One of the first blog posts I read that bad night of the rioting in Baltimore asked a political, not a racial or criminal question, "How many people are going to vote Democrat in 2016?" Demographically, that is the correct question to ask for while 63% of Baltimore residents are black, 91% are Democrats. Among some police officers I know, "Democrat" is used to refer to "Black people," sort of as a euphemism. Who did the black Democrats target? White Republicans.
You remember the neutron bomb? It was supposed to be a "Republican" bomb because it killed people while leaving buildings intact. This was a Democrats' riot: nobody killed, buildings destroyed.
In picture after picture I looked at that first night I saw streets littered with rocks, bricks; rocks and bricks were in the hands of the rioters. "It looks like the West Bank," I thought. "This is America. Where are the guns?" The brothers had their pieces, they had access to pieces. They used rocks and bricks. Who do you think they are, Palestinians?
NO deaths. WHAT?!
I read last night that the police did not fire a single shot. As the saying goes, "I cannot wrap my brain around that." They were "trained" that way, that guy said last night? Where are they trained that way? Aren't they trained that way in Europe or Japan or something? I have had these vague images float in and out of my mind of a blue wall of plastic shields and helmets and rubber bullets being rocked and buffeted by a crowd of Tasmanian Devils pushing and pelting them with rocks, bottles, bricks. No live ammo used there either.
I've been a willing victim. When my son was younger we would play "fights"; He would wear junior boxing gloves, I would get on my knees to neutralize my height advantage and go into an Ali rope-a-dope and let him wail away on me. Three-minute rounds. He always won.The tension was unbelievable. It is so unnatural to be solely on the defensive. I was fully protected, never hurt, but I couldn't take it, I would always go down. He won by "knockout." It takes more discipline than I had to let someone punch himself out on you. One Fourth of July I let him and his friends shoot roman candles at me. They were on the second floor of an empty house next door, I was in the yard beneath wearing a mask and using the top of a trash can as a shield. Paintball. Paintball in the park near the house after dark. Mask, trash can shield, two pairs of jeans. He and his friend. Those things made welts on my legs even under two pairs of jeans.
China. Sometimes during the Cultural Revolution there was this weird collaboration of victim and thug. The violence was real, real as life and death, the trauma, physical and psychic, genuine. There was a man who casually locked the door to his house and casually went for a walk to the stadium where his struggle session was to occur, having to convince the Red Guards he should be allowed in. "You can't have a struggle session without me, can you?" Teacher Bian walked to her death at school, bathing beforehand so that her corpse would be clean. She was a "good communist," another stand-in for Democrat in America. There was an "anthropology" to the Cultural Revolution where the real was symbolic and where people played expected roles.
The post-Mao protests, continual protests. "Simmering cauldron?" Real people really get hurt by the People's Liberation Housing Evictors. But lady, why are you standing alone outfitted like me against the paintballs, facing a phalanx of PLHE outfitted like Baltimore's finest, ready to send you flying like tumbleweed?
Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, the (Black/Democratic) mayor of Baltimore, has come under sustained criticism for her handling of the riots. From whom? From everybody including me but leading the offensive has been Fox News. Is it politics all the way down? This thing was planned. Notices were circulated in advance. The leaders were adults, one a lawyer, some "New" Black Panthers lawyer or something like that, guy with the middle name "Zulu." Gag me with a spoon. The mayor should have had the police prepared, the riots should not have happened, the property destruction should not have occurred. But deaths did not occur; firearms, knives, the deadliest of deadly weapons were not used by the Democrats. What if "Zulu" said no guns, no knives, just rocks?
What if the mayor was prepared? What if this was her plan? She says no. She says she did not give the police orders to be tumbleweed. But there were rules of engagement here. This had to have been discussed. The boots on the ground would have been instructed by someone, the patent leathers at headquarters, the pumps in the mayor's office, their years of training, on how to react to this planned riot. What if the message, in whatever language was used, was still loud and clear:
1. No "police riot."
2. No lethal force unless absolutely, positively, you-have-no-choice, necessary.
Surely those were part of the rules of engagement.
3. No gratuitous, pro-active, offensive, inciting, police-citizen contact.
I can see that. The subtext, spoken or unspoken is "We don't want any more Freddie Grays, no more Eric Garners." The next step is a natural progression:
4. "Broken windows policing" is OUT.
Maybe spoken, maybe unspoken. Don't sweat the small stuff. No more Walter Scotts. The next step is just as natural, almost surely unspoken:
5. Let 'em break windows.
It's only property. No deaths for property crimes. Burn baby burn. A Democrats' riot.
I've been a willing victim. When my son was younger we would play "fights"; He would wear junior boxing gloves, I would get on my knees to neutralize my height advantage and go into an Ali rope-a-dope and let him wail away on me. Three-minute rounds. He always won.The tension was unbelievable. It is so unnatural to be solely on the defensive. I was fully protected, never hurt, but I couldn't take it, I would always go down. He won by "knockout." It takes more discipline than I had to let someone punch himself out on you. One Fourth of July I let him and his friends shoot roman candles at me. They were on the second floor of an empty house next door, I was in the yard beneath wearing a mask and using the top of a trash can as a shield. Paintball. Paintball in the park near the house after dark. Mask, trash can shield, two pairs of jeans. He and his friend. Those things made welts on my legs even under two pairs of jeans.
China. Sometimes during the Cultural Revolution there was this weird collaboration of victim and thug. The violence was real, real as life and death, the trauma, physical and psychic, genuine. There was a man who casually locked the door to his house and casually went for a walk to the stadium where his struggle session was to occur, having to convince the Red Guards he should be allowed in. "You can't have a struggle session without me, can you?" Teacher Bian walked to her death at school, bathing beforehand so that her corpse would be clean. She was a "good communist," another stand-in for Democrat in America. There was an "anthropology" to the Cultural Revolution where the real was symbolic and where people played expected roles.
The post-Mao protests, continual protests. "Simmering cauldron?" Real people really get hurt by the People's Liberation Housing Evictors. But lady, why are you standing alone outfitted like me against the paintballs, facing a phalanx of PLHE outfitted like Baltimore's finest, ready to send you flying like tumbleweed?
Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, the (Black/Democratic) mayor of Baltimore, has come under sustained criticism for her handling of the riots. From whom? From everybody including me but leading the offensive has been Fox News. Is it politics all the way down? This thing was planned. Notices were circulated in advance. The leaders were adults, one a lawyer, some "New" Black Panthers lawyer or something like that, guy with the middle name "Zulu." Gag me with a spoon. The mayor should have had the police prepared, the riots should not have happened, the property destruction should not have occurred. But deaths did not occur; firearms, knives, the deadliest of deadly weapons were not used by the Democrats. What if "Zulu" said no guns, no knives, just rocks?
What if the mayor was prepared? What if this was her plan? She says no. She says she did not give the police orders to be tumbleweed. But there were rules of engagement here. This had to have been discussed. The boots on the ground would have been instructed by someone, the patent leathers at headquarters, the pumps in the mayor's office, their years of training, on how to react to this planned riot. What if the message, in whatever language was used, was still loud and clear:
1. No "police riot."
2. No lethal force unless absolutely, positively, you-have-no-choice, necessary.
Surely those were part of the rules of engagement.
3. No gratuitous, pro-active, offensive, inciting, police-citizen contact.
I can see that. The subtext, spoken or unspoken is "We don't want any more Freddie Grays, no more Eric Garners." The next step is a natural progression:
4. "Broken windows policing" is OUT.
Maybe spoken, maybe unspoken. Don't sweat the small stuff. No more Walter Scotts. The next step is just as natural, almost surely unspoken:
5. Let 'em break windows.
It's only property. No deaths for property crimes. Burn baby burn. A Democrats' riot.
