The guy-in-thegreen-shirt (from The Nation)
Fast forward to Tuesday night in Kenosha, Wis.
". . . Local cops patrolled the streets in armored vehicles, seeking to enforce the city’s 8 pm curfew set in the wake of the police shooting of Jacob Blake.
When they rolled up to a group of white men with assault rifles—self-described militia members—they greeted them over one of the armored cars’ speaker systems: “We appreciate you guys, we really do.”
An officer in one of the vehicles stuck his torso out of the hatch and tossed a bottle of water to a rifled teenager in a green T-shirt.
Soon after the encounter, the boy in the green shirt, Kyle Rittenhouse, allegedly shot three protesters, killing two of them.
Fast forward to Tuesday night in Kenosha, Wis.
". . . Local cops patrolled the streets in armored vehicles, seeking to enforce the city’s 8 pm curfew set in the wake of the police shooting of Jacob Blake.
When they rolled up to a group of white men with assault rifles—self-described militia members—they greeted them over one of the armored cars’ speaker systems: “We appreciate you guys, we really do.”
An officer in one of the vehicles stuck his torso out of the hatch and tossed a bottle of water to a rifled teenager in a green T-shirt.
Soon after the encounter, the boy in the green shirt, Kyle Rittenhouse, allegedly shot three protesters, killing two of them.
17 HOURS AGO
How the Media-Fueled Rise of the KKK Explains the White Vigilantes in Kenosha
This is not the first time politicians stoked violence from aggrieved whites.
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"In Kenosha, Wisconsin a 17-year-old dressed up in the regalia of the modern warriors he saw online—AR-15 style rifle, backward hat, jeans—to patrol a protest. Kyle Rittenhouse wound up shooting two people fatally and injured one more. Republican media has already spun this idea. He saw a lawless world in the uprisings of people demanding respect, they say. He was pressed into duty as a wannabe cop because the regular cops have been hamstrung, they say.
“Those in charge, from the governor on down, refused to enforce the law.” Tucker Carlson told viewers last Wednesday. “How shocked are we that 17-year-olds with rifles decided they had to maintain order when no one else would?”
This idea, of a vigilante maintaining order when he sees Black people rising up, reminded me of the birth of the Ku Klux Klan.
Like the Klan, today’s right-wing military groups are discreetly organized and wrapped in myth. They’re small organizations that gain power when they make national headlines, eager to throw open their doors to anyone looking for a home for his or her sense of grievance. And like the Klan, groups tend to spring up when politicians say lawlessness is rampant and someone has to do something. . .
READ MORE > Mother Jones
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US Law Enforcement’s Warrior Complex Is on Full Display in the Streets—and in Leaked Documents
