Elaborate costume for a very simple message

When the nasty guy turns the middle of your town into a fortress there are ways to respond. DC Mayor Muriel Bowser approved an overnight paint job on a city street. The phrase “Black Lives Matter” now fills a block and a half of 16th St. By fill I mean curb to curb. This is just north of St. John’s Church, the site of the nasty photo op, so also just north of Lafayette Square. If one stands in the middle of the White House and looks north, 16th St. is the street one can look down. The intersection where 16th St. meets Lafayette Square now has a sign declaring it “Black Lives Matter Plaza.”



Mark Sumner of Daily Kos reports on the violence at protests last night. He wrote:

In city after city, protests were peaceful … on the part of protesters.

But what happened most notably on Thursday evening was that in multiple locations police used curfews as an excuse to come after nonviolent protesters with violence of an extraordinary, and in many cases sickening, degree. The images left behind were of genuine riots—police riots—and an incident that may be the very definition of “depraved indifference.”

Warning: For those triggered by violence, there are no safe images, no safe videos, no acceptable moments to be found below. The violence displayed in each of these moments is at a level that would earn an R-rating for any film, and of a nature that would never be broadcast on the many television programs featuring “hero cops.”

Sumner included videos from Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Salem OR, and Buffalo. Then he included a video of a huge protest in Portland OR – that was peaceful.

Also in Portland, Marissa Higgins of Kos has photos of another protest, this one of thousands of people who laid down on the Burnside Bridge with their hands behind their backs and stayed there for 9 minutes, the length of time the policeman had his knee on George Floyd’s neck.



Kos of Kos reports since so much of this police brutality is captured on camera it is harder for white America to ignore. There doesn’t seem to be much of a white backlash to these protests, though the nasty guy might wish so.



Kerry Eleveld of Kos reports on the contrast between what the nasty guy is saying is going on in the country and what is going on in the country. I’ve already written about the military people around DC without insignias and how they put on a big show of force to clear Lafayette Square.

But that's not what's happening. Just like Trump hoisting a Bible over his head was pure stagecraft (as cringeworthy and poorly executed as it was), so is the amassing of unidentifiable federal troops in fatigues and riot gear.

In fact, the scenes of actual protest in D.C. ever since Barr's unwarranted Monday massacre don't resemble the fraught images that Trump and his allies are trying to advance. They are also a complete distraction from all of the truly positive and heartwarming moments that have emerged from the around the country this week, particularly before police began rioting against protesters Thursday night.

In short, Trump's reality is not America's reality.
…
Indeed, much of the imagery from across the country is a study in solidarity, rather than the division and mayhem Trump and Barr are trying to imprint on America.

Eleveld included photos and video of that show of strength, followed by images of 17 peaceful protests. The one in Boise, Idaho is 80% white. Missouri football players marched from campus to courthouse, knelt for 8 minutes, then registered to vote. A black lives matter protest was held in Harrison, Arkansas, headquarters of the Klan.

The first few comments offer ideas for more protests. Spancos suggests a six-foot spaced, single-file march around the nasty guy’s new fence. KGB hates US adds that marchers should take flowers and insert them in the fence. Axel Rod adds perhaps Mayor Bowser could lock the fence from the outside.



A lot of important people are saying these protests should be stopped because large groups could spread the virus – we are still in a pandemic after all. Shannon Palus of Slate reports infectious disease experts at University of Washington drafted a response and got support from a thousand health care colleagues. The key sentence:

Protests against systemic racism, which fosters the disproportionate burden of COVID-19 on Black communities and also perpetuates police violence, must be supported.

Might the protests spread the virus? Yes, they might. But racism is a stronger issue and also highly impacts what happens to people of color in this pandemic. For example, race can affect how difficult it is to get tested, whether the vaccine has been tested on people like you, whether you’re in a prison which is a virus hot spot, and whether you’re likely to have underlying health problems such as asthma. So, no, they are not going to condemn the protests.



Greg Dworkin in one of the editors of the Kos Abbreviated Pundit Roundup. I’d like to share a couple from today’s collection of quotes:

(1) The New York Times printed a highly inflammable screed from Sen. Tom Cotton calling for deploying troops against protesters. The NYT has been highly criticized for printing it and there are calls for James Bennet, editorial head, be fired for inviting Cotton to submit the screed.

Some say that such words should be printed, tossed into the marketplace of ideas, where it will have to fend for itself, be subjected to facts and logic, and if it is bad as they say it is, swiftly plummet. But Jack Holmes of *Esquire* says there is a big problem with that argument.

But this represents a comprehensive failure to grapple with the nature of fascism, which is not bound by concerns about what is true or even what was said five minutes ago. It cannot be defeated by Reason. It continually shape-shifts and changes form, rejecting previous bedrock principles in favor of their opposites whenever it is convenient. It is necessarily absurd, because it is just an elaborate costume for a very simple message: "Obey, or I will hurt you."

(2) The NYT reports that the nasty guy’s approval among Evangelicals is slipping. They used to excuse all sorts of his behavior because he was going to do great things for them. But they are now expressing concern over the way he has handled the pandemic and his belligerent tone over the black lives matter protests. He even got a scolding from Pat Robertson.



A couple quotes for Bill in Portland, Maine’s collection of late night commentary:

Take it upon yourself to be a leader and set an example of the kind of country you want to live in. That might mean going down to a protest or making a donation, or having a tense conversation about race. You're not going to get that from the White House. So we need to step up and provide it ourselves. Because America is officially BYOP: bring your own president.
—Stephen Colbert

[The White House] continues to insist [Trump's church stunt] was not a photo op. But let's review the facts here: he walked to the church, he stood in front of the church, never went in the church, never spoke to anyone from the church, didn't examine the damage to the church, held up a Bible upside down, didn’t read from the Bible, didn’t give a speech, posed for photos, and left. I dunno, that sounds like a pretty textbook definition of a photo-op to me. He treated it like taking your kid to see Santa at the mall: 'You got the picture? Okay, let's get the hell outta here.’
—Jimmy Kimmel