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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   25996 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 29, 2024

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From reading Nixonland, he documents a bunch of right wing protestors doing the same thing left wing protestors did in the 1960's. We never really hear about it though. We only hear about left wing protestors vs police or the National Guard.

How many is a bunch, and what counts as the same thing? I'm curious to see a list of these and I challenge you to a game: you name a documented act of Republican act of mob violence (where most of the protesters presumably self-identified as republicans and at least one person was injured), and I will name two Democrat acts of mob violence, etc., back and forth for as long as you can come up with them. "A dollar a ball until the loser says quit" [The Hustler].

Apart from anti-Civil Rights political violence in the south, of which there was a lot (the rioters were right-wing, but would have been registered Democrats), the Hardhat riots are the most obvious example of right-wing political violence in the time period you are looking at. Over 100 people, including 7 cops, were hospitalised. Given the partisan politics of NYC construction unions, you can call it a Democratic riot on a technicality (the ringleaders were construction union officers who were registered Democrats, and they were protesting the decision of liberal Republican mayor James Lindsay to fly a flag at half-mast after the Kent State shootings), the rioters were condemned by national Democratic leaders and praised by the Nixon administration.

Opposition to forced bussing was mostly peaceful, but anti-bussing riots in Louisville in 1975 involved police cars being torched and widespread use of tear gas, so I assume there were multiple injuries. Again, given the partisan politics of the white South, the rioters were probably registered Democrats.

But my google-fu is telling me that

  • The vast majority of political violence in the US during this period was race-related.
  • After 1963 or so, the vast majority of the race-related violence is black urban riots.

You name the hardhat riots, in which 100 people were hospitalized and none killed.

I name

  1. the 1992 LA riots, in which 2383 people were injured and 63 people killed, and
  2. the 1965 Watts riots, which resulted in 34 deaths.

Your move.

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