Thread by @davidfrum

So a thought about "AntiFa" ... 1/n

Years ago, I was sitting in a waiting room about the time of an international conference in Uruguay. The waiting room TV was set to Fox. I was reading and didn't pay much attention, but I gradually became aware of a scene of mayhem: protesters hurling Molotov cocktails, etc

The subliminal scene became alarming enough that I closed my book and watched the TV. It took a moment, but I realized that I was watching the same single man throwing the same Molotov cocktail on an endless loop over and over again as the TV folk chatted.

But wait, there's more. The Uruguayan police had formed a line around the protest zone. The molotov man started running about 100 feet from the line, hurled his little firecracker at 50 feet, so it crashed and burned just on the SAFE side of the line from the cops, who ignored it

The whole thing was a total kabuki show, all made for TV. And of course all involved had to know that, from the molotov man down in Uruguay to the video editors in NYC. The whole point was to convert a non-event into the appearance of something upsetting

So that's what's going on in Portland, isn't it? Why is breaking windows the paradigmatic anti-fa crime? It creates a big mess, but it's a misdemeanor offense and one that won't upset the cops too much.

It's all a show, everybody knows it. And if it stops being a show - Portland alone employs 1000 police, the state of Oregon many more, plus there's the national guard. Plus again, all those involved are surely well known to the police, who can find and lay charges if they want

Meanwhile abcnews.go.com/US/deadly-mass…

Meanwhile (2) women in the US are 21 times more likely to be shot dead by a partner than women in other developed countries, according to the Giffords Center

I have zero sympathy for street hooliganism of any kind, for any professed motive. Break a window, go to jail. But on this anti-fa business, we are all being scammed in a way so blatant that I have to believe it offends truly professional scam artists (END)