Stop kneeling. Unless you intend to unzip his fly, get off your knees. This will not satisfy the mob. Genuflecting is only the beginning. But you know that already. You like the mob. You agree with BLM. You’re modeling behavior for the rest of us to follow. You’re putting yourself at the head of the parade.
If contrition is what you wish to express there are a whole lot of business owners in this city, including Van Nuys, you might kneel before. They have no interest in having their fly unzipped, but they’ll settle for a wee bit of law and order.
So… you’re comparing the Wokester political dynamic to a caliphate – and you’re the infidel.
I don’t have a horse in this race. But I’m pragmatic about the end results.
The tug-of-war between Social Justice and Law and Order has a predictable historical outcome. Moderates with no specific affiliation tend to pull to the right out of fear during civil unrest. Their swing vote goes to whoever promises safety. And they vote with their feet – to the extent that they can afford to – and migrate away from trouble toward perceived safety.
Meanwhile various half hearted feel-good programs are introduced to help alleviate the underlying structural causes of racial tensions. These tend to be superficial, short lived, and ineffective relative to the sucking sound of middle class flight and economic blah, blah, blah. We’ve been doing this for a couple of centuries.
There will be a wealth transfer from some regions to others. The rich will gain and get richer. The poor… Not so much. When all this sturm and drang is over Van Nuys will return to its traditional role as a fair-to-middling suburb. Neither here nor there. For you… it will be a wash. Your emotional response to your evil overlords only matters if you chose to stay or leave. That’s up to you, not them.
“When all this sturm and drang is over Van Nuys will return to its traditional role as a fair-to-middling suburb. Neither here nor there. For you… it will be a wash.”
If I had certainty of this I would not be so concerned. I fear the behavior of the political/media class may prove more damaging long term than the rioting.
Maybe off-grid solar panels will give me a sense of freedom from events beyond my control. Also, a few months of homemade MRE’s, and I mean that affectionately, Johnny.
I voted with my feet in March. After two years of searching and planning we moved from Sacramento to coastal South Carolina. Every day in California was a crisis with every conceivable (and to me inconceivable) group screening Look at Me! Yup, it’s slow here and and and choices of every kind are more limited. It’s also so less shrill ,and everyone does not think they are the center of the universe . If this makes me a monochrome ostrich so be it.
The Low Country. Hope you got a big house for the price. You’re in good company. California ex-patriates are legion.
Does your primary preoccupation boil down to property values? Yours specifically?
Living in a 21st century city, it would be nice to be able to use the infrastructure for starters. During the riot it is not safe to do so, but even during less troubled times many of the sidewalks and public transportation systems are effectively rendered unusable by tax payers. Beyond that, it would be nice to participate in a humanistic support network among the multitude of community members. Even prior to the pandemic it was very typical to encounter a wide variety of color wheel acronym prejudice independent of stating political affiliations. And all that has some correlation to property values, which if we are honest about the interests affiliated with real estate (as clearly evidenced by such things as local institutional rivalries or spite houses) is undermined and weaponized.
“Color wheel acronym prejudice”
Now there is 2020 Los Angeles in short form.
First we genuflect, then we unzip, then we wash the pastor’s feet. This empty virtue-signaling sets the tone for a downward spiral, where tolerance for lawlessness is expected, and even lauded by those whose job is to maintain order. The Mayor of Los Angeles refers to the police department as “killers.” Wokesters propose that “communities” self-police. This is a beast with an endless appetite for destruction and it doesn’t self-correct. Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, and Chicago are cities where virtually every policy is informed by a left-wing, anti-business (which means anti-employment), anti-law and order ethos, to the detriment of people of color who make up a large part of their populations, but there’s never been an effort to revisit their failed policies.
To you who are putting yourselves at the head of the parade, you know that no amount of self-degradation will satisfy the revolution’s appetite. We could hang ourselves from streetlamps all along Van Nuys Blvd. from Weddington to Plummer and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.