Entering Week 2 of British race riots.

Well, that's what it is, eh. The polite term is "ethnic conflict", a phrase which British meeja politicans (except for Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson) have difficulty uttering. To them, uncontrolled mass immigration is something to be celebrated, a core value of all correct-thinking Britons, not to be politicized, challenged, or even discussed. 

It must be accepted, without question. But now the common people of Not-so-great Britain have started to do more than ask questions. They have roused from their slumber and started to act to make their objections not just heard but seen. 

This all started, you may remember, with the killing of three innocent little white girls by a yoof whom the police and meeja refused to identify, except to say that he was English, born in Wales. (That would make him Welsh, of course, but never mind.) When the truth finally emerged -- see "'Allahu akbar!' in Southport, England" (WWW 29/7-1/8/2024) -- the stabber turned out to be, errr, black -- the "emotionally disturbed" child of immigrants from Rwanda. 

Meet Axel Rudakubana, portrayed in the lickspittle media as "just a kid", as in the schoolboy photo shown at left, not the grinning golliwog pictured at right. Even before the recent photo appeared, when the accused's name was revealed after a judge's order, people began to ask (as they now do every time somethingn like this happens), "How did he get into this country?!"

The answer of course is the political choice of successive British governments, both liberal-socialist (Labour) and Cuckservative, to put out the welcome mat for the wretched flotsam and jetsam washing up on Britain's shores, without regard to their suitability or willingness to join British society. 

British politicians are not alone in this, of course. The borders are being opened in Canada (and how!), Germany, France, the Excited States of America, and every country apart from Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, and Australia. It's all part of the Soros-backed One-Worlders' Great Replacement strategy.

The pinko globalists who dominate British media and politics intend to transform Once-great Britain into a specifically multi-ethnic -- rather than multiracial -- society. Ethnic identities, of which being British was framed as one among many, are to be embraced, within the parameters of the newly multicultural state and immigration restrictions lifted to achieve this goal.

Of this multicultural bullshit, patriotriotic Britons, proud of their race and culture, have had enough! Clashes between white Englishmen, on one side, and Muslims, gypsies, Africans and the police (!) on the other have broken out in cities across the "Sceptered Isle", and showed no signs of abating over the weekend.

In Rotherham, a hotel used to house asylum seekers was set ablaze, and another in Tamworth was targeted by anti-immigration protesters. In Bolton, Muslim groups shouting "Allahu Akbar!" clashed with people who Sir Keir Stürmer, Britain's new leftist Prime Minister called "far-Right rioters". 

Sir Keir didn't call them "racists", but nowadays it's understood by all correct-thinking, progressive people that "far right" and "racist" are synonymous.

In Middlesbrough, a mob shouted "Smash the Pakis" and "There ain't no black in the Union Jack", while targeting the homes of migrants. They're the "racists", of course, not the Asian men attacking white men in footage from elsewhere in the city seen on social media.

Yesterday, more than 200 hooded rioters [shades of the KKK! Ed.] descended on the Holiday Inn Express in Rotherham, which has previously been used to house asylum seekers. After smashing several ground floor windows, the attackers then attempted to set the hotel on fire, torching bins and then using them to blockade the exits.

In Bolton, there were scuffles in the town's streets between anti-immigration protesters and Muslim counter demonstrators. By early afternoon the counter-protesters, who were mostly Asian and many in Muslim dress, outnumbered the anti-immigration protest by two to one.

Also yesterday, the Home Office announced that extra police and security forces will be deployed to protect mosques (!), after they were targeted by anti-immigrant demonstrators.  

In an emergency address from Downing Street, Sir Keir Starmer warned the rioters would regret taking part and vowed to do “whatever it takes to bring these thugs to justice as quickly as possible”.He added: “This is not protest. I won’t shy away from calling this what it is – far-Right thuggery... The police will be making arrests. Individuals will be held on remand. Charges will follow. And convictions will follow."

In his statement, Sir Queer [= weird. Ed.] opened the door to tougher prison sentences for rioters, and announced suspects will be held on remand and locked up immediately after being charged. These were the authoritarian actions he took in 2011, when he was Director of Public Prosecutions, to tackle "ethnic conflict" and quash dissent.

Whether that strategy will work this time is an open question. Doubts have been raised over whether there are enough jail places available for Sir Keir to mount a 2011-style response to the unrest. Britain's prison system is running at almost-full capacity, with only around 700 spaces available in "male prisons" around the country. 

Unless some of the transgendered protesters are sent to "female prisons", a researcher at the Institute for Government told the meeja that locking up all the rioters was "not an option" unless more prisoners are released. "The situation in prisons is desperate," she said. "We simply don’t have the prison spaces available for mass arrests like we saw in 2011."

Walt sez: Political action -- like voting -- isn't working. Only mass protests get the attention of the elites that, through our inaction, rule us.  Have at them!

UPDATED: Feds mull "civil rights" charges after Rittenhouse acquittal

A Wisconsin jury has acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse on all charges arising from the killing of Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, and the wounding of Gaige Grosskreutz during a "mostly peaceful protest" in Kenosha WI in August of 2020. 

The "protests" erupted after a white police officer shot a black man. The now-customary riots, vandalism and looting ensured, prompting an online call for armed patriots to come to the city to protect lives and property. 

Mr Rittenhouse, who answered the call, is white. The three people he shot were/are also white. Nevertheless, this being America, you can expect further rioting, vandalism, looting ["reparations shopping", shurely. Ed.] and general mayhem. not just in Kenosha but across the country, in the name of "justice" for those who were shot. Businesses are already boarding up their windows. 

I'm happy for Mr Rittenhouse, but caution him and his defence team to keep their guard up. The federal Department of Justice has yet to weigh in, so expect charges under the Civil Rights Act to be filed very shortly. Lifetime pct .991.

UPDATE ADDED 20/11/21: As Walt predicted (lifetime pct .992), Democrats are now calling  on the Brandon Department of Justice for Some to consider federal charges against Kyle Rittenhouse. Within hours of the announcement of the not guilty verdict, Rep. (((Jerry Nadler))) (D-NY), who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, tweeted his call for a federal review.

Many of the "progressive activists" (read: loonie Social Justice Whiners), who so nonchalantly and callously dismiss the damage done to people and property by BLM and Antifa, support Mr Nadler’s call for a federal investigation. 

Why? Because Democrats are so accustomed to things going their way that they can't handle it when they lose. Legal Insurrection warns Mr Nadler to step away from his emotions over the verdict, and think about the repercussions of pushing the narrative that Kyle Rittenhouse was a white supremacist who violated the civil rights of his attackers. 

The Democrats, from Sleepy Joe on down, and their propagandists in the controlled media failed to make that case. And a basic lesson of military strategy is that you shouldn't reinforce failure!

"Pandemics, race riots are part of the price we pay for having big cities"

The headline is adapted from a line in "The City is Killing America: America's real problem are urban problems", by Daniel Greenfield, in Frontpage Mag, 21/10/20. Mr Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

In this lengthy and thoughtful article, Mr Greenfield traces the rise of American cities, and their problems, from the early days through the Civil War and the industrial age into the urban decay and despair which blight the once-great cities of todays Disunited States.

He concludes that cities like New York and San Francisco, not to mention Seattle and Portland -- all of them run by Democrats -- are the breeding grounds and incubators for pandemics (Covid-19 is just one) and "mostly peaceful protests" (read: race riots) which are destroying America, literally.

The photos above were taken in Seattle in June. 46 more can be found in "Seattle Riot: 46 devastating photos of Downtown destruction, vandalism", a photo gallery posted on mynorthwest.com, 1/6/20. By why pick on Seattle? Google images for Chicago, Buffalo, Newark, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Boston or virtually any US city, especially those on the "blue coasts".

And then there's Detroit. You may remember seeing "Quiz: Which American city has been occupied 3 times by the US Army?" on WWW 3/12/19. Walt shared a positive review of Detroit: An American Autopsy, by Charlie LeDuff, Penguin Press, 2013, along with just two of the excellent photos to be found in an excellent photo essay at the end of that book. It's depressing but compelling reading.

Mr Greenfield writes: Pandemic maps of the death toll show the deaths concentrating around major cities before making the slow trek from urban into suburban and eventually rural areas. The urban lockdowns didn’t stop the spread of the virus. What they really did was trap poor and middle class residents in urban areas, while the wealthy fled, and the virus spread to urbanites with the least mobility.

The people with the worst immune systems, in the densest living conditions, and the least ability to get up and leave, suffered the most, from nursing home patients to minorities with large families. The general pattern was historically familiar from the Middle Ages, and the only thing that our public health experts proved is that they weren’t any smarter than medieval peasants.

But the coronavirus is an urban problem and all the official solutions to it are urban solutions. And the urban problems and their solutions are killing us and taking down the whole country.

Urbanization has become a pyramid scheme taking over entire states, while hollowing out the more conservative rural areas, turning red states blue, and leaving everyone except those at the top of the pyramid scheme poorer with each generation.

America is no longer divided between the old geographies of North and South, but the new geographies of density, between cities and their suburbs, and rural areas and small towns. The latter represent the old American communities, while the former showcase the new feudal order in which great suburban wealth and urban poverty combine into radical political alignment. 

That’s the so-called “resistance”, not by the disempowered, but by the politically privileged....

The urban model hasn’t worked for America in sixty years. The pandemic has put it on the verge of collapse as the wealthy industries that made cities their base flee into virtual workspaces. It’s time to rethink and defund cities as the hubs of our economy and our nation....

Envisioning a less dense and more open country will heal many of our social and economic ills. Urban areas have concentrated political radicalism and blight. Universities have become their own radical cities. Municipalities have built networks of crony companies around themselves. Density has destroyed communities and families while depriving people of a meaningful life.

Reducing immigration can slow down population growth to sustainably match our economy and replacing cities with communities can allow our society to heal from its urban wounds. America was built around communities, not cities. It can be rebuilt around communities again.

The city is too big to fail and that means that the country is dying of its failures. We can either keep the city alive at the cost of the country, or let the city fail so that the country can live.

Walt regrets that limitations of space keep us from sharing the whole article. Please, dear readers, click on the link at top or here to read the whole thing.

Michael Matt VIDEO: Only America stands against the New World Order

We've been reposting videos by Michael Matt, editor of The Remnant newspaper, regularly, lately, because he's one of the very few talking sense about the paroxysm of fear and anger that has been sweeping the Paranoid States of America (and spilling over into other Western countries) for nearly four months now. More importantly, for us traditional Catholics, he relates the Dempanic, the race riots, and the breakdown of law and order to the crisis in the Roman Catholic Church, which started over half a century ago, with the Second Vatican Council.

In this video, Mr Matt tackles the question of rising racial tension in America and its impact on the 2020 presidential election. And, in the wake of the brutal murder of George Floyd*, Michael takes a closer look at police brutality, race relations now and in the past, and suggests that our "leaders'" war on God and Christian morality needs to be reconsidered immediately! He calls on all Americans -- black and white -- to stand together against those who would manipulate us into turning against each other and tearing our country apart.



But wait... there's more! Mr Matt asks what part the revolution in the Catholic Church plays in the loss of America's moral compass? Where is Pope Francis in all of this? Why is the Church no longer part of the solution for a society in turmoil? Where have all the Catholics gone? Why are the priests and bishops so terribly silent? All very good questions... Now is the time, Mr Matt says, for all Americans to come to the aid of our "one nation under God." The biggest question of all is: Do we have the courage to do it?!

*Footnote: At the time Michael Matt recorded this video, news had not yet broken of the shooting, in Atlanta, Rayshard Brooks, a 27-year-old black man. Mr Brooks had apparently fallen asleep behind the wheel of a car at a Wendy's drive-thru. A call to the local constabulary resulted in a lengthy confrontation during which Mr Brooks was fatally shot after he resisted arrest and stole an officer's Taser. The officer in question was... wait for it... white. In response, "protesters" torched the restaurant and shut down an interstate highway in both directions. Police arrested at least 36 "protesters".

Further reading: Speaking of Matts... let me recommend most highly a piece published on Friday by Matt [geddit? Ed.] Taibbi. Mr Taibbi suffers mightily from TDS, but he's still, IMHO, the best writer on American politics since the late Dr Hunter S. Thompson. Here's an excerpt from "The American Press Is Destroying Itself".

Each passing day sees more scenes that recall something closer to cult religion than politics. White protesters in Floyd’s Houston hometown kneeling and praying to black residents for “forgiveness… for years and years of racism” are one thing, but what are we to make of white police in Cary, North Carolina, kneeling and washing the feet of Black pastors? What about Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer kneeling while dressed in “African kente cloth scarves”?

There is symbolism here that goes beyond frustration with police or even with racism: these are orgiastic, quasi-religious, and most of all, deeply weird scenes, and the press is too paralyzed to wonder at it. In a business where the first job requirement was once the willingness to ask tough questions, we’ve become afraid to ask obvious ones.

Click here to read the whole thing. Even if you're a big fan of Still-President Trump, you'll find yourself doing a fist-pump and yelling "Right on!"

What's really happening in America

Agent 35 sent us the following message with a request to share...

Scare people with a virus. Place them in quarantine. Count the number of dead every second of every day in every news headline. Close all businesses. 40,000,000 out of jobs. Peak unemployment. Remove entertainment: parks, gyms, bars, restaurants, sports. No dating. No touching. Mask people. Dehumanize them. Close temples and churches. Create a vacuum. Let depression and anxiety and desperation set in.

Then... ignite hatred and civil war. Civil unrest. Empty the prisons because of the virus and fill the streets with criminals. Send in Antifa to vandalize property as if they are freedom fighters. Undermine the law. Loot. Attack law enforcement, but tell government to order a stand-down. We are all being baited by adversarial governments who want to destroy America - China, Iran, Russia. Have the Far Left abuse the racial wars to fuel the fires. And, in an election year, have Democrats blame all of it on the President.

Can’t take America in a war, destroy it from within.

We are being conditioned, manipulated, and programmed by multiple agendas as never before.....time to DO OUR OWN RESEARCH and MAKE UP OUR OWN MINDS rather than eating everything being spoon-fed to us!

Further reading (and watching) (added 11/6/20): "Portland Protesters Abandon Their Own Failed, Police-Free 'Autonomous Zone'", on RT.com, 11/6/20.

Anarchists and protesters in Portland OR, hoping to emulate their brethren in Seattle, have fallen at the first hurdle, or fence, as they abandoned their own improvised "autonomous zone" before it had even been established. Haphazard, spontaneous construction of the "autonomous zone" began during demonstrations on Wednesday night as protesters erected their own barbed-wire fences, appropriated from city authorities, following sporadic clashes with police.

VIDEO: Japanese state TV anime explains America's "protests"

If you, like Walt, find it hard to understand why black Americans (and their white and other-coloured friends) are looting stores and burning down their own communities to express their grief and anger over the death of a convicted felon, this video explains everything. Unfortunately it's in Japanese. But one cartoon is worth 1000 words.



The anime was produced by Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai (NHK), the Japanese equivalent of the Canadian Broadcorping Castration, to explain the Black Lives Matter movement and the cause of the "protests" which have rocked dozens of American cities over the past two weeks.

The usual suspects rushed to condemn the public broadcaster's video as "offensive and misleading". Since I don't speak/understand Japanese, I can't comment except to say that it looks pretty much like what I saw on US TV.

Note from Ed.: There are subtitles! I am explaining to Walt how to turn them on.

Too good to not repost!

No matter which side you're on -- and there are two sides to the current madness -- it's funny! Right? Although, as a sometime visitor to Buffalo, I have to question the truth of this. I mean, where would you find a clean sidewalk in Buffalo? Click here to read the article in The Onion.

Just released! Nike Commemorative Shoes

Ed. here. If it were up to Walt, we'd just repost articles from the Babylon Bee, "your trusted source for Christian satire". Every day. But that wouldmean he would never have to write anything again. It's bad enough that I let him get away with just a big picture or two, earlier this week. That said, some of BB's stuff is just too good not to share with you. Like this.

Taken from "Nike Releases Commemorative Shoe To Honor Looters", 2/6/20. Keep up the good work, Bee people!

It was inevitable: Al Sharpton to eulogize George Floyd

It had to happen. The only strange thing is that it took so long! When I first wrote about the inevitable "protests" (read: race riots) that followed the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis cop (see "There's gonna be riotin', by George!", WWW 28/5/20), I said "The 'Reverend' Al Sharpton is expected to jet into the Twin Cities today to add his voice of reason to the clamour."

If you don't know who "Reverend Al" is, Google his name + Tawana Brawley. Way back in 1987, Ms Brawley, then a black teenager (no longer a teen but still black), said she had been raped and kidnapped by a group of white men in Dutchess County, NY. Her story of being attacked, scrawled with racial slurs, smeared with feces and left beside a road wrapped in a plastic bag made front pages across the nation, especially after "Reverend Al" took up her case.

Unfortunately for him and for her, a special state grand jury later determined that Ms Brawley had fabricated her claims, perhaps to avoid punishment for staying out late. In 1998, Steven Pagones, who was the county prosecutor at the time, won a defamation suit against Mr Sharpton, Ms Brawley and her attorneys, who had accused Pagones of being among Brawley's attackers.

NPR quotes the Village Voice as saying that "Sharpton has since paid off his [$65,000] debt with money raised by his supporters." Ms Brawley was ordered to pay $190,000, which, with interest, had grown to a debt of more than $430,000 by 2013. By that time, Mr Pagones had received about $3700, less than 1% of what he was owed. How much has been paid since is a mystery.

But I digress. I was talking about the latest appearance of "Reverend Al". I was only wrong about the timing. (Lifetime pct .980.) He is at the top of the card -- chief eulogist -- for the memorial service for George Floyd, which will take place at North Central University in Minneapolis at 1300 CDT. The family's lawyer, Algonquin J. Calhoun, will also speak. Don't miss it.

History repeats itself

I've been reading Niall Ferguson's monumental work The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West (Penguin 2006), and, in the Epilogue, came across the following passage.

On January 20, 1969, it was becoming hard for Americans to feel optimistic.... American society itself seemed to be fragmenting. There were race riots in the inner cities and demonstrations in the universities; young fought old, black fought white, redneck fought hippy, student fought cop. Race was one of the main bones of contention.

What's the significance of 20 January 1969? That was the date of Richard Nixon's inauguration.

Footnote: In the very last paragraph of The War of the World, Niall Ferguson wrote (in 2006, remember): [H.G. Wells's] The War of the Worlds remains science fiction. The War of the World is, however, historical fact. Perhaps, like Well's story, ours will be ended abruptly by the intervention of microscopic organisms like the avian influenza virus, which could yet produce a worse mutation and pandemic than that of 1918. Until that happens, however, we remain our own worst enemies.

Black Lives Matter doesn't matter any more!

Looks like last night was comparatively peaceful across the Excited States of America. Not so much rfioting and looting as on the weekend and Monday. I expect today we'll see images of good citizens pitching in to clean up the debris left behind by even peaceful "protesters". I predict that 90% of those shown in such photos will be white. Lifetime pct .976.

You realize, gentle reader, that all the commotion in America's cities is not about George Floyd, police brutality, or even racial inequality, about which the SJWs have been moaning for two centuries.

Black lives do not matter! At least, not to antifa types, the mostly white leftists who are the real "protesters". What we are seeing is a well-organized, well-funded, violent campaign to overthrow the government of the USA. Well... not the whole government... just the man at its head, Still-President Trump.

The bad news for them -- good news for the USA -- is that the protests-cum-riots are having the opposite effect from that intended. They have all but insured the November re-election of the Donald! (Lifetime pct still .976.) I have to admit that Mr Trump hasn't come through the Covid-19 Dempanic covered with glory. But the rioters have effectivelyl ended the lockdown by defying it, and the rest of us figure that if they can take to the streets without worrying about getting the virus, we can take to the beaches!

As well, the media hysteria about "anti-black racism" has all but totally displaced the media hysteria about the Dempanic. And in this chapter of the soap opera that is American politics, President Trump is the one who looks like a hero -- the only one standing up for law and order, while dozen of weak-willed and weak-kneed Democratic politicians fall all over themselves to signal virtue and pander to the anti-American agitators.

I am now the only one who thinks that the "protesters" will succeed in keeping President Trump in the White House. Let me share a few well-chosen words from "Seven Thoughts on the Civil War the Other Side Wants So Badly", by Scott McKay, in The Spectator, 2/6/20.

The police can handle these rioters if they're allowed to. If the police can't, in some circumstances, the National Guard certainly can. This isn't some invading army; it's the dregs of society who have been induced into the streets for free air fryers from Target. The slightest application of law enforcement muscle will put this rioting down.

[On why the areas trashed by the riots won't ever be rebuilt] At the end of the day, everybody figures this is an area where the locals were so stupid and so disrespectful that they looted and burned down the very shops that kept the neighborhood going. And who wants to do business with such people?

You don't have to go any further back than 1968 to know that when America gets its fill of domestic violence and insurrection, it votes for the most conservative candidate it can find. How do you think Richard Nixon, who was the political version of a broken-down claiming horse who had lost an election for the governorship of California just a few years earlier, rolled into the White House like a tsunami? Nixon was the law-and-order candidate. It didn't really matter what else he was; the Silent Majority gave him the job and a mandate to put an end to The Sixties.

Democrats have been trying to recreate The Sixties ever since, and the public has been trying to tell them The Sixties weren't all that awesome.
Trump is going to law-and-order this all the way home. It’s an easy play for him. Trump’s response hasn’t been perfect, but he’s going to dominate the discussion the longer this goes. Do Democrats really think they’re going to beat him without even denouncing the riots? Are they that stupid?

Of course they are. Of course they are.

Well said, Mr McKay. Couldn't have said it better myself. [You got that right! Ed.]

Darkness falls on St. Louis

See "'Mayhem': 4 police officers shot during long night of violence and destruction in St. Louis", St Louis Post-Dispatch 2/6/20.

Darkness falls on New York

Darkness falls on Washington

UPDATED: Tucker Carlson: It's all OUR fault; don't you know that?

You know what's funny? Watching the organized, paid, criminal BLM mob vandalizing the "iconic" CNN sign outside the Clinton News Network HQ in Atlanta. CNN is one of the chief storytellers of the Big Media Lie that what we're witnessing in cities across America are "protests", not "crimes of the mob" or "race riots". And here are the BLMers and antifa types attacking their champions.

It's all our fault, dontcha see... those of us who work hard, pay our taxes, and obey the laws of the land, even when the laws (Wear a mask!) are ridiculous. That's what the liberal elites would have you believe. Fox News's Tucker Carlson has more to say....

Updated 31/5/20: Well... this is embarrassing... Apparently Fox News videos don't stay embedded forever, and the clip we posted is not on YouTube, or at least Ed. couldn't find it. Sorry.

NBC: "It's just a 'protest', not a 'riot'!"

Pictured above is a scene in Minneapolis showing people engaged in what the lamestream media -- particularly NBC -- tells us should be called a "protest", not a "riot", over this week's death-by-cop of George Floyd. While Twitter was busy flagging Still-President Trump's tweets on the "protests" for "inciting violence", NBC host Craig Melvin posted this tweet yesterday.

For readers who don't watch NBC/MSNBC, Walt should explain (in case you hadn't noticed) that Mr Melvin is a diversity hire, currently working as a bingo caller ["news anchor", shurely. Ed.] for NBC's Today and a co-host of Today Third Hour. Since the "protesters" seen smashing windows and making off with "liberated merchandise" from Target and other stores in Minneapolis are apparently "people of colour", like Mr Melvin hisself, he obviously wants to make sure that their actions are not mischaracterized by the evil racists at Breitbart, Fox News, or even his own network.

There's gonna be riotin', by George!

Won't even say "And so it begins." [But you just did. Ed.] As surely as day follows night, rioting and looting follow any death of an African-American at the hands of a white American cop. As it did in Minneapolis yesterday, following the death of George Floyd, a black man who claimed he was having trouble breathing because a law enforcement officer was kneeling on his neck.

A bystander's video of the incident on the city's south side captured the man, who was handcuffed at the time, the officers "Please, I can't breathe!" as he is pinned to the ground. The cops involved in the incident have not been identified, but Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (Democrat) announced Tuesday afternoon that they had been "terminated". He didn't mean it in the sense that Mr Floyd was terminated, but rather that they were "no longer with the police department"... fired, ya know.

Enter Black Lives Matter, who hadn't been heard from in a while in spite of the violent deaths of 1000s of young black men across the USA and Canada, possibly because most of those deaths were at the hands of other YBM. Anyhoo, the usual "peaceful protests" broke out "spontaneously" yesterday, and quickly turned into a night of rioting and looting at a Target store and other businesses in the Lake St/Hiawatha Ave area. Fires sprang up as well, engulfing a mostly black housing complex nearby.

The reaction of local politicians has been as predictable as the rioting and looting. In a Tweet late last night, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (Democrat) said, "The situation near Lake Street and Hiawatha in Minneapolis has evolved into an extremely dangerous situation." Duh!
Senator Tina Smith (D-MN) weighted in with "I'm praying for peace and healing tonight in Minneapolis, as I hear sirens and explosions across our green city. Our community is in so much pain. Dr King said, 'I can only close the gap in broken community by meeting hate with love.'"

Back to Mr Walz. The Gov added, "Our state watched George Floyd's humanity get erased. Our feelings of anger, anguish, and disillusionment are justified." He didn't actually identify the person(s) who might be the targets of the feelings of anger etc. He did go on the plead with othger unidentified persons, "If you plan to turn your pain into action by joining a public demonstration, please do so peacefully and safely to protect your own health and the health of the people around you." And remember to practise social distancing and wash your hands!

Finally, we go to state senators Jeff Hayden (D) and Patricia Torres Ray (D), who today issued a joint statement, as follows:
"We, along with our constituents, are deeply heartbroken and outraged by the injustice that occurred in the officer-involved death of George Floyd. As our community continues to grieve and grapple with this incredibly unjustifiable loss of life, we believe in their right to peacefully protest. We have grown increasingly concerned, for the safety of the City of Minneapolis and its residents, as the demonstration has escalated. More than ever, our community must come together during this hard time and in this work to fiercely advocate for the justice that is needed. We are eager to effectively partner with community organizers, leaders, activists, and advocates to prevent the loss of another life due to excessive use of force."

The "Reverend" Al Sharpton [Is he still alive? Ed.] is expected to jet into the Twin Cities today to add his voice of reason to the clamour. And the official anti-Trump line (for it's all his fault, you know) will be pronounced by Joy Behar and Whoopi Cushion on the View just before the noon news. Consult your local TV listings, as other viewing choices may be available.

Footnote: Walt's non-resident expert on American politics points out that the politicians named above (other than Tina Smith) are not actually Democrats, but members of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, a political formation peculiar to Minnesota which is somehow different from the national Democratic Party, although you may need a microscope to see the difference.

Quiz: Which American city has been occupied 3 times by the US Army?

Got nothing? OK, I'll give you a hint. It's not Atlanta or New York or even Washington DC.
Nope, not Honolulu either.
The answer is... drum roll please... DETROIT!

In 1863, in the middle of the Glorious War of the Secession, a 10-year-old Detroit girl accused a swarthy-skinned tavern owner of rape. The barkeep claimed to be of Spanish and Indian descent, but that was close enough for a white mob who went berserk after his conviction, putting an axe in one black man's skull and burning down 35 buildings. Union troops were called in.

Detroit burned again in the race riots of 1943, in the middle of WWII, after a group of white teenagers got into a brawl with a group of black yoofs. Rumours of a white girl being raped by a gang of blacks fuelled the mobs. The black quarter of town (Detroit was 83% white at the time) was set on fire. After three days of rioting and 34 casualties, federal troops quelled the violence.

And then there were the race riots of 1967. After five days of violence, with 43 dead, more than 7000 arrested and 2000 buildings burned, the National Guard and the US Army's 82nd Airborne were brought in to restore some semblance of order. That's three -- count `em -- 3 times in just over a century that the Army has occupied an American city in the wake of racial conflict. It's always about race, isn't it.

This little bit of American trivia -- not so trivial, when you think about it -- is adapted from Detroit: An American Autopsy, by Charlie LeDuff, Penguin Press, 2013. I hadn't heard of Mr LeDuff when I picked this book up at a sale, but was intrigued by the title. Is Detroit really dead, I wondered. What killed it? Anything to do with race or the Democratic Party?

I was expecting a scholarly dissertation on such things as sociology, politics, city planning, and public administration, complete with charts, tables. I am very pleased to report that I got none of that! What I got was an intensely personal account of a reporter's journey through the wasteland that is today's Detroit, written by a native son.

To quote the dust jacket: Charlie LeDuff searches through the ruins for clues to its fate, his family's and his own.... With the steel-eyed reportage that has become his trademark and the righteous indignation only a native son possesses, LeDuff sets out to uncover what destroyed his city. He embeds with a local fire brigade struggling to defend its city against systemic arson and bureaucratic corruption.

He investigates politicians of all stripes, from the smooth-talking mayor to career police officials to ministers of the backstreets, following the paperwork to discover who benefits from Detroit's decline. He beats on the doors of union bosses and homeless squatters, p0owerful businessmen and struggling homeowners, and the ordinary people holding the city together by sheer determination.

Detroit: An American Autopsy is not a book by a liberal professor who has studied Detroiters like animals in a zoo. Charlie LeDuff writes real stories, about real people, of whom he is one. Like Studs Terkel and Ben Hamper (I was reminded of Rivethead), Mr LeDuff gives a powerful voice to those who are not listened to by the academics and the liberal media. I recommend the book most highly!

There's a bonus at the end of the book -- a photo essay of Detroit, so that when you close the book, you're not closing off your connection to the very real plight of the city. The images are imprinted into your head so that when you think of Detroit, you have something to remember it by. Here's just one of the evocative and provocative photos.

This photo, titled "Packard Plant, East Side", was taken by Danny Wilcox Frazier. Charlie LeDuff grew up on Joy Street, named after the founder of the now-defunct Packard Motor Car Company. Click here to find out more about the photo.

Further reading:
"Site contaminated with uranium partially collapses into Detroit River", Windsor Star, 4/12/19.
Autopsy of America, by Seth Lawless, Artivist Publishing, 2014. Haven't read it myself, yet, but looks like a good coffee-table book to give to your liberal friends for Christmas... oops, "winter holiday".

America is still "Nixonland" (book recommendation)

A kindly old lady from Whittier CA had this to say about a Republican candidate. "I know it's against religion to hate anybody, but I just can't help hating that man." To whom was she referring? Not Donald Trump, not Ted Cruz, but... wait for it... Richard Nixon. The quote is taken from the opening pages of Rick Perlstein's monumental book Nixonland (Scribner, 2008), which Walt commends to anyone trying to make sense of this year's campaign.

Mr. Perlstein chose to write about Nixon and his times in 2008, 40 years after he was elected President, because (as the cliché goes) history repeats itself. Over and over again. The book, you see, is not really about Mr. Nixon so much as the disintegration of the liberal consensus of the Kennedy-Johnson years and the polarization of American politics. The 1968 election pitted the friends of Nixon against the enemies of Nixon. The author writes:

Nixonland...is the America where two separate and irreconcilable sets of apocalyptic fears coexist in the minds of two separate and irreconcilable groups of Americans. The first group, enemies of Richard Nixon, are the spiritual heirs of [Adlai] Stevenson and [John Kenneth] Galbraith. They take it as an axiom that if Richard Nixon and the values associated with him triumph, America itself might end.

The second group are the people who...believe, as did Nixon [himself] that if the enemies of Nixon triumph -- the Alger Hisses and Helen Gahagan Douglases, the Herblocks and hippies, the George McGoverns and all the rest -- America might end.

The [Democratic National Committee] was right: an amazingly large segment of the population disliked and mistrusted Richard Nixon instinctively. What they did not acknowledge was that an amazingly large segment of the population also trusted him as their savior. "Nixonland> is what happens when these two groups try to occupy a country together. By the end of the 1960s, Nixonland came to encompass the entire political culture of the United States. It would define it, in fact, for the next fifty years.

Let's see. 1968 plus 50 years brings us to... 2018. Who will be POTUS and Leader of the Free World then? Whether the Republicans pick Mr Trump or Senator Cruz, or the Democrats pick Senator Sanders or Secretary Clinton, is immaterial. In November supporters of both candidates, red and blue, will be utterly convinced that if their enemies win, America will end.

Talk of uniting the nation is rubbish. The cracks in American society and politics which appeared with the Watts race riots of 1965, have grown wider and deeper. The nation needs a catharsis. But will it get one? That's up to the voters, who, Mr. Perlstein says, are the real heroes of his book. Read it.

Prez calls for "soul searching" in wake of Baltimore race riot

Tuesday morning in Baltimore. The sun rises over deserted streetscapes, boarded-up windows of looted business, shells of burnt-out police cars, and the trash and debris left over from a day and a night of... what? Of fighting for justice for Freddie Gray, of course! Don't you read the lamestream media?

Well, yes, certain of the meeja did use the word "riot". And what kind of riot was it? Why, a "police riot" of course! Those thuggish Baltimore police were just provoking and attacking those poor, downtrodden, innocent "African-American" chillun, as you can see clearly in this picture.

Oh... wait... You don't see any police? Just a mob of black folks running wild, stomping on cars? But there were lots of cops around, dressed in full riot gear, armed with guns, batons, teargas and other WMDs. The police certainly had their work cut out for them. Rioters set police cars and buildings on fire in several neighbourhoods, looted a mall and liquor stores and threw rocks at police, who responded occasionally with pepper spray.

So it was all the cops' fault, right? Errr, not exactly. Seems the cops were targetted by a coalition of black gangs -- Bloods, Crips, and others. Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (of the coloured persuasion herself) called last night one of her city's "darkest days" ["nights", surely. Ed.], and said these actions of "thugs" had nothing to do with protests. "We cannot allow our city to devolve into chaos because of a small group of criminals that are moving throughout our city."

Right. It's a few "thugs" that are causing all the trouble, not the black folks shown in this picture demonstrating for justice for Freddie Gray.

Yep, fighting for justice... and loot... just like the old joke about the Irish lawyer who said all he wanted for his client was justice... with costs, of course.

Justice for Freddie Gray... Mr. Gray was taken into custody by Baltimore police on April 12th after "making eye contact" with officers -- an offence Walt never heard of until now -- and then running away. He was held down, handcuffed and loaded into a van without a seat belt. Leg cuffs were put on him inside the van when he became irate, for some reason. Less than an hour later, he was dead.

The latest victim of a police killing was not just Gray but black. No surprise there. Police have declined to specify the race(s) of the six officers involved in his arrest, all of whom have been suspended while they are under investigation. With pay, of course.

Mr. Gray's death comes amid a national debate over police use of deadly force following the high-profile deaths of several black men in encounters with police, from the Brown death in Ferguson MO to the deaths of Eric Garner in New York and Walter Scott in North Charleston, SC. Black people are angry. Walt understands that. So does Mayor Rawlings-Blake. "I understand anger, but what we're seeing isn't anger," she said. "It's disruption of a community. The same community they say they care about, they're destroying. You can't have it both ways."

Indeed. What we're seeing in Baltimore is not only the venting of anger and legitimate protest against injustice, but criminal violence, destruction and, yes, looting. Fifty years ago, when such things happened in Watts, Harlem and Detroit, we called them "race riots". But in 2015 that term is no longer politically correct.

UPDATE: The Head Soul Brother, Barack Hussein Obama, says all Americans need to do a lot of soul searching to understand what's been going down in Baltimore. Of course the police are to blame. The Prez said today there have been too many "troubling police interactions with black citizens" in what he called "a slow-rolling crisis."

But, he said, there was no excuse for rioters to engage in senseless violence. In a remarkable moment of clarity, Mr. Obama said those who stole from businesses and burned buildings and cars should be treated as criminals. "There's no excuse for the kind of violence that we saw yesterday," he told a White House press conference. "When individuals get crowbars and start prying open doors to loot, they're not protesting, they're not making a statement. They're stealing."

A  man in the street, Leroy "Kwame" Jones, responded, "Excuse? Excuse? Whuffo we needs an excuse?!"