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Monday, Oct 26, 2020 - 00:42 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

Apotusgetics

It is possible to blindly admire public figures to an unjustified extent, one gathers. After considering my own perhaps-overweening esteem for a certain President over the past years, I suppose it's only equitable to reconsider his record, given the divisiveness and chaos that his inaction has spewed in the United States previously.

It began, as it so often does, with a vicious display of deplorable police brutality, as routinely disproportionately visited on a vulnerable member of a downtrodden minority race. Accused of a minor infraction, the big but gentle African-American family man was understandably apprehensive of being put under arrest, given a lengthy prior criminal record; for this, he wound up being unceremoniously choked to death by a police officer - who so happened to be white. Enraged that due sanction was again unlikely to be visited upon the uniformed perpetrators, tens - perhaps hundreds - of thousands gathered for the #BLM cause, to seek reform and repentance.

As the righteous demonstrations only grew in intensity over the weeks, in solidarity across countless cities and even internationally across Twitter and other social media, it had the feel of a tide that could not - and should not - be turned back. As one of the many advocacy groups involved put it, "The people are fed up". Indeed, with Starbucks baristas writing "Black Lives Matter" on coffee cups, beloved sport stars voicing their support and very publicly taking a knee during the anthem in protest, there was the feeling that something had to give - the arc of the moral universe surely had to start bending towards justice, sometime about now?


Oh, when will the horror end?
(Source: cbsnews.com)


It being an election year only gave the call more legitimacy, but alas, all those pleas would only fall on deaf ears, at the very top. "That is not a protest." the cold verdict began. "It is not a statement. It's people, a handful of people, taking advantage of a situation for their own purposes - and they need to be treated as criminals.", so the commander in chief declared. These were just "...a handful of criminals and thugs who tore up the place."

Such insensitivity and blind refusal to confront the issues could only further inflame the public, obviously, as the extrajudicial killings of innocent black people continued to pile up; in Chicago, in Minnesota, in Louisiana and seemingly everywhere. To all these outrages, the so-called President appeared to have only one recourse - to defend the cops, whilst sending the National Guard into the fray to put the demonstrations down by force. As American cities simmered under trooper-enforced curfew, commentators domestic and foreign fretted at this unseemly abrogation of democracy. A complete failure of leadership and empathy, so rightly wrote The New York Times, The Atlantic and other papers from all across the political spectrum, as America's cities burned in their dozens. Not only that, elements of the military and police saw fit to reprimand their erstwhile leader, to add to the snowballing humiliation. Could any POTUS have been so, utterly, useless?!

Indeed, how did Obama mess it up that much?

I mean, I don't even think that he was that bad of a President or anything, but he was elected with improving race relations as one of the biggest plusses in his portfolio, so pardon me if I cut his successor (whose own focus was more on jobs, the economy and preserving America's slipping geopolitical supremacy) somewhat more slack for not being able to do more. I would have been one of his voters back in 2008 - only to turn around by the end of his term - because intentions and impressions aside, it simply wasn't working.


He didn't seem to be working either, but fortunately his mum is there to fix that and restore some sense


Now, don't get me wrong here. Of course Black lives matter! It's one of those statements that one finds strange to have to make, y'know. Like, murdering babies is very bad, or that robbing or destroying people's stuff is wrong, it's on that level of truism. In fact, paltry as the gesture might have been, I was seriously considering blacking out my social media for awhile then (although, as always, TRUMP was there before it was cool, until Twitter got in the way), before figuring that it would be a little too much overt and opportunistic virtue-signalling (but for those that went ahead, that's great too, you do you, which media outlets like the NYT don't seem to comprehend); and then there was the matter of what the BLM organization was about; their original statement of purpose had "disrupt[ing] the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure" as an aim, for example, which might fairly give would-be supporters slight pause.

I confess to preferring actual solutions eventually, you see. Assuredly, having bad cops killing citizens in avoidable circumstances is unacceptable, and they should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law; heck, if having purpose-built cops-only federal prisons to encourage the police fraternity and legal system to do the necessary is what it takes, I'm all for it. There might perhaps be more thought given to safer restraining methods, such as the Japanese sasumata, and I don't know, nets or glue-guns or somesuch. One could even understand - if not condone - the torching of involved police stations in the immediate aftermath, it being in the heat of the moment and all.

But encouraging it against random suburbs and housing projects? Lighting stores of medical equipment and charities up? Looting branded sneakers to "help feed one's kids"? Or beating up fellow minority shopkeepers, who were just trying to preserve their hard-earned property (one can hardly fault the based rooftop Koreans from '92 for making a return)? Or bashing a poor raccoon to death, just because?

How does any of the above help black - or any - lives?


CNN has finally jumped the shark, not that they're spared either, despite putting up the "don't hurt me" signs and murals
(Source: foxnews.com)


Indeed, on defunding the police - one of the most-publicized demands by the BLM organization - one hopes it self-evident that it wasn't gonna work, because as a straight-talking Charles Barkley noted, "who are black people supposed to call? Ghostbusters?". Now, I get it, a few police officers did unforgivable things; however, given the decentralized nature of the force in America (as with many other public services, by the way), taking away their ability to enforce the law might not be the best idea, as those actually living in tougher neighbourhoods might attest to. Case in point, an ESPN writer was having a great time egging rioters on to raze a nearby housing project in Minneapolis... only to change his tune quick when they were headed down to his own posh neighbourhood - a stand that various liberal mayors have abruptly agreed with, once the protests got too close for comfort.

Given that the ACAB madness was in vogue then, despite research findings that police shootings - while extremely regrettable - weren't even racially biased (a view for which the likes of Steven Pinker endured an attempted cancellation), police departments throughout the country very reasonably simply... stood aside. Folk often need history to repeat itself to be reminded of just why society functions as it does, after all, and this year's lesson would be the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, or CHAZ, formed within Seattle after their cops took a much-deserved leave of absence.

Being on the side of Great Justice is fun and games and all, at least until CHAZ inhabitants rediscovered a basic economic law on scarcity - when you don't set a price on stuff, it tends to run out. Suddenly out of food, the freedom fighter larpers would dig out something that had the superficial appearance of a crop garden, complete with obligatory sign reserving it exclusively for black and indigenous people, with whites being "encouraged" to pay them a tenner each. Despite positive coverage by CNN FAKE NEWS and the generous donation of a dairy cow, the first armed warlord moved in within days, with enforcers choking a street preacher, and murdering two black teens in broad daylight. CHAZ, now renamed CHOP like your garden-variety totalitarian state after a regime change, would then swiftly pass through their flag-waving and guillotine phases, aptly recognized as "communism on speed run mode". They held out for about three weeks until the smell and killings got too bad, and the cops would stroll back in to renewed appreciation.


The Great Erasure

I'm ok with counterculture, not ok with bad tenses
[N.B. Sometimes, one has the urge to get a spraycan and do some ad-hoc copyediting out there; nothing against the cause, you understand.]


The short-lived CHAZ/CHOP experiment aside, the protests have sadly probably left far more indelible scars on America's cultural history. I kind of get the removal of Confederate monuments, especially if they were only erected long after the relevant period, and plausibly for purposes of intimidation. However, when Washington, Jefferson and Ulysses S. Grant statues are being toppled, the National Mall is being defaced, graveyards are getting spray-painted, actual social reformers and humanitarians such as Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln and Father Damien (whose statue I admired at the Hawaii State Capitol) are getting spat on, and Sweden's considering replacing their Charles XII specimen with one of Greta Thunberg (no joy for those looking to put Balboa down, though), one has to wonder - what the hell has gone wrong with the world?

Look, I'm hardly against black - or other minority - folks getting more credit and exposure. Remember the BLM protestor statue that replaced Edward Colston's? It lasted only a day, but I think it deserves to find a home somewhere. BLM murals? Why not?

Lost among all the screaming and burning, one feels, is a very simple realization - there is no lack of space for everybody. Surely there are very many worthy and underappreciated black historical figures (outside of MLK) - or good community leaders - who could do with a monument or two of their own? Fellows like Booker T. Washington, Jesse Owens, Herman Cain, Jimmy McMillan, Clarence Thomas, etc.? Perhaps every city could come up with a list of their favourite black sons and daughters, and spread the art? And then you have complaints such as those against the Theodore Roosevelt statue outside the American Museum of Natural History, due to it supposedly casting blacks and natives in a subservient position - being on foot, while Teddy rides. Well, get them some horses, man! Or does America not have enough steeds? Then again, with NYT/CNN describing Mount Rushmore as "a monument of two slave owners and on land wrestled away from Native Americans", one understands if the good common folk are getting mighty confused.

The problem with removing a statue or monument or representation just because somebody out there is offended, is that it never ends. Sure, maybe Columbus was no saint and a product of his times, but has anybody considered the Italian-American community's feelings on his removal? Are the statue-topplers so certain that their heroes are beyond all reproach? As GEOTUS has recognized, the U.S. is perhaps unique in having their children taught in school, to hate their own country.


Ma, they evicted the nice Native Americans from their land again!
(Source: smithsonianmag.com)


But fine, Francis Galton, Karl Pearson, Woodrow Wilson and David Hume and others might all have been scoured from remembrance, but they were dead old white men, so it's fair game. But no, that wasn't enough, and now Aunt Jemima's gone! Lady rose from slavery to build a national pancake syrup brand, and I really can't see her modern likeness as derogatory in any way, but the woke mob has forced the removal of her legacy, and who cares what her own descendants think? Same for the Land O'Lakes lady, she did nothing wrong, and now she's gone, along with another classic father-son bonding opportunity.

And on it goes - I can kind of see how "Redskins" for the Washington football franchise might have been construed as offensive - not that it seems to have been a widespread interpretation - but yeah, sign of the times. They've gone minimalist for now with the unimaginative "Washington Football Team", and I personally thought "Chiefs" an appropriate replacement, if it hadn't already been taken. Well, the way things are going, the woke crowd might well have been after "D.C. Redskins" instead, and I also quite liked the suggestion to keep the name, but change the logo to a potato.

Which brings me to the underrepresentation of Asians in American sport. I'm not usually one to speak for a heritage that may only be partially shared, but I believe past generations of Chinese immigrants have made substantial contributions to America too. One might then expect this to be reflected in popular culture, but no, you don't see a minor league or farm team paying tribute to the Coolies, the Takeaways, or the Launderers (I tell you, if Manhattan starts a franchise called the Wall Street Launderers, I would so buy all their gear)! No, all we got was an obscure left-arm unorthodox spin delivery in cricket, and the Yanks don't even play that game! And anyway, that term seems to have gotten cancelled too, so, yeah.


Was It All Worth It?


Asian-Americans paying it back
(Source: r/conservative)


Well, one has to eventually take stock of the damage after a few long months of rioting and hell-raising, with the more-responsible amongst all races and creeds uniting to undo the vandalism, because who does that benefit in the longer run? The stringent anti-cop sentiment has also appeared to have run its natural course, with communities again backing their boys in blue, after witnessing the alternative. Support for the cops, whether measured by direct statements, opposition to defunding or wanting their continued presence seems to be around 80% at least. Local politicos have swung from wanting to disband their police departments, to backtracking and being deeply concerned at how they're now shortstaffed, after basically leaving them out to dry when expedient. Can one then blame the police unions for assembling behind GEOTUS, who got slammed for basically holding the opinion that protests were ok, but arson isn't?

A billion dollars in riot damage in almost all of America's largest cities (but they were 93% peaceful, so says CNN) and no end in sight can wear on even the most idealistic supporters, and with feedback showing that BLM's popularity was (unsurprisingly) tanking hard, the Democrats would finally get concerned that it would drive support for TRUMP, with Pelosi condemning the looting four months too late. Now, one could of course argue that GEOTUS is at fault here, but it would take a special kind of dense not to recognize the bias in the lying FAKE NEWS media, which appears to have been suspiciously fanning the flames of civil unrest and a possible race war all along. With multiple Democratic mayors in Minnesota now throwing their endorsements behind TRUMP's common sense, and a renewed taste amongst voters for law and order, one figures that this might well presage a Nixon-like landslide as in 1968.

Leaving the election analysis for now, it's not like one has to even look all that far back for suitable precedent. It was the same slow boil and explosion of rage and wokeness in 2016, before the BLM movement dutifully dwindled into blissful near-total obscurity... until next time. Frankly, given all the "colour revolutions" that Uncle Sam has sponsored, it's perhaps not to be unexpected that rival powers might target America in similar manner. Anyhow, the worst seems over after a bill was introduced to deny rioters their welfare cheques, and as for myself, I've just pre-ordered my tickets in advance for #BLM2024. Gotta get ahead of the scalpers, nowadays.



It might even compete with the Olympics, after a few more editions!
(Source: trends.google.com, for #BlackLivesMatter)




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