Bill LaCroix: Report From Hamilton

Tuesday, June 9, 2020

Report From Hamilton

Note: I posted this on Facebook yesterday, and figured I'd put it somewhere I could find it again. I filmed this whole thing, too, on my iPhone, but for the life of me I can't get it out of there. Kevin captured the moment, though

Kevin Maki, reporter for KECI, captured this disturbance at the Hamilton Black Lives Matter action yesterday. A tall, angry man started wading through the crowd, slurring his words and being verbally abusive. I was standing within a few feet from him for all of it and I'm pretty sure he was drunk. Anyways, watch the video (here). A female Hamilton Police officer steps in to lead him away from us, he was abusive and defiant to her. She told him he was detained (you know what that means if you're not a privileged white guy) and when she tried to lead him away he struck her hands and arms several times, until she quit and called for backup, which ended up being a white male officer who came up and shook his hand and talked about all they had in common. The guy ended up walking.

Admittedly, the officers were trying to calm the situation this guy was creating, which is of course what the police are supposed to do. But imagine what would have happened to you or me if we had struck an officer after she told us we were detained.

There were also some local angry young men with pickup trucks rigged to spew out black diesel smoke (a sign of support for the fossil fuels industry I guess) and at least one of them passed by repeatedly blasting peaceful demonstrators on the sidewalk within feet of the traffic lane with intentionally-toxic fumes. There were many teenagers and some kids in the crowd. Countless cars with angry drivers revved and zoomed past us in direct violation of Hamilton Police Dept's (usually) rigorously-enforced 25 mph speed limit. In fact I had been given a $100 ticket for driving 29 mph in this very zone only a couple months ago.The dept. has made a very emphatic point to the community that enforcing safe driving through town is one of their main reasons for existence, and yet when I pointed to another officer who came in that the guy had struck the female officer after he'd been told he was detained, and that the rules that we play by say that if we did that we'd be down and arrested, he said something to the effect that, well, we're just trying to keep the peace etc. And great, I say, trying to keep it as light as I could, but what about these guys speeding by here within feet of kids and what about my $100 speeding ticket and (WTF under my breath), he basically just shrugged it off.

Overall it was a positive action, with the majority of drivers-by enthusiastically-supporting us, including folks I knew who I wouldn't think would. A 16-year-old high school student organized it.

That's the report from Hamilton.

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Why I Blog

Thoreau and Emerson had a discussion in May of 1846 about the Mexican War--our first war that set us on the course we still track today. Conquest of nation-states and the inevitable Imperialism that follows. Emerson counseled his friend that we can supersede the transgressions of a well-meaning State by the Muse. Thoreau wasn't so sure that the State was so well-meaning or that the Muse alone would be enough to supersede it. But he tried both the Muse and "other means" to our everlasting benefit. Civil Disobedience, in the American sense, has always been his child, in large part because he raised it to the level of Literature. "Other means" requires the Muse to be lasting and effective, and vice versa. How would anyone know what the hell you were talking about otherwise, let alone emulate what you're trying to do?

The problem with Progressives today, I think, is that we have been in the habit of letting other people--Rupert Murdoch, the Koch Brothers, Sun Myung Moon--tell our stories for us, people who do not mean us well. We haven't plugged our muse into our political discourse very much, and that's a big mistake. Mark Twain didn't make that mistake, and he was among the first American writers to use the new-fangled typewriter. Why do we children of Twain, Emerson and Thoreau make that mistake now with our new-fangled computers?

For all its faults, Corporate America understands that people are story-based critters, like it or not, and I think we progressives should like it. By definition, people make many important social (read: political) decisions based largely on who's the best storyteller. It’s in our nature, and Corporate Media is a classic example of how Nature abhors a vacuum. We’ve collectively created a cultural ‘narrative’ vacuum by allowing ourselves to be so easily entertained by—Corporate Media! And Nature hates that. She’ll allow the same garbage responsible for that vacuum (Corporate Media!) to be sucked in and to rattle around until it ruins our cognative motors before she’ll let that sad state of affairs stand. I'd ask any "America Firsters" stumbling on this blog and reading this far to consider: Rupert Murdoch is from Australia. Sun Myung Moon, now-deceased but whose creatures, the Washington Times and UPI still walk the face of the earth, was from Korea. The Koch Brothers, of course, were from the sheikdom of Texas. All of them were, and the living ones still are, so obscenely rich they apparently believed they own America simply because they paid for it, and we collectively let them define who among us are “real Americans”?! C'mon!

Although it helps to strive toward the goal, progressives don't have to be great writers, and I'm not claiming to be one. We simply have to acknowledge that we have the better stories and we’re sitting on our best ones. Our truest ones. Multi-national billionaires have better versions of American Liberalism and Progressivism than the real ones told by real Americans? Us? We shouldn't put up with that. Why do we?

Like any historic attempt, we need to find our Voice. Significant action will come only after our contemporary, progressive political muse matures, which it hasn't yet. Not to paint with too wide a brush, but too much of our positions have been framed in intellectual, almost-didactic prose, which, if you don't identify as an intellectual, means boring. Not all of it, just a whole lot of it, but never mind. If history's still a guide--and I hope it still is--there's hope, because when any progressive movement's Muse matures, it generally becomes the baseline for much of Western Civilization’s meaningful and therefore lasting literature. For example, "Mein Kampf" is still in print but I'll bet you'd have to turn over a lot of rocks to find someone to call it 'literature'.

So, this blog. It's a call, I suppose, to elevate our critical modern discussions out of Fox-news-landia back to where intelligent, caring Americans can find their feet and fight back, either with the Muse, by other means, or both. It’s not up to some politician to change the narrative. That’s up to us. So by definition we still have as good a chance as we ever had. Don't lose hope. It’s always been this way. At least in literate societies.

In other words, like Emerson advised and Thoreau partially agreed with: stories matter, and may the best Muse win.