There goes the neighborhood » « Astroturfing education

Violent anarchists, where are your standards?

This list of dangerous activities committed by Portland anarchists is pitiful.

I do appreciate that every little bit of graffiti is tagged with the label “violent anarchist” (although I’m beginning to wonder if the Department of Homeland Security can actually define either of those two words, or if they just prefer to define them in ways that allow them to imprison citizens), but really, someone needs to look up the Haymarket Affair. Those were the days, when the violent committed violence, and the anarchists were anarchic, and policemen, rather than innocent bystanders, ended up dead or maimed.

I put up a “Black Lives Matter” sign in my yard, does that make me a “violent anarchist” now, or do I need to scribble those words on public property? Because I’ve got multiple sharpies in different colors, and I’m not afraid to use them.

By the way, we need a new slogan. I know ACAB, but we need something much more damning for officials of ICE and DHS, who have taken “bad” to incredible new levels.

There goes the neighborhood » « Astroturfing education

Comments

  2. rpjohnston says

    My elementary school got tagged by, erm, “violent anarchist” I guess in 1997

    Haymarket “affair”? In my school that was taught as the “Haymarket riots”. I don’t remember anything except that it was about (white) worker’s rights long enough ago to be in history books and it was a riot. And my school is a rich white and Asian minority school in the DC burbs in the aughts so maybe not the most racist around but not a progressive hotbed

  3. consciousness razor says

    The violent anarchists are the ones obsessed with destroying our government at every level, who have been threatening and killing people around the country. But usually, we just call them “Republicans.”

  4. cartomancer says

    It’s the violent archists that I’m more worried about. The ones wearing soldier costumes and pretending to be in the military.

  5. imback says

    piggybacking on @jamesredekop

    AFAFAFAF: All Federal Arresting Forces Are Fascist As F***

  8. robro says

    Like many things, the Haymarket Affair goes by several names, and the differrencee of “Affair,” “Riot,” or “Massacre” probably depends on the political point of view of the author. The “affair” began on May 1st, 1886 with a nationwide peaceful labor demonstration, or “strike”, for the 8-hour work day. On May 3rd at a demonstration in Chicago, there was a melee between strikers and other workers, and the Chicago police fired into the crowd killing several people. The next day there was another demonstration where someone threw a bomb at the police who then killed more workers. This lead to trials, hangings, and so forth. These events are the basis for the “May Day” celebrations in socialist paradises. Welcome to your working week.

    Speaking of violent events. Someone I know is outraged that the killing of a young woman in Indiana, Jessica Doty-Whittaker, is not being covered by the “liberal” media. The young woman reputedly got into an argument with someone at a Black Lives Matter demonstration for yelling “all lives matter.” Indeed Fox, New York Daily News, Washington Press, and others conservative media are covering the story, but not sources like NBC, CNN, etc. I find the sources covering the story highly suspect. Any independent info?

  10. chrislawson says

    Robro: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/indiana-woman-shot-killed-after-argument-with-black-lives-matter-supporters-family-says/ar-BB16Ev6p

    The reason why nobody else is reporting it is that nobody knows who the shooter was or what the motive was. At this time, it is nothing short of a lie to say that she was shot by a Black Lives Matter supporter since we don’t even know if the person who shot her was in the group that she had argued with, or the real sequence of events.

  11. says

    Re: Jessica Doty-Whittaker
    The reports say that she was shot some minutes after the incident, and no-one saw who shot her. The attribution to a Black Lives Matter supporter is entirely circumstantial.

  12. mailliw says

    MattG @9

    What, no milkshakes?

    I’m very fond of milkshakes but unfortunately I keep accidently spilling them on passing right wing populists. There we are, I have just bought a delicious organic strawberry milkshake when who should come along, oh hell, it’s Viktor Orban – there goes the shake. Never mind go back and buy another, oh no its Bernd Höcke – there goes another one.

    As the late great Scott Walker put it in the song Epizootics! “Sorry, I’m so clumsy. Take that accidently in the bollocks for a start.”

  13. garnetstar says

    That “violent” anarchists graffitied buildings is conjuring up vivid and hilarious pictures of the so-called anarchists beating up the buildings or holding them at gunpoint while they wrote the graffitti.

    Such exaggeration in describing these “crimes” in itself destroys the credibility of the claims.

  15. christoph says

    I could be wrong about this, but isn’t it illegal for federal authorities to violate the state and local jurisdictions?

  16. komarov says

    So if same anarchists torched police stations, drew and quartered the cops and put their body parts on pikes along the state border as an example for the incoming occupation force, they’d still be mere “violent anarchists”, with zero escalation from those horrid grafitti incidents, yes?

    The lessons here are, always leave some headroom on your scale, and silly exaggerations make you look silly. Oh, and panicky overreactions make you look like an out-of-control asshole who deserves worse than what made you panic in the first place.

  17. says

    Did anyone else misread the first line as “justifying the invasion of Poland”?

    Anyway, I’m wondering, how can you tell whether they’re really federal agents, when they refuse to identify themselves?

  19. F.O. says

    Why isn’t it legal for people to shoot these unidentified kidnappers in self defense?

    Where is “stand your ground”?
    Where is “law and order”?
    Where is “land of the free”?
    I mean, we know it’s only propaganda, but at least try to save the appearances. Trump should learn from the Dems.

    Also, “violence” is something you do to people, not not to property.
    But it’s understandable that people who value property more than other people would get confused.

  20. dianne says

    FO@19: Where is the NRA that has been saying for decades that people need to collect guns to avoid this very thing?

  21. dianne says

    Also, damage estimated at $5000? Do you have any idea how LITTLE that is to the federal government? Trump probably does more damage to the federal government’s budget every time he has dinner. Crap, the gas to pay for the troops’ transport almost certainly cost more.

  22. says

    Eh, for decades people have been normalizing the right wing. This is always how that was going to turn out. It’s how it turned out in 30s Germany, too — vote for Centrists, get curbstomped by Fascists. Biden was the thin edge of the wedge, all along, and we’re not even close to the end of it yet.

  23. nomdeplume says

    How can Americans not see that unidentified federal agents targeting left wing protesters are another major step towards fascism?

  26. blf says

    @25, Ask Putin, the reply will be channeled through Vicar or other of his paid trolls and ‘bots.

  29. publicola says

    @15: I heard an interview today with former FBI guy Frank Figliuzzi who said that the Fed. Govt. can use Fed. troops to defend Fed. property, but that in this case, not only was it overkill to bring them in to protect against graffiti-ers, but the citizens they shot and kidnapped weren’t even near Fed. property. Definite violations of civil rights.

  31. KG says

    This is always how that was going to turn out. It’s how it turned out in 30s Germany, too — vote for Centrists, get curbstomped by Fascists. – The Vicar@22

    A major contribution to the triumph of Hitler was the insistence of the KPD (the German Communist Party) that the SPD (German Social Democrats) were actually “social fascists”, and that they, not the Nazis, were the main enemy. Ernst Thälmann, the KPD leader, was convinced that if Hitler came to power, “The Revolution” could not be far behind (a breakaway faction, the KPO, led by August Thalheimer, and from a different viewpoint, Leon Trotsky, both urged a united front against the Nazis).

    Does any of that sound familiar? Let’s not forget that The Vicar wants Trump to win in November. Whatever goes on in his head, whether or not he is a paid shill for Trump or Putin (for the record, I don’t think he is, I think he’s just extremely stupid), he is objectively pro-fascist. Thälmann seems to have changed his mind once Hitler came to power in early 1933, offering to cooperate with all anti-Nazis – but too late. He was arrested, tortured, and eventually, in 1944, murdered, becoming just one of the tens of millions of victims of the Nazis, whose coming to power he had enabled. Of course The Vicar, unlike Thälmann, is only of significance in that he represents a significant group of fools; we can only hope that his moment of realising what a fool he’s been never arrives, but if so, it will be despite his best efforts to bring about fascism in the USA.

  33. JP says

    I came back to check, and nobody has mentioned it; I figured somebody would. PZ, the “B” in ACAB doesn’t stand for “bad.” That’s a euphemism for when you can’t say the real phrase, which is “All Cops are Bastards.”