Sunday, June 14, 2020

The Floyd "Movement" Has Failed

Let’s talk about race, shall we? If you’re squeamish, look away.

I would assume that, right now, many of you are sitting around wondering what the hell is happening to the world. Things seems to be insane. Angry mobs of blacks are looting stores. Angier mobs of white college-age kids are taking over city blocks. People are tearing down statutes and demanding the elimination of police departments. It’s like a festival for evil people going unchecked. Corporations are dropping to their knees in front of it. The media is reveling in it.

And I would bet that many of you feel pretty depressed about this. It seems that America’s promise of a better tomorrow is dead. America’s promise of freedom is finished. America is about to become a socialized race-based state that crushes the individual in the name of protecting black thugs, right?

It is depressing. I find it very depressing. I hate turning on the news or the internet. But it’s not true. Honestly. This is all a delusion presented by leftists who don’t understand they’ve already lost. This is a progressive tantrum that is confined to progressive areas. It is leftists exploiting blacks, but it’s without purpose. It is progressives talking to progressives, we’re just stuck listening to it.

Honestly. Trust me, it’s D.O.A.

First, Floyd was murdered. That is true. His death was sickening. Even worse, it was pointless. To understand why, realize that all the movements in history that have changed society have succeeded because they projected an undeniable argument that they were morally right and the people opposing them were oppressors. What’s more, they had a clear goal: give us equality. This was true of the Civil Rights Movement, Gandhi, the abolitionist movement, women’s right to vote, and even gay marriage. Each of these had moral right on their side and a clear, undeniably correct goal. Without this, you cannot change the world... even by force.

If blacks had marched peacefully through the streets after Floyd’s death and could point out how something society condones had caused Floyd’s death, they would have won without a fight. Guaranteed. But that isn’t what happened.

Instead, an army of ghetto blacks rushed out and started looting. They saw Floyd’s death as an opportunity. That destroyed the moral high ground and killed any chance this thing had of turning into something positive. What’s more, when more rational blacks did turn out, they had no genuine goal. They could point to nothing society had done wrong. Nothing. Society didn’t support the cop. Society was appalled, and reacted correctly. The cops were arrested swiftly and immediately charged with a crime. People were outraged. They wanted an investigation to make sure this never happened again. What more could you want? Nothing and that was the next problem.

So the black-left jumped in with “society needs to stop hunting black men,” but that’s bullshit. That’s been proven. If society hunted black men, there would be a wall of names of the innocent. There isn’t. Instead, you have a handful of innocents in isolated incidents over the past several years. So what did they want? They had no idea. Do you know it took Yahoo four days to find someone with a list of demands? You can’t win when no one knows what you want.

Then it got stupid(er).

The white-left saw this as an opportunity. Antifa showed up and started fighting cops. Every white leftist with an agenda showed up and claimed “Now is the time for me!” In fact, I knew they were in trouble the minute leftist sports writers jumped up to declare Floyd's death meant it was time to change the name of the Redskins and rework the labor deal! That was a terrible sign for the left. It meant they were going into exploitation mode. Screw those blacks people, this is about my issue!! Next, the gays jumped in because “Stonewall was a riot too!” One celebrity actually came out as bisexual in her post supporting BLM. Really? Enter the narcissists. And so on.

This was obviously a disaster pending. And my judgment proved right, too. How do I know? The biggest thing is that no Democrats joined the “movement.” They saw the rioting and knew they couldn’t touch this thing with a ten foot pole. In fact, they knew it was so bad they went so far as to try to claim the rioting was the result of white, racists. Ridiculous. They saw the circus forming and stepped away. Then the left came up with Defund the Police and the Democrats actually openly opposed this. They knew this was batshit crazy and they were doomed if they endorsed this.

Want proof the Democrats ran? Ask yourself, have the Democrats proposed a single thing to change anything? No. The tiny sliver they’ve done is propose to eliminate a few Confederate statutes. That’s all. Liberal Minnesota is about to change its police force to a kinder, gentler police force... form over substance. A few military base names will be changed. But that’s it. When even the Democrats won’t support you, you know the public is not behind this.

Blacks knew they had failed too. How do we know? They started writing angry “Hey white woman!” articles blaming white women for not supporting them. When you turn on your allies, that’s a great sign you know you’ve lost. It also tells us that white women did not engage.

But what about corporations? They joined up, right? Hardly.

Nike went with BLM... in the marketing channels it uses to reach blacks. It’s telling a very different story in the marketing channel it uses to reach suburban white women. Starbucks actually refused to allow BLM buttons to be worn until a couple days ago, and then only because white nerves are calming and Starbucks had a racial profiling scandal that it wanted forgotten. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos issued a rebuke of a (fake) email he received from an angry white woman in which he wittily lectures her about why blacks are upset. That means something, right? Yup. It means his PR team told him the needed to make up for their horrible Covid PR. Beyond that, all they've done is recommend some movies about blacks.

All the other corporations I’ve seen have generally issued noncommittal “we like diversity but we like safety too” statements. One exception, a lingerie company my wife likes, sent out a pro-BLM statement and I sent back, “So will you be shutting down the child-labor sweatshops where you buy your crap?” and they’ve been desperately sending me discount offers ever since... whoops.

A lot of the celebrities who’ve been involved in this had screwed up and needed good PR: Harry and Meghan, the girl from the college admissions scandal, a couple of celebrities who got caught in racist scandals or anti-union scandals. Etc. The rest are just the usual leftist suspects from #metoo.

The NFL, which like Nike markets to whites and blacks through different channels, has agreed to let their black Nazis oppress other blacks for not speaking up and will allow them to kneel. But that’s the only change they’ve actually made. They talk to whites about Covid. The NBA was already BLM and still is.

The rest of society said nothing. There are no new initiatives. No foundations. No grandiose announcements. No changes in advertising. This thing is done.

So what’s still driving the issue? Celebrities. With no Democrats getting involved, this cabal of leftist celebrities got the chance to run free and they have. These are allies you don’t want, but they don’t get that. So even if blacks were making progress, this would hurt them. But at this point, I’m not sure there are even blacks involved.

In fact, the media noticed a “change in atmosphere” about a week ago that so many of the “BLM protestors are white!” They thought that meant racial solidarity and progress had arrived. It didn’t. It meant blacks went home and what the media is seeing is white anarchists pushing an agenda of violence without purpose in the name of blacks. They are taking over areas in big liberal cities where they know the cops will let them and they are using Floyd to push gay issues, anticapitalism issues, down with Jews, free drugs, man... etc.

In the end, this is Occupy Wall Street in the streets all over again with #metoo in the gossip columns. It’s a small group of professional whiners led by celebrities who have no idea how badly they are despised or how little they will achieve, all protected by a media but with no influence with the public.

So what will blacks get out of this? Frustration. Their problems are not the result of whites. Their problems are their paranoia and victim-wannabe mentality. Their ostensible allies, white women, sat this out. Their political arm, the Democrats, sat this out. And while the media is selling them dreams of a nebulous victory or a return to respected-victim status, the public isn’t buying it. Nothing will change and they will continue their slow descent to the bottom.

The left isn’t getting anything either. This is just a party and it will end when they get bored.

Will this help or hurt Trump? Ultimately, I think it helps a little. It helps because Biden has looked so ineffective that I think this costs him young black support. It helps Trump too because this drives a slightly bigger wedge between white women and angry blacks, two groups already breaking apart. I think it also solidifies whites in Trump’s favor. In some ways, this is 1968 all over again.

There’s more to say, but I didn’t want to leave you hanging. Just realize that this is all ultimately meaningless because the left can't control itself.

Thoughts?

10 comments:

AndrewPrice said...

BTW, I'll be out Monday and most of Tuesday. Stay sane, my friends.

ArgentGale said...

Well put and thanks for the article, Andrew. You're right about the virtue signaling being exasperating, both from people who are normally more rational about these things and...just about every company out there (CD Projekt Red doing some was disappointing for me as a gamer, but The Witcher and GOG are too good to hold this against them, and Georgia Power doing so was irritating as well). Still, most people aren't weighing in on it one way or another and there are some conservatives and libertarians calling bull on it so it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be in terms of my own social media circles and places that I lurk. Of course Larry Correia's page being one of those that I lurk on did a lot to keep me sane, too, so I've got to give him credit there.

Your points line up with a lot that he made, such as your earlier observation that incidents that the woke left like to yell at the rest of us over always happen in deep blue cities usually in deep blue states and Minneapolis and Minnesota match that pattern exactly. Another area of agreement was that Chauvin and co. messed this up bad, notable on Larry's FB because when he declared his intention to follow the 48 Hour Rule on Floyd most of the comments condemning the cops and laying out just how much hot water they were in were from other LEOs so this wasn't even close to being an issue of a monolith of racist cops across the country protecting their own for a racist kill. Left, right, and center, and plenty of cops, were all in agreement about this and yet the activists and opportunists overplayed their hand right away.

I hadn't thought about the issue of scale here compared to the movements you mentioned like abolition and women's suffrage but that's true too, and one of those things that had been lurking in the back of my mind but that I couldn't quite get out. If this hadn't gone to hell immediately what would this have affected beyond improving use of force training and reviewing of qualified immunity and possibly police union contracts and behavior? I'm sure there's more but nothing on a grand scale like the aforementioned examples.

And while I'm not close enough to the area to have special knowledge of it, I figured it was worth adding this in. I suspect that the Atlanta Wendy's shooting and destruction will, if anything, discredit the movement further. Brooks had a rather extensive rap sheet and was shot for getting one of the officers' taser away from him, running, then turning and firing it so it's hard to argue that his shooting wasn't justified under those circumstances. I suspect that the short term action that Atlanta's mayor took to appease the mob is going to come back to haunt her once the police union and lawyers get involved. I wouldn't go holding Brooks up as a martyr if I was an activist given all of that.

As for Lord of the Flies in Seattle, yeah it's OWS all over again, except even more pathetic. Requesting deliveries of vegan food after the homeless they invited in ran off with it? Telling someone whose expensive MacBook was stolen that the person who took it probably needed it more and to think of it as an unplanned donation? You really can't make this stuff up anymore, can you?

Have to split again, sorry!

ArgentGale said...

Good point about the Democrats' inaction, too. I kept waiting for them to do something yet beyond their virtue signaling kneeling demonstration in carelessly selected scarfs (with a woman from the region of Africa that particular cloth comes from calling them on their ignorant posturing) yet they haven't. Good observation.

And for one last note, one event in rural GA can't be extrapolated to anything nationwide but we did have a Back the Blue rally downtown today. I saw it on my way there to take care of some business and it was a small but still decent crowd across the street from two BLM protestors (one of which was quite clearly a white college age girl). If Back the Blue starts making a resurgence again you can officially stick a fork in this. And I find it amusing that the same people lecturing us about the Covidpocalypse are suddenly saying it's OK to go protest and riot for Floyd, yet you need to stay locked up if you want to protest the lockdowns or go to a Trump rally.

Thanks as always for keeping cool and sane Andrew!

AndrewPrice said...

Hi Daniel, Thanks for commenting! I'm glad I could help keep you sane. This has been a really hard time. First, you have the covid madness where everybody spent their time causing trouble, trying to freak people out, and pushing weirdo agendas. Then you have this whole BLM thing and its insanity. Through it all, the media has been a serious enabler that's making normal people feel like they are under siege.

But the truth is rather different. The truth is that this is all ultra-fringe stuff that really is just the fringe talking to itself as the media tries to pretend that's the public at large.

Don't fall for it. Stay calm on both points. As always, be smart about things, but stay calm. And remember, you ultimately control your own future. Don't let anyone scare you or make you crazy enough to give them control over your life.

AndrewPrice said...

BTW, we went to Rocky Mountain National Park. Amazing! You get to spots where the road is 12,000 feet high and you can look down 7,000 feet into a perfect valley. If you don't believe in God, this might tip the scales. I highly recommend seeing this at least once in your life.

As an aside, we stayed at the Stanley Hotel (from the Shining). It was disappointing. They were a mess and their housekeeping was a mess, brought on by being understaffed. COVID was a real thing in that town too as you got kicked out of shops if you weren't wearing a mask. Colorado Springs is much more relaxed by now.

Either way, well worth the trip. And if any of you ever decide to go, send me an email and I'll give you some tips.

AndrewPrice said...

Watch out for another round of "Covid is racist!" coming at you. They just did a study and it turns out that 64% of Covid cases are minorities... because white cops cough on them in their sleep.

Actually, the logical nonsense they are applying is that crappy access to healthcare (yay, Obamacare!) and being forced to perform crappy jobs for hateful whites cause this.

Of course, access to healthcare has zero effect in catching it. And the crappy jobs are generally not human contact jobs, so that's bullshit too.

The reality is that this stuff is spreading in a couple of large cities where these people are clustered. Plus, blacks in particular are in poor health. Blacks in particular also are too clever to pay attention to rules like social distancing and not going to massive parties without masks and to listen to racist doctors.

Surprisingly, Asians, who tend to excel at things like sanitation and rule following, are far under represented. Coincidence?

ArgentGale said...

Sounds like you had a lot of fun, Andrew, and I'm sure the media will pick that angle up after Atlanta decides to pay homage to Sherman thanks to the way the Brooks shooting is picking up steam. Any thoughts on the Atlanta cops putting their sick time to use and the surrounding counties refusing aid requests? I don't blame them for getting frustrated, especially in light of the DA's duplicity (he was recorded saying tasers are lethal a few weeks ago and now he's saying they're not to justify the prosecution of the officers) but I can't help but wonder if the public will see this as an irresponsible, dangerous tantrum rather than officers deciding they're not going to play a no-win game. That said, the GBI did state they weren't informed of the DA's press conference on the charges and they don't seem too pleased, so that may factor into things as well. Still, you've got a better grasp of things than most people I know.

As for staying sane I'm hanging in there, though the mess down in Atlanta and all this ridiculous corporate virtue broadcasting (to borrow from a poster elsewhere, it's gone beyond virtue signaling at this point) is doing its damnedest to drive me crazy. Farewell Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben, and Mrs. Butterworth's. I know that Big Business doing these things comes from more of a bureaucratic/path of least resistance mindset as opposed to being actual true believers more often than not but it's still irritating to see this fringe fight do so much damage.

AndrewPrice said...

Daniel, The idiots tore down a statute of Grant (who basically freed the slaves) and Washington. This is a pet-peeve free-for-all on the left.

On the brands, I have to chuckle honestly. Think of it this way...

"I set out to demand more goodies for my race. After a month of protests, a bunch of angry white communists took over and all I won as that four brands wiped out black symbols, a couple statues of people I don't even know were torn down, there's some talk of changing the names of a few military bases which I didn't even know were named after Southerns, and a bunch of athletes are getting to grandstand."

Success? Utter failure? You make the call.

AndrewPrice said...

Call me spoiled, but if that was the result of my revolution, I'd be pretty depressed.

ArgentGale said...

Haha, well, when you put it that way they really haven't accomplished much, have they? In fact, when you consider the brand changes actually reduced minority representation, vandalism of abolitionist monuments, and pissing off a city police department so much that they're quitting and making use of their sick time this whole thing was actually counterproductive. I can't imagine any of this playing well outside the deep blue areas.

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