The post hoc justification seems to center heavily on the idea that the statues either represent an oppressive state or the hypocrisy of an oppressive state that pretends to have noble causes with a heavy dose of criticism of this meaning you care less about black lives than you do statues. When on the defensive, they seem to emphasize that these are just meaningless hunks of metal that you shouldn't concern yourself with, but when on the offensive, they have great symbolic importance.
This is certainly crazy stuff.
But you know what?
If a society with millions of people in it treats a significant proportion of its population with cruel injustice for long, long years, the justified resentment and anger that builds up will inevitably lead to a small fraction of people suffering injustice (and those sympathising with them) doing things that are frankly crazy, reprehensible, and even against their own interest. They shouldn't act that way, and where practicable to do so they should be stopped from acting that way. But expecting anything else is naïve.
The long-term remedy is, of course, to fix the injustice.
Zadok: I did not have a faith crisis. I discovered that the Church was having a truth crisis. Maksutov: That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
I view this more as a snowball of random factors. You have a mixture of drunk people looking to break stuff, inchoate rage, and a desire of Madison leftists looking to join the national story of statue smashing, but having no good statues to smash. It's easy to imagine a universe where this didn't happen where there is still a lot of pent up discontent with social injustice. I think it's an unfortunate confluence of stupid.
There's several candidates for state office in Madison who are vocally backing the mob's actions. It's the Bernie endorsed wing who probably had a reasonable shot at winning. It's going to be interesting to follow if they win their primaries. If they do, they're gonna win in the general. What Democrats have going for them as a national party is that these people are ordinarily utterly insignificant in the big scheme of things. If that changes, look out.
It's easy to imagine a universe where this didn't happen where there is still a lot of pent up discontent with social injustice.
This particular thing, certainly. But something stupid, bad and counter to the interests of those doing it?
Pretty well inevitable from time to time, I'd say.
Zadok: I did not have a faith crisis. I discovered that the Church was having a truth crisis. Maksutov: That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
[quote=EAllusion post_id=1229682 time=1593011974 user_id=1078]
It turns out the mob also beat up a Democratic state senator who tried to take a photo of what they were doing.
[/quote]
Jesus-
“This has got to stop before someone gets killed,” he wrote. “Sad thing I’m on their side for peaceful demonstrations — am a Gay Progressive Democrat Senator served 36 years in the legislature.”
Madison's most leftist wing, which is politically influential, seems to have taken the stance that taking down the statues was good, criticism of it reflects white fragility and a lack of concern for what really matters, but beating up the state Senator was going too far. The logic behind this is predictably terrible and is almost a mirror image of terrible arguments you see out of the far right. Too early to know how the general public sees this, but I'm guessing it's very bad for their reputation. Locally, taking down Lady Forward is like blowing up the Statue of Liberty to protest American xenophobia.
Right-wing media also seems to have seized on this story and has decided the statues were taken down because they represent whites because the protesters are coming for whites. That's all kinds of wrong, but also predictable.
We’ll see how much traction they get since they’re realizing they can act with a certain amount of impunity right now minus the few that get rolled up by the judicial system.
We’ll see how much traction they get since they’re realizing they can act with a certain amount of impunity right now minus the few that get rolled up by the judicial system.
- Doc
In political terms, the far left in the US appears to be utterly insignificant. In journalistic terms, not so much, perhaps.
In national security terms, I suspect the authorities are much more worried about the gun-toting far right.
Zadok: I did not have a faith crisis. I discovered that the Church was having a truth crisis. Maksutov: That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
Here's a different argument defending the Wisconsin riot last night:
Quote:
I’m guessing that the white Wisconsinites up in arms about the drowning of the Heg statue are actually thinking, “if it’s not enough for these people to be a white abolitionist who literally dies fighting slavery than I will never be enough for these people.”
These are people who want recognition for their anti-racism, cookies for their allyship. These are people who are unable to see the irony in a city and state that would honor a white prison reformer with a monument while half of its prison population is black.
I won’t go deeply into the historical reasons why it makes good sense to trash the Heg and Forward statues except to remind folks that the Capitol building sits on stolen Ho-Chunk land and that liberal narratives around both statues obscure their own colonial histories.
The takeaway here is that the destruction of these statues makes political sense. Neither the city nor the state has done much to meet our demands so folks are expressing their dissatisfaction with merely symbolic gestures and their alignment with tactics used across the country.
They’re also expressing a whole lot of rage. The MPD has been awful. When white mass shooters can be escorted safely to jail on their own two feet there is no reason why cops should put any black protestors face down on concrete. That’s how this all started. people die that way.
And don’t get me started on Wisconsin republicans invoking the civil rights movement to uplift “peaceful protest,” ahistorically, as the only effective form of dissent. Tell that crap to Minneapolis, where a burning precinct is leading to the dismantling of the police.
I love the part where he's not gonna get into detail, because if he did, you'd just be drown in the force of his cogency. It starts out with the now-familiar "these statues represent hypocrisy" argument, but goes into that they're tools for whitewashing Wisconsin's colonial history and usurpation of indigenous land. Then it ends with the assertion that it'll be an effective tool of reform, which is an empirical claim that will almost certainly be false in this case. The whole thing is dripping with condescension.
We’ll see how much traction they get since they’re realizing they can act with a certain amount of impunity right now minus the few that get rolled up by the judicial system.
- Doc
In political terms, the far left in the US appears to be utterly insignificant. In journalistic terms, not so much, perhaps.
In national security terms, I suspect the authorities are much more worried about the gun-toting far right.
On the one hand, they're quite insignificant on a national scale. We're not on the cusp of a leftist revolution here. On the other, these are people who are being backed by leftist groups in Madison, who do wield considerable political influence locally. As I mentioned above, you have Bernie endorsed candidates for influential state government posts aggressively defending this and all but calling people racists for criticizing it. And once that label sticks to you, you're done. In Madison, a Bernie endorsement is a big deal. At least before this, they could win. Then the utterly insignificant are holding onto state legislative seats and you're eyebrow should raise some.
The head of the state Democratic party issued a statement, and while the statement was clear to point out that these aren't the symbols people should be removing, it very much tip-toed around criticizing the people who removed them. That's all about walking the line on inter-party politics.
I've seen hundreds and hundreds of videos of police outright abusing protesters, in some cases in utterly sickening ways that should call into question whether it makes sense to say "it's a free country" as people are fond of doing.
The arrest of the protester who sparked this is a sanctimonious martyr who did his absolute best to provoke the response he got. He showed up to a peaceful establishment carrying a bullhorn and a baseball bat and started aggressively shouting in the bullhorn. He specifically said he was "disturbing the restaurant and has a bat" which is just openly threatening peaceful patrons who did nothing to him. People rightly called the police on him. I don't see how you interpret his behavior as anything other than trying to get arrested. When police showed up, the forcefully resisted arrest, leading him being taken to the pavement. He then escaped the squad car and had to be tackled and taken back in. The incident provoked outcries of police abuse that eventually led to the mood that resulted in the statues being taken down.
Of all the horrible examples of police abuse, this one is the example you go to bat for. This one? It's like the anti Rosa Parks of protest. It kind of reminds me of when Trump loyalists have to tell outrageous lies as a way of signaling loyalty to Trump. Anyone can support the easy case. It takes real loyalty to the cause to go to bat for a sketchy one.