Posted on 12/01/2014 5:44:21 AM PST by LeoMcNeil
The state of protest in America is pretty poor. Last week we got to witness riots in Ferguson Missouri over the decision of a Grand Jury not to indict Police Officer Darren Wilson for the murder of Michael Brown. After the riots though we got to see the state of progressive protests. All along the people protesting Ferguson have largely been from out of the area. They’re basically leftist community organizers who have decided Ferguson needs to be organized in order to defend a criminal who got shot while charging at a police officer. The protests haven’t really been organic, especially so in light of the fact that much of the testimony supporting Officer Wilson came from black witnesses. If this situation had not been co-opted by progressives and the media, the facts would have quickly surfaced and even locals who initially raised eyebrows over a white cop shooting an unarmed black man would have seen that the shooting was justified.
The post-riot protests have been the most interesting to watch. Communist revolutionaries have shown up in Ferguson to declare that only a communist revolution can “smash racist cops.” Putting aside the fact a white cop shooting a black man is not itself evidence of racism, one cannot help but wonder if these communist revolutionaries really believe that communist police would be any less violent. The history of communism in the world suggests that communist police organizations tend to be very violent, far more than American police. It’s pure fantasy to believe that communists over the years haven’t engaged in racism. One need only look to the Soviet Union, China and Cuba for evidence. Each of those countries favored certain races or ethnic groups. These kids rallying for communist revolution in Ferguson are ignorant in the extreme.
In other places protesters opposing the Grand Jury decision have been cropping up in odd places. These odd places include interstate highways and shopping malls. No one begrudges these people the right to protest, everyone is entitled to do as such. However, when a group enters the interstate for the purpose of shutting it down now it interferes with the public’s right to travel and ignore protesters. From a practical standpoint shutting down the interstate draws attention to a cause, presumably everyone stuck in the ensuing traffic jam becomes aware of it. The problem is that the attention is negative, largely because it annoys those stuck in an unnecessary traffic jam. Your opinion is not more important than others right to travel. It’s no better at the so-called “die in’s” taking place at malls and Wal-Mart’s on Black Friday. What point is being made when Black Friday shoppers are annoyed by political showboating at the mall? Most people walk away annoyed, they don’t walk away thinking a great point has been made.
By targeting shopping malls, protesters are tying themselves with the communist revolutionaries in Ferguson. They may not be communists themselves but it shows us that all of the protests are coming from the radical left. There is absolutely no reason to tie shopping malls and Wal-Mart’s to the shooting in Ferguson other than to make a statement against the entire American way of life. Their purpose is to scare white people, they’ve targeted primarily white shopping malls and Wal-Mart’s. Their problem is that white people aren’t scared in the least. If anything they’re annoyed by the people lying about on the floor denying them a chance at a marginally discounted trinket on the other side of the store. These are Saul Alinsky tactics but they’re the sort of poorly targeted tactics that even he opposes in his book Rules for Radicals. Even he knew that if protesters targets weren’t specific, the message would be lost. For most people the message is completely lost when protesters enter the interstate, a shopping mall or a Wal-Mart to protest Michael Brown’s death.
Nevertheless the people engaging in these protests and their cheerleaders in the media find the protests to be extremely important and meaningful. Within the leftist echo chamber you would think the protests are really sticking it to the racist man. In reality, most Americans find the protests irrelevant and pointless. Most Americans shook their head and wondered what the point of burning down your own neighborhood was during last Monday’s riots. If people have been affected by the interstate shut downs or mall die-in’s, they’re annoyed. If folks haven’t been affected yet, they’re hoping they don’t get annoyed like that anytime soon. Ultimately the progressives face two problems with their protests. The first is that they aren’t going to gain support from left-wing sympathizers because Michael Brown was a violent criminal and people tend not to lend their support to people who are violent. The second is that the protests themselves have devolved to the point that their message isn’t clear. Are the protests in favor of communist revolution or not? Why shut down highways in DC and Los Angeles over a Grand Jury decision in Missouri? Why all of the protests at malls and Wal-Marts? Are the protesters outraged over the Grand Jury or do they hate capitalism, Black Friday and Wal-Mart generally? The message is lost and so is the little support Michael Brown protesters had. One wonders if the protest organizers know that their terribly meaningful protests are meaningless.
Something can’t devolve into nonsense if it started out as nonsense.
Mr Leo, you speak common sense, therefore your point is lost to all leftists. We get your point. 75% of America gets your point. But the ones that need to get it... whooosh.... right over their head.
They are trying to link “White Privilege” with capitalism in people’s minds, out of some vague notion that capitalism arose from the combination of Jewish usury and Protestant work ethic, and is therefore a “white thing.”
Michael Brown was not murdered.
... for the murder of Michael Brown ...
Stopped there. He was not murdered.
I don’t know if it’s over their head. Libs have a vested interest in keeping the myth of evil whitey oppressing innocent black folks alive. I’ll bet if you gave a polygraph test to most white libs, they’d agree that Brown had it coming. But for obvious p.c. reasons they have to side with the racial agitators.
The way the writer phrased it was not real clear, but he didn’t mean that he himself thought Brown was murdered. In fact, in one of his next sentences he calls Brown a criminal. He was just stating that the racial agitators wanted to indict Wilson for murder.
Good point but language and truth matter. Brown was lawfully shot in self defense.
I totally agree. But it seems a few Freepers read what he wrote, and construed it to mean the writer thought it was murder as well. He didn’t...that’s why a few sentences later he called Brown a criminal.
I don’t think the protests started out as nonsense. The initial protests began based on faulty information. Had that information been true, I think most people on Free Republic would have supported them at least on some level. The prospect of a cop shooting an unarmed, surrendering suspect in the back ought to outrage all of us. The government ought not be allowed to engage in such activities freely.
The problem though is that within a few days it became clear that the facts people were protesting over were not accurate. Michael Brown wasn’t innocent, he had just roughed out a store clerk while stealing cigarellos. He had tried to steal the officer’s gun and made at least some physical contact with the cop. Brown then took off before turning around to charge at the cop. Rather than obeying the cop and surrendering, Brown continued to move forward and was shot for his efforts.
With the actual facts in hand the continued protests become something else entirely. To continue protesting, you have to suspend belief in the uncontradicted facts of this case. They didn’t start out as something evil per se but they became that once it became clear that the protests were started over faulty accounts of the acts committed.
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