What should media be saying? Should they say that black-clad protesters threw rocks, frozen water bottles and paint at police? How about protesters set fires on the police station with people inside? Should they say that protesters beat someone senseless? Or that protesters ganged up on someone and threatened them? Or that protesters defaced statues or tore them down? Or that protesters broke windows and looted buildings? Or that protesters set up barricades and threw Molotov cocktails?
Dissenters, demonstrators and marchers don’t do these kinds of criminal things. Protesters wave signs and make speeches. They deliver petitions and proclamations.
I put it to you that reports such as this one from Portland, Oregon on last night’s rioting mislead everyone. “Protesters gathered Tuesday for the 83rd consecutive night of demonstrations…” Then it tells us
“The demonstration was peaceful for more than an hour, but demonstrators lit fires in dumpsters and broke windows. About an hour after arriving, small fires were seen inside the building beyond the broken windows.”
What ought to be said in many such cases is that antifa thugs set fires in a courthouse, that antifa criminals beat a man senseless, that antifa vandals burned police cars, that antifa jackals surrounded a helpless old woman and threatened her, that antifa criminals pelted police with missiles.
The so-called demonstrators come prepared to be violent. They have criminal intent. They come armed and ready to destroy and set ablaze. Peaceful people do not wear knapsacks filled with hard projectiles. They don’t come armed with shields or form battle lines.
And if it’s not possible to identify antifa as the umbrella organization or if legal reasons preclude this description or accusation, then there are other options. One can say “Criminals again pulled down a statue,” “Vandals set three police cars ablaze,” “Black bloc thugs launched concrete missiles against police, “Black-clad criminals again set fires to the courthouse,” etc.
At least move the rhetoric away from protesters and demonstrators to violent revolutionaries and to violent criminals. And there is good reason to change what’s being said. In the Portland case, police declared a riot: “About 10:30 p.m., police, who had not been seen previously, moved into the area and declared a riot…”
BLM vandals, when they are not looting stores, are disturbing the peace in residential neighborhoods: “Demonstrators about midnight began marching back to Colonel Summers Park through neighborhood streets, chanting along the way for residents to wake up, come out of their homes and join the protest. Chants also included ‘Black lives matter’ and ‘No Justice, No Peace,’ among others.”
This is not peaceful protest. Portland officials shouldn’t be allowing any of this to occur after sundown and in places where lawful assembly is out of the question, such as a neighborhood where most people are asleep. The invaders even declare “No Peace”. Instead, the County Chair attempted to appease the mob: “I acknowledge that there is grave injustice in our world and there is a violent and tragic history of oppression in our County…I am committed to transformational change.”
What BLM needs to be told is the opposite. “You do not represent Black people. Your agenda is not theirs. They don’t want what you’re peddling. They don’t want you driving business out of their communities. They don’t want your rioting and looting. You all are free now, and you’ve been free for a long, long time. Don’t blame us for your problems. Live with it. Suck it up. You’re not special. The well is running dry. There aren’t going to be reparations. Go ask your Hollywood supporters for their donations. Leave us alone. Go home before you lose the goodies you’ve already extracted.”
9:06 am on August 19, 2020
