As the nation faces a pandemic, financial catastrophe and massive social justice protests, it is suddenly also confronting a spike in violence in some of its major cities. …
The burst of bloodshed came at a particularly fraught time in the nation’s relationship with its police forces, amid waves of demonstrations decrying police tactics, brutality and racism following the death of George Floyd while in custody in Minneapolis in late May. In the upheaval since, police have been facing calls for their departments to be defunded and their operations to be stripped down, putting them on the defensive as they have been at the center of a political and social tempest.
(The Washington Post, July 6, 2020)
Meanwhile, woke progressives like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are aping Trump by denying the correlation between defund-the-police protests and these spikes in violence, which is plain for all to see:
AOC on increased NYC crime: ‘Maybe this has to do with the fact that people aren’t paying their rent & are scared to pay their rent & so they go out & they need to feed their child & they don’t have money so… they feel like they either need to shoplift some bread or go hungry.’
— The Hill (@thehill) July 12, 2020
In other words, AOC is pretending New York City has suddenly become the Dickensian London of the 1800s. This, in a vain attempt to deflect from the negative consequences of her defund-the-police policies. But isn’t that every bit as delusional as Trump pretending Covid-19 will disappear like a miracle? This, in a vain attempt to deflect from the negative consequences of his failure to lead America’s war against this pandemic as he vowed to do.
The wily and wise Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina has repeatedly warned about BLM influencers like AOC “hijacking” the unprecedented goodwill the killing of George Floyd evoked. Frankly, she seems to have a penchant for jumping in the front of parades that are marching down a primrose path.
As it happens, here is how I warned about this in “Fighting Crime after the Green New Deal…,” March 2, 2019:
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Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the freshman sensation of this new Congress. Perhaps you know that she proposed this Green New Deal a few weeks ago. What you may not know is that her “new deal” is little more than a rebranding of old environmental protections and practices. Gaylord Nelson, a US senator from Wisconsin, proposed them way back in 1969. More to the point, those protections and practices inspired the clarion call for the inaugural Earth-Day rally in 1970. …
Still, my informed cynicism is such that I suspect she conjured up her goals as little more than a political stunt. But it’s an indication of Ocasio-Cortez’s (social-media) influence that Democratic presidential candidates, who should know better, rushed to endorse her Green New Deal as an article of political faith.
Nobody expects Ocasio-Cortez’s to have that kind of immediate (and long-term) impact on the environment or economy. But there’s no denying the boosting impact it will have … on her career.
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All Trump needs is for police across the country to continue retiring or calling in sick en masse (i.e., a looming Blue-flu pandemic) to realize the American carnage he is now stoking in campaign ads.
The flurry of Finest farewells began after the police-involved killing of George Floyd on May 25, with 272 uniformed cops putting in retirement papers from then through June 24, the NYPD says.
That’s a 49 percent spike from the 183 officers who filed during the same period last year, according to the department.
An NYPD source suggested the recent departures could signal a coming crisis for the 36,000-member department, which also faces a $1 billion budget reduction amid the ‘defund the police’ furor.
(New York Post, June 27, 2020)
It’s regrettable that the police feel compelled to react in this fashion. But, as AOC demonstrated, prevailing ignorance about the essential services they provide abounds. Therefore, the police probably think BLM protesters need to learn a lesson that only an unprecedented spike in violence can teach them.
Unfortunately, nothing would please Trump more right now than a crime pandemic – complete with hot spots in major cities like Detroit, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Miami, and Washington, DC. And nobody should doubt his willingness not only to stoke fires of unrest in those cities but to add fuel them. His coup de grâce would be to have the media then harping on daily death tolls so high, they render the Covid-19 tolls suddenly insignificant.
Not to mention the roving urban chaos he clearly hopes to see by provoking rage or planting provocateurs among BLM protesters. Surely it hasn’t escaped your notice that the vast majority of those engaged in violent clashes with the police are white men…?
Fall playing out in this dystopian setting would give Trump his best shot at re-election. Which speaks volumes about the nature of his presidency, no?
This is why, instead of channeling what Charles Dickens wrote 200 years ago, AOC would serve her constituents and the BLM cause far better if she channeled what I wrote just six years ago. Here, with respect to police brutality, rising crime, and Black unemployment, is what I wrote in “Killing of Michael Brown: as much about Resisting Arrest as Police Brutality (only against Black Men?),” August 12, 2014:
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There would be fewer of these fatal encounters between Black men and white cops if more (unemployed) Black men became cops to police their own communities. I mean, am I the only one who was struck by the contrast between the Black men looting and the predominantly white cops trying to restore law and order in this predominantly black community…?
In fact, this suburb of St. Louis, Ferguson, is almost 70 percent Black, yet it’s being served by a police force that’s over 95 percent white. Perhaps, instead of leading St. Louis Blacks in hackneyed chants of ‘No justice, no peace,’ Reverend Al Sharpton should turn and shout at them ‘Stop looting! Start policing!’
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Besides encouraging young Blacks to stop looting and start policing, I urge AOC and her BLM cohorts to change that defund slogan before it’s too late: Reform the police! That makes sense. Defund the police! That’s just stupid.
Better still, instead of issuing BLM edicts from the comfort of her luxury condo in DC, perhaps AOC should join the squatters she’s inspired to “Occupy City Hall” in NYC:
‘Abolishing prisons and police does not just mean subtracting those institutions from society but building a world where everyone gets the care they need,’ said Katherine, 27, an organizer who would not give her last name.
‘This is a utopia among chaos,’ said a man who calls himself Professor Kannon and has been giving history lessons on police brutality and civil rights since the start of the encampment.
(The New York Times, July 9, 2020)
Ironically, the messy, fetid, and lawless conditions of their tent city actually harken back to Dickensian London. How’s that for coming full circle…?
Anyway, I suspect one night there, living among her people, would bring AOC to her senses.
Related commentaries:
defund the police… crime and green deal…
capitalizing black, reparations… Killing of Michael Brown…