Fury — as if disembodied from any person — did what fury does. Smoke bombs, random sounds, and chaos came. On their own? Did no person engage in the throwing of bombs? Bullet sounds were around, randomly, not connected to human fingers pulling triggers, and even the guns were not mentioned. Chaos simply arrived. How could it not? It was predictable.
Predictable, not even predicted. Had there been prognosticators, they would have predicted the chaos, because it was predictable. But what was even more predictable was "the verdict everyone expected." Ah, finally! The sentence gets around to human beings: everyone.
Everyone expected? Well, then what was all that suspense-provoking blabber from talking heads on CNN as we waited for the press conference? Were they just lying to keep us from switching back to "Monday Night Football"?
But the NYT tells us that everyone expected the grand jury to decide there should be no prosecution of... oh, what was the police officer's name? I search the text. Late appears the name of the police officer, Darren Wilson. The name of the human being facing criminal prosecution and entitled to due process is tucked discreetly into the 16th paragraph of this New York Times article about the boiling of fury and the random noise-making of bullets.
There are a few other names amid the inanimate forces of chaos and random bullets before we encounter the name of the man everyone predicted would not be prosecuted. Here's Brien Redmon — in paragraph 2 — who "stood in the cold watching a burning police car and sporadic looting." He's the first human being we see acting. His action was watching. And — because it was predictable and because chaos had arrived — a police car burned, as if by spontaneous combustion, and looting occurred, as if merchandise might on its own pick up and walk out of the shops.
"The situation seemed to worsen as the night wore on, with fires and looting mostly limited to certain areas, but seemingly on the edge of spinning out of control."
It would be indelicate to mention any human beings committing crimes. Just call it "The situation." Does a situation have a mind with any ability to decide whether or not to act, or does it "spin" — on its own — right up to some metaphorical "edge" beyond which lies that place called "out of control"?
"But in Ferguson, the destruction that erupted in fits and starts after the announcement was part of a scene of seething anger, frustration and grief that ebbed and flowed all day before the announcement and after it."
Destruction erupted. You see my point. Anger seethed. I'm scrolling far into the article. Finally, we encounter human agency. It's a description of people outside the place where the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney, Robert P. McCulloch, is making his statement. The crowd is listening by radio:
During Mr. McCulloch’s announcement, Mr. Brown’s mother, Lesley McSpadden, and stepfather, Louis Head, stepped up onto a platform where protest leaders were standing.
“Defend himself from what!” Ms. McSpadden yelled, when Mr. McCulloch spoke of Officer Darren Wilson, the officer who shot Mr. Brown, defending himself. [ADDED: Note the misplacement of "defending himself."]
She bowed her head and tears started streaming down her cheeks.
“Everybody wants me to be calm,” she said, her eyes covered with sunglasses. “You know what them bullets did to my son!” “They still don’t care!” she yelled. “They never going to care!” Ms. McSpadden then sank her head into her husband’s chest and bounced as she wept vigorously.
Mr. Head then turned and began to yell.
“Burn this down!” he repeatedly shouted, inserting an expletive. [ADDED: Other news reports say the repeated phrase was "Burn this bitch down!"]
The crowd then began to roar. Some rushed toward the fence near where the police were lined up. Representatives for the family helped them down off the platform and ushered them away, through the crowd. Officers in riot helmets and shields came out. Soon came the smoke bombs, the random sounds of bullets, the chaos that was almost as predictable as the verdict everyone expected.
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122 comments:
None of the lackeys in the media have put the slightest energy into investigating and reporting on the organizers and organizing of the mob reaction to the verdict announcement. They've been in Ferguson for weeks, 'training' the 'activists', publishing lists of buildings to target, offering a reward for the capture of Officer Wilson, and generally instigating a lynch mob.
As Tom Wolfe noted in the 'Bonfire of the Vanities', street demonstrations are planned for and depend on the presence of MSM video crews. They're street theater for national distribution, and the more violence and wreckage the better.
Justice and rectitude are the last things on their mind.
The great Anthony Daniels has often commented about this... lack of agency? "Well Doctor, the knife went in..." etc. It's a feature of our modern society. Perhaps it's the flip side of "everybody gets a trophy"- nobody's responsible, everybody's great! .
Mobs baying for blood are so ... poetical. They call for lofty rhetoric, bloodless rhetoric. If what was actually happening were to be described, it would harm the narrative, and we all know the narrative is "the Force."
Try it with any Star Wars movie, substitute "the narrative" for "the Force."
"Trust the narrative Luke."
"May the narrative be with you."
@IS And the organizers will leave as the town goes to Hell. There will be no recovery for the people who live there and let themselves be used by people who don't give a damn.
I wonder what the breakdown would be between disgruntled locals and out-of-town professional agitators? It was pretty clear that Ferguson had become an asshole-magnet, sucking in disaffected sphincter-boys (and sphincter-girls, assholery being an equal opportunity affliction) from hundreds of miles around.
As for the decision, anyone who saw the video of Brown's strong-arm robbery in the convenience store already had a pretty good idea about what kind of young man he was. It didn't look like it was his first rodeo, although it did turn out to be his last roundup. It was pretty clear to me just from that video that this was someone who was eventually going to come to a bad end. If it hadn't been suicide-by-cop this time around, it might have happened later, or one of his peers might have busted a cap in his ass. He wasn't the type who was going to die in bed of old age.
“Burn this down!” he repeatedly shouted, inserting an expletive.
18 USCS § 2102, "As used in this chapter, the term “to incite a riot”, or “to organize, promote, encourage, participate in, or carry on a riot”, includes, but is not limited to, urging or instigating other persons to riot, but shall not be deemed to mean the mere oral or written (1) advocacy of ideas or (2) expression of belief, not involving advocacy of any act or acts of violence or assertion of the rightness of, or the right to commit, any such act or acts."
OK, that's an old gag, where you substitute "plot" for "Force." The power of the Jedi was that they knew the plot required certain things to work, they were characters who knew the plot.
The media are even more powerful, not only do they know the plot, but they can bend it to their will.
"The situation seemed to worsen as the night wore on...."
Perhaps we could find some reporters to look into the facts of the matter, rather than stopping with unseemly seeming. Perhaps real reporters would provide what measures, or at least what details, they could -- and explain why the facts support a particular conclusion in spite of knowledge gaps. I wish there was a de facto paper of record that would do that kind of reporting. Everyone's (inquiring) minds want to know!
They looted a Little Caesars and a McDonalds. Good luck with your bag of frozen pizza dough, and your box of Mc beef pucks.
I guess it is racist of me not to understand the righteous rage of these people. I was brought up to believe that, race aside, wrestling with a cop over his gun is not going to turn out well for somebody. Black, white or brown.
The only "bright star" in this sordid affair is the appearance of Michael Brown's father in what passes for a normal, intact family. Except for the fact that the grieving father and mother do not take responsibility for raising a son who is caught on tape robbing a local store, threatening the clerk who calls him on it, then walks down the middle of a street like he and his cohort are on parade. The same old grievances about past injustices ring hollow and have neutered their racial claims to victimhood. Once again, like the Watts riots, local torched businesses will move out leaving a graded lot empty of hope and opportunity. Michael Brown is no martyr to a lost cause.
Like to see a story about what's happened to the people who were arrested during the first round of rioting.
I'm sure they'll all be doing hard time.
Abandoning Reason in favor of Emotion, as a guiding force, has never ended well.
Self-created Black culture (assist, Progressivism) has duly ef'ed them all beyond the most fevered wet-dream of the most racist KKK member who ever lived.
Before everybody goes all in on blaming the evil GOP for the violence, it is worth noting that the DA, County Exec and Governor are all Dems.
Nice cleanup of the mother's language, Anne. Did you learn that from the NYT??? :)
"Except for the fact that the grieving father and mother do not take responsibility for raising a son who is caught on tape robbing a local store, threatening the clerk who calls him on it, then walks down the middle of a street like he and his cohort are on parade."
I'm cutting the parents slack on that--even if you do everything right as parents, when kids reach the teen years they are far more influenced by friends than their parents, and in any case they can take some bad turns no matter what you do. I haven't seen any indication that these particular parents did anything wrong in raising their son.
Brown made some major mistakes. Robbing the store indicates he's not very bright, and a violent jerk to boot. The police stop though appears to be due to him walking in the middle of the street, and from there is where the accounts differ, but the most likely scenario is he made some very poor decisions (advancing on a cop, not following orders, probably getting physical with the cop) that cost him his life.
Lesson to any kids out there, black or otherwise--you may get stopped by a cop at most a few times a year (depending on your lifestyle choices). Typical beat cop makes hundreds of stops, and they don't know if you're armed or dangerous. It is in your best interest to make it as clear as possible that you are not armed or dangerous.
"I'm so angry I could steal a TV"
King Barry said the folks's reactions are to be expected. He spend more of this speech talking about past and present injustice than calling for calm.
Obama was egging it on, in the "The police acted stupidly" tradition.
He wanted a crisis, and now he got one split screen, like every other Obama split screen of chaos and calls for calm, in everything Obama touches.
The black guy was in the wrong and that should have been Obama's story from the start.
The NYT is just the entertainment version.
Yahoo mail puts NYT offers in the spam folder automatically for a good reason.
So many potential comments.
“'Burn this down!' he repeatedly shouted, inserting an expletive."
Just finished watching the Brown's lawyer on GMA mouthing that despite their loss, the Brown's (or however many last names they sport) have always called for peace.
Of course the NYT cannot mention human agency. To do so would be to acknowledge race, and we cannot have that. It's the embodiment of Althouse's earlier pot-stirring question. If it's racist to expect rioting, it's doubly so to mention the racial motivation of the rioters once they riot.
All is proceeding according to the great liberal Narrative. Facts don't matter. Passively saying "violence erupted" and "bullets flew" is a way of excusing people for their behavior. Burning down your own neighborhood and looting stores isn't going to make things better (see: Detroit). It's even worse when people burn down other peoples' neighborhood. How many of the protesters are actually from Ferguson?
I heard TV news folk say over and over that Michael Brown's family has requested nonviolence, but the video of the mother and the step-father show them directly inciting violence.
I guess it is racist of me not to understand the righteous rage of these people. I was brought up to believe that, race aside, wrestling with a cop over his gun is not going to turn out well for somebody. Black, white or brown.
Had that part of the story been the lead story from the minute the shooting happened, Ferguson never would have become the symbol it has become.
It's interesting the neighborhood had people right there, on the spot, to start the "His hands were up" story going while people gathered in the street to figure out what had happened.
Of all the witnesses they'd been interviewing on CNN, etc, none of them described the confrontation in the car. Except for his friend, who had his own issues.
Professor, what, exactly was so objectionable about my earlier comment, so that it had to be censored? Interesting criteria, I am sure. Sorry if I touched a sore subject.
Live here in Missouri I get a slightly more up close view is the media. National ABC is touting the violence and the thwarted quest for "justice." Kansas City ABC focused more on the locals surveying the destruction and dealing with the fact that as a result they have no job nor income as Thanksgiving and the holidays are upon them.
You may choose which is more worthy of your sympathy.
"Everyone expected? Well, then what was all that suspense-provoking blabber from talking heads on CNN as we waited for the press conference?"
It's called "lying."
"Were they just lying to keep us from switching back to 'Monday Night Football'?"
Yes.
Most of us expected this verdict. It was, in a basic sense, very predictable.
"Of the media" not "is"
Great Job, Ann Althouse. You may be the only one in America who does not need the Common Core literacy standards.
"You may choose which is more worthy of your sympathy."
Are you saying destroying the livelihoods of people completely uninvolved in what happened is not justice?
Race riots in Democrat Party led Southern States.
Some things never change.
Kenneth Burke would categorize it as a scene-act ratio. (Grammar of motives)
Or a pathetic fallacy.
Wiki summarizes.
A good book for Althouse, if she likes this kind of rhetorical analysis.
How many Catholic churches "spontaneously" burned down when the pedophile priest scandal broke? How many neighborhoods around those churches? There are ways to seek justice and there are ways to seek destruction. I would almost say you can't have both.
It could have gotten a lot worse.
Besides the "outside agitators," etc., the news media, the governor, and the DoJ have been trying to gin up a really big mess for weeks.
Just wondering whether "inciting to riot" is a chargeable offense in Missouri, and if so, whether Mr. Head's "
Burn this bitch down" will be considered so, and if he will be charged.
Any bets?
Ann Althouse said...
I heard TV news folk say over and over that Michael Brown's family has requested nonviolence, but the video of the mother and the step-father show them directly inciting violence.
Unsurprisingly, a perfect parallel to much of the reporting on this matter from day one. Continuing to spin "the narrative" as opposed to the facts. Why spin it this way?
1. SJW.
2. Ratings.
3. Democrat Politics (war on blacks, war on women).
Meanwhile, they've turned Ferguson into 1960's Newark or Watts and the many innocent people living there will suffer, maybe never recover. How do you market your Ferguson house for sale if you want to move out now?
And, love the way you "read" stuff.
THIS is exactly what Obama and Holder have been hoping for. They stoked the flame, and then blame the innocent Police officer that was doing his job. Our government is now turning to thuggery to trump up racial discord, to further divide us. Wonder if Obama will make a stop there today on his way to or from Chicago to throw some more flames on the fire???
Predictable, not even predicted. Had there been prognosticators, they would have predicted the chaos, because it was predictable.
What the fuck do you expect, after labeling such predictions as impermissibly racist?
Talk about the submergence of human agency...
Saw this on a site"
The Justice for Michael Brown Leadership Coalition is organising the 'No Justice, No Profit' boycott campaign on Thanksgiving Day (27 November), through to Sunday.
I'm sure most businesses would prefer this rather than being burned to the ground. Compromise.
The Obama Riot. He owns it after he gave the rioters a pep talk, doesn't he? Every Dollar of damage, every injury and death should be part of his prison sentence.
Why don't people move out of Ferguson? I would.
I am sure the looting and violence will be much less this morning and afternoon because people have to go to work.
The passive voice was used.
@Ann,
per the random sounds of bullets, it is remotely possible that any police cars on fire might have had an extra box of ammunition in them.
When surrounded by fire, the ammunition might "cook off", giving a distinctive gunfire-like sound as the gunpowder explodes.*
It's possible that this would lead to gunfire-like sounds disconnected from a finger on a trigger.
Still human-caused, in the sense that the actions of at least one human led to the fire.
Anyway, if the police-car-on-fire preceded the gunfire-like-sounds...AND if neither Police nor Protestors were seen aiming and shooting, THEN this might have been the cause of those sounds.
--------------------------------
*Since the ammunition is in a box, and not in a firing chamber attached to a gun barrel, the bullet isn't accelerated to deadly speeds as the gunpowder explodes.
There is a video about ammunition and fires.
It's a long video, intended to give firefighters and safety experts usable information about the subject.
MadisonMan,
Works for a renter. But as someone up thread implied, who would buy your house now?
But perhaps you were just being facetious.
From Mark Levin's Facebook page:
"Ferguson burns and violence has been unleashed thanks to the reckless liberal media, the lawless administration (especially Eric Holder) exploiting the shooting to smear police departments across the nation, phony civil rights demagogues, race-baiting politicians, and radical hate groups.
The lies about why and how Officer Darrin Wilson shot Michael Brown started on day one and never ended. The indisputable facts are that Brown was shot because he assaulted a police officer, attempted to take the officer's pistol resulting in two close range gun shots in the police cruiser, and then turned around and charged the officer as he was being pursued. The entire event was precipitated by Brown earlier stealing cigars from a local store and assaulting the owner.
What we are witnessing now is the left's war on the civil society. It's time to speak out in defense of law enforcement and others trying to protect the community and uphold the rule law."
Amen, brother.
"Predictably," 9 of the 61 arrested were from Ferguson.
Excellent analysis, Ann, of the reporting of actions spontaneously taking on a life of their own.
The MSM does a lot of redirecting these days. So much, it becomes inhuman, unless someone is giving or taking credit.
Still looking for the perfect word to describe this.
Predictable, not even predicted. Had there been prognosticators, they would have predicted the chaos, because it was predictable.
What the fuck do you []Ann] expect, after labeling such predictions as "impermissibly racist?"
Exactly.
Matthew 7:16-17
"You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit."
I heard TV news folk say over and over that Michael Brown's family has requested nonviolence, but the video of the mother and the step-father show them directly inciting violence.
Earth to Althouse: YOU ARE BEING LIED TO
who would buy your house now?
At some point, you have to cut your losses. When you're in a hole, stop digging, etc.
According to this site, sale prices of houses have been declining in Ferguson for a while (and only 1 new building built in the past 3 years!) I was trying to find out how many people owned vs. rented, but if it's at that site, I didn't see it.
Many people with even a lower middle-class income have options about where to live. I have learned one lesson. When reporters look for agitators in your neighborhood they will find them because the selfish, attention-hog agitators are migratory. If I see news crews looking for trouble I am going to move. I have options and I have a duty to protect my family, some of whom don't have the strength and skills to take care of themselves. Thanks for the lesson, reporters.
The Erinyes, or Furies, were female chthonic deities of vengeance; they were sometimes referred to as "infernal goddesses"
Were I inclined to credit the NYT with literary acumen I might think they were making a point with that word selection...but it's more likely they weren't intentionally doing so.
Dispassionate analysis I should like to think would include two essential facts driving discord:
1. American cops are bloodthirstily violent compared to the rest of the world considered democracies as is America (spare me the constitutional republic talk I am being less precise precisely to accurately include as many countries as possible to show you, the supporters of the bloodthirsty, just how out of whack with the world America LEO kill records are). See Mark Steyn This is a link putting some facts to youse.
2. Mike Brown might very well have deserved getting shot.
What happened to tasers? Pepper spray from a partner you patrol with to help prevent resorting, presumably lastly, to gunfire? Shotgun with non-lethal rounds? Noise weapons that cause temporary pain debilitating the recipient? K-9 units ready to eliminate threats like Mike Brown supposedly posed? Tae Kwon Doe? Cameras on all cops to protect the LEO from unfair lies?
It's just so sad. If only Brown were still alive ... just imagine how much he could have stolen last night.
I am slowly being forced to reach a conclusion that I really find quite distasteful, but the slowly building evidence doesn't seem to point in any other direction.
The "authorities" and the press wanted to provoke a race riot in Ferguson, MO.
Pretty nasty, isn't it? I find it difficult to believe, and yet....
There was a very low probability that any grand jury would indict Darren Wilson for killing Michael Brown. Police officers are almost always given the benefit of doubt, unless the circumstances are so egregious that they are forced to charge him. The evidence released even before today was pretty damning to the "gentle giant" depiction of Brown, or any sort of "crazed racist killer cop" caricaturization of Wilson.
The rising tensions and disquiet over the past MONTH have been carefully fanned into a tinderbox, and the Governor and the President's "Brer Fox"-ish "Don't go burning down this town!" rhetoric has now exploded into arson and riot.
And what on Earth were they thinking?!? They carefully released the results at 8:30 PM, at NIGHT, in the DARK. Why didn't they announce it at 8:30 AM? That's practically an open invitation to looting, and surprise, surprise, they got it.
I know I'm paranoid; it worries me that I might not be paranoid ENOUGH.
I am too disgusted with the "rioting" to make any other comment than that I thought that the St. Louis County prosecutor made an excellent presentation and that if, and when, someone carefully examines the evidence put before them it will be clear why the grand jury did not indict.
"Burn this bitch down"
This list of businesses burned and looted in Ferguson is up at Weasel zippers
Looted / Burned
————————————
St.Louis Fish & Chicken Grill
Family Dollar
Dollar Tree
O’Reilly’s Auto Parts
Beauty Mart
A.J. & R. Pawn Shop
Walgreens
FedEx
Cakes and More [Natalie DuBose’s store]
JC Wireless
AT&T
STL Bread Company
Conoco
Auto Buy Credit
Phillips 66
McDonald’s
Red’s Barbecue
Taco Bell
CVS
Beauty Town
Little Caesar’s
Ferguson Liquor
Public Storage
Sam’s Meat Market
Medicine Shop
Commerce Bank
Auto Zone
Toys R Us
Amoco
Quiznos
Dellwood Market
Chop Suey restaurant
TitleMax
Antonio French’s Heal Stl Community Center
So the boycott won't be needed.
All of these victims, lacking free will and agency, are moving towards a telos collectively, activating and awakening from their perviously ignorant state. 'The people' in Ferguson are expressing a general will, justified by the pain of the racism inherent in the system, made stronger by universalizing globally. After all, the arc of history bends towards justice, and we can all bear witness to 'history.'
Make your bullhorn heard 'round the world.
This is how history happens; and your history is no better than mine. CNN is about to watch and make history.
It doesn't matter if it's Earth Justice, or Global Peace and Justice, or Women's or Animal or Human or Civil Rights, If we all share in the 'right feelings,' and remain secure in our 'right knowledge' of history then the world will finally progress.
***And if you still have doubts, the President is sheparding these movements forward, so what more moral legitimacy do you need?
THE PRESIDENT. This is it. History's here.
I have been doing some research into crime and race recently, something that is actually hard to do. The government sorts its crime data in almost every way except for race of victim and race of criminal. (I wonder why that is?)
It appears that while Black kids have a much higher chance of being shot by a cop, they also commit violent crimes at much higher rates. These rates are very similar. It is also true that Black kids have a much higher chance of being killed by another Black kid than a cop.
It also appears that Black men sexually assault or rape White women at an appalling rate. (I've seen 100 White women a day sexually assaulted by Black men thrown around) It also appears that White men sexually assault Black women so rarely it cannot be measured.
Would someone who is better at massaging tables of information go to the Dept. of Justice web site and double check these numbers?
Fury hath a spiritual leader: der Furor.
@Gahrie You can use NYC crime stats (here) as a proxy for national rates. They are kept by race and ethnicity which will give you some of the data you are looking for.
I've lived through riots. On the bright side, this time there was no loss of life and comparatively little property damage. It could have been worse......Even the liberal media blamed the rioters. Usually their narrative is that peaceful demonstrators were peacefully demonstrating when they were whipped into a rage by police wearing riot gear.....The McDonald's where such a big deal was made of the fact that the reporter got arrested was burned down. Not such a big deal has been made about this act of arson. No sympathetic interviews with the employees who have lost their jobs like there was with the reporter who was detained for a few hours. Proportion. It's important to keep these things in proportion........The mother has at least be incident of criminal behavior in her recent past. The media tactfully never mentions it. I think if they investigated the pasts of the members of this family with the assiduity that they investigated Darren Wilson they would find lots of pathology, but, of course, that would be blaming the victim.
I don't understand why the authorities don't arrest or shoot people who are burning down buildings and looting. I was listening to a reporter on a St. Louis radio station describe watching a looter repeatedly bashing against the window and door of a chop suey restaurant to try to get inside (it was eventually burned down), while the police stood in a group in a parking lot and watched and did nothing.
It seems that if you are a business owner or a non-black person in these situations you are on your own. The authorities are simply abdicating their duty and turning the city over to the black thugs to do as they please.
The implication is that blacks can't be expected to behave in a civilized manner, and you have to let them have their tantrum and get it out of their system.
I bet if it was a mob of whites doing the looting and burning that a white police force would move in and use whatever force necessary to stop them.
How can white people be expected to share a country with black people, who move into their neighborhoods, make them unsafe, and then riot when the police take action to stop them committing crimes? The obvious lesson to whites is to get as far away from blacks as you can.
The only way to deal with rioters is swift and overwhelming force. Riots generally get out of hand when the police are nowhere to be seen, perhaps because the riot was unexpected. Then the lawlessness spreads, and opportunists see a chance to smash a window and steal something.
When this starts, get the police on the streets immediately, start arresting the troublemakers and tell everyone else to get home. They usually will if they're on the fence--and the worst agitators being in jail helps.
As for store owners, band together and guard your blocks with guns. A few dead looters won't be missed by society. I'm sure they weren't on the cusp of going to med school or something like that.
I just watched the video from a cell phone of the looting in Ferguson, including some running as the phone is grabbed by a "protester". Near as I can tell the rioters were expressing their discontent in exactly the same manner as the slain thief they are allegedly honoring. There is no feeling of anger, of politics of anything except getting loot, We can infer from this the rioters do not think of the place as their community, where they live. This is a challenge for all American citizens. Tens of millions of immigrants have and are continuing to walk over the prone lives of these descendants of slaves. In my lifetime I would estimate about a quarter of black Americans have made it into America. We have to take up the challenge and bring the rest home unless we wish them to remain on the dole like the Roman mob which only disappeared when Rome died in the 7th century A.D. hsving been turned into a malarial swamp by invading "barbarians" who broke the aqueducts which Roman could no longer repair. They had forgotten how to make cement which their ancestors had invented.
It is sort of a new Currier and Ives image of happy Americans Christmas shopping into the night at early sales store by store.
And it warms our hearts to see they got their merchandise out through the windows not a minute too soon... just before it would have burned up anyway.
Wonder how many needed prescriptions were in the CVS that went up in flames?
Great "community" you have there.
On the other hand this reminds me of the terror whites inflicted on their own communities after the OJ verdict was announced. Tit for tat.
“They still don’t care!” she yelled. “They never going to care!” Ms. McSpadden then sank her head into her husband’s chest and bounced as she wept vigorously.
They is in the mirror.
Where was the National Guard that was called out to protect businesses?
CNN has basically no coverage of last night's carnage. After watching for an hour I don't know how many buildings were burned, how many arrests were made, whether any police were injured, etc. Like it never happened.
What was the governor thinking. Use the national guard to surround all the buildings. Make it clear that anyone violent will be arrested and anyone getting in the way of an arrest will be arrested. Under cover of darkness of course it is much more difficult.
I'm tired of the so-called experts saying there was sufficient evidence to get a finding of probable cause and it the role of the prosecutor to only present the evidence to the GJ supporting an indictment and ignore the rest. The prosecutor can only bring a case if he or she believes that he can prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
What if a prosecutor were to write a letter to a defense lawyer and say “I firmly believe that I do not have sufficient evidence to convince a jury of your client’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, but since I believe there is probable cause that your client committed the crime, I will see you in court”? That would go over well in the minority community.
" Why didn't they announce it at 8:30 AM? That's practically an open invitation to looting, and surprise, surprise, they got it."
The fires show better on TV at night.
"I was trying to find out how many people owned vs. rented, but if it's at that site, I didn't see it."
The homeowners are mostly white and have been there since it was a white majority town. Somebody wrote that a third of the houses are black owned but most of the blacks are renters and can move away.
The looters were probably mostly nonresidents.
The cops have learned that there is nothing to be gained by fighting black rioters (Are there any other kind except communists and anarchist ?).
The LAPD was savaged after the LA riots in 1992.
I expect Holder's DoJ is trying to find anything to try Wilson on "Civil Rights" grounds today.
The only people who fought rioters in LA were Korean storeowners who got rifles and stationed themselves on the roof tops of their stores. Many of them were successful.
"What was the governor thinking."
He's a Democrat. You are assuming facts not in evidence.
If you have some spare change, there are bargains in Ferguson Real Estate today....Just say'n.
A message to the mother:
You are right about one thing. I just don't care. If you go around robbing and beating people, and then attack the cops when they find you walking down the street and prepare to arrest you, I DON'T CARE IF THEY GUN YOU DOWN. PERIOD.
And lady, YOU killed your son. As sure as if you shot him yourself. Had you made better choices while raising him, he would be alive today. Is that why you are so angry and so determined to find someone else to blame?
The "authorities" and the press wanted to provoke a race riot in Ferguson, MO.
It would be hard to do a better job of it, wouldn't it? And I am no conspiracy theorist.
Race riots in Democrat Party led Southern States.
I don't generally consider missouri to be the south, but that's probably an argument for another thread...
Althouse: "I heard TV news folk say over and over that Michael Brown's family has requested nonviolence, but the video of the mother and the step-father show them directly inciting violence."
Your unwillingness to disregard the truth in favor of the settled leftist narrative bodes ill for you regarding your future status as a accepted academic.
I would recommend strongly that you reconsider your stance before the first of several, and it's inevitable, complaints about you are lodged with the local political officer...er.. Diversity Office.
Michael K: "The looters were probably mostly nonresidents."
The numbers I saw this morning were that 9 of the 61 (or so) arrests were locals.
The rest were the crack types bussed in for the festivities.
Shanna: "I don't generally consider missouri to be the south, but that's probably an argument for another thread.."
The left is not geographically constrained when building/promulgating the meme de jour.
"It would be hard to do a better job of it, wouldn't it? And I am no conspiracy theorist."
Never ascribe to ill intent what is better explained by incompetence. I don't see any way riots help Obama here, particularly as he was dumb enough to comment on it and get his DOJ involved.
"I don't generally consider missouri to be the south, but that's probably an argument for another thread..."
I've heard Missouri described as a half Southern, half Midwestern state, though I suppose it depends where you come from. When I lived in VA, I remember a South Carolinian pointing out that they didn't consider Virginians "southerners" down in S.C. I noted that apparently Virginians were southern enough to carry more than their weight during the Civil War.
Then there's that word "Yankee". Depending on who is using the term, it can mean: (1) any American; (2) Any American not from the South; (3) any American specifically from New England; or (4) a member of a baseball team that is detested in New England.
I don't generally consider missouri to be the south, but that's probably an argument for another thread..."
If they're in the SEC that's good enough for me.
[Arkansas had better take care of business.]
This list of businesses burned and looted in Ferguson is up at Weasel zippers
Looted / Burned
————————————
St.Louis Fish & Chicken Grill,Family Dollar,Dollar Tree,O’Reilly’s Auto Parts,Beauty Mart,A.J. & R. Pawn Shop
Walgreens,FedEx
Cakes and More [Natalie DuBose’s store],JC Wireless,AT&T,STL Bread Company,Conoco,Auto Buy Credit,Phillips 66,McDonald’s
Red’s Barbecue,Taco Bell,CVS
Beauty Town,Little Caesar’s,Ferguson Liquor,Public Storage,Sam’s Meat Market,Medicine Shop,Commerce Bank,
Auto Zone,Toys R Us,Amoco,Quiznos,
Dellwood Market,Chop Suey restaurant
TitleMax,Antonio French’s Heal Stl Community Center
Hummm. No bookstore? Maybe they didn't know where it was.
" Why didn't they announce it at 8:30 AM? That's practically an open invitation to looting, and surprise, surprise, they got it."
Announcing ahead of time that the announcement would come at 9pm (giving crowds plenty of time to gather) seems like a bad mistake. I think the generous guess as to why at night and not in the morning is that since it was a workday you'd risk having a crowd build up during the day and block roads, etc. That would trap people either on the road or in their offices--I'm not certain but school may also have been in session, and you'd want to make sure all the kids were home before anything was announced.
Anne, a true classic! You have described the flight from responsibility, triumph of the passive voice, that comes with the cult of victimhood.
So, we must railroad people to appease black folks?
The last few years has done more to kill off white guilt than anything I could have possibly imagined.
I'm glad Obama moved us past race. Really. Totally am.
I heard TV news folk say over and over that Michael Brown's family has requested nonviolence, but the video of the mother and the step-father show them directly inciting violence.
Because narrative always trumps facts in the black community.
How many are STILL convinced Trayvon was gunned down because he had a bag of Skittles or some such nonsense?
The father of the DA was murdered by a black man. We can assume from this that there is a possibility that he is prejudiced against black people and that he should therefore recuse himself from the case, or so the activists say. On that same basis shouldn't the family of Michael Brown recuse themselves from commenting on his case.
"It was as if the press in America, for all its vaunted independence, were a great colonial animal, an animal made up of countless clustered organisms responding to a single nervous system. In the late 1950s (as in the late 1970s) the animal seemed determined that in all matters of national importance the proper emotion, the seemly sentiment, the fitting moral tone should be established and should prevail; and all information that muddied the tone and weakened the feeling should simply be thrown down the memory hole." -- Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff
"The father of the DA was murdered by a black man. We can assume from this that there is a possibility that he is prejudiced against black people and that he should therefore recuse himself from the case, or so the activists say. On that same basis shouldn't the family of Michael Brown recuse themselves from commenting on his case."
Um, no. Anyone can comment, and especially those most affected will comment more. Commenting on the case is very different than playing an official and crucial role in the outcome of the case.
“Everybody wants me to be calm,” she said, her eyes covered with sunglasses. “You know what them bullets did to my son!” “They still don’t care!” she yelled. “They never going to care!”
You know? Oddly enough, she's right. One less thug.
- Krumhorn
Sad. Where are the black leaders telling their community what they are doing to their own position? How will the rest of us react when someone talks about the racism in our society? Is it racism to feel that this is pathetic?
I wonder what the breakdown would be between disgruntled locals and out-of-town professional agitators?
According to a St. Louis tv station, of the 61 arrests, "59 are residents of St. Louis or the greater St. Louis area". Ferguson is in St. Louis county.
I would be interested to know what percentage of the looted and burned businesses were black-owned.
Were it my business into which I had put my life's work and entire net worth, I would have been on the roof with a number of weapons and crates of ammunition. There would have been bodies piled in the entrance to the store, and I wouldn't have wept for any of them.
Of course, I'd have first wanted to know MO law on the use of lethal force in defense of property.
- Krumhorn
"Of course, I'd have first wanted to know MO law on the use of lethal force in defense of property."
No need--just put up a sign saying "empty store" and fire away if they come near. Then you can say they obviously wanted to do you physical harm because they were informed you had nothing there to steal.
NOTE--THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE
jono39,
"We have to take up the challenge and bring the rest home unless we wish them to remain on the dole"
They have to want to be part of our society. I don't think that they do.
I don't understand why the authorities don't arrest or shoot people who are burning down buildings and looting. I was listening to a reporter on a St. Louis radio station describe watching a looter repeatedly bashing against the window and door of a chop suey restaurant to try to get inside (it was eventually burned down), while the police stood in a group in a parking lot and watched and did nothing.
It was only a couple of weeks ago when the "community" issued Rules of Engagement as part of an effort to make preparations for the grand jury decision.
The police were expected to "wear only the attire minimally required for their safety" and not use "crowd control equipment such as armored vehicles, rubber bullets, rifles and tear gas".
In other words...stand down.
Nothing like a free flat screen tv to assuage the outrage. Reparations?
- Krumhorn
It does make sense, if you were war gaming the announcement, to do it when there were few innocent people around to be harmed. When decent people where at home watching Monday Night Football, etc.
Who knows what might have happened to commuters trapped in traffic jams? I don't.
tim in vermont said...
It does make sense, if you were war gaming the announcement, to do it when there were few innocent people around to be harmed. When decent people where at home watching Monday Night Football, etc.
Who knows what might have happened to commuters trapped in traffic jams? I don't.
11/25/14, 2:59 PM
Then why did they not wait until oh say 3:00AM? Good and late and good and cold...
This is why anyone who can afford to, black or white, is willing to pay a premium to live as far away as possible from large concentrations of poor blacks.
St.Louis and most parts of Missouri have always been part of the South. Think Ozarks, Ma and Pa Kettle. It was not Confederate because it was already under federal occupation before the war, due to the guerrilla war between abolitionists and slave holders there.
BTW, a Yankee is also someone not from Texas. I was once referred to as a Yankee in Texas, and I'm from Alabama. Ironically, the Alabama Indian reservation is located in Texas.
Missouri and FEMA should fence off the streets, send the arrested outside agitators to the joint, assist the burned out small businesses to relocate and let the local rioters and their facilitators live in the wreckage.
Not punishment, just consequences.
ken in TX: "BTW, a Yankee is also someone not from Texas. I was once referred to as a Yankee in Texas, and I'm from Alabama. Ironically, the Alabama Indian reservation is located in Texas."
My "yankee" story is sort of like that.
Had just relocated to Houston and was asked "where the hell you from boy, Michigan or some gawd awful place like that?"
I informed the very large boot/hat wearing gentleman that I was actually from California.
His reply: "Oh Lord! A Western Yankee!"
wendybar said Wonder if Obama will make a stop there today on his way to or from Chicago to throw some more flames on the fire??? Did you mean 'more fuel on the fire"?
"The "authorities" and the press wanted to provoke a race riot in Ferguson, MO."
I don't know about that, but "Who profits? Looks like a good question.
The media. The race hustlers, including the President and his party. The looters. The communists and other professional agitators, to name a few.
Let me just take a moment to thank all the non-Missourians for their various geography lessons.
Amazing. Just like the LA riots, the "protestors" burn their own community down. They never go after the rich white community which they know is guarded like Fort Knox. They don't have the balls.
Has Crack arrived in Ferguson yet?
Alex,
100% correct. I don't know about the lack of balls but that has been the nature of riots perhaps since civilisation began. Like the earlier commenter who quoted the report that the police watched instead of arrested a looter, the police's role is to contain a riot, not quell it. They only get serious if it starts moving close to the "nice" part of town.
So revenant and drago, I think you're wrong. The police do protect property, it's just not yours,
The father of the DA was murdered by a black man. We can assume from this that there is a possibility that he is prejudiced against black peopl
The D.A. was part of Candidate Obama's Missouri"Truth Team" in 2008. Deputized to bring criminal,charges against those making pinnocchio claims against Obama.
CWJ - of course the "protesters" would riot & burn down the "nice" part of town if they could. It's a logistics issue, how do they get the transportation to do it? They need supply lines. Gotta think in terms of war tactics.
Alex,
That's true. What they need Is a good Military Staff College.
"Burn this bitch down"
This list of businesses burned and looted in Ferguson is up at Weasel zippers
Looted / Burned
This should help put a face to one of the black business owners whose shop was on the list. She seems like a lovely, hard-working lady who deserves all the support and protection she can get. Unfortunately, the authorities are just not committed to keeping outrages like this from happening.
It's what we can expect when race hustlers and lefties infect our social organisms.
- Krumhorn
It's like you never read Heinlein:
Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as “bad luck.”
The results of liberal actions are never the results of liberal actions. Merely "bad luck" and it was "bad luck" that caused all the bad things in Ferguson
I assume Eric Holder will file civil rights charges against the racist rioters who burned down innocent business owners means of living?
Kind of lame to write, "the random sounds of bullets," as the sounds a bullet makes are a whoosh few would hear as it passes through the air and then the sound of it colliding with whatever it meets. It is the powder that makes the cracking sound that may be heard from afar obviously. Perhaps "gunfire" implies too strongly human action, so the editor went with a phrase a seventh-grader doing stilted dramatic writing might deploy.
@Gahrie,
that's odd.
I've perused the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports a couple of times. The only ones with easy access to "race" data are the Hate Crime section of those reports.
Pertinent to the Officer Wilson/Michael Brown event, there is a compilation of reports titled Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted.
I just wish I could get Bill Cosby's take on all this.
This is known as “bad luck.”
...or "Sacramento".
"Has Crack arrived in Ferguson yet?"
I took it as a given that Crack is actually a white teenager from the suburbs who adopted a frankly offensive angry black persona for his online trolling. Does anybody really think Crack is actually an angry black man?
JamesB.BKK said...
Kind of lame to write, "the random sounds of bullets," as the sounds a bullet makes are a whoosh few would hear as it passes through the air and then the sound of it colliding with whatever it meets. It is the powder that makes the cracking sound that may be heard from afar obviously. Perhaps "gunfire" implies too strongly human action, so the editor went with a phrase a seventh-grader doing stilted dramatic writing might deploy.
11/25/14, 6:31 PM
Actually, I believe that the reporter is technically correct (though I double that he or she knows why). The sound you hear is a mix of a) the sound of the escaping gas as it rapidly expands (called a impulse sound wave) and b) the bullet breaking the sound barrier as it exits the muzzle of the firearm.
Most bullets travel faster than the speed of sound and as a result, that it typically what you are hearing, the crack of the sound barrier breaking. With sub-sonic bullets (bullets that specifically travel at less than the speed of sound), it is the reverse. The loudest component of the report is the impulse sound wave caused by the expanding gas.
A silenced firearm is actually not whisper quiet as shown in the movies. They can be very quiet and can be easily mistaken for other than a gun shot. Silencers are used with sub-sonic rounds to make the shot as quiet as possible. This is because the silencer cools the gas before it exits the silencer, reducing the pressure of the impulse sound wave. They are also used with normal rounds as a way to mask the source of the gun fire but as the round is traveling faster than sound, they do nothing to dampen the sonic crack.
*** The more you know ***
Bill did.
Bill did.
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