I have a hard time describing the contempt this bit here makes me feel:
She left the windows open (presumably at the Governor’s mansion, safely dug in down on “old money” Summit Avenue, miles from the actual rioting) and “smelled the tires burning”, because it was a “touchstone to what was happening”.
I smelled it a little closer up.
It was less a “touchstone” than it was my neighborhood – the one I’ve invested a few decades in – getting looted and burned by DFL voters.
Like all communists, Gwen Walz sees everything in theoretical terms. She’s one of the ones who is literally in the dacha, now. She can afford to.
The rest of us? Not so much.
Why is it no surprise that Stalin and Mao’s communism had their own 1%? It is precisely what every western lefty dreams being a member of.
On that note, I once knew a black guy who fled from Cuba to Haiti. When asked by a clueless and incredulous neighbor why he did that, he replied, “Got sick of cutting sugar cane for a white man.”
A better writer than I (and one more awake) would be able to somehow link Ms Walz’s quote to that one attributed to Marie Antoinette about how the starving peasants should just eat cake. Something like, “Too bad about Lloyds. Can’t they just go to Walgreens?”
PS the attribution is the perversion of a quote by Rousseau, a slimy proto-socialist bastard, in his autobiography. Marie A was only nine at the time it was supposedly said.
I remember the riots differently from Walz. I remember watching Minneapolis burn on television. I remember attacks on businesses along the I-94 corridor heading East (like your drug store, Mitch, and the one out in SunRay). And I remember Black spokespeople saying that next, they would be bringing their fire-bombing into the residential neighborhoods.
I remember sitting up at night while my family slept, watching out the front window in case the threat came true, because I don’t have the luxury of state-paid armed guards watching over my family the way they watch over Walz’s family. And I remember being grateful that not all of my precious metal delivery devices had been lost in that tragic canoe accident. At least one evil black weapon-of-war survived, along with a couple of high-capacity magazines and adequate supplies to fill them. I figured 60 expressions of my dismay ought to be enough to encourage mostly peaceful protesters to find a more congenial venue.
Did I mention the Brass Goat to catch my brass? Wouldn’t want a ticket for littering not to mention leaving evidence laying around for Walz’ state-paid agents to pick up so they could railroad a White man who dared to object to having his house burned down.
I remember it quite differently from Walz.
Bigman:
I remember when that threat was out there. I live in West Bloomington and remember that all of the stores, bars and restaurants on the Normandale Blvd and Old Shakopee Road intersection, were closed at 7:00 p.m. The Cub store had four rows of carts stretching the length of the front of the store blocking the entrances. The Jerry’s hardware store, parked their biggest riding mowers in front of their doors.
There was also a team of BPD officers, including a K-9 unit, in the parking lot.
Needless to say, both of my shotguns were loaded with double ought and my Sig was strapped on. Everyone in our neighborhood, added to their electric bills from leaving their outdoor lights on overnight.
By the way, if you haven’t done so already, switch out all of the bulbs in your outdoor lights to LED daylight bulbs. They REALLY light things up and since LED bulbs don’t put out heat, you can use higher equivalent wattage bulbs.
Bigman and BossHoss—- Civilizational collapse. In my Lex-Ham neighborhood in St. Paul, my progressive neighbors all loved Walz.
They were ‘marinated’ in the progressive bubble.
One of my store managers asked if I’d be willing to stand guard at work on the roof with a firehouse and about a dozen people. I told him that the company didn’t pay me enough to stand guard unarmed, and they definitely didn’t pay me enough to stand guard while armed. The legal ramifications terrify me when I’m willingly putting myself in harms way. And the store I worked at was in Maplewood.
I did hear from one of the guys that was a store manager of our University Ave store, and I think he was in charge of the overnight rooftop guards. They did use their fire hose a few times, and that store was closed for 72 hours during the “unrest.”
My favorite thing that stores did around Rochester was to put pallets of bricks in front of their stores to stop rioters. Thankfully they were not actually attacked, but my thought was to wonder what genius thought it would be a good idea to provide bricks to rioters. Along with Smith’s comment, lots of opportunities for lawyers in those days….
I remember having to drive up to Elk River to find a Cub store that was open after I got off work one evening a couple nights after the celebrations started. I also remember the Menards in St Louis Park using palletted stacks of 4’X8′ sheets of plywood/pressboard to guard their front glass doors overnight. I thought that was a pretty genius move.