Tommy the Traveler...Human beings are pack animals, and there’s a significant amount of instinctual hard-wiring in our brains that says “do what the rest of the pack does.
The two best examples of this are how yawning and vomiting are both “contagious” within groups. The former to flush our bodies with oxygen in preparation of flight/fight, the latter to purge our systems in the event one member of the “pack” has eaten contaminated food.
In early October 1992 I was part of a small group of Young Republicans that infiltrated a much larger group of Clintonistas who were protesting an appearance by George HW Bush. The Clintonistas were chanting “Four More Weeks”. We just wanted to have some fun, see how long it would take for them to locate us and kick us out if we started chanting “Four More Years” from within their herd.
However, things turned out MUCH differently than expected when everyone around us started chanting “Four More Years” soon after we did. Including the guy at the front with the bullhorn. Took them a while to notice, I think the thing that triggered them was the main group of YRs across the street who stopped chanting and were looking at them with silent bemusement.
So that’s what a community activist does.
Anonymity in the crowd, espescially after dark.
These people seek to be unknown. Get their names and you will have no trouble out of them.
The general population in Oakland don’t need outsiders to help them riot. Neither did the Watts riots,the Detroit riots,and Chicago. When the weather is hot, the sun goes down, people like this will riot a the drop of a hat. They destroy their own neighborhoods just because they can and they can loot and destroy whatever they want. Note that the Police in Oakland said “We contained them in a given area”. Instead of containing them, they should have gone in and arrested them all. The more we stand back and let this go on, the more it will happen. Just look at the big cities. I lived through the Watts riots and more went on at that time than was reported. People in Watts complained about the police in the area and claimed racism by the police. The police department put mostly black police in Watts after the riots and the people complained even more. The black police were harder on them than the white police. If these people want racism, they will bring it on themselves.
The something for nothing ,Looting Obama voter bunch it is a cultural thing that has been encouraged by lack of punishment and shooting down the criminals breaking into business for robbery.
Tommy the Traveler... What a poor example; if the reporter is extrapolating from the professor, then she can be excused fro being no stupider than Chris Matthews. But if it's the U. of Cal. prof, then he needs to resign in ignominy.
In this cae, we need someone who can turn violent mobs protests into protestors.
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[Art.] "The Black Panther Party did not believe in rioting," [Billy "X"] Jennings said. "It was formed after the Watts riots (in Los Angeles) and most of the destruction happened in the black community. So one of the first party policies was to forget mass rioting in the streets because it is so unorganized and properties and homes are destroyed."
Uh, Billy, nice try, Superfly, but that ain't what the Panthers were saying back then; I'm old enough to remember, and yes, I was paying attention. The Panthers were telling the brothers, "Don't riot over here -- let's go over on the other side of the underpass, let's burn down white people's houses, let's beat the piss out of white people out in the street, let's burn their businesses down!"
And they were all about, "if the piiiigs come up in here, then we're gonna do this, and this, and that." That was the Panthers. Funny you seem to have forgotten.
That's what the Panthers were putting around back then.
One good, long, ragged volley will take the riot out of any crowd.
They will out in force at tea parties.