Heroes and Villains

Minneapolis, May 29. The Schooner Tavern is the building in the background with sign on top, damaged but still standing.

The recent protests in Minneapolis and neighboring communities were triggered by the police murder of an unarmed man, caught on video. That incident is not what this post is about, there are far better voices to be heard on that subject than that of a fictional professor.

The rioting, while related, is another problem altogether. Recent evidence indicates that organized provocateurs from out-of-state are behind much of the mayhem, particularly the arson and destruction. Some of the perps (seen at right) have been caught on camera and they sure weren’t protesting George Floyd´s murder. Much of anarchy is aimed at black businesses and all of it aimed at black neighborhoods. Most of the Twin Cities area is under curfew, the National Guard has been mobilized to prevent and recurrences of the previous three days.

If there are any heroes in this tragedy they have yet to emerge. The villains are easy to spot, with Donald J. Trump the foremost. Donald Trump’s incendiary Twitter feed has been blocked by Twitter for violating its standards. His devoted lackeys (most of the Republican Party) can all take credit as enablers. A more subtle villain, however is the duplicitous head of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg. He has, from its very inception, used Facebook as a tool to pander to the basest emotions, enabling sociopaths to thrive while destroying lives of innocent people. Note Zuckerberg’s recent refusal to reign in Trump’s lying:

“We’ve been pretty clear on our policy that we think that it wouldn’t be right for us to do fact checks for politicians,” Mr. Zuckerberg said. “I think in general, private companies probably shouldn’t be — or especially these platform companies — shouldn’t be in the position of doing that.”

It is in complete contrast to his recent (October 2019) sworn testimony to congress:

“If anyone, including a politician, is saying things that can cause, that is calling for violence or could risk imminent physical harm — or voter or census suppression, when we roll out the census suppression policy — we will take that content down.”