For BLM, a tense field trip to the 'Couve
When it comes to writing up protests and counter-protests, I'm running out of steam. But last night's activity was unusual, in that it took place north of the river in Clark County, Washington. So I guess a few paragraphs are in order.
There was a vigil in Hazel Dell for Kevin Peterson, Jr. It took place in the bank parking lot where sheriff's deputies shot him to death on Thursday. Several hundred people were there. It was emotional. People lit candles, sang, chanted, heard speakers, and created a large makeshift memorial.
Several dozen right-wing people – Trump supporters and white supremacists – assembled along the road and in a nearby parking lot with their flags, their monster pickup trucks and SUVs, and their guns. A few of them felt compelled to parade through the vigil wearing their long guns. Some of them maced people. A three-year-old child was among those hit. When the vigil was over and the crowd left, some of the right-wingers trashed the memorial.
Meanwhile, a small segment of the vigil-goers marched to downtown Vancouver, where they broke windows, spray-painted their inane slogans on buildings, lit garbage on fire, shouted epithets at the riot cops, and generally made a lot of commotion. The right-wingers drove down to confront them, and there was much insulting and taunting. The righties sprayed more bear mace, and somebody in one of the trucks (with Oregon plates) fired two rounds of live ammunition. Fortunately, they didn't hit anyone.
The cops arrested a couple of lefties, I think, and lo and behold, the feds were out! There must be a federal building in the downtown 'Couve somewhere that they were ostensibly protecting. Their boss, Chad Wolf, must be proud. (Not to mention Proud.)
When the Antifa types and the right-wing gun nuts are in the same place, it's really dangerous. That's how one person was killed in downtown Portland two months ago, with his killer later being shot dead by police. Things didn't deteriorate that far last night, but they easily could have.
It's hard to watch all this happening. Trump, McConnell, and their accomplices have taken this country back to the 1930's. There were armed people out there last night with American flags, disrupting a funeral vigil. As for the black-clad dissidents, for their own good, they might want to show a little judgment and limit the act-out's in Clark County.
By the way, the Oregonian has a good writeup of last night, here.
Wow, the right wingers out there hassling this vigil last night have zero class. Actually, it's starting to remind me more and more of the sectarian violence that I grew up around. Funerals in the Middle East are regularly attacked - there is no mercy rule. There are no timeouts. You get everyone all dressed up at a funeral and it's the perfect chance to kill them.
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting comparison to the 1930s. Poverty is definitely driving a lot of the anger today, but to me the viciousness is reminiscent of the Deep South in the 60s. Humanity at its worse. Trump should have to answer for exploiting the anger in white supremacists.. I still believe it's a subtle game he's playing and his real allegiance is to himself. But using the hatred to his own advantage is bad enough. I don't think the Jeremy Christian incident at the Hollywood Max station happens without Trump. He energized that faction and ironically for me it had an anti-Muslim bent. It always comes back to the Middle East. The heartbreak of the place has followed me around all my life.
On the other hand I believe the narrative that Trump is a white supremacist himself is a bridge too far. That's on the Democrats for selling that. Ironically, Trump's support among black people is surprisingly good. Did you see the picture of Lil' Wayne and Trump yesterday? According to some Dems, a Trump supporter has to be a racist and a white supremacists too so I guess that makes Lil' Wayne a white supremacist.
Look sometimes these dog whistles are attempts to gain support for yourself - not for your race. It was bullshit and you can bet James Carville and the gang are sweating their balls off right now wondering why blacks aren't just going democratic like always. What did the brain-damaged Biden say? "If you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't black"? Now there's an attitude that's racist.
Why is it that the Republican Party has devolved into a group of militias, bogaloo bois, Pizzagaters, paranoid Q-Anon conspiracy theory- spreading humorless MAGA Cap wearing men and women driving big trucks and carrying guns and flying “Trump”Banners?”
ReplyDeleteEven members of the Ku Klux Klan used to hide their identities with white robes. And when did the Republican Party start throwing people out of Republican Party rallies because they were newsmen and/or minorities?
It used to be that Conservatives had articulate and educated people who spoke about States Rights and deficit spending, ala William F. Buckley, Jr. Those conservatives would elevate the dialogue beyond ad hominem argument and tried to engage in an intelligent and well informed exchange. Now it seems that blaming liberals for every problem from juvenile delinquency to inner city crime to lack of teenage “morality” is in vogue, and that liberals are the “spawn of satan” or so some conservatives on the far right urge.
One of the boogalo boies indicates that the election will not pass without the use of firearms and resulting death. Is this something I have heard from Republicans before? I think not.
In answering the questions I promulgated above myself, I suspect that the “honorable opposition” has taken an extended leave from the Republican Party, and left us with an American populist more like Huey Long than George W. Bush. It is easy to understand in some ways, a man who is a well known television personality and very wealthy comes into town and tells you just what you want to hear. He is a rich man, with a lifestyle and “toys” that most of us can only dream about, if that is our dream.
Somehow he becomes a lightning rod for your dissatisfactions and perceived losses, which at times are not merely "perceived," but actual losses. He tells people in the “heartland” (now “Rustbelt”) of the U.S. that he is going to bring back those lost jobs, and "Make America Great Again." And for many people he is not merely painting a "Norman Rockwell vision” of an America that never was (or was only for white people living in small towns) but is promising an economic future that may well be impossible for ANYONE to deliver upon.
Yet the appeal of the "offer" or "promise" can be understood. If my economic or financial life was in poor shape, and somebody indicated that he could make it better, the appeal and attraction is pretty obvious. "Any port in a storm.”
And yet some conservatives insist that we have now rebounded and that the recession is on its way to being done and that a Covid 19 vaccine is just around the corner, next week or just after Christmas. Some conservatives state that the jobs are already back, but cannot cite any labor source or study that evidences it, not even a lone news article that anecdotally suggests it. It is like an article of faith, that the current President has said it, and who am I to question it, another heretic from the liberal side who would naysay any good news if it did not come from a Democratic mouth? I just question if President Trump has really made anything better, but instead has merely elicited louder war cries from the right side of the ring.