tie. The last lych mob in the US occurred about 50 years ago.
An Oh, By The Way, passing note . . .
Kylie Morris [In Ferguson, MO]: . . . .
. . . . his body allowed to lay in the street for four and a half hours . .
Sooo, one afternoon some couple of yearsIsh or so, I’m strolling up the street towards the corner leading to my apartment, at about 5something in the afternoon, and I can see the police lines from the next block. And once I arrive, I see where a couple of hours or so earlier someone had parked his car across the street from my apartment, at which point someone else walked up to him and shot him—rather totally not a normal occurrence for my neighborhood; the main deduction established after a few days was that he was parked to meet someone who called him in transit, the someone shot him, and then went back to somewhere else.
I think the coroner’s pickup might have occurred by about 8, 9something PM, mebbe even 10 or later . . .
WTP,
This is from CSS’s Desert Island Discs (recorded in 2004) where he said
I was just doing a case in Louisiana where I’m representing a 16 yr old black kid and the prosecutor (white guy, very racist parish) comes up to my client Laurence Jacob .. and says “Boy we’re gonna hang you”. But at the same time the prosecutors also wore lynch mob ties, ties with lynch nooses on. It’s amazing how overt things are
Dunno if they actually were associated with lynchings. I did a bit of searching and found this report – apparently there was something in the NYT as well.
CSS is really rather biased to the progressive left, I think – he apologises for his “privileged” background, which is tedious – but we’re not talking about Laurie Penny here. He’s by no means an intellectual lightweight. Incredible person, in fact. .
I wasn’t suggesting that lynchings happen any more, to my knowledge anyway. But the memory of quite a lot of nastiness will be fresh in people’s minds (partly because they keep being reminded of it). It’s still worth keeping in mind when discussing Ferguson.
My point was that, despite the history, it’s very dangerous to use different standards when judging violence – especially when talking about thugs who don’t give a shit, and are anyway destroying businesses belonging to blacks and whites alike.
ahhh. Ties as in neckties. Though to call them lych MOB ties is a bit disingenuous. But then consider the source. Not to excuse such idiotic behavior but some elements of the Old World still can’t get over nor understand what has made this country successful. It simply MUST be due to our ass backward hillbilly ways which are rife throughout. Auschwitz, Angers, Rotherham, and such not withstanding.
“we mustn’t condemn the violence of citizens hungry for justice.”
Okay, then how about this: Every time someone is murdered by black thugs playing the “knockout game”, thousands of people of the victim’s race descend form a mob and randomly attack black person, beating and shooting them, burning their cars and homes? How would our leftist friends feel about that?
A prosecutor with a necktie with noose images on it? In 2004? I am having a hard time believing that one.
On a side note, this Kylie Morris person saying that Mike Brown’s family was “very well thought-of family in the black community” made me chuckle. If Lesley McSpadden and Louis Head are pillars of the Ferguson black community, I’d hate to think of how bad the people who aren’t well thought-of must be.
http://fox2now.com/2014/10/22/police-investigating-assault-and-theft-following-argument-between-brown-family-relatives/
Amid the Ferguson grimness, and specifically further to this, a spot of good news.
David,
Really good news.
From one who promotes The Good News…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oTUqOBJsRdg
In other, less cheering news, Gawker’s Matt Bruenig, who writes about “economic justice,” says riots are a good thing, a way to chastise the police, and therefore we need more of them. Presumably, Mr Bruenig doesn’t expect himself ever to be on the receiving end of the violence and looting he endorses.
A prosecutor with a necktie with noose images on it? In 2004? I am having a hard time believing that one
Some time between 1998 & 2003. See my link above and also google search results for:
“Clive Stafford-Smith” “Lawrence Jacobs” tie
..including quotes. Several stories on the issue are returned
It’s perhaps not quite as clearly related to the lynchings as Stafford-Smith claimed – hard to tell the context in that community.
Incredibly stupid stunt to pull in a trial for a capital offence though.
Perhaps all the white people should just move out and leave all the black people to persue their nirvana in peace.
UCLA’s “[d]istinguished Professor of History” Robin D.G. Kelley has put academic rigour to one side for a moment to write a very emotive response to recent events, for example here:
We all know the names and how they died [ … ] unarmed and shot down by police under circumstances for which lethal force was unnecessary. We hold their names like recurring nightmares, accumulating the dead like ghoulish baseball cards. […] And I’m only speaking of the dead—not the harassed, the beaten, the humiliated, the stopped-and-frisked, the raped
And also here:
… leaving Brown’s bullet-riddled, lifeless body, on the street for four and a half hours, bleeding, cold, stiff from rigor mortis, constituted a war crime in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
And this is even before he gets to his argument, which is that:
… what we are dealing with is nothing less than permanent war waged by the state and its privatized allies on a mostly poor and marginalized Black and Brown working-class
The Black community of Ferguson and adjacent communities experience war every single day, in routine police stops, fines for noise ordinance violations (e.g., playing loud music), for fare-hopping on St. Louis’s light rail system, for uncut grass or unkempt property, trespassing, wearing “saggy pants,” expired driver’s license or registration, “disturbing the peace,” [ … ] The criminal justice system is used to exact punishment and tribute, a kind of racial tax, on poor/working class Black people.
It is a tragedy when young men and children are shot and killed by law enforcement, of course it is; and it’s also not unreasonable for a professor to write a personal, emotional piece on an issue clearly close to his heart. However …
With so many opinion pieces from bloggers and bloggers pretending to be journalists (e.g. Gawker’s Matt Bruenig) out there, turning up the emotional volume as high as it’ll go, it’s a little disappointing to find someone who you would hope would be capable of delivering a calmer and more rational analysis, not only adding his own voice to the already deafening cacophony but trying to outdo them.
Kelley in any case seems to be firmly ensconced in a particularly narrow cul-de-sac of the mind, which I think becomes clear as he reaches his conclusion:
In light of Missouri’s failure to indict Darren Wilson for the murder of Mike Brown, calling for the withdrawal of the police—even temporarily—is a reasonable demand for people terrorized by state violence …
The whole thing is here if anyone is interested.
Well, David has shown again and again how ideologically committed to the doctrine of embedded white supremacy. It’s a religious belief on the Left.
The crucial element is the concept that the identity of the victim is not the crucial determinant of justice but the identity of the oppressor. So, blacks murdered by blacks is an outcome of white oppression. And blacks killed by whites is a direct expression of “racism”.
It’s a teleology: A self-referencing system of thought.
The degree of cognitive dissonance must be astounding amongst these people…
This made me chuckle:
http://dandygoat.com/citizen-investigators-looting-ferguson-in-search-for-clues
Thanks, Henry. Surely a regrettable fashion statement for a officer of the law.
My cousin has declared the Ferguson media discussions a watershed ending post-modernism and the beginning of Post-Factualism. I tried to tell him he has no such authority, as he has neither a PhD nor a proper megaphone. He’s such an idiot.
This morning in a nearby café I overheard some people taking about the Ferguson saga. The imperviousness to evidence, even basic logic, was almost hypnotic. Forensic reports, which are consistent with the officer’s account, were ignored as if irrelevant. One chap seemed to think that so long as he could point to a different and completely unrelated case then what happened in Ferguson could simply be assumed. And the people saying these things didn’t sound like they were idiots. I mean, what they were saying sounded pretty dumb, but they weren’t actual knuckleheads. My guess would be they’d been to university.
They did, though, seem quite anxious to arrive at a predetermined conclusion. One that entailed siding with the person who had darker skin regardless of what happened, as best can be determined. There was some rumbling about how “obviously” the police are racist and how “obvious” it is that “society” is racist too, as if that were inarguable and sufficient to fathom a person’s innocence or guilt. I got the impression they were very keen to let each other know how opposed to racism they are, and therefore virtuous.
Further to the above, this, by Robert Tracinski in the Federalist, seems relevant:
Ms Penny should really ask: “What happens when people acknowledge I know nothing about anything?”
Heather MacDonald on Obama’s irresponsibility:
Re: Heather MacDonald article,
President Obama, while addressing the United Nations, wishing to draw some kind of moral parallel between the ideologically driven atrocities committed by ISIS, and the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson MO., rates as one of the most extraordinary ( almost unbelievable ) things I have ever heard.
Meanwhile, in Seattle, a Christmas tree lighting event attended by small children was disrupted by “social justice” warriors. When their carols were drowned out by chanting and shouting, the kids began to cry. The protestors were apparently content with this outcome. But hey, it’s who they are.
And in Ferguson, some visiting “social justice” warriors tried to thwart shoppers by blocking doors and being generally obstructive because, you know, buying stuff is evil. And local businesses losing trade on their busiest day of the year is a good thing, obviously. According to these young and fearless warriors, “the only solution is a communist revolution.” Because that always works out so well.
[ Added: ]
It’s worth noting that most of the protests we’ve seen outside of Ferguson don’t seem at all designed to draw people in or elicit public sympathy. The protests, such as they are, have generally been presumptuous, belligerent, often threatening – blocking major roads for hours, harassing shoppers, ruining children’s carol singing – and are therefore likely to aggravate rather than foster any kind of public solidarity. Apparently, our brave little warriors don’t care about how annoying, opportunist and inappropriate they are. The thrill of the mob dynamic, the rush of power, is much more exciting. What they want, it seems, is to impose themselves on others while being ostentatiously concerned, or pretending to be concerned. As so often, it’s all about them and how they want to be seen.
It’s worth noting …
It seems that they like upsetting and threatening people – that they think those people deserve to be upset.
Man working three jobs to feed six kids can’t get to work because no justice, no peace say the peaceful protesters who say “no peace” cause like there’s no justice, but they’re peaceful. Guy should have thought of that before he had six kids, I suppose.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2853714/I-got-six-kids-feed-going-fired-Moment-angry-father-three-jobs-took-students-blocking-highway-Ferguson-protest.html
As with the Occupy saga, it’s one of those events that reveals how unreliable – and often simply mendacious – the mainstream media is.
Yes, it does.
PD, even the story you link distorts, in the media’s favor, the Zimmerman story. Re:
ABC News published a video of Zimmerman entering a police station and claimed it showed no evidence of any wounds. Once again, the conclusion was that Zimmerman was lying. Then, a few days later, ABC enhanced the video and the wounds appeared.
Actually what happened, and I do not recall it was ABC originally but I do recall watching the original broadcast of such, was that when the back of Zimmermans head was visible to the camera, there was a news crawler banner obscuring his wounds. All ABC (or whomever) had to do was drop the banner. No enhancement necessary. IIRC, and this may be inaccurate, Fox first broadcast the video without the banner.
Several righteous protestors admit that the facts of the case are irrelevant:
And of course the Guardian’s Gary Younge has spent weeks repeatedly telling his readers that Michael Brown was shot simply for “walking down the street.” The articles in which he says this – I counted three of them – appear on a page with the caption “facts are sacred.”
“Ferguson protestors have gained the lead in TIME’s Person of the Year poll, with seven days to go in the voting.”
At some point, I think, it stops being funny.
I’m buying more ammo. The only thing I have a problem with is, what will the rules of engagement be once the shooting starts. If, for instance, a dark-skinned person fires upon a light-skinned person, will the light-skinned person have the right to fire back?
Rules need to be established before the war starts.
I think it stopped being funny when a local NBC affiliate doctored the recorded conversation between Zimmerman and the police dispatcher, which was then picked by the national network, unquestioned.
A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on.
A panel of journalists is startled and troubled by a statement of the obvious:
“Don’t rob a convenience store. Don’t fight with a policeman when he stops you and [don’t] try to take his gun. And when he yells at you to stop, just stop.”
Strange how such a seemingly unarguable set of statements can be considered so controversial.
Hate to inform the precious little snowflake, but law and justice mean different things everywhere. Justice is a concept of philosophy much like right and wrong. The law is a product of politics.