Sigh, where is Martin Luther King when we need him?
I'm not crazy about the behavior this humorously-written post describes even though I am sympathetic with the reasons for the protests. (h/t sda)
I detest mob behavior, period, that deliberately tries to stop other people from doing their thing, by blocking their path, ripping things out of their hands, physically intimidating them. I detest seeing people invade other people's meetings and shout down speakers. I detest thuggishness of any kind, whether it is from the right or the left. I detest incivility and name-calling and ad hominem attacks, from the right or the left. I detest police brutality, but I also detest deliberately provoking police who have a job to do and trying to injure them with bricks or shoving.
Years ago, when I was in high school, I marched on Boston with with Martin Luther King. Me and thousands of other people. He preached nonviolence and civil disobedience. In the early days at least, his message urged that did not include rioting and destroying property or mob rule. I wish we had some living examples preaching the same thing to today's young people. Nowadays too many demonstrators wear black balaclavas or bandannas and engage in hooliganism instead of civil disobedience. Some just want the revolution to come and they don't care about the anarchy that ensues. Or they want to grab their share of power. No principles are involved. While I have all the time in the world for those who showed their disapproval by lining the streets and showing signs or whatever, the jokers who broke the police barriers disgust me.
It's one thing to sit in the front of the bus when an unjust law says you can't and it's another to swarm douse an athlete with a fire extinguisher when you're trying to put out the Olympic flame or knock around a female athlete while you try to grab the torch.
The point of civil disobedience was an appeal to justice that was higher than human laws that are unjust. It was not a display of power, except the power of good to overcome evil.
But those were the old days, when most people believed an objective, transcendent notion of justice existed.
Come to think of it, it would make a great Olympic event of itself: try to carry a torch (or baton, or any object) 31 miles through a major city, smiling the whole time, while being assailed by an angry mob.In this picture, a protester goes after an athlete in a wheelchair to grab the torch for Petey's sake.
As I write this post the relay is barely half-way across London, and the event is degenerating into what looks like a rolling series of Reagan shootings – someone attacks the procession, 20 policemen jump on them, another one shouts Go! Go! Go! and the torch, almost the literal definition of a political hot potato, continues on its way.
Already one protestor has tried to snuff out the torch with a fire extinguisher, while another tried to rip it out of the hands of a bemused children's TV presenter. There have been 25 arrests so far. The BBC has full coverage of the festivities/hostilities (festilities?), including video clips of the aforementioned incidents, here and also on its front page.
I detest mob behavior, period, that deliberately tries to stop other people from doing their thing, by blocking their path, ripping things out of their hands, physically intimidating them. I detest seeing people invade other people's meetings and shout down speakers. I detest thuggishness of any kind, whether it is from the right or the left. I detest incivility and name-calling and ad hominem attacks, from the right or the left. I detest police brutality, but I also detest deliberately provoking police who have a job to do and trying to injure them with bricks or shoving.
Years ago, when I was in high school, I marched on Boston with with Martin Luther King. Me and thousands of other people. He preached nonviolence and civil disobedience. In the early days at least, his message urged that did not include rioting and destroying property or mob rule. I wish we had some living examples preaching the same thing to today's young people. Nowadays too many demonstrators wear black balaclavas or bandannas and engage in hooliganism instead of civil disobedience. Some just want the revolution to come and they don't care about the anarchy that ensues. Or they want to grab their share of power. No principles are involved. While I have all the time in the world for those who showed their disapproval by lining the streets and showing signs or whatever, the jokers who broke the police barriers disgust me.
It's one thing to sit in the front of the bus when an unjust law says you can't and it's another to swarm douse an athlete with a fire extinguisher when you're trying to put out the Olympic flame or knock around a female athlete while you try to grab the torch.
The point of civil disobedience was an appeal to justice that was higher than human laws that are unjust. It was not a display of power, except the power of good to overcome evil.
But those were the old days, when most people believed an objective, transcendent notion of justice existed.
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