The Supposed Distinction Between Peaceful Protesters and Bomb Throwers

We have been repeatedly admonished to distinguish between peaceful protesters, on the one hand, and rioters and arsonists, on the other.  For many of those in the Defund movement, my guess is that that’s a fair and needed distinction.  But many isn’t everyone.  As we now hear from a leading voice on the Left, Nation magazine, violence and looting are not the mere occasional incident, or a few hotheads or opportunists taking advantage.  Violence is integral to achieving their aims.

The beans get spilled here:  In Defense of Destroying Property

Here are a few excerpts from the first part of the article, lest you think I’m exaggerating how explicit it is:

While [mainstream media] editorials call for peace, love, and the maintenance of order, there has, thus far, been minimal liberal pearl-clutching. There seems to be an understanding that too many lines have been crossed, too many innocent people murdered, too many communities over-policed and otherwise neglected to expect anyone to react “reasonably.”…

[W]hat if property destruction is more than an understandable lapse of judgment and loss of control? What if it is not a frustrated, emotional reaction but a reasonable and articulate expression in itself? The destruction is too widespread to attribute it to a few bad actors, and in some cases—such as the attacks on the CNN headquarter and the widespread vandalism of Confederate monuments—too precise and symbolically potent to be attributed solely to an opportunistic “criminal” element. The fantasy of outside agitators—a perennial feature of politicians’ responses to radical political action—is a means of presenting the real threat posed by mass actions as something foreign to the action itself.

There are a number of reasons the destruction of property should be taken seriously rather than treated as an unfortunate externality or the expression of regrettably unchecked passions. To begin with, pathologizing the act is tantamount to pathologizing the actor: Given the racial dimension of these protests, even apparently sympathetic explanations of theft and destruction risk of implying that people of color are reacting from feelings rather than carrying out reasoned, calculated acts with their own perfectly legitimate political logics. Attacking police stations, for example, makes rational sense. It is not the sudden, spontaneous expression of a disordered and irrational mob but the clear enactment of a political position, the fulfillment in some small but concrete way of the central demand being made by protesters across the country: Police need to be defunded, and some police stations need to disappear.

So they know what they’re doing.  Ladies and gentlemen, we had best know as well.