Out in Hammonds, Oregon, white self-proclaimed militia members armed with automatic assault weapons have seized a Federal bird sanctuary building, and pretty much proclaimed they are in a state of insurrection against the authority of the government.
Who Wants A Burns Standoff? Not The Sheriff, The Ranchers, Or Even Cliven Bundy
The following link is to one of my favorite blogs, Balloon-Juice.com. The post linked to, Open Thread: “The Common Clay of the New West…” , is an excellent summary of reaction in social media such as Twitter, including the proliferation of Twitter hashtags lampooning and ridiculing the insurrectionists for the morons they obviously are. Some of them have posted tearful videos on YouTube with fond farewells as they go to their certain deaths; videos that will hopefully live for ever to haunt them the rest of their lives as people laugh at them. An example: Militiaman Jon Ritzheimer posts ‘goodbye’ video to family . The stoopid. It truly burns.
But this incident is more important existentially for this nation than many want to acknowledge. Sure, it is fun to make fun of these loons. But these loons have committed a clear series of felonies, they have threatened, in fact promised, armed insurrection, there is no way they do not qualify for charges under the various “anti-terror” laws that are so quickly brought into play in our nation now if a child melts a crayon in kindergarten, or a Black child waves a toy pistol without an orange plug in the barrel in the air. A Muslim couple in California commits an act of violence, and suddenly the need to ban all Muslims from the nation and complete the deconstruction of the Constitution and Rule of Law is all we hear from the political and pundit class of this wreck of a nation.
This is the point where the political and judicial infrastructure of this nation lose ALL credibility, if these armed insurrectionists are not removed, by force if necessary, tried, convicted, and thrown in prison for at least 10 years.
NOT doing this will send a very clear signal that the power structure of this nation CONDONES this sort of militant, anti-government, insurrectionist, and felonious action. Well, with the obvious caveat that it is OK as long as you are the right skin tone and merely exercising your God given White privilege.
If these people were Black, or MY $DEITY MUSLIM, the center they are holed up in would already have been carpet bombed as per future President Ted Cruz’ planned actions, and would be nothing but a smouldering, collapsed ruin.
I had to point out the obvious, that this is particularly the case when the the insurrectionists are good ol’ white boys, but that really just goes without even saying anymore. This was clearly demonstrated in the big shootout down in Waco, Texas in 2015. Nine people died in a shootout between White biker gangs, and 170 people were arrested.
Even CNN pulled its head out of the journalistic sands long enough to note the obvious.
Now there’s word that the biker gangs have issued repeated threats against the police in the aftermath of the Waco “melee” as The New York Times headline called it. During the uprisings in Baltimore, I saw a flurry of tweets about black people disrespecting property and throwing rocks at police. Now that these biker gangs have issued actual death threats, why am I not now seeing tons of Twitter posts about white people disrespecting the lives of police?
In the comments on one news website, someone — presumably sarcastically — wrote, “More white thuggery. When will whites take responsibility for their decaying culture?”
“Race literally has nothing to do with this situation,” another commenter replied. Exactly.
So why is it that in cases such as Michael Brown and Freddie Gray — and so many others — race is made central to the story, even in instances where the black and brown people involved are victims of police violence?
Research shows that implicit bias against black and brown people is real, as is white privilege. And studies show that white people greatly overestimate the share of crimes committed by black people. Is it any wonder, given the racialized nature with which we cover crime? According to one study, television stations covered crimes committed by black people in greater proportion than their actual share of criminal acts in the city.
On some level, the commenter is right: Race has nothing to do with crime. We know that people of all races commit crimes and are victims of crimes in America and the most sensible among us know such cause or effect has nothing to do with skin color. And yet our perceptions and attitudes about criminality have absolutely everything to do with race.
When one Muslim person even threatens violence in the United States, it’s treated as terrorism of crisis-like proportions. As we saw in the case of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray, even when black men are the victims of violence, the burden of proof is placed upon them and their families to show that they didn’t deserve it.
When was the last time you saw an incident of a white guy going on a shooting rampage produce calls for soul searching and recrimination on the part of the white male community? Maybe it should. But how can that happen when even after nine people are dead and 170 arrested in a shooting rampage by a criminal gang of bikers, we’d rather not mention that they are white?
When the American Indian Movement occupied Wounded Knee in 1973, the Federal government immediately sent US marshals, prepared tanks and planes, and in the ensuing violence two were killed 13 wounded.
Wounded Knee incident (Wikipedia)
Occupy Wounded Knee: A 71-Day Siege and a Forgotten Civil Rights Movement
But those dirty Redskins were shown who they were messing with.
And when a group of Black nationalists changed their surnames to Africa, and tried to assert their independence in 1985, here is what happened.
(2015) marks the 30th anniversary of a massive police operation in Philadelphia that culminated in the helicopter bombing of the headquarters of a radical group known as MOVE. The fire from the attack incinerated six adults and five children, and destroyed 65 homes. Despite two grand jury investigations and a commission finding that top officials were grossly negligent, no one from city government was criminally charged. MOVE was a Philadelphia-based radical movement dedicated to black liberation and a back-to-nature lifestyle. It was founded by John Africa, and all its members took on the surname Africa.
MOVE Bombing at 30: “Barbaric” 1985 Philadelphia Police Attack Killed 11 & Burned a Neighborhood
But then, they were all Black, so they clearly had it coming.
