Belfast, Minneapolis…whatever.
Steve-O-in NJ has authored another of his periodic epics, this time in response to the George Floyd-triggered civil unrest, finding an analogy in the long, ugly history of civil upheaval in Northern Ireland. For once, I’m going to show some restraint and let a Comment of the Day speak entirely for itself.
Here is Steve-O-in NJ’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Saturday Morning Ethics, 5/30/2020: Burn, Baby, Burn Nostalgia”:
In 1969, which is outside living memory for a lot of folks now, the long-standing civil rights issues in Derry, Northern Ireland, came to a head in a series of demonstrations by nationalist Catholics and unionist Protestants, which resulted in violence by both sides against both sides, due to the anger and hate they possessed. The RUC, not yet the highly trained force they would become, initially did not handle it too well. The action quickly took on the character of an outbreak of civil war, with the throwing of Molotov cocktails, the use of CS gas, and ultimately firearm discharge (this was before police in Northern Ireland were armed as a matter of course). In two days it looked like the city would be torn apart, and the rioting only stopped when the Prince of Wales’ Own Regiment of Yorkshire landed and forced the sides apart. Miraculously no lives were lost, although about 350 police officers and about a thousand riot participants were injured. That’s before we even talk about fires and property damage.
Little did everyone involved know this was the beginning of the 37 year conflict that would be known as the Troubles and see the British Army’s longest deployment in the form of Operation Banner. The first few years were particularly ugly with ongoing low-level conflict and no-go areas for the authorities. Finally after 1972’s Bloody Sunday (which everyone talks about) and Bloody Friday (22 IRA bombings in less than an hour and a half) which no one talks about, the British Army launched Operation Motorman to reclaim the no-go areas. The IRA was not equipped for open warfare like that, and quickly melted into the countryside, there to reorganize into the terrorism cells that would have a hard time doing anything too big or coordinated, but also be hard to root out and destroy, getting money, arms, and whatever else needed from those sympathetic to the cause or just looking to weaken an American ally.
The rest is history, and it has been relegated to the history books since 1998, when the IRA realized that, although a determined minority can often get their way, this wasn’t one of those times. It wasn’t 1922 anymore, the Cold War was over, outside aid was drying up, and the idea of one insurgency defeating the UK and establishing a united Ireland was a pipe dream.
In between, though, there were innumerable bombings, arsons, murders, ambushes, assaults, and sundry other criminal acts, including atrocities on both sides. There were also almost four decades of living in fear for ordinary people. These were the folks who didn’t give a toss about old grievances and really didn’t care about what some long-dead idealists said. but who wanted to live ordinary, peaceful lives. They didn’t want to have to duck at every unexpected noise for fear it might be a gunshot. They didn’t want to have to flee if they saw an unattended bag or box for fear it might be a bomb. They didn’t want their blood to run cold if they heard a car pass by slowly in the middle of the night, praying their house wasn’t the one it pulled up to.
You may say “All well and good, Steven, but why are you retelling this ugly and painful chapter of history? Isn’t it best to let it go?” I don’t think it is. Let history go, and you also let its lessons go, snuff out the light, throw away the map. If you snuff out the light and throw away the map you shouldn’t be surprised if one day you find yourself back in that same ugly, painful place you thought you left behind a long time ago.
I’ve said at least a half-dozen times that if this country didn’t get its act together and stop the irrational anger and hate on both sides we were going to wind up in our own version of the Troubles, and, despite the romanticized stories that get told now, we were going to find out that sucked.
I’ve spoken out a few times about how we were headed towards becoming not just two or more Americas, but two or more Americas that couldn’t stand one another, and just barely tolerated one another because we didn’t have much of a choice. Each of us wants things our way and only our way. Each of us wants the others to disappear, because they’re bad people who’ve done us wrong, they just don’t understand us because they can’t, and we’re just waiting for the chance to make it happen.
Well, the chance has come, and the fight to make those we disagree with is on. Yes, this all started with an unjustified taking of life by a bullying police officer (I don’t call him racist because there is no clear evidence of racial animus like slurs). He will face justice, and by the time the Federal charges that are coming are disposed of I think he will be very unlikely to draw a breath of free air again. However, it quickly became all about all the grievances one part of American society has against another. It started peacefully, but, let’s not kid ourselves, it turned violent in 48 hours if not sooner.
Because the mayor of Minneapolis is weak, just like the mayor of Baltimore five years ago, and apparently places worrying about his personal feelings above looking to the safety of the people he is sworn to protect and serve, he’s sent the message to “riot and destroy all you want, I won’t do anything about it.” Because he abandoned his obligation to those sworn to protect the city, 170 businesses lie in ashes and one police station is badly damaged if not destroyed. Who suffered? The ordinary folks who owned and worked at those businesses, that’s who. Know who else suffered? The police in other cities where other grievance merchants and professional rage-a-holics decided to try to duplicate that feat…and found out not only that other police departments were not going to fold so easily, but that some, like the NYPD and the San Jose Police, were going to put up a VERY stiff fight. The ordinary folks who got caught in the middle of that fight also suffered. The other emergency services suffer too, as the Atlanta Fire Department find themselves being pelted with rocks and bricks and working with bulletproof vests under their turnout gear. There’s a ton of suffering to come, too, as these neighborhoods become ghost towns and other protests spiral.
Here’s the thing – we’ve now almost reached our Operation Banner moment. Minnesota is mobilizing their entire National Guard, a first in 164 years. The police in other cities are deploying in huge numbers. Now the active duty army is about to get involved, for the first time in 28 years. It just gets worse after that. And for what? This stopped being about one person’s abuse and death on Wednesday. It stopped being about long-standing grievances the moment the first fires were lit. At that point it became all about who in this society hates who, who is angry at who, and who is willing to destroy that other person, by any means necessary, and justify that destruction by justifying that hate.
It isn’t right to make everyone else bear the burden of your anger and hate. It isn’t right to bring your anger and hate to your neighbor’s doorstep. It isn’t right to turn your neighborhood, your home town, your state, or your nation into a war zone so you can express your anger and hate. Do that, and this nation is headed for its own version of the Troubles, where everyone is going to cut loose with anger and hate, and those who want no part of it will pay the price.
Ethics Alarms 
Fabulous Comment of the Day!
I am seeing brazen hypocrisy at how the media is covering the current “protests” and there are rationalizations spreading far and wide trying to justify the actions of the violent thugs tearing up our streets. Not only that, there are people, including business owners, that are openly enabling the open violence.
The violence started in Madison, WI last night and my wife and daughter work in a hospital in Madison, W. they have to drive straight through an area of Madison that regularly has criminal violence late at night and if the protests get near to their place of work or in the area they have to drive through during the day and evening hours I’m going to have to personally escort them to and from work.
They’re heavily pushing the idea that these are all “outside agitators” and, what’s more, actually white supremacists! (apparently having had the foresight to have gotten really good tans as camouflage). And absolutely not Antifa, … no, not gentle (and justified, in any case) Antifa at all!
Full bore gaslighting by the media and local authorities
I am seeing brazen hypocrisy at how the media is covering the current “protests” and there are rationalizations spreading far and wide trying to justify the actions of the violent thugs tearing up our streets. Not only that, there are people, including business owners, that are openly enabling the open violence.
You have a mind-numbing talent at stating just exactly what the pure surface looks like and you say it as if you are unaware that you are only redescribing what is evident to anyone with two eyes.
Alizia wrote, “You have a mind-numbing talent at stating just exactly what the pure surface looks like and you say it as if you are unaware that you are only redescribing what is evident to anyone with two eyes.”
That’s pure attacking the messenger ad hominem with absolutely nothing relevant added to the conversation.
No, that was a comment about your comments and their content. My point is precisely that your comments never add anything to the conversation (as you phrase it) because they are entirely safe, surface observations.
There is no ‘message’ to attack, Steve! I am criticizing the lack of ‘message’!
There is a function though in my critique, a productive function. We cannot remain within these limited parameters of this limited observation. We have to put more demands on our selves.
And just like that, people are no longer worried about COVID-19.
Well done, it is sad that you have to make such a comparison and be spot on.
Shared on Facebook, still have to put the link in a comment.
Will see if any of my feed that support “punch a Nazi” or “Look what you made me do” comment or if I get called a White supremacist racist privileged…..
Great post, but the conflict in N Ireland — the nature of the conflict — is entirely distinct from the entire developing situation in the United States. But I do grasp the reference to a hardening of attitude.
Also, though your implication is (I guess) that everyone needs to calm down — I can’t see what else to take away from the essay — what you desire is not going to happen. Your post may be *epic* but the forces directing the radicals that are working to assert control (through demographics essentially) are on the verge of an epic victory. In so many different areas their radical praxis has conquered ground.
In the end your essay is sentimentalist. What would a person do if they internalized the message, whatever it is, of this post? I guess they would do what you-plural seem most to do: vainly complain.
Your most telling critique, in the form of sycophantic compliment, came from Steve Witherspoon who sees everything . . . and understands precisely nothing.
The alternative to vain complaint is open warfare. Nobody should call for that yet. Politically, at least in the areas subjected to this violence, there is no alternative.
No, the alternative to vain complaint is self-education and the education of others by telling the truth, first to oneself and then to others. This is just about all that I talk about in all that I write, yet I don’t get much assent. I guess one has to keep repeating things. It does eventually get through.
My more developed response . . .
The alternative to vain complaint is open warfare. Nobody should call for that yet. Politically, at least in the areas subjected to this violence, there is no alternative.
It is important to clarify something crucial about my own views. The idea of stimulating violent social change or any ‘warfare’ is a very very bad choice. And I can clearly say why I think this: what we call The Sixties (which has some of its roots, oddly enough, in Catholic ‘personalism’, but that is another story) involved a radical change of perspective that arose not out of violence but through changing the way people see and think.
You could start with the ideas of a man like Antonio Gramsci and his notion of ‘cultural hegemony’:
I am not a political activist. I am only interested in trying to get clear about what is going on in our present. To clarify how I see — perhaps to see how I see — so that I can visualize, and also articulate, the way that a sole individual can find their way back to the solidity of principles out of which may come a social renovation. The first order of business is spiritual and has a great deal to do with *clarifying metaphysical concepts*. It must sound outrageous — since I seem to get branded as some sort of *hater* — that I cannot separate my social views from my Christian idealism.
The largest and most important question has to do with redefining what is to be a shared ‘cultural hegemony’ and defining this through clearly exponded ideas, no through violent actions.
My view goes something like this: If European Americans — and this term is of course contentious — could and would avail ourselves of a proper conservative education and not the coercive hyper-liberal education that we receive from all quarters, then I think that the social and cultural processes of the renovation I refer to would occur naturally, spontaneously.
But the forces that *control* the present are vastly hegemonic. Their reach is astounding. They have penetrated everywhere. Their *content* is everywhere. We breathe and we drink this.
The object? To become a counter-current to this by immersion in countermanding ideas. *We* have to do what they did but in reverse. That is, if indeed we do think there are principles that exist ‘metaphysically’ and that are eternal and constant. If we do not believe that, then we must accept being carried along by whatever current gains control of the apparatus of hegemonic control.
The problem, or one problem anyway, is that those who oppose us (if it is proper to speak in such polarized terms) recognize that when there is the slightest counter-current against a given aspect of their hegemony — some countervailing idea — they crush it with full force. Their primary tool is shame & blame: emotionalism and sentimentalism. Not idea!
It is the recovery of strong and determining ideas that is the real *weapon*.
Lets look at the bright side. This is effectively eliminating future white privilege. If I am a store owner in a metro area I will no longer focus my attention on the behavior of young blacks in my store. I will need to focus on the behavior if young adults of all races – white, black, Asian, Aleut – because they all now appear to pose threats to my livelyhood. Good Job everyone.
All sarcasm aside:
If you don’t want me to stereotype you stand up against those who create the perception. I stand up to neo Nazis and facists when they want to lord authoritarian control over people. Why should I try to promote your interests when you condemn me simply because I don’t walk in lockstep with your ideas or for who I am and who I support politically?
Why is it that the rioters attribute the behavior of a few cops to all cops yet fail to realize they are reinforcing the stereotype that blacks are dangerous and thieves. They are all a bunch of idiots unless the goal is to create division.
This is another of Steve’s instructive posts. The point isn’t necessarily only that we should just calm down as Aliza posits. I took the points as we will all wind up spilling a lot of unnecessary blood if we don’t stop with the non-stop identity politics. We should take heed of the lessons of Ireland before we allow domestic terrorism to take root. We do that by not ignoring the complaints of those who feel aggrieved but also by not excusing the violence or allowing people to blow off steam through violent acts. The Purge is fictional TV not a political activity.
This is another of Steve’s instructive posts. The point isn’t necessarily only that we should just calm down as Aliza posits. I took the points as we will all wind up spilling a lot of unnecessary blood if we don’t stop with the non-stop identity politics. We should take heed of the lessons of Ireland before we allow domestic terrorism to take root. We do that by not ignoring the complaints of those who feel aggrieved but also by not excusing the violence or allowing people to blow off steam through violent acts. The Purge is fictional TV not a political activity.
It would be helpful to be made to understand why, exactly, this is such an ‘instructive post’. What is the instruction exactly?
Here, again, you repeat your core assertion: that all of this is *caused* by those involved in *identity politics*. Stop the identity politics and the problems cease. I suggest this needs to be examined more carefully. Because it is an assertion that may be defective.
The game that is being played in the US and the entire ideological climate has been constructed out of narratives of identity. This is essentially what had been put in motion throughout the land since the Sixties movement (which has roots in anti-fascist movements). Now, you are going to enter the public square, set down a box, stand on it and say “Time to stop all this people!”
And then the entire raging multitude stops in their tracks as if listening to celestial chords. Some break out in tears. Some are on their knees crying to the Heavens.
This is not Ireland.
There will be little gained from ‘listening to the aggrieved’ because the nature of the forces that stand behind these manifestations have other intentions than those stated. The nature of agitprop (language of agitation and active social agitation in combination with propagandized narratives) is to employ righteous rhetoric as a penetrating tool. It is like a blow that causes the receiver of it to act stunned.
The nature of the attack, the nature of the forces that stand behind these manifestations, have to be identified. When that is done, and when what they are after is seen and understood, ‘reconciliation’ with them and their intentions is not desired. The entire ‘liberal’ error is here. It seems to me to be a failure to accurately see what is going on. A distorting lens is placed between the subject (our self) and the object being viewed.
It seems to me that it is at this juncture that a courage of vision is needed: a willingness to drop the sentimental interpretations.
Is quoting anonymously ethical, since I am trying to not reveal myself or my associate?
Comment about being against FB standards and then a review of the blog from his point of view, which is interesting… This is definitely the viewpoint of a blue hive non veteran, anti capitalist, which I think exposes my biases…
“Not sure if it’s actually against those standards, but maybe you’ve seen something I haven’t.
That said…
It’s not an “ethics” page though, it’s a political page using the word “ethics” a lot to justify political arguments without, generally, basing those arguments in the broader field of ethics in an honest or balanced way. The degree of bias of the author varies somewhat, which is interesting, but the arguments made have—so far as I’ve read, I can’t claim to have read every single post the site—been using pretty consistently narrow interpretations of “ethics” to mean “only ethical positions acceptable to libertarian thinkers” as if that were the only universally ethical framework for evaluating things.
Most libertarian ethical interpretations tend to rely on unspoken assumptions that fall firmly into the “just world” fallacy, and that blind spot is on display in lots of this site’s content. Even in cases of articles that have a highly utilitarian bent, ethical arguments that would permit answers to posed questions have been omitted in favor of “this is not answerable in ethical terms” in at least one case I can think of off the top of my head (addressing whether abortion is an essential procedure using a framework of questions).
There are some exceptions to this, but the more politically charged an article’s subject is, the more likely it is that the site will simply omit an ethical argument that might run directly counter to the stance taken, even when that stance is worded as neutrally as possible.
I’m not saying the site’s dishonest, it just asserts a level of comprehensive authority and neutrality that it doesn’t follow through with. It’s a bit like saying “the sky is blue” which is true…except when it isn’t true, like nighttime, sunsets, sunrises, and during other non-blue atmospheric phenomena.
Disclaimer: I haven’t reviewed articles older than sometime in 2015, so I may be missing prior context.
ugh, everything after “exposes my biases…” is the comment from my associate…
I figured that…I’ll clarify.
Thank you for the extra effort.
I am so far from a libertarian that I couldn’t see one using the Hubble Telescope, so from the outset this analysis is suspect. Second, politics does not even make up a majority of the posts. If all one reads are political posts, which is what I suspect, it isn’t a surprise that one would say “it’s a political blog.”
Frankly, if a review can’t come closer to objective accuracy than that, I really don’t care what it says.
Wow; that review sounds suspiciously like some of my Facebook friends some of which have recently unfriended me and blocked me from accessing any of their Facebook content. I’ve been linking to EA quite often in recent months so it’s quite possible that this could be one of my friends, must be one of those friends that’s from the moron clan.
Yah, he isn’t a close friend, but he is intelligent, articulate, educated, and completely opposite from my view. We actually discussed that we were NOT in agreement, but that we valued seeing the others view. We both left the other unblocked for the last few months, which is hopeful in some ways.
A most astute history lesson. Thanks, Steve-O. Your essay has been forwarded to seven people I know, two of them Irish (lapsed Catholics, I believe), one of whom has begun speaking to his sons admiringly of radical Sinn Féin amháin -like activity. He will pay more attention to a writer who knows what he’s taking about — who can compose his thoughts with simple clarity and write impeccably, in spite of having to curb the essential passion running beneath. Constrained passion is compelling.
Hopefully he’ll listen. But I have very little faith in those who share those views. I almost punched out a co-worker over a conversation that went bad about this, and would have if the boss hadn’t told us to both get back to work. To this day that remains a sore spot, and I told him, on the day he moved on, that if I see him again, I’ll end him.
Yipes! Oh, never mind. You don’t know where I live. nyah, nyah
There are some exceptions to this, but the more politically charged an article’s subject is, the more likely it is that the site will simply omit an ethical argument that might run directly counter to the stance taken, even when that stance is worded as neutrally as possible.
It is true that something like 70% of Jack’s posts are on strict issues of cultural and social ethics issues. So, I suspect the reviewer quoted did not grasp this simply because of a rather quick glance given.
I can sort of understand why he would, with a quick, surface reading, determine that Jack’s perspective is ‘libertarian’. I guess this is a result of people only having reference to quick and easy labels: Democrat, Republican, Libertarian. Socialist.
But I would ask: What are the politics of this blog? And what are the politics of those who write here? Is there a guiding political theory? Is there any theory at all?
I will bet that the one who wrote the paragraph I quoted fits in to the *general liberal climate of the day*. Is this a ‘politics’? Is there really a structure of view there? That is, defined principles? I would assert that there is not. I would also assert that there is a very definite lack of critical self-study and self-reflection, and it is that which more often than not defines the average American’s politics. It had never really been thought out! It is a mixture of some democratic-sounding rhetorical phrasings; some ‘social justice’ notes; some ‘free-market’ declarations; and a huge wet bloblike mass of sentimentalism!
Americans do not really think! They have never been asked to think. The system they exist in desires that they do not think. So what do they do? They *spout off*.
This is where my critique is going. You-plural might be mad at me for being a loudmouth but you could not say that I have not made substantial efforts to clarify things!
When it comes to ‘politics’ you are substantially in the dark. There are things going on that you do not see with clarity. Yet you very much need to see them. But with all your will (or a great deal of it) you do everything in your power not to see. You therefore describe a *world* that does not exist. It is a superimposition of your own sentimental content.
That is why I say This is not Ireland!
https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/2020/05/31/in-some-cities-police-officers-joined-protesters-marching-against-brutality/?utm_campaign=forbes&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_term=Gordie%2F&fbclid=IwAR2f4rLmqg6r7Pk0BTqpOt8UT0qcS6PD46OXnBbuHmg9TxLkh0AzJqTFEOA#7f97d38c5edb
What do you think, Jack? Heroes or dunces?
This is another facet of something new we’ve never seen before.
Countless agencies all over the country have made public statements about the death of George Flyod. I can’t recall that happening before. Just in my state alone there are police departments from tiny towns with a few officers to the biggest departments have issued condemnation. The state police has. The association of county sheriffs have.
Yeah, I don’t recall seeing that much before, either, and I’m seeing it around here, too. I’m not sure what to make of it. The video is pretty damning, for sure, but it kind of feels like he’s being declared guilty even before a trial.
Are they heroes or dunces, or making politically expedient shows of support to tamp down the violence? I think the idea was to try to reestablish trust in law enforcement. I don’t know how you do that when graffitists have been running around spray painting “ACAB” and “Fuck 12” all over the place. “ACAB” stands for “all cops are bastards” and the “12” in the “Fuck 12” is strange reference to police. I had to look them up to figure out what they meant as I saw them painted on an empty Walgreen’s building (it moved, not a COVID or insurrection casualty).
For instance, Houston Police Chief, Art Acevedo, gave an empassioned speech yesterday about how Houston is bigger and better than the rioting. He and his officers marched with demonstrators on Saturday and Sunday in a show of solidarity with George Floyd against police brutality. He has also stated, emphatically and without reservation (he might be running for reelection, so . . . .), that what happened to George Floyd was a flagrant abuse of police power and the techniques used by the police officers violated every known restraint technique taught in police training.
Houston has been relatively calm over the last week. Demonstrations have taken place, mainly in downtown, but they have been mostly peaceful. I have to give Acevedo and his officers credit, though. To prevent trouble, they formed lines of police and moved protestors from their vantage points, not allowing them to congregate long enough to set up a place to destroy stuff. However, there was looting and graffiti this past weekend. The Houston Galleria, an upscale shopping mall just west of downtown Houston, closed early and security details prevent large-scale looting and destruction of property. There were a few instances of police officers using excessive force, though. One officer used his horse to knock someone down but that officer has been fired.
As for the Minneapolis Police Chief interviewing and talking to Floyd’s brother, as well as the other statements he’s made, he has all but assured that Chauvin will not get a fair trial in Minneapolis.
jvb
Excellent COTD, well deserved Steve.
Steve’s eloquent comment took me metaphorically back to my college years when I began following “The Troubles” in newspapers like the “Irish Republican Times” and the “Belfast Telegraph,” as well as what was reported in he American press. Being of Scots-Irish ancestry via County Armagh and County Tyrone, the strife in Northern Ireland held a personal dimension for me. I also began to regularly read the “Police Times,” which was the official monthly publication of the Police Federation of England and Wales, at the time the U.K.s largest police staff association (union).
In the back of every issue of the Police Times, there was always an “In Memoriam” section, Unfailingly, this section memorialized the deaths of numerous RUC constables killed in bombings, ambushes and shootouts throughout Northern Ireland. Most were very young. Being a young officer myself at the time, I was always touched by their sacrifice.
Fast forward some twenty years when I was assigned to a regional law enforcement counter-terrorism task force and went through training conducted by two recent retirees of the RUC (which was then transitioning into the kinder, gentler Police Service of Northern Ireland). Those veteran instructors were themselves survivors of many violent encounters, and had indeed had prices put on each of their heads by the IRA. Their experiences may indeed be instructive as to the future we face.
A lot of Irish Americans would want you dead, even though they haven’t met you, based on what you just said. Most of them haven’t met anyone from the UK, but would love to see them dead. None of them have ever suffered anything as a result of anything anyone from the UK did, but they still want them dead. Most of them don’t know that it was Dermot McMurragh, the deposed King of Leinster, as Irish as a shamrock, who invited the Normans/English in in the first place to try to get his throne back, and wouldn’t care if they did (it’s generally not a good idea to let someone conquer your homeland). Almost none of them really grasp all the history between Catholic and Protestant over the centuries, and none of them will admit that maybe the Catholics weren’t exactly nice to the Protestants either. Until 9/11, most of them were ok with terrorism, as long as it was directed against the UK or English people. To them blowing up 22 sites in an hour and a half was a great thing (even the IRA themselves didn’t like the fact there were civilian casualties, including a teenager, because it was going to get them bad publicity, but a lot of Irish Americans just shrugged), while the SAS and RUC getting some good intelligence and acting on at Loughall was a massacre of saints. This attitude was one of the earliest attitudes of uncompromising hatred that compromised any other values.