BLM

Black Lives Matter has no titular leader, there are people at the top, but it's not like they can tell anybody in the organization what to do.  There are no card carrying BLMers, somebody calls for a demonstration and whoever shows up shows up.  Back in my day our demonstrations had a pretty set goal, end the war, bring the boys home.  As a generally leftist group there were a lot of other things that we would have liked, but we kept on message.

Not so the BLM.  The thing that usually sets off these marches is not so much that a cop wrongfully killed a black guy, but that he skated on it.  In the obvious case the city would like very much to put him behind bars, or at least to get him fired, but there are all these union rules that prevent them form moving quickly on that issue.  And then the goal of the marchers is to change the union rules that allow cops to get away with this shit.  This is a very laudable goal but a tough one to deal with because it's in their union contract and you have to resort to the courts and that takes forever.  

What is with that by the way?  All you have to do is appeal some judgement and suddenly it is all tied up in the courts and it will take forever so in fact it seems like nothing can be done,  I am speaking here of how the prez's men seem to able to stonewall all the subpoenas against him, but I guess that is another issue.

And then from police reform the mission creep of BLM goes to black issues in general, and what the hell LBGTQ stuff.

And one wonders what the hell do they think they are ever going to get done?  And lately they have gotten into tearing down statues. which to me is the ultimate useless but exciting activity.  Yes Christopher Columbus was a very bad man, but then all those Spanish conquistadors were very bad men, and okay all those confederate guys were fighting for the right to keep men enslaved, all very vile, but what matters is the laws on the books, not the statues in the park,

Well you know you get together with all your BLM buddies and you are all of like men and your cause is just and on the other side are all manner of bad men,  And even though your cause is just you know if you proceed through proper channels it will go on forever and it will be boring.  Tearing down a statue is anything but boring and likely you will be toppling it in the end and there is a concrete victory, a big metal thing lying on the ground.

No minds are changed, in fact you have probably set your cause back a bit, but God that felt good.

Planning out this post last night I was thinking of adding that there has been a welcome lull in this rioting activity.  But this morning all the bridges are up and no busses or trains are running to downtown.  No specific sparking incident that I know of, and it appears to be more of a looting than a demonstrating thing and I will have to wait for more news to learn what exactly went down.