Reciprocal Principles Are Above Her Pay Grade
Via Min in the comments,
Arlene Dávila, a professor at NYU and founding director of the Latinx Project, believes that looting, theft, and destruction are all part of this essential tapestry of protest. She writes, “Anyone surprised that protests include looting of luxury stores in Soho & elsewhere doesn’t know the 1st thing about racial capitalism & luxury consumption. Racial exploitation is at the root of consumer capitalism built on the commodification of black bodies through slavery.”
Those with a taste for adolescent nihilism tarted-up as woke theorising can head over here for more of the same. There, you’ll learn that sweatshops exist and that “advertising is one of the whitest industries in corporate America,” and that therefore – yes, therefore – people who recently found their businesses and neighbourhoods violated and ablaze should just quit complaining and suck it up, baby.
One can only hope that Professor Dávila returns home one evening to find that it too has been chosen as a target of ‘protest’ – i.e., robbed of anything valuable and merrily on fire. Possibly as a result of parents belatedly registering the kinds of people now entrusted to educate their children.
Or would that somehow be unfair? I ask because, stripped of its rote contortions, Professor Dávila’s reasoning seems to be, “I am unhappy, therefore I am obviously entitled to smash whatever I choose, terrorise whomever I choose, however arbitrarily, and to destroy the hopes and livelihoods of countless random people.”
Because – magic words – social justice.
Readers may note just how often leftism is functionally indistinguishable from sociopathy.
Update, via the comments:
Note too that Professor Dávila carefully sidesteps the countless scenes of feral violence against random people, including elderly women, even terrified animals, and wants us to imagine that the rioting and looting and arson have been neatly confined to “luxury stores” and is therefore, somehow, acceptable, even righteous. Something to applaud.
Of course, this is a lie, as hours of video footage demonstrate.
But it’s interesting how our dishonest woke educator, our teacher of other people’s children, seems to believe that the property of the owners of those stores, and the livelihoods of the people they employ, and the ongoing nightmare for the people who just live nearby or in the same smashed and burning buildings… well, they don’t matter.
Readers may note just how often leftism is functionally indistinguishable from sociopathy.
Post modernism saved the left. After the utter and abject failure of Marxism as documented by Solzhenitzen, people like Derrida and Foucault picked it out of the dustbin, wiped it off and gave it new life (ironic for leftism) by saying that logic didn’t exist and all facts were relative. So, yes, when your core belief system allows you to dismiss anything that would tie up most people in logical knots, sociopathy becomes an apt description of what’s going on.
It’s strange just how often, and proudly, leftists will insist that others should tolerate, even welcome, the kinds of violation that they themselves would find outrageous if similarly targeted. From the recreational vandalism of other people’s homes to rioting and mob thuggery, and burglary, and armed mugging… the list is quite extensive.
I particularly enjoyed the video (someone posted earlier this week) of the man screaming from his now shattered window that he was on the side of the protestors. Then there was the one where some pious celebrity prat cheered on the burning until he found out the mob was just outside the gates of his very expensive dwelling, then it was where are the cops, we need some protection.
Which raises another question, just what do the think will happen if they de-fund and shut down the police? I don’t think they’ll enjoy the 24/7 block parties that would break out.
Which raises another question, just what do the think will happen if they de-fund and shut down the police?
I think we have seen western countries jump several steps to the left in the last week and I don’t think those steps will be reversed.
I remember watching Britain lose its collective senses upon the death of Diana and being unable to relate in any way to what I was seeing.
I had that same feeling watching the news and reading the papers this week. There is no logic or intellectual basis to what we have been watching.
I find it terrifying as I am beginning to think that the only way out of this is to let it burn and see what emerges from the ashes.
As I said in the previous thread,
As a measure of the times, and of wokeness in particular, it’s quite… interesting.
‘Related’…
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/378292/
Also somewhat related.
Which raises another question, just what do the think will happen if they de-fund and shut down the police? I don’t think they’ll enjoy the 24/7 block parties that would break out.
In phase one. In phase two, committees of vigilance will mete out summary street justice to those suspected of malfeasance, who will then yearn for police protection.
Recall that the U.S. has more guns than people. I am unusual amongst my friends in not being armed. But I’m thinking about it. Police departments are not equipped to protect citizens from wholesale criminality. At that point, it’s every man for himself and his family.
Defund the police? I’m reminded of a strike by police in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia in 1923:
From Wiki: “On Friday and Saturday nights riots and looting occurred in the city, resulting in three deaths, trams being turned over, plate glass windows being smashed and merchandise looted from stores. Constables on point duty were jeered at and harassed by people until they retreated to the Town Hall, where the crowd taunted them to come out. Tramways staff and uniformed sailors helped to direct traffic in the absence of police.”
Now here’s the interesting part: “The rioting and looting was quickly attributed to Melbourne’s criminal element by all of Melbourne’s newspapers, but subsequent court records show that most of the offenders who were apprehended were young men and boys without criminal histories.”
This reminds me of the current problems with middle class Caucasian thugs from Antifa. No society can survive without some form of policing, but I’ll be damned if I will tolerate thugs such as the members of the extreme socialist left from street gangs like Antifa policing society.
Jim
The thing I find remarkable about the “defund the police” nonsense is that that experiment effectively has already been done, specifically in New Orleans post-Katrina.
I understand that the hard Left knows that chaos will erupt, which of course is their goal. (“The worse, the better,” as Lenin famously wrote re the 1896 famine in Russia.)
But the amazing thing is that law-abiding albeit none-too-bright people subscribe to it despite New Orleans’ experience. Apparently running with the herd trumps ratiocination.
Can we have Friday Every day?
Asking for a friend .
Where be this week’s Ephemera?
What happens?
Richard Nixon wins 49 states. Rudy Giuliani becomes Mayor of New York. Richard Riordan becomes Mayor of Los Angeles. Black Democratic leaders demand tough-on-crime laws – and Democratic politicians like Joe Biden and Bill Clinton eagerly write and sign them.
And in 25 years we’ll be right back where we are now.
What happens?
Expect leftist mob violence as election day comes nearer, especially at the Republican National Convention but also at smaller events. Expect firebombings, tire slashings, invasions of campaign offices, and so on.
Where be this week’s Ephemera?
[ Drapes suspiciously discoloured bunting above bar. ]
Expect leftist mob violence as election day comes nearer, especially at the Republican National Convention but also at smaller events
Um, Mebbe . . . .
By whom? From whom? Where?
Protest occurrences, yes, but . . . .
There have been assaults at campaign events in previous years, Hal. Also tire slashing, etc. I expect this year to be worse.
Ephemera?
Not this week, alas.
UNIX Introduction || What Is Unix, and Why Does It Matter? || Unix History || We’re gonna need a bigger screen. || Thus Spake Britannica
I expect this year to be worse.
Protest occurrences, yes, but . . . .
Protest occurrences, yes, but . . . .
What should be rather intersting is watching the convention sites and occurrences wading their way through assorted C-19 restrictions and requirements . . .
We want everyone to come here and share in our celebration!!!!!—–Errrr, well, at least no closer than ~6 feet apart . . . .
—Rince, repeat, rince, repeat . . . .
NTSOG cites the Melbourne police strike of 1923 and the chaos that immediately resulted.
The same thing happened in the Montreal police strike of 1969, resulting in the “night of terror”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray-Hill_riot
But I guess Australia and Canada are renowned as especially violent countries…
Anybody have other examples?
. . . . believes that looting, theft, and destruction are all part of this essential tapestry of protest.
‘Strategic’ well-orchestrated heists seen amid protest chaos
Has Hal kidnapped David? Will the henchlesbians mount (!) a successful rescue? Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of…
Unix…
Speaking of vigorous trademark enforcement, somewhere I have an old article from IEEE Spectrum, with the usual first page footnotes about copyrights. Which includes “and UNIX, although not mentioned in this article, is a trademark of AT&T.”
I find it terrifying as I am beginning to think that the only way out of this is to let it burn and see what emerges from the ashes.
One of the problems with having a minor in history is being able to to look around and realize 1) that it’s 410 AD and 2) that there’s nothing anybody can do about it.
What Is Unix, and Why Does It Matter?
One of the problems with having a degree in computer science is being able to understand what a horrendously awful OS Unix is.
Don’t even get me started on Linux.
We can always rely on ‘Guardian’ journalists showing their true colours:
https://twitter.com/suzanneT44/status/1269374873303945216
. . . what a horrendously awful OS Unix is.
Don’t even get me started on Linux.
Ooh, data!
For the sake of
bickeringreporting and assessing reasoned observations, feel free to get started on both, including commentary on MS and Android.—I run FreeBSD on my desktops.
I currently run Kubuntu on my laptops just to A) get KDE on the screen to install fast and let me just Get Stuff Done, and B) Kubuntu will go looking for a wireless connection, as tended to be needed with laptop portability. —FreeBSD, being focused on hardwired server Stuff, is somewhat so-so for getting wireless connectivity Just Occurring . . . .
@ Ed Bo: I read the Wiki article about the Canadian “night of terror”. What impressed me especially was this:
“Steven Pinker, the psychologist who was born and grew up in Montreal recalled how the wildcat police strike and the lawlessness that followed changed his views:
“As a young teenager in proudly peaceable Canada during the romantic 1960s, I was a true believer in Bakunin’s anarchism. I laughed off my parents’ argument that if the government ever laid down its arms all hell would break loose. … By the end of the day, six banks had been robbed, a hundred shops had been looted, twelve fires had been set, forty carloads of storefront glass had been broken, and three million dollars in property damage had been inflicted, before city authorities had to call in the army and, of course, the Mounties to restore order. This decisive empirical test left my politics in tatters (and offered a foretaste of life as a scientist).”
Society cannot exist without ordered and predictable structure and the ability of the majority to maintain it, by force if necessary, for the good of all, not just the most powerful, opportunistic, self-indulgent and aggressive. It’s the toddler-like self-indulgence of the modern virtue proclaiming mobs that offends me most.
Jim
We can always rely on ‘Guardian’ journalists showing their true colours
I’ll leave this here as a reminder of some other ‘protestors’ and their leftist cheerleaders.
Note that Professor Dávila carefully sidesteps the countless scenes of feral violence against random people, including elderly women, even terrified animals, and wants us to imagine that the rioting and looting and arson have been neatly confined to “luxury stores,” and is therefore, somehow, acceptable, even righteous. Something to applaud. Of course, this is a lie, as hours of video footage demonstrate. But it’s interesting how our dishonest woke educator, our teacher of other people’s children, seems to believe that the property of the owners of those stores, and the livelihoods of the people they employ, and the ongoing nightmare for the people who just live nearby, or in the same smashed and burning buildings… well, they don’t matter.
I laughed off my parents’ argument that if the government ever laid down its arms all hell would break loose. … By the end of the day, six banks had been robbed, a hundred shops had been looted, twelve fires had been set, forty carloads of storefront glass had been broken, and three million dollars in property damage had been inflicted,
The Few And The Proud is a book by Larry Smith which interviews and tells of twentieth century USMC drill instructors. One interview that Smith did was with retired Colonel Robert Mastrion.
The Ayrabs be protectin’ they stores wi’ AK47’s!
‘Undocumented shopper’ laments inability to obtain free stuff.
via Steve Sailer
The Ayrabs be protectin’ they stores wi’ AK47’s!
Siiiiiiigggggghhhhhh.
Obviously the store owners are utterly, totally, absolutely incorrect.
As everyone knows, noting the likely continental location, they should be carrying AR-15s.
Protest occurrences, yes, but . . . .
And yet, to repeat myself, violence directed at Republicans and conservatives of various stripes has been a frequent enough occurrence in recent years.
The Ayrabs be protectin’ they stores wi’ AK47’s!
“I’m out here on 75th and Stony across the street. They let these people come ou
I hope people are saving copies of this video for when it “disappears”.
Shots fired.
https://twitter.com/Steve_Sailer/status/1269484016568164353
Readers may note just how often leftism is functionally indistinguishable from sociopathy.
A kind of secondhand sociopathy, though. I spent many years in academia (praise Buddha for early retirement), and saw a lot of this. The outrage du jour is always met with urgent calls for “faculty statements” about it, which of course are designed to fan the flames… but only so long as the faculty isn’t required to do anything other than make statements. They’d no more consider participating in the riot themselves than they would living among the people they champion. It’s always secondhand, the classic ploy of the last unattached girl at the bar at closing time: “How about you and him fight?” They approach life like it’s one of those interactive TV shows from Fahrenheit 451 (the novel) — “what do you think we should do next, Mrs. Montag?”
And it just wouldn’t be a thread without a self-satisfied Laurie Penny begging a question of some kind.
‘Your guilt will be established one way or another.’ I’m paraphrasing, but only just.
An alternative view can be found here.
Exchange between myself and wife’s cousin who is an architecture professor at a historically black college:
(Original post he put up stated:
“If a Trump supporter wants to you to back up something you said with facts, they’re lying.
They want you to waste your time on an explanation they will not accept. If they liked facts they would not be Trump supporters.
IT’S USELESS ARGUING WITH TRUMP SUPPORTERS”)
Things (obviously) go south from there as Mick’s Electrian and ex-cop brothers, Trump supporters, respond to him as well.
NY TIMES OP-ED: White people should stop talking to relatives until they support BLM.
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/378425/
‘Paper of record’
Oops, I messed up my earlier comment at 12:29. The excerpts from that linked video should have been:
“I’m out here on 75th and Stony across the street. They let these people come outside with they AK-47. AK-47s to protect they stuff from black people! They ready to kill black people!
. . .
this wat the minister be talkin about…and they ready to kill black people for this cheap ass stuff from China
. . .
Allah goin to burn this place down!
. . .
Black lives matter, muthafucka!”
David’s remarks about sociopathy bear repeating.
The conceit that slavery was ever and always a circumstance of blacks, and no others, being enslaved is tedious beyond belief.
They approach life like it’s one of those interactive TV shows from Fahrenheit 451 (the novel) — “what do you think we should do next, Mrs. Montag?”
I was utterly gobsmacked when I saw Netflix doing exactly this.
blacks, and no others
I garner a great deal of amusement from pointing out to Canadian progressives that the only institutionalized slavery we ever had here was among the indigenous tribes before the White Man showed up and put a stop to it.
…the only institutionalized slavery we ever had here was among the indigenous tribes…
Daniel, they love it at Joseph Brant Museum when you ask how many slaves Brant owned. There’s no word of it anywhere in the museum. If you push hard enough they will tell you that they were more like workers than slaves and they came with him willingly from the U.S.
The record suggests he owned as many as 30 slaves, most of them black. Purchased in the U.S. and brought to Canada after the War of Independence.
If I take it for granted that the police system in the US is badly corrupt – some of the examples of violence we’re seeing on social media are pretty extreme – I don’t see that the protesters are offering a solution. What, do they want a return to vigilante justice? It seems the only alternative.
I did see one digital acquaintance sharing a pamphlet about how the police could be abolished in the movement to some pacifist state, but it was all very utopian stuff – and the same person sharing this was happy to defend rioting and looting, in fact anyone who demurred from this was according to them happy to see black people die. So I wasn’t inclined to give it much attention.
Daniel, they love it at Joseph Brant Museum when you ask how many slaves Brant owned.
I appear to have found next weekend’s outing entertainment.
Decolonize your bookshelf.
#defundNPR
The Ayrabs be protectin’ they stores wi’ AK47’s!
I wonder if anyone told her about Rooftop Koreans.
Daniel ” . . . what a horrendously awful OS Unix is.”
The true measure of any OS is it’s utility–which makes your statement especially absurd.
Then again, if you were a student of computer science, it probably makes sense to you.