Category Archives: crime
Peaceful Demonstrations Trashing Cities
Peaceful protests? President Clinton might say, “it depends on the meaning of “peaceful.”
A BBC headline in June reported, “27 police officers injured during largely peaceful anti-racism protests in London.”
And ABC News continued the trend last weekend reporting that “peaceful demonstrations intensified” in Oakland. Rioters set a courthouse on fire and assaulted police officers.
President Obama once said that shovel ready jobs “weren’t as shovel ready as we expected.”
Peaceful protests don’t seem to be as peaceful as we expected.
Counterpoint in Portland
This is my Counterpoint cartoon from last week. It appeared alongside a Rob Rogers cartoon and here’s what I had to say about it:
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler joined the mob Wednesday night and got booed and teargassed for his efforts. And I got a cartoon idea. But my sketch contained a couple of mental maneuvers making it tough on the poor reader. Not only that, my lefty Counterpoint counterpart Rob Rogers didn’t care for the whole point of the thing. He thought Mayor Wheeler had done a splendid job over the past 50 days during which the mob trashed his town’s working class shopkeepers. And, “oh, by the way,” Rob added, “why don’t you tweak that cartoon and just have the woman say, “Where’s the mayor when you need him”? Perfect. Thanks, Rob, you ignorant slut.
Defund Police to Avoid Trouble and get Votes
New York City just defunded its police to the tune of $1 billion. That’s 17% of the law enforcement budget. Murders there are up 21% over a year ago but the funds will be redirected to social services.
“It’s almost like someone thinks there’s a benefit to keeping people divided.” That’s the last line of Matt Taibbi’s Rolling Stone critique of the #1 best seller “White Fragility”.
American Taliban Re-writing History Again
The American Taliban set out to remake the world 20 years ago. John Walker Lindh graduated from high school, converted to Islam and made his way to Afghanistan where he joined the Taliban. However, his adventure ended abruptly after 9/11/2001. U.S. forces captured him during fighting in a prison uprising near Mazar-e Sharif. The American Taliban then went on to serve another 17 years in an American prison.
In addition to harboring Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban was best known at the time for blowing up buddhist statues. Coming from Marin County, California, I would have figured Lindh to be more suited for the Buddhist side of things.
Power Politics Go Around and Come around
Power politics drove the Covid-19 crisis. Governors used police power to lock down the economy and flatten the curve. The curve flattened. But then a new crisis arrived – the police killing of George Floyd – and power shifted to a new group.
Blue states pride themselves for their liberal governors, big-city mayors, police chiefs and state attorneys general. But progressive urban bastions like Los Angeles, New York, Minneapolis and Philadelphia are also the ground zero sites of arson, violence and looting, where racial relations are the worst.
Victor Davis Hanson – The Bitter Irony of Revolutions
