Quote:
Originally Posted by Coach
No I'm talking about listening to what the real protest is saying. Police reform.
Focusing on instances of violence (which are, irrefutably being escalated by police/government action) as the main thread of the protest is being purposefully obtuse. You know the protests are not about anarchy, even if some anarchists are participating in them. And not all people causing destruction and violence are anarchists. They are frustrated and angry people, taking it out in a way that is not constructive, but it DOES NOT nullify the reasons for the protests. And again, there has never in the history of humanity been protest against power without violence. Even Ghandi starved himself, and there were of course off-shoots of his movement that were violent. He himself was not exactly a beacon of human righteousness. Does it mean the British should keep power in India, because some people were angry enough to do some stupid s*** about it? Absolutely not.
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Has there been a single confirmed arrest of an actual anarchist? I haven't even seen a single declaration from any anarchists, and as I've said, that stuff would at least in the past have floated my way through the anarchists I know.
Is there even a shred of evidence to suggests there were any actual anarchists involved, beyond Trump saying so?
There has of course been a confirmed case where white supremacists published a fake anarchist message, and the police have confirmed at least one case where a rioter turned out to be a white supremacist trying to provoke a violent police response.
So we do know that white supremacist rioters are thing, but are anarchists?
I would however wish that unless people know of confirmed cases, they would stop calling the looters anarchists or suggesting that any significant portion of them were anarchists.
Let's remember that
1) Anarchists are not a big group to start with
2) Vast majority of anarchists are upper middle class whites, typically students, who are just not very likely to do anything as risky as rioting.
3) A very significant portion of anarchists are also pacifists
4) Another significant group of anarchists these days are market anarchists (these come in leftist and libertarian flavors), and that group has no ideological reason to destroy shops, and in fact many would be very specifically opposed to someone destroying private property and businesses with a political excuse.
5) A significant portion of anarchists have strong beliefs about collective action that would be directly opposed to rioting in this situation, as you would have to go an oppressed minorities ally and either hijack their cause or use them as human shields for your own purposes.
Again, destructive anarchists exist (typically they're either radical insurrectionists or even more typically just idiots), but it's very rare.