No Counterprotests

In the spirit of false equivalence that brought you "teaching the controversy" or "George Soros gives money to Liberals" or even this...

Comes the outrage by American Fascists manifested as "#coplivesmatter". Fortunately there is a simple answer to "Why... is #BlackLivesMatter not protesting the death of NYPD cop Brian Moore[?]" Adam Johnson in AlterNet yesterday answered the question in a post titled Dear Idiots On My Facebook Feed: Here's Why Calling for Protests Over Slain Cops Makes No Sense

Before analyzing the article a few small ideas need to be presented. First, in the context of the above picture is that the right wing in America persistently believes that it is 1968 all the time. Not the historical 1968 where protestors in Chicago got their heads bashed in by Daley's PD, or 1970 when the National Guard shot student protestors at Kent State, or even Bull Connor's men attacking Civil Rights marchers with police dogs and fire hoses. But a mythological Nineteen Sixties where "the Left" was all-powerful, protestors always got what they wanted, and government always sided with trouble-makers and punished the law-abiding citizens. Who exactly is afraid of offending Muslims? Pamela Geller or her minions who put on a "Draw Mohammed" contest in Garland, TX? Liberalism is a dead horse that 'wingers never tire of beating while simultaneously believe is running the show. See Thomas Frank's The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Ruined Government, Enriched Themselves, and Beggared the Nation for a much more in-depth and erudite description of this phenomenon.

Second is that 'wingers so successfully compartmentalize conflicting ideas that they can condemn racism while espousing racist views. This phenomenon is explained from a scientific perspective by Bob Altemeyer in his book The Authoritarians. Dr. Bob surveyed group after group with a personality test to measure levels of Right Wing Authoritarianism in individuals. He found that those individuals scoring highly on the test consistently displayed behaviors and reactions defined as authoritarian, such as aggression, self-righteousness, and traditionalism; and would also consistently side with symbols of authority such as political leaders or the police no matter how they behaved. Therefore it is appropriate to generalize about the behaviors, attitudes, and expressions of these right wingers. The ferocity of belief may vary as may the practical ramifications, but right wingers believe very similarly; as in they believe whatever their chosen leaders tell them to believe. In this case, racism is bad but those black people in Baltimore are thugs for protesting. "If they'd just stop breaking the law..." Racism is something other people (especially liberals) do and it is bad, condemning all black people for the actions of one or a few individuals is just "common sense."

Finally is the problem of needing to reduce complex problems into simple slogans that "everyone" should understand and support. Cops are law enforcers right? So everyone should support them uncritically because we are a nation of laws in a society where everyone is equal. Criticizing policemen is akin to supporting chaos. Manichean thinking like this, where every situation is binary and not being on "my" side automatically puts you on "their" side, encourages severe and even violent responses. Recognition that there are many kinds of people in the world and nearly infinite points of view causes anxiety and discomfort in individuals who agree with #coplivesmatter, a feeling only relieved by anger.

So why are there no protests or marches for police officers who are killed in the line of duty. Because "one doesn’t protest something the system already agrees is bad." As Johnson also points out, the murderer of a police officer is almost always immediately caught and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. We do not have a situation in NYC or anywhere else like the fictional Detroit of Robocop movies where the police are being systematically assassinated. Anyone who advocated killing cops will be vilified to a point Ice-T could never imagine. Oh, but someone stepped on an American flag, therefore all black people want to murder police officers or something.

The following quotation helps show that it is not only compartmentalized thinking but simple comprehension skills that are a problem. "And this is where this jab gets exposed for the asinine talking point that it is. It acts like #BlackLivesMatter is outraged by murder per se, rather than the broader system of white supremacy, inequality, and police immunity that leads to so many senseless murders by police a year - the vast majority of which hardly register a blip on the media radar, let alone lead to a protest." I will end where Johnson began:

[L]et’s be clear about one thing: those asking this question [see below tweets] don’t really care about slain NYPD officer Brian Moore. To them, the death of Brian Moore is a political prop. Sure, they don’t wish it happened, but they probably didn’t think about it beyond the degree to which it could trivialize anti-police brutality protesters. These are smear artists, so desperate to seek out liberal hypocrisy they’ll knowingly spout this sophistic talking point knowing full well it’s basically bullshit. It’s the laziest kind of pseudo-opinion - a testiment to our pundit classes’ fetish for gotchaism at the expense of critical thought. [emphasis mine]

Life is cheap and money is the only value...

 

 

Right of Way Outrage

I stumbled onto a story yesterday completely by accident, I am sure it is too little for MMFA or any other group on the lookout for proto-fascism in our midst. However, it is just one little tile in the mosaic of virulent nationalism and scapegoating that is essential if you want to plow under a rotting republic in favor of a dictatorship. Check out this headline:

Florida man ordered to remove American flag display draws huge support

 Contrast it with the original source:

Hundreds of flags line Cape Coral roads

Basically, the manager of a hardware store put up a bunch of little flags on the public right-of-way grass between the street and sidewalk, someone complained that it violated a city ordinance, and the city asked him to move them back onto private property... about 6 feet. This incident has 2 amazing similarities to 1984. First, that "hundreds" of people turned out to further violate the ordinance and put up a shitload more flags in exactly the way the telescreen announcer on Airstrip One constantly repeats how "workers spontaneously demonstrate to show their gratitude and joy." Second, is that the original story has disappeared down the memory hole. Originally, there was a segment from the Ministry of Truth (fox news) where they interviewed the guy involved and he admitted voluntarily removing the flags... until the patriotism police showed up and put up almost one hundred times more flags. Now, anything that might indicate that this incident began as a simple and easily resolved disagreement between an individual and the city is gone. In its place is a confrontation between unfeeling, unaccountable government mindlessly enforcing arbitrary rules and the patriotic masses standing up to the tyranny of right-of-way ordinances.

Wow, in Oceania it took dedicated effort by a huge bureaucracy to collect all copies of newspapers or other documents, destroy the item that the Party wished to change, and reissue them. Now with a few clicks the job can be done by one or two individuals in a few moments!

Orwell is rolling in his grave.