What makes anybody think an American who condemns the looting in France approves of everything that’s wrong in America?
Boot lickers tend to lick boots.
In case anyone would be down to come to the comments of a meme and leave with further reading: In Defense of Looting: A Riotous History of Uncivil Action by Vicky Osterweil
Spot on!
Small amount of looting? That has absolutely destroyed the livelihood of some of the small shop owners while also negatively affecting the local economies for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, mansions, multinational offices, and banks, y’know, the ones belonging to the supposed oligarchs pushing the ever-diminishing standards of living have remained untouched.
Face it, the protests have been hijacked by criminal opportunists with the barest facade of an excuse, and far from it being just “USians” condemning it, now every far-right social network in every part of the world pushed into the feeds by their respective Musks is taking advantage of the mayhem to associate it to their opposition and to top it off with a heavy dose of racism. Seeing Paris burned down by people who are students in facade only (and it’s easy to tell the rioters from the students actually protesting) has absolutely fed the growth of the far right across multiple countries while doing little to economically help anyone but the looters who help themselves.
Once more, only insurances lost some money. Shopowners will be fine. Their shop will be renewed with insurance money. It is not the first time such happens, last was about a year ago…
That’s not how insurance works. It covers only a small part of the losses, and only for the shops that can afford the rising rates for a decent one.
Which shop hasn’t been covered by insurance after Nahel’s death?
and it’s easy to tell the rioters from the students actually protesting
You’re this close, keep trying.
There are pros and cons, the violence and damage done in the French protests also make it easy for the rightwing to shatter solidarity among left and center voices. These protestors take the narrative the rightwing wants to push about the left and immigrants hook line and sinker without reflecting on the consequences of that, which is very very very very dangerous.
Rightwing fascists want nothing more than this to become a fist fight, it is the only environment their shitty politics can survive in because everyone is too distracted by the violence to actually interrogate what each side is saying and determine fascists are violent and full of shit.
You can criticize a protest like No Kings in the US for being wayyyy too deferential to the status quo, but you can also on the flipside point out that everyone who goes to a peaceful mass protest leaves knowing they are in the majority, and that a vast diversity of people have arrived at the same conclusion and desire to exert their will in a collective fashion that no significant percentage of the society resists in a rational way even if the power structures do.
Once you start throwing bricks at the cops and burning everything down you cut the potential for solidarity into two opposing sides which isn’t so say that ACAB isn’t true or that the pearl clutching around property damage isn’t insulting given the human suffering the protests are meant to illuminate but the vision of the social project becomes diminished once things enter that realm, you have a war at that point not a social movement.
All that being said, I don’t think the protestors are the problem, not even remotely, the inhuman conditions for the average person are the problem. I am also not trying to say a certain way of protesting is necessarily wrong, but this idea that we aren’t in a struggle of primarily narrative is a sure fire way to lose catastrophically as the left which to be honest France should be alot more cognizant about given their history than they seem to be…
We all know rightwing fascists need and deserve to be punched in the face, but if you lean into that unreflectively you make it easy for them to portray the situation as a tit for tat fight rather than an existential struggle against dehumanization.
False dichotomy if there ever was one. The small businesses that are burned down or destroyed or emptied don’t have anything to do with the oligarchs or pedophiles, they are often neighbours of the looters. What have they done to deserve that? Sorry, looting them doesn’t further any good cause, indeed, it is just serving the narrative of the opposing side.
The business have insurances, and actually don’t loose at being attacked. Many even benefit of the insurance to renew their shop in a more modern way ; it is at the point police sometimes even doubt the shop owner may have asked to be a target. It can also be a good time to burn accountancy documents when some were a problem, and destroy those stock of merchandises they knew they could not sell (so insurance pay for them).
Yet for some it is a real moral pain to see their shop looted, of course…
That’s why all the small business owners are chiming in to cheer when their shops are torn to pieces and burned down!
Do you even hear yourself XD
Most of the times they find it boring, yes. Yet do you know one that has really lost something after the death of Nahel? In my town most burnt shops reopened fast, renewed, and more attractive than before.
And I can’t remember any casualties for shop owners, beside those who got caught trying to hide the bankruptie of their company as a riot burning (for insurance). Do you know some that had real (unsolved) problems because of riots?
Some things to remember:
- Protests, riots are almost never monolithic and desperate people and local organized crime almost always takes advantage of the commotion.
- There are already reports of Police antagonists stirring up commotion in these.
- There is a very long history of far-right agitators trying to hijack and smear justifiable legitimate protests. Many examples from the 2020 BLM protests.
- Foreign adversaries – notably Russia – almost always seizes on these and has a hand in stirring up division.
So the fallacy is the assumption that the people committing the looting are the same people who originally set out to protest the following grievances:
- Severe under-funding of schools.
- Overcrowded classrooms and lack of air conditioning in excessively-hot climate.
- Teacher shortages and schedules.
To again reiterate, much of the time legitimate protests are hijacked by outside groups for their own ulterior motives (political optics, theft, etc.)
You moralizing about what is essentially an uncontrollable phenomenon, is serving the narrative of the opposing side. Nobody is in control of a riot by definition. All kinds of shit is gonna get fucked up. Focusing on individual incidents is falling into a trap that the ruling class lays for a credulous audience.
People plundering stores are very much in control of themselves, give me a break. I don’t blame anyone else for those actions than those who commit them.
I hate when people pull out this stupid straw man argument, “Think of the poor small businesses”. Small businesses in this country are all but non existent at this point, most of them have been forced to close their doors thanks to big chains like Walmart and Target. The closest we have to small businesses in most areas are franchisees from the big chain fast food restaurants.
Sorry, I thought this was relating to the French unrests. There is no Walmart in France. Have a look at the shops that were destroyed and then count how many of them are large chains and how many were local businesses.
“all but non existent”
Where in the US is that true?! The worst city in America for chain stores can’t quite hit 3 of 4. Almost every state has better than half of stores in the hands of small business.
“all but non existent”
Where in the US is that true?!
I’m sure that guy that got kicked in the back of the head and has his video game store robbed gives a shit anymore and probably never will.
The French need rooftop Koreans. :)
They need guns and a super Mario brother
As much as I like the roof Koreans, they would get firebombed if they were in France, the reason they worked in America was because Americans are pussys and when legit confronted with violence, they piss their pants and run away.
Won’t speak for you, but I’m not getting close enough to toss a Molotov cocktail at a man in an elevated position with a long gun. 😬 (Seriously, reread your comment and think out how that would work IRL.)
pretend i have the digital image editing skills to combine these please:
spoliered because holy fuck that took up a lot of my screen
And yet nobody seems willing to acknowledge that America has just turned out a fourth largest protest in the nation’s history over the last two years, mobilizing tens of millions of people with no significant reports of violence or looting.
I guess it doesn’t count when organizers successfully create a peaceful environment that doesn’t play into the hands of the fascists in our government who are looking for any excuse to enact martial law and suspend elections to establish their total and complete authority?
Yes but that only matters if the government your under gives a shit about that sort of thing. You doing nothing as they round up ‘illegal voters’ is playing into the hands of fascists.
We had nationwide protests that turned violent with rioting and looting in 2020 under this same regime. It achieved no meaningful change but to turn public opinion against the movement. We’re still recovering from the social trauma that caused and it’s only given ammunition to the opposition. Portland, OR is still a pariah on the national scene due to the violence and looting that happened here in 2020 despite the last six years of adopting a more peaceful way of protesting.
The regime was unprepared for the violent response then but they are prepared for it now. A year ago they were doing everything they could to provoke a violent response, declaring blue cities as enemies within and deploying our own states’ national guards against us. Our response was to turn out in large, peaceful numbers. It made this regime look foolish and they’ve since halted their deployment of the military against blue cities.
They need us to be violent so they can use it to turn the general public against us; and so we show up peacefully and “do nothing”. As a result, they have no enemy to rally the general public against, their actions have no justification and public opinion of this regime is at record-breaking lows and is continuing to trend lower.
It achieved no meaningful change but to turn public opinion against the movement
Because it only fell the mask for many Americans. Private property is more important to them than any amount of social improvement.
Keep being docile and keep licking those boots, that’ll definitely show them who’s boss.
I find the looting and property damage stupid because there are plenty of Billionaires and Politicians to loot and property damage yet they primarily targeting cafes and shops.
I’m sure theyed getting their buisnesses robbed as well.
It’s because it (typically) isn’t the political activists who are the ones looting. It is groups of criminals who just take advantage of the situation and the protestors are blamed.
And agent provocateurs sent to stir shit to discredit the movement and give the police an excuse to crack skulls.
Cuckservatives support billionaire pedophiles because that’s what they aspire to be.
THE TRAINS ARENT RUNNING ON TIME REEEEEEEEEE
choo choo motherfucker
it’s a false dichotomy you are presenting. do you want to say any protests against pedophiles ruling the world will necessitate some people being looted, which is a sacrifice you are willing to make. can we not imagine a better world? can we not support the protests with full force while also condemning the looting?
It’s not a false dichotomy because it’s not saying that it’s one or the other.
it’s false dichotomy because it’s presented as if people who don’t tolerate looting must be excusing the rule by pedophiles and oligarchs.
I think it’s a critique about the inaction and then the condemning more than the method of action.
Not to mention that the meme and it’s sentence structure is following the script from the show, Community because that’s how Brenda said it. So I’m not going to read too much into a meme
ITT, a lot of people unfamiliar with the meme. It looses something when it doesn’t include Shirley’s response.
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-can-excuse-racism-but-i-draw-the-line-at-animal-cruelty
Please don’t Britta Britta’s name
I just pulled a Hawthorne! Dammit!
