Unless you are brand new to the Blogosphere, you are very well aware of the thuggish protests organized by President Obama’s closest political and community-organizing allies, targeting Bank of America and its employees.
Potential motives for these actions have been examined, but there are a couple that we would like to add to the mix because they deserve some attention. Motives #1 and #2 have been covered on the Bigs, but motives #3 and #4 might be the most important.
Motive #1 – SEIU owes Bank of America $90 Million! – One of the organizers of this type of campaign owing nearly one hundred million dollars to the target of the action should offer deep context and insight as to motive.
Motive #2 – Shaking down the banking system for a Shorebank bailout – Known as the “community organizing bank,” this Chicago institution was facing total collapse, but around the same time as these bank protests, the very banks who were the targets of the hostile action made generous “contributions” to the dying leftist ATM known as Shorebank. You do the math.
Motive #3 – Radicalizing the troops on the ground – The first two motives, while dramatic in their scope of corruption, are cynically commonplace. Motive #3 is different. These actions, especially the storming of a Bank of America employee’s private property, are specifically designed to condition the participants to accept directions, even if those directions break the law. That is not just cynical. That’s dangerous.
If it is okay to break the law by storming someone’s private property, and if it is okay to break federal laws by storming bank lobbies, what other laws are okay to break, and how exactly is the average protester supposed to discern the difference between laws that are okay to break and those that are not? That kind of social-moral ambiguity can be very useful for community organizers with progressive ambitions.
Motive #4 – Desensitizing the observer – This motive is meant to get people accustomed to the idea of leftist street protesters breaking the law. This has been a motive of groups like this for a long time, and it is effective, as is evidenced in the video we produced a couple of days ago. Most people we spoke with believe it is perfectly okay for protesters to storm banks. This despite the fact that these kinds of actions pose a genuine security threat to the people around them.
For example, let’s suppose you are in a bank lobby with your 9 year-old daughter when hundreds of shouting people suddenly storm in through the front door. As a parent and bank customer, are you supposed to automatically ascertain that the mob barreling through the front door is displaying peaceful and civil disobedience? If it’s difficult for the parent to wrap their minds around what is happening, imagine what the 9 year-old girl must be feeling. Add to that the fact that whatever the adult and their 9 year old daughter were there to do is not going to happen without significant delay. Gee…sure do hope you weren’t planning on making a mortgage payment before going to the doctor’s office.
What are the bank employees to assume as hundreds of angry shouting people rush the front doors? That there is a protest storming in to the bank, or a robbery, or god only knows what? You could forgive a teller or a child for being frightened in that moment. But hey, what’s a little terror among friends when the ends justify the means?