'I Predict a Riot' - 2020 in Review Pt. 5

"Walking through town is quite scary, It's not very sensible - La... la la la la la"

In the last week of May 2020, if I had gone in for a diagnosis, I probably would’ve had some form of mild PTSD. The government restrictions due to COVID 19, combined with the culture’s mindless adoption of every one of their baseless recommendations, was making me crazy. Then the George Floyd incident happened in Minneapolis. As someone who has been podcasting and writing about the abuses by police for years, watching that video barely elicited an emotion from me. I was inured to it by that point. However, the majority of the public wasn’t. Sure, there were the typical opportunists who secretly celebrated incidents like Floyd’s in order to push their agenda and grift, but the general public didn’t. Even conservatives were alarmed. Their alarm didn’t last long.

The day the Floyd video was released “protests” started in Minneapolis. A police precinct was abandoned by the State’s “security force” as “protesters” set it ablaze. Multiple fires were reported. The “protests” then took a typical turn. Many in the streets set their sights on private businesses and even individuals. Any hope that the general public, which is normally supportive of law enforcement, would continue in their newfound suspicion of the police was abandoned. People fear a mob more than they fear the State. And at this point it was understandable as many police were ordered to stand down by local politicians.

Over the following week the protests spread to multiple cities. The violence against businesses and persons continued. Most local politicians excused it. The corporate media ignored it. It appeared we had entered a new paradigm where street violence was the norm. In Seattle, local politicians allowed the CHAZ/CHOP autonomous zone to be created and remain untouched. News out of Portland painted war in the streets as soon as the sun would set in the evening. It was chaos in many locales. And it was being normalized. Many celebrities set up bail funds for the rioters. Again, politicians along with their comrades in the media and Hollywood were intent on making this into that dreaded phrase, “The New Normal.” CNN ran a chyron under a reporter who was on-scene with a city burning behind him that said that the protests were “mostly peaceful.”

There was no question in my mind what was happening here. When you combined the government’s draconian response to Covid 19 with their lax response to cities on fire, it was clear the powers that be wanted people completely off balance and ready and willing to accept whatever came their way, whether it was being locked in your house for months or having your business burned down to only receive the canned response of, “they have insurance, stop complaining.” The government declared war on its people in 2020 and most didn’t recognize it.