Seen on social media, from a college friend who runs a successful public relations agency:
We are in a very bad place right now. It feels like much of what makes Chicago so great is slipping away, at least for awhile.
There are a lot of people I respect making statements on all sides of the issue. I am having a difficult time disagreeing with any of them. There is too much to comprehend right now.
I will just add this point-of-view. While the officer-involved shooting was the impetus for the vandalism and looting downtown, the people protesting the shooting are not the people conducting the vandalism and rioting. These are two different groups of people with different motivations. Social justice and criminal behavior live in different worlds. While it's easy to combine the two, it's a trap that emboldens criminals and hinders social justice.
Also, this is not an organized Antifa movement, because Antifa doesn't exist. Buying into the Antifa myth has really dire consequences for all of us.
Antifa doesn't exist? Seriously? And, more importantly, the idea that social justice and criminal behavior live in different worlds is even a larger delusion. We have seen it repeatedly; organizations that purport to fight for social justice are, in the main, rackets.
Of all the disheartening things I've seen or read in this year of unrelenting awfulness, these statements are the most disheartening. We're never going to get better if we celebrate lies.
2 comments:
Cognitive dissonance is powerful. For a normal liberal Democrat to accept the existence of a far-left Antifa and the criminality of at least some social justice organizations is not to overturn their cherished political beliefs, after all, any large movement or organizations is going to have some extremism and corruption; but what it does, I think, is undercut the moral certainty that has become endemic on the Left, "If my own side is actually capable of extremism and corruption, then I can't fairly tar the other side with Richard Spencer and white supremacists. I can't assume the worst about Trump just because Brian Stelter has suggested it. If my own side isn't synonymous with 'good' then I have to look more closely at what is actually being said and done in my name."
Trace it back, and we'll likely find that Antifa and the Boogaloo Bois are funded from the same source.
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