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Retail giant Macy's tells landlord it wants out of it's lease at Water Tower Place on #Chicago's Magnificent Mile. Macy's cites the city's lack of control over crime and it's poor response to looting, muggings, & shoplifting. #LeadershipMatters https://t.co/MmEQABvqyg
— Milo™ (@chasbottom) August 13, 2020
Chicago’s Magnificent Mile has the highest retail rents in the United States outside of Manhattan, Beverly Hills, and San Francisco.
The Water Tower Place shopping mall was constructed in 1975 at 835 N. Michigan Avenue, northeast of the Loop and about as far from the urban undertow of the South and West Sides as possible. It has been more or less the center of where tourists and Chicagoans go to spend their money ever since.
The Water Tower mall was built by the Marshall Field corporation to feature their new jewel in the crown store as their giant old flagship on State Street in the Loop declined. Macy’s acquired Marshall Field in 2005.
The demolition of the Cabrini-Green housing project one mile to the west by 2011 seemed to assure the future of the Mag Mile.
That Water Tower Place has been looted twice since Memorial Day is disturbing to anybody, like me, who admires America’s great cities and the chance for civilized life within them.
A riot every decade or two is one thing. For example, there was a certain amount of looting on N. Michigan Avenue after the Bulls won their second NBA title in 1992 a couple of months after L.A.’s Rodney King riot. From the Washington Post in 1992:
Similar scenes were playing out along affluent North Michigan Avenue, the collection of expensive department stores and boutiques known as the “Magnificent Mile.” Although the damage was nowhere near as great as on the South and West sides, about nine stores had their windows smashed and some merchandise was taken.
At Stuart Brent Books, a well-known bookstore in the city, looters smashed the windows and simply threw books all along the sidewalk.
Stuart Brent Books was my favorite bookstore of all time. I can recall the first time I walked into it on the first nice day in the spring of 1983. You have to imagine how bad bookstores were back in the B. Dalton age before the Barnes & Noble revolution of the 1990s. At the front were two tables, one with the dozen new novels and one with the dozen new nonfiction books that Mr. Brent (1912-2010), a man of letters and friend of Nobel laureate Saul Bellow (whom I saw browsing there once, wearing several thousand dollars worth of Burberry clothes from the huge shop across Michigan Avenue), had decided you ought to read. Two of the nonfiction books I checked out that day were William Manchester’s first volume of his biography of Winston Churchill and the other was Paul Johnson’s Modern Times.
The stunned proprietor could barely conceal his anger and frustration. “I have no explanation for it,” said Brent, who has operated the store for 47 years. “Think of the shame they brought to one of the three or four great streets in America. The thing that frightens me is how close we are to barbarism.”
But in 2020 it looks like the barbarians are winning.
Mr. Brent’s quotation is spot on. You think of all the progress humanity has made in technology, medicine, arts, human rights, etc. over the past centuries. And yet at times the great achievements of human civilization seem like just a thin veneer over ignorance and barbarism.
Makes me sad and reminds me of the Jimi Hendrix lyric: “And so castles made of sand, fall in the sea, eventually.”
https://allthatsinteresting.com/holodomor-ukranian-famine#2
.....& the thought crosses my mind....were 5 years away from this sh-t if we aren't careful....
Seem? I've always held that civilization is nothing more than a veneer, those exact words btw. This goes back to barroom arguments in the 80s, often starting with some friends/acquaintences who acted like the Germans were unique in what they did for a few years. I would point around the bar and say, "see this crowd, under the right circumstances x percent would be concentration camp guards, NKVD/GESTAPO, etc.".\\
And here we are.
In a way, it’s the chickens coming home to roost. All those big corporations partially promoted this stuff but thought that they were out of reach of the mob, now they see the barbarians coming for them. “They came for mom and dad’s store and I did nothing. Then they came for Amazon and Macy’s…”
There’s anger in the air, and it’s not only blacks (witness the large number of young white people rioting).
Yeah, I guess actually stealing books to read at home would not be something they would consider… 😀 I remember that during the London black riots, bookstores were the only stores not looted. But now I guess even bookstores are not safe anymore.
Seemed pretty goood to me (my boomer father has told me). There were mutltiple second-hand bookshops on every high street and the orange backed penguins were about a pound each.
There may be species of orange-bellied penguins out there, but if there is an orange-backed one, I want to see pictures.
When I went up to university in London, 1963, Charing Cross Road was just one bookstore after another all the way along. Foyles and Dillons were mega-bookstores -- I have spent whole days in them. Probsthain's Oriental Bookstore -- still in business https://www.abebooks.com/arthur-probsthain-london/4494352/sf -- was the go-to for anything in that line, way back before 1990: I first patronized Probsthain's in the 1970s. London was Book Heaven.
Did the USA only get decent bookstores in 1990? Don't believe it.
But of course the used book places are what mattered and yes, they are now largely gone. Berkeley was full of them in my day; last time I was there, some six or seven years ago, there were perhaps two of any note to be found along the whole stretch of Telegraph Avenue.
San Luis Obispo had two or three really fine ones; only one left now.
And these are university towns.
Barbarism indeed.Replies: @Charlotte
Not to worry … If they don’t cut this shit out after 21 January 2021, President Harris will put down riots like it’s Constantinople 532CE.
Qualified immunity is gone in a De m Senate. Meaning Atlanta and Minneapolis are the future of all our cities.
Again, with what cops and what feds?Replies: @The Alarmist
Rioters are wreaking Democratically controlled Chicago in Democrat Illinois right now.
New York is getting wreaked now, under Democrat leadership.
If Democrats had our way, America would have been under hard lockdown the whole time and GDP would have been -35%.
Can Dems really restore law and order ? They haven't done that in a while.Replies: @Anonymous
Great historical reference!
For those who may not know about it, Emperor Constantine (reportedly at the urging of his former prostitute wife) ordered his military troops into the city and pushed the rioters into the hippodrome. (Racetrack).
Initially the rioters were fighting each other in a "sports fan" factional dispute. Like Yankees and Mets might do. This went on for days and then grew into a general action about unhappiness with the Emperor and the rampant corruption.
At his wife's urging the hesitant Constantine murdered nearly all of the rioters he could find, once rounded up. That settled things down quickly. Like the Tienanmen "solution."Replies: @JerseyJeffersonian, @Anonymous
So much for the Democrat donor strategy of dispersing the urban black population to the suburbs. Blacks will organize raiding parties using Facebook and fuck up high-end downtown and residential shopping districts, anyway.
Were the barbarians who threw the books on the ground from Northern Europe?
“Looting May Drive Macy’s from Chicago’s Magnificent Mile“
Correction….
“Blacks Will Drive Macy’s from Chicago’s Magnificent Mile“
Fixed the headline for you.
Correction....
“Blacks Will Drive Macy's from Chicago's Magnificent Mile“
Fixed the headline for you.Replies: @Anonymous
Neither is correct, probably.
The looting could be just a pretext for Macy’s to get out from under a lease that has become untenable due, foremost, to Amazon/online shopping and, more acutely recently, to COVID shutdowns/decline in shopping.
Isn’t Macy’s already in bankruptcy?
On the one hand, etailers are killing stores. And then comes the looting, like the final straw that broke the camel's back.
And if kamala becomes president, it will be worst than trump.
TROUBLE, TROUBLE, TROUBLE. We have learned from life experience, reality TV, Forensic files ADMIT IT. Their lives do indeed matter a lot as THEY HAVE VISITED MORE SHEER misery on Homo sapiens much of it to themselves.Replies: @Neoconned
Store closures from theft have been going on in second tier cities for quite some time. I've also seen it suggested that brick and mortar stores are not closing because of e-competition. E-commerce just doesn't have the dollar volume to replace the closed stores. Brick and mortar stores are closing (it was suggested) simply because the middle class (who shops there) being depopulated by descent into the poor and occasional ascent into the rich. Theft level simply determines which stores close first -- about the same number of stores would close even if there were no theft. I'd suspect that the effect of theft is substantial, but not dominant.
The above is an appealing thesis. It is consistent, for example, with the spread of "homelessness", people who have lost everything (*), with the diversion of CDC into politics to such an extent that is is denying effective treatment to vulnerable populations, with the inability of urban areas to pay their police force, with the hysterical denial of obvious facts (like the high GINI coefficient (a bit larger than Nigeria's) in SanFran, and the distraction of all groups from this poverty through media censorship, inflation, and distraction with emotional issues such as man/woman disputes and racial disputes.
Since no effective action is being taken (except some by Pres Trump, who has been largely neutralized), I'd expect the situation to worsen.
*) Homeless mnemonic is CATO 4321: 40% Crazy, 30% Addicts, 20% Tramps, 10% Out of Luck. Supposedly used by social workers. These are people who have been forced out of their lives, one way or another, and can't find new lives.
See: https://anti-gnostic.com/2019/06/15/homelessness/ for a longer account of this division.
Since I have no doubt that the cowards running Macy’s all pray to the god of wokeness, I have no sympathy for them.
Fuck Macy's.Replies: @El Dato
Diversity & Inclusion
https://www.hostpic.org/images/2008142325220101.jpg
This is a good point… have blacks even reached the point on the ladder to be called barbarians? They have a few rungs to go before reaching that spot. It doesn’t help that they’re climbing in the wrong direction.
Everyone knows that ladders are a product of cisnormative white men and thus forcing blacks onto them is a racial macroaggression and form of violence against black bodies.Replies: @res
What do the Wal-mart folks have to say about the city of Chicago and its “poor response”?
Has Wal-mart told the city of Chicago, “We’ve had enough”?
It seems to me that Wal-mart’s decision not to reopen in Chicago would be the death knell for Chicago retail, not Macy’s. With things the way they are in the US, I don’t doubt that another upscale American retailer is anxious to take over Macy’s lease so they can show the world how “woke” they are.
I expect those rents were paid with the assumption that the people paying them could expect police protection when they needed it.
Now that Chicago has clearly shown that is not the case, it will be interesting to see the effect it has on the rents Chicago landlords are able to charge.
Is it possible that we will see “wokeness” supplant goodwill on certain company balance sheets?
PS: was Steve in Chicago for both the 1992 and 1993 riots?
Wal-mart put a lot of retail establishments out of business.Replies: @Anonymous
Now we're getting somewhere. Coincidence? I think not...
Makes me sad and reminds me of the Jimi Hendrix lyric: “And so castles made of sand, fall in the sea, eventually.”Replies: @HammerJack, @Buffalo Joe, @Neoconned, @sirius
Not really. The two phrases pertain to two entirely different sorts of people. The grand folly was to throw the two together and expect something good to come of it.
Chicago has more retired police and firefighters than working – WP Original
https://wirepoints.org/upside-down-demographics-of-chicago-public-safety-pensions-wp-original/
Projection: Chicago’s police pension fund will be broke in 2021
https://chicagocitywire.com/stories/511130434-projection-chicago-s-police-pension-fund-will-be-broke-in-2021
Did they see it coming? June 16 article:
Ranking Chicago cop’s last job before retirement: fixing city’s response to riots
Steve Georgas also was the strategist for the response to the NATO Summit protests in 2012. And soon to retire: Anthony Riccio, No. 2 Chicago Police Department official.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/politics/2020/6/16/21293575/chicago-police-department-steve-georgas-retires-riots-looting-anthony-riccio
Could it be that the entire Democratic Party is so desperate for basic survival funds that it supports the Biden/Harris ticket?
Remember, COVID-19 showed that the US was so poor that it had no remaining emergency response reserve. CDC, for example, had been repurposed as a political support for the Democrats during the HIV emergence back in the 1980s through 1990s. Maybe it's too poor to police cities. Maybe the police were called off the riots because they would have lost the fight, either physically or by having to resort to lethal force to win. Remember that political leadership might be crazy, but it's not (very) stupid, and putting a good face on a loss is more or less routine.Replies: @Anonymous
Has Wal-mart told the city of Chicago, "We've had enough"?
It seems to me that Wal-mart's decision not to reopen in Chicago would be the death knell for Chicago retail, not Macy's. With things the way they are in the US, I don't doubt that another upscale American retailer is anxious to take over Macy's lease so they can show the world how "woke" they are.I expect those rents were paid with the assumption that the people paying them could expect police protection when they needed it.
Now that Chicago has clearly shown that is not the case, it will be interesting to see the effect it has on the rents Chicago landlords are able to charge.
Is it possible that we will see "wokeness" supplant goodwill on certain company balance sheets?
PS: was Steve in Chicago for both the 1992 and 1993 riots?Replies: @Anonymous, @Muggles
Wouldn’t Wal-Mart’s removal be rather a boon for Chicago retail?
Wal-mart put a lot of retail establishments out of business.
If Wal-mart were to give up on Chicago, is it possible that other retailers could look at their decision and think to themselves, "Well, gosh, if the denizens of Chicago are so far gone that even flippin' Wal-mart, of all retailers, cannot work out a way to make money off of them, what chance do we have?"
My view is that Wal-mart is used to catering to the lowest common denominator. Ergo, Wal-mart giving up on Chicago and refusing to rebuild would be their way of telling the world, "These people are too low-rent, even for a low-rent outfit such as we."
I suppose it all comes down to whether or not you view Wal-mart as a sort of canary in the retail coal mine. I get that Steve is enamoured of the high-end retailers, but offhand, I would think that Wal-mart is more indicative of whether Chicago is a viable retail venue in 2020 than Macy's would be.
As others have pointed out, Macy's wanting to break their lease in Chicago may have far less to do with Chicago per se and a lot more to do with Macy's being a high-end retailer trying to flog their overpriced gear during a time of austerity and not being able to make a go of it.
There's anger in the air, and it's not only blacks (witness the large number of young white people rioting).Yeah, I guess actually stealing books to read at home would not be something they would consider... :D I remember that during the London black riots, bookstores were the only stores not looted. But now I guess even bookstores are not safe anymore.Replies: @Escher, @jsm, @PSR, @John Cunningham
That’s because of racist internet providers, who deny broadband access to urban communities, leaving them with no choice but to steal access to knowledge.
It’s possible the books were angrily flung down when the rioters were unable to read them.
Imagine, for a moment, being faced with a book that you have absolutely no hope of reading and whose contents will forever remain a mystery to you. I should think anyone faced with such a situation would be only too glad to fling the offending tome from his sight.
It’s true that greed drives a great many of the rioters. However, I expect that at least some of the looting is driven by the fact that a fair number of the rioters sense, if only unconsciously, that the Information Economy has no place for those who cannot Read The Manual.
If only BLM stood for “Black Literacy Matters.”
This hasn’t been discussed much, but all this rioting, White flight, and business relocation will have a very negative impact on nightlife.
This isn’t even taking into account the COVID situation.
If you’re a nightclub owner in any major city (or a frequent party goer), it’s a terrifying time to be alive.
No velvet ropes and face control at the riots!Replies: @JohnnyWalker123
It’s 1968 all over again, except this time Abbie Hoffman is the D.A. and Bill Ayres is the Mayor.
My favourite is the most famous sneaker store in the US, Cool Kicks of Melrose Ave (Run, of course, by a Pakistani, blacks even get pushed out of selling cool stuff, sad.) and the reactions of the staff who would, of course, ordinarily be urging on the protestors and defaming police with extreme rhetoric. The damage and stock theft is amazing. But these guys make so much money they restocked instantly (Store was reopened within a week) and opened a second store in a matter of weeks. I really can’t stand spivs like these playing the victim or pleading the service they offer.
Footage of the looters clearing the place out starts at 2:10.
The way they describe the police not stepping in, the cognitive dissonance is powerful. As if it is a conspiracy to allow looting to happen rather than pressure to not intervene. (This was May 31st, at the height of the tension and rhetoric.) As if selling shoes at huge markups on the secondary market to tax poor kids is so laudable a thing. If any looting could be classified as ‘re-appropriation’ then poor black kids stealing overpriced secondary market sneakers from a Pakistani spiv’s store on Melrose Place surely qualifies.
“Think of the shame they brought to one of the three or four great streets in America. The thing that frightens me is how close we are to barbarism.”
The frightening thing is that it is not just one of the streets in America; it’s all of them.
Suppose this bookstore owner, and Macy’s and all the other stores decided to just board up their stores. Where would they go that they couldn’t be targeted by antifa and Black Looters Matter? Or by governments that tell them how to run their businesses in the Age of Covid?
No one steals books.* They’re too heavy or bulky and not worth enough to bother.
*There are exceptions for things like expensive art books, which are a favorite target for junkies and such. And of course for rare books like the Edgar Allan Poe rarities stolen from UVa decades ago and never recovered:
https://uvamagazine.org/articles/nevermore
Would seem that the best policy to combat barbarism in the Windy City is to bring in a law and order mayor like Richard Daley of yore.
Oh, come now. Which of us hasn’t stuffed a copy of the OED down the front of our trousers and casually made for the bookshop exit?
I know I have.
Yes, B&N revolutionized the industry, but I miss used-book stores.
Used to be nice when there were regional chains of department stores.
I’ve wondered when they started to virtue signal on diversity in their ads, these chains that started in overwhelmingly white cities. I don’t really know, but I’ve guessed it was the ’80s, when you could still buy guns in some of the urban ones. Maybe, it was before then? I wonder what they looked like during busing.
What an unbelievably racist comment!
Everyone knows that ladders are a product of cisnormative white men and thus forcing blacks onto them is a racial macroaggression and form of violence against black bodies.
Shoplifting is a part of the reason Macy’s is going bankrupt. Amazon doesn’t have to worry about that — porch pirates are your problem.
Makes me sad and reminds me of the Jimi Hendrix lyric: “And so castles made of sand, fall in the sea, eventually.”Replies: @HammerJack, @Buffalo Joe, @Neoconned, @sirius
NJ, great quote from a great muscian. Today the lyrics of what passes for music would be…”Burn their MFing castles down.”
When prosperous businessmen can’t afford private school tuition for their children because insurance premiums went up 1000% and his wife reminds him that they gave thousands to the dems, things might change. But big dem donors are teachers and construction unions. Wreck it and build new somewhere else equals jobs and teachers salaries are ever upward. Last thought, there is something comforting in owning books.
Let the state and city governments live with their cruel and foolish decision to destroy people’s livelihoods en masse through lockdowns and through refusing to eliminate looters and rioters. They will need to make drastic cuts in spending, which eventually will even hit those sainted urban government-school time-wasters and indoctrinators (“teachers”).*
Not just Macy’s but all along the entire area. The Oak st boutiques, which have been a long time presence there, may also be pulling out thanks to the gang shoplifting plague as well as the recent looting binges. There’s talk of them breaking their leases since the city hasn’t been able to provide them with the protection that their taxes go for. That’s the location of a recent brazen assassination of some dirtball rapper in the middle of a crowded street (no arrests so far). The black population turns everything into a ghetto. Black mayor, police chief, attorney general, etc all down the line are inefficient and unwilling to do anything that might injure the poor looters. After all, the criminals are black and these public officials are sympathetic to them as a matter of racial solidarity. They just don’t come out and say it but hide behind rationales like respecting civil rights, property vs value of human life and so on. It’s a race thang.
Every penny of Chicago’s annual property tax goes to fund current retirees. This has been the case for some time. There is a fix for this situation (other than higher taxes) and that is a pension haircut. I doubt Mayor Groot will ever suggest this course of action. This situation is duplicated in NY and CA at the state level. Evidently Open Borders does not bring with it people capable of sustaining the overhead cost of these worker’s paradises. Who Knew?
I can tell you that taxpayers not yet born are going to resent, e.g. when they turn eighteen, paying higher taxes to clear the lucrative pension (welfare spending) checks being cashed by government workers who had retired today (or sooner).
Somebody once stole my textbook, which had been sitting unguarded, on my table in the college library, when I walked away to use the bathroom. It was the night before the final.
Two days later I recognized my property behind the counter in the bookstore, in a pile of books that had been “sold back”.
This isn't even taking into account the COVID situation.
If you're a nightclub owner in any major city (or a frequent party goer), it's a terrifying time to be alive.Replies: @The Wild Geese Howard
Pretty sure there’s a huge intersection between the party and riot crowds.
No velvet ropes and face control at the riots!
It's ironic. Isn't it?
Then again. Maybe these riots could be considered a form of nightlife?Good news for Anti-Fa.
The riots of this month (August, 2020) took place early in the morning, while the Miracle/Magnificent Mile was deserted except for security personnel.
What happens if the Chicago Police are fired upon in the early morning, say 10:00 AM? The looters take some time to get organized, so they arrive at the Miracle Mile at 11:00 AM. Right when it’s full of White shoppers. How would the shoppers make out? My guess is that they would be assaulted in passing, just to keep them from interfering with the looting.
I, myself, wouldn’t go near the Miracle Mile. I’m almost always armed, and the license was good in Chicago, but I’m not going to play shooting gallery when (a) the local politicians are obviously hostile, (b) the area is so target rich, (c) some of the targets are armed, and (d) the background consists of upper middle class liberals with rabid liberal lawyers and the local jury pool is aggressively anti-White. If I wanted to commit suicide, there are much easier (although less certain) ways than playing shooting gallery in that environment.
And, were I unarmed, I wouldn’t go past Illinois State boundaries. The entire State is a zoo, even the generally safe parts can turn unsafe in a moment if you meet the wrong person. Absence of body beats presence of mind every time.
So, IMHO, the Miracle Mile is dead, and Macy’s called it. Rule of thumb: Close out a losing investment. The Miracle Mile being about the only remaining attraction in Chicago, the city is gone also — unless Biden/Harris shower it with money.
Your paranoia about the Mag Mile is really extreme and, I'm sure, long preceded the St. George Floydanyl hoax. Seek counseling for that. Under normal conditions, if you wanted danger along that stretch of Michigan Ave., you'd have needed to head to the lower level of N. Michigan Ave. where the loading docks are, from the river to about Grand St., if I recall correctly. Also, you might try your luck 3 blocks to the west on N. State St. from Kinzie to Illinois, esp. at the 7-Eleven on the southeast corner of State and Hubbard. It could be dangerous there during broad daylight even before 2020. Another area of longstanding opportunity to find danger has been the area near the Red Line entrance at the n.e. corner of Chicago Ave. and N. State, one block north of Holy Name Cathedral.Replies: @Anonymous
Agree. Large cities have always had great independent bookstores like City Lights in San Francisco and Powell’s in Portland. All Barnes & Noble did was make book shopping safe for suburban soccer moms so they could buy books, throw pillows and cookies all in the same place. Otherwise they’d have to go downtown and deal with all those icky people.
Mocking people for wanting to avoid the increasing unpleasantness, filth, intimidation, vulgarity, and property crimes of the cities — just meanspirited.
Good post, but I gotta agree with Kent Nationalist (currently #3 comment) about these new bookstores. I would get a lot more value and pleasure out of an old small store chock full of books, with barely room to move around in, than these yuppie Big Box Books places that cranked up around 30 years ago. There was (or maybe still is, but I would know) a nice little bookstore in the Billy Mitchell Field, Milwaukee airport terminal. I think it was outside security, which didn’t mean a hill of beans back in the 1990s even. I got some train books for my boy.
These yuppie B&N, Books-a-Million, etc. chains were great for having a muffin and browsing. Yes, they have a large selection, but when it comes to obscure, and especially now, non-woke material, they won’t have much of it, and what they have is controlled by woke-obssesed corporate weenies. Along the lines of Dumbo’s (#2 right now) comment, yeah, these big chains are getting what they deserve. The booksellers are some of the worst, as they advertise their wokeness with their displays, right out in the open when you come through the doors.
I’ve probably been this old-fashioned and practical since I was much younger, but put it this way: If I were to pull into the FBO at the small airport (that is, the place where you park, get fuel, snacks, etc.) I would MUCH RATHER see a double-wide trailer with 2 labs outside eating lunch with a greasy mechanic than some 2-story brick building with an awning and a red carpet. All the latter means is near double the fuel prices and a ramp fee.
Peak Stupidity discusses “Shoppes” v “Shops” in the 3rd section of 3 minor doses of stoopiditee. It all adds up, though.. My contention is that prices go up linearly with the number of Olde English letters in the store name.
How long until the historic Water Tower itself gets defaced and destroyed?
Kroch & Brentano in the Loop was a great bookstore. It was there last time I checked (ca 1975).
There's anger in the air, and it's not only blacks (witness the large number of young white people rioting).Yeah, I guess actually stealing books to read at home would not be something they would consider... :D I remember that during the London black riots, bookstores were the only stores not looted. But now I guess even bookstores are not safe anymore.Replies: @Escher, @jsm, @PSR, @John Cunningham
Macy’s is just getting what they got coming. They insulted my President, called him racist, refused to sell his ties. Ok, so now the blacks looted their store, are going to drive them into bankruptcy (hopefully.) Cry me a river.
Odd how the Assistant Professor of Education narrative of the ’92 riots (thinking mainly of South L.A.) has won out, despite the copious local news video. At the time of course, there were ideological soldiers already flogging the propaganda, in rapid-response fashion, but it wasn’t immediately accepted by the masses. Calling the looters barbaric was quite safe in most social circles. But a dozen or so years on I would begin to encounter low-info wypipo from the other corners of the country who sincerely swallowed the “righteous protest” narrative.
Acquittal of O.J. is a counter-example where the questionable folk-hero story soured to the point of being declasse over about the same amount of time.
Serves them right.
A lot of Big Business executives are actually pretty dumb.
In 2015 Macy’s dumped Donald Trump’s merchandise line.
https://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/donald-trump-macys-pulling-merchandise-119633
“We canceled Donald Trump and all we got was this lousy looting.”
There is a Facebook group called The Chicago Service Industry group. It’s made up of waiters and bartenders and busboys and such. It’s amazing how many of these people are so staunchly woke that they will bitterly attack anyone who mentions that they don’t like the rioting and the looting. These attacks all seem to revolve around the same sacred truisms:
“Being against riots is racist.”
“White folks can’t tell black folks how to protest.”
“Black lives are more important than property.”
“Those stores have insurance.”
“Kill yourself.”
It’s like they are literally engulfed in some sort of mania. They hate their jobs, they hate their customers, they hate their bosses, they hate the cops, they hate conservatives, they hate mainstream liberals, they hate white people, and they especially HATE ‘Karens’. It was interesting to observe this page before, during, and after the Covid lockdown. The general tone went from “Don’t you dare shut down restaurants and take away my income and social life” to “Don’t you dare send us back to work and get us all killed even though our basic demographic is almost immune to this thing.” What happened was they kinda liked making as much (or more) money to NOT work, and now they think they deserve it. I don’t know what kind of conspiracy theory could be crafted out of these facts, but the outcome of all of this has been a larger pool of armchair Antifa.
“That Water Tower Place has been looted twice since Memorial Day is disturbing to anybody, like me, who admires America’s great cities and the chance for civilized life within them.”
Building codes prevent the construction and mandate the destruction of structures that may function for a while, but present an unacceptable risk to the public welfare.
There should be similar codes for cities themselves.
Toward that end while I was living in San Diego, I got the local chapters of the Sierra Club and the American Institute of Architects together in a project focused on urban architecture. Of course, the old ladies on the board of the Sierra Club chapter were almost immediately bought off by local developers, the name of the project appropriated, the architects and environmentalists that had been involved excluded (including me) and the entire idea neutralized.
I was already suspicious of cities due to what I saw happen to Bill Norris, a decade earlier, at the hands of the financial press when he was investing in a high tech back to the land movement. The infestation of cities by the types of people who neutralized my little project confirmed that suspicion. That’s part of what got me interested in dealing with such infestations and that, of course, led me to very taboo thoughts about “gene shredders”, “Cui Bono?” and “human biodiversity”.
Basically, it is my strongly held opinion that until the social sciences can be cleaned up and government brought to heel regarding the ethics of social experiments conducted on non-consenting human subjects, cities should be considered unsafe structures.
It helps to capitalize (or capitalise, in your case) trademarks (or marques, in your case). At first I thought you were talking the about candies (or sweets, in your case) sold as impulse items by the register (or till, in your case).
There may be species of orange-bellied penguins out there, but if there is an orange-backed one, I want to see pictures.
Ah, yes. The Lost Cause.
In 2016, Macy’s was one of the first big retailers to loudly announce that they were dropping Trump’s branded products.
Fuck Macy’s.
> 2020: Get branded by anti-Trump products
How? Giving bjs? With what cops and what feds? Under Trump feds at least would have done security from prosecution over some vibrant being hurt. Under Harris there will be daily riots and lots of donuts runs.
Qualified immunity is gone in a De m Senate. Meaning Atlanta and Minneapolis are the future of all our cities.
Again, with what cops and what feds?
Fuck Macy's.Replies: @El Dato
> 2016: Drop Trump-branded products
> 2020: Get branded by anti-Trump products
There's anger in the air, and it's not only blacks (witness the large number of young white people rioting).Yeah, I guess actually stealing books to read at home would not be something they would consider... :D I remember that during the London black riots, bookstores were the only stores not looted. But now I guess even bookstores are not safe anymore.Replies: @Escher, @jsm, @PSR, @John Cunningham
I think that’s because in our modern age of barbarism books represent … repression, somehow.
Could very well be half truth.
On the one hand, etailers are killing stores. And then comes the looting, like the final straw that broke the camel’s back.
And if kamala becomes president, it will be worst than trump.
https://wirepoints.org/upside-down-demographics-of-chicago-public-safety-pensions-wp-original/
Projection: Chicago's police pension fund will be broke in 2021
https://chicagocitywire.com/stories/511130434-projection-chicago-s-police-pension-fund-will-be-broke-in-2021
Did they see it coming? June 16 article:
Ranking Chicago cop’s last job before retirement: fixing city’s response to riots
Steve Georgas also was the strategist for the response to the NATO Summit protests in 2012. And soon to retire: Anthony Riccio, No. 2 Chicago Police Department official.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/politics/2020/6/16/21293575/chicago-police-department-steve-georgas-retires-riots-looting-anthony-riccioReplies: @Anonymous
Could it be that Chicago is defunding the police because it can’t afford them anymore?
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/chicago-crime-complicated-truth-behind-defund-police-efforts-n1231381
Could it be that the entire Democratic Party is so desperate for basic survival funds that it supports the Biden/Harris ticket?
Remember, COVID-19 showed that the US was so poor that it had no remaining emergency response reserve. CDC, for example, had been repurposed as a political support for the Democrats during the HIV emergence back in the 1980s through 1990s. Maybe it’s too poor to police cities. Maybe the police were called off the riots because they would have lost the fight, either physically or by having to resort to lethal force to win. Remember that political leadership might be crazy, but it’s not (very) stupid, and putting a good face on a loss is more or less routine.
https://twitter.com/nwmalinowski/status/1294054663843651584?s=20Replies: @Anonymous
Strangely enough, book shops were practically the *only* main Street shops left untouched by rioters/looters in the UK Mark Duggan Riots of 2012.
My favorite bookstores are thrift shops.
One never knows what will turn up – rare gems in the rough.
Unfortunately, there’s now bar code scanning apps that tell you what something is going for on eg amazon so it takes the skill out of it
How is that the Lost Cause? The Lost Cause is Southern independence.
5.5% of the population YET responsible for half of all VIOLENT CRIME.
TROUBLE, TROUBLE, TROUBLE. We have learned from life experience, reality TV, Forensic files ADMIT IT. Their lives do indeed matter a lot as THEY HAVE VISITED MORE SHEER misery on Homo sapiens much of it to themselves.
The problem with Macy’s at WaterTower is that it was designed with civilized shoppers in mind and not Democrat/Soros driven communist mobs. That’s why it has wonderful ground-level windows to be welcoming.
Compare that to the AT&T building at 10 S. Canal:
Used to contain the ATT Long Lines Chicago 6 & 7 toll switches.
BLM keeps it up, that’s the future of Downtown Chicago, if it has a future.
Massive floors meant to support switching equipment with vertical cable drops, not to mention private "secure offices" for the local NSA presence.
Computers don't need windows, so there aren't any.
Now everything is IP & fiber so much more compact but in the 00's the equipment must have been heavy indeed. Can't imagine what it must have been when switches were still electro-mechanical and Mr. Detective or Agent Johnson sometimes came in to put a "black box" on a designated line.
https://theintercept.com/2016/11/16/the-nsas-spy-hub-in-new-york-hidden-in-plain-sight/Replies: @Clifford Brown
This only happens in the cities where the mayors order the police to let it happen.
On May 31, blacks tried to organize a “peaceful protest”/ looting session at the King of Prussia mall (the largest mall in the Phila. suburban region) via social media. As happens nowadays, dozens of them showed up in a caravan in their cars hoping to overwhelm the cops. The cops also monitor the social media accounts and dozens of cops were waiting for them and arrested a bunch (and I don’t think the Montgomery County DA is just going to drop the charges the way the Leftist DA in Phila does).
https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2020/05/31/12-arrested-looters-target-king-of-prussia-mall/
(Scroll down and watch the cell phone video)
The “peaceful protesters” got as far as breaking the glass of the outer doors but there are pull down gates behind the glass so they never actually entered the Macy’s. In a few seconds the cops show up and they all run for it.
Meanwhile that same night, a bunch of stores in Philly were totally cleaned out. The starkest contrast was along City Line Avenue – on the Philly side there was widespread destruction and looting. Literally across the street on the Lower Merion side the cops were waiting with their shotguns and not so much as a pane of glass was broken.
This is a 100% a matter of allowing the police to do their jobs. In the cities, the mayor loses his job if the police arrest black people. In the suburbs, the mayor loses his job if the police FAIL to arrest black people.
https://www.cadence-education.com/balacynwydschool/wp-content/uploads/sites/43/2019/06/road_sign_at_bala_cynwyd_school_for_young_children_bala_cynwyd_pa-675x450.jpg
Not to mention these places:https://cloudfront.traillink.com/photos/uwchlan-trail_144231_sc.jpg
https://images.activityhero.com/56697/crop/708dd04c-754a-48b6-8938-34137d44dfa4.pngMost people of any race would run in horror from names like this. What would be next up-- Cthulhu?Replies: @Flip, @winter (is here)
It was very clear from the way that all the brothers and sisters showed up all at once at the mall in their cars prepared to loot that there was a organized effort to raise a mob and overwhelm the police. So there is obviously co-ordination going on and whoever attempts to orchestrate a riot like this should be guilty of a serious felony. A few high profile cases where mob leaders get 5 or 10 years and people will think twice about making such "suggestions".Replies: @bruce county
Does anyone else notice that conservatives have stopped being critical of blacks since Trump came on the scene? Five to ten years ago, conservatives were outraged by black on white crime and riots. Now it’s all pandering to blacks and “Democrats are the real racists.” Grassroots conservatives have no real response to these riots because it’s not Muslims or immigrants doing it.
I saw a comment on Free Republic where a braindead Freeper moron tried to claim that the Hispanic who ran over and killed a pedestrian in the riot was Muslim.
Macy’s was planning to close stores across the country before the riots and before SARS-2 / COVID-19. Looting may be the last straw for the Chicago flagship but this business has been sick for a while.
One share of Macy’s stock costs about the same as a couple of fancy drinks at Starbucks.
https://finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=m&ty=c&ta=1&p=d
Barbs vs decadent Romans, just like history.
Diversity & Inclusion
Remember the black man who attacked and beat a Macy’s employee as his friend filmed the attack? He pled guilty and was given probation.
Is Milo a greengrocer?
It’s the Malignant Mile now.
Mayor Goodway at least spoke out against the Michgan Avenue disturbances. She was more coy about the spoiled white brats who attacked Columbus.
She knows who butters her bread!
And when rioters saw “Welcome to Bala Cynwyd”, they thought they’d entered a science fiction film.
Not to mention these places:
Most people of any race would run in horror from names like this. What would be next up– Cthulhu?
And the way they protected the mall was indeed heartening. The fact that they are recreating the city in KoP Town Center, less so.
I’m pretty sure they’re still savages. You’re right. They have a ways to go before reaching barbarian status.
“Not to worry … If they don’t cut this shit out after 21 January 2021, President Harris will put down riots like it’s Constantinople 532CE.”
Rioters are wreaking Democratically controlled Chicago in Democrat Illinois right now.
New York is getting wreaked now, under Democrat leadership.
If Democrats had our way, America would have been under hard lockdown the whole time and GDP would have been -35%.
Can Dems really restore law and order ? They haven’t done that in a while.
All this looting, trashing and abandonment of our great urban neighborhoods in the year 2020 is music to my ears and should be to yours too.
If we continue as we have with a slow burn of our civilization we will get to a point where men and women of decent inclinations are so overwhelmed by force of numbers that we will not be able to take action and reclaim our land, but if it happens as in 2020, savagely and abruptly, enough may be shocked to action while we still have a position of strength. I want to see more of Chicago/Manhattan/Portland/Seattle. More, more, more.
As always, the only issue is immigration.
With an African blood quantum over 40%. That is about as lost a cause that ever can be.
Has any society with such seemingly hopeless demographics ever worked? Bermuda?
Jeez, two-fifths of the population wasn’t even smart enough to read! And all that takes is a 50 IQ!
No one else has mentioned it yet, so here it is:
A corollary ought to be do not tolerate any black (i.e. subsaharan) politicians in your district or municipality.
Qualified immunity is gone in a De m Senate. Meaning Atlanta and Minneapolis are the future of all our cities.
Again, with what cops and what feds?Replies: @The Alarmist
The ones who have been resisting and condemning Trump’s attempts to maintain order at every turn, aided by the Deep State intel who have sufficient data to know who should continue to be paid (an old Leninist approach) and who should be rounded up and disappeared (an old Stalinist approach). Don’t kid yourself that we don’t already have these types working behind the scenes and ready to act once the Revolution of 2020 has come to fruition.
IIRC, Illinois tried to do a pension haircut fairly recently and the state Supreme Court said no, the pension is a contractual promise.
http://www.pensiontsunami.com/ has the depressing details. It’s not just the blue states that have screwed themselves – Kentucky and the cities of Houston and Dallas are in big trouble too.
And not all the trillions of borrowed money that Biden, Pelosi, and Schumer plan to rain down on January 20th at 12:01pm will fix it.
https://www.cadence-education.com/balacynwydschool/wp-content/uploads/sites/43/2019/06/road_sign_at_bala_cynwyd_school_for_young_children_bala_cynwyd_pa-675x450.jpg
Not to mention these places:https://cloudfront.traillink.com/photos/uwchlan-trail_144231_sc.jpg
https://images.activityhero.com/56697/crop/708dd04c-754a-48b6-8938-34137d44dfa4.pngMost people of any race would run in horror from names like this. What would be next up-- Cthulhu?Replies: @Flip, @winter (is here)
Welsh lives matter.
“Chicago’s Magnificent Mile has the highest retail rents in the United States outside of Manhattan, Beverly Hills, and San Francisco“
The invisible hand of the free market is driving those rents down. These retail stores used to reside on magic dirt, now tragic dirt. The Maleficent Mile is no longer a safe place for civilized people to do their shopping.
What happens if the Chicago Police are fired upon in the early morning, say 10:00 AM? The looters take some time to get organized, so they arrive at the Miracle Mile at 11:00 AM. Right when it's full of White shoppers. How would the shoppers make out? My guess is that they would be assaulted in passing, just to keep them from interfering with the looting.
I, myself, wouldn't go near the Miracle Mile. I'm almost always armed, and the license was good in Chicago, but I'm not going to play shooting gallery when (a) the local politicians are obviously hostile, (b) the area is so target rich, (c) some of the targets are armed, and (d) the background consists of upper middle class liberals with rabid liberal lawyers and the local jury pool is aggressively anti-White. If I wanted to commit suicide, there are much easier (although less certain) ways than playing shooting gallery in that environment.
And, were I unarmed, I wouldn't go past Illinois State boundaries. The entire State is a zoo, even the generally safe parts can turn unsafe in a moment if you meet the wrong person. Absence of body beats presence of mind every time.
So, IMHO, the Miracle Mile is dead, and Macy's called it. Rule of thumb: Close out a losing investment. The Miracle Mile being about the only remaining attraction in Chicago, the city is gone also -- unless Biden/Harris shower it with money.Replies: @Allan
Your opinion of Chicago is unduly pessimistic. There are several other attractions worth noting. For example, there is Navy Pier (arguably a tourist trap) and the museum campus with The Field Museum, Shedd Aquarium, and Adler Planetarium. Soldier Field is just to the south of The Field Museum, and with just a little effort I could add another half dozen attractions in the downtown area before moving on to other parts of the city like Hyde Park and Lincoln Park. The Riverwalk, for example, is pretty sweet and still almost brand new.
Your paranoia about the Mag Mile is really extreme and, I’m sure, long preceded the St. George Floydanyl hoax. Seek counseling for that. Under normal conditions, if you wanted danger along that stretch of Michigan Ave., you’d have needed to head to the lower level of N. Michigan Ave. where the loading docks are, from the river to about Grand St., if I recall correctly. Also, you might try your luck 3 blocks to the west on N. State St. from Kinzie to Illinois, esp. at the 7-Eleven on the southeast corner of State and Hubbard. It could be dangerous there during broad daylight even before 2020. Another area of longstanding opportunity to find danger has been the area near the Red Line entrance at the n.e. corner of Chicago Ave. and N. State, one block north of Holy Name Cathedral.
You point out that I perceive threats more than untrained people. Well, I can describe threats better, but when it comes to going into dangerous areas, I'll do it if there's a good reason. Your average high income shopper won't, and that's the person the Miracle Mile needs. Heck, I'd go into the Miracle Mile if I had a good reason, but what's there isn't good enough.
You point out that other places are also unsafe -- so they are. That doesn't make Miracle Mile safe.
Guy, the point was that the Miracle Mile has changed. If the looting happened during a shopping day, nobody would be safe at the looting scene, except perhaps the looters. That even includes people with training and experience and pistols and body armor. There is no way to shop in Chicago's Miracle Mile and be safe -- or to work there and be safe. Miracle Mile is dead.Been there years ago. Great places then, and I'm serious. They epitomized the hope and intellectual rigor of the 1950s and early 1960s. Not worth the risk now, though.Replies: @Allan, @Anonymous
Borrowed Money must actually exist before it can be borrowed. This is not that.
Compare that to the AT&T building at 10 S. Canal:
https://legallysociable.files.wordpress.com/2018/06/10southcanalstreetchicago.jpgUsed to contain the ATT Long Lines Chicago 6 & 7 toll switches.
BLM keeps it up, that's the future of Downtown Chicago, if it has a future.Replies: @El Dato, @Muse, @Boy the way Glenn Miller played
Those telecoms building are pretty sturdy.
Massive floors meant to support switching equipment with vertical cable drops, not to mention private “secure offices” for the local NSA presence.
Computers don’t need windows, so there aren’t any.
Now everything is IP & fiber so much more compact but in the 00’s the equipment must have been heavy indeed. Can’t imagine what it must have been when switches were still electro-mechanical and Mr. Detective or Agent Johnson sometimes came in to put a “black box” on a designated line.
https://theintercept.com/2016/11/16/the-nsas-spy-hub-in-new-york-hidden-in-plain-sight/
BTW, if the AI bots can monitor social media for dreaded racism or Trump “lies” why can’t they filter out the “let’s have a riot” posts? And why can’t the people who organize riots via social media be arrested and prosecuted for fomenting a riot?
It was very clear from the way that all the brothers and sisters showed up all at once at the mall in their cars prepared to loot that there was a organized effort to raise a mob and overwhelm the police. So there is obviously co-ordination going on and whoever attempts to orchestrate a riot like this should be guilty of a serious felony. A few high profile cases where mob leaders get 5 or 10 years and people will think twice about making such “suggestions”.
Everyone knows that ladders are a product of cisnormative white men and thus forcing blacks onto them is a racial macroaggression and form of violence against black bodies.Replies: @res
Remember that ladders are non-racist when they are being used to scale Trump’s wall though.
Rioters are wreaking Democratically controlled Chicago in Democrat Illinois right now.
New York is getting wreaked now, under Democrat leadership.
If Democrats had our way, America would have been under hard lockdown the whole time and GDP would have been -35%.
Can Dems really restore law and order ? They haven't done that in a while.Replies: @Anonymous
No. The Democrats exist as parasites to a productive, law governed, and orderly society. If they replace that society, they have killed their host. They will then fight over and steal the the scraps while any are left.
This is really bad and somewhat of a watershed moment. I haven’t been to Water Tower place and the mag mile since the early 90’s but that was when Chicago was in the grips of a nationwide crime wave and Water Tower Place and the mag mile were still pretty safe areas unlike today with our supposed record low crime.
Of course, the police were allowed to be police back then and city councils weren’t anywhere near as woke and anti-police as the great awokening era that we now live in.
No velvet ropes and face control at the riots!Replies: @JohnnyWalker123
The rioters are destroying the places that supply them with jobs, food, goods, and apparently even nightlife.
It’s ironic. Isn’t it?
Then again. Maybe these riots could be considered a form of nightlife?
Good news for Anti-Fa.
*There are exceptions for things like expensive art books, which are a favorite target for junkies and such. And of course for rare books like the Edgar Allan Poe rarities stolen from UVa decades ago and never recovered:
https://uvamagazine.org/articles/nevermoreReplies: @James O'Meara, @James O'Meara
I recall Genet was arrested for stealing books — Rimbaud, Apollinaire, stuff like that — and told the judge “I knew their value, not their price.” But maybe Sartre made that stuff up anyway.
Abolish public pensions!
I can tell you that taxpayers not yet born are going to resent, e.g. when they turn eighteen, paying higher taxes to clear the lucrative pension (welfare spending) checks being cashed by government workers who had retired today (or sooner).
Somebody once stole my textbook, which had been sitting unguarded, on my table in the college library, when I walked away to use the bathroom. It was the night before the final.
Two days later I recognized my property behind the counter in the bookstore, in a pile of books that had been “sold back”.
*There are exceptions for things like expensive art books, which are a favorite target for junkies and such. And of course for rare books like the Edgar Allan Poe rarities stolen from UVa decades ago and never recovered:
https://uvamagazine.org/articles/nevermoreReplies: @James O'Meara, @James O'Meara
Books are too heavy to steal, thus better than e-books; but much easier to just burn or vandalize. You pays your money and takes your choice.
The greatest bookstore was the original Border’s in Ann Arbor, or at least it seemed to me, when I discovered it in those pre-B&N days. Actually, I think B&N stole most of their ideas: carpeted stairs with benches to sit and read, coffee, etc.
For used books, you didn’t have to go to Ann Arbor: John King Books in the 4 [?] story Glove Building (an old glove factory) off a freeway just within downtown Detroit.
It was very clear from the way that all the brothers and sisters showed up all at once at the mall in their cars prepared to loot that there was a organized effort to raise a mob and overwhelm the police. So there is obviously co-ordination going on and whoever attempts to orchestrate a riot like this should be guilty of a serious felony. A few high profile cases where mob leaders get 5 or 10 years and people will think twice about making such "suggestions".Replies: @bruce county
They have yet to crack the code for ebonics and street babble. I still am amazed that they can even communicate amongst themselves. Do the have an app for grunt to text?
Imagine, for a moment, being faced with a book that you have absolutely no hope of reading and whose contents will forever remain a mystery to you. I should think anyone faced with such a situation would be only too glad to fling the offending tome from his sight.
It's true that greed drives a great many of the rioters. However, I expect that at least some of the looting is driven by the fact that a fair number of the rioters sense, if only unconsciously, that the Information Economy has no place for those who cannot Read The Manual.
If only BLM stood for "Black Literacy Matters."Replies: @Rob McX, @John Cunningham, @AceDeuce
Urban literary criticism.
Correction–532 AD.
One reason l read the comments here is that they're usually free of the irritants that "Alarmist" so blithely provided.
One reason l read the comments here is that they're usually free of the irritants that "Alarmist" so blithely provided.
There's anger in the air, and it's not only blacks (witness the large number of young white people rioting).Yeah, I guess actually stealing books to read at home would not be something they would consider... :D I remember that during the London black riots, bookstores were the only stores not looted. But now I guess even bookstores are not safe anymore.Replies: @Escher, @jsm, @PSR, @John Cunningham
You can get that work boots, soap, and tools were untouched.
Imagine, for a moment, being faced with a book that you have absolutely no hope of reading and whose contents will forever remain a mystery to you. I should think anyone faced with such a situation would be only too glad to fling the offending tome from his sight.
It's true that greed drives a great many of the rioters. However, I expect that at least some of the looting is driven by the fact that a fair number of the rioters sense, if only unconsciously, that the Information Economy has no place for those who cannot Read The Manual.
If only BLM stood for "Black Literacy Matters."Replies: @Rob McX, @John Cunningham, @AceDeuce
BLM means Blacks Love Murder.
Young entrepreneurs learning what the future holds for them.
I know I have.Replies: @Gary in Gramercy, @Ancient Briton
That was one of the late Graham Chapman’s funniest sketches with Python (“who hasn’t, at one time or another, set fire to some great public building? I know I have”). Now I’m imagining Carol Cleveland looking at Chapman, and asking, “Is that the O.E.D., or are you just happy to see me?”
>>If they don’t cut this shit out after 21 January 2021, President Harris will put down riots like it’s Constantinople 532CE.<<
Great historical reference!
For those who may not know about it, Emperor Constantine (reportedly at the urging of his former prostitute wife) ordered his military troops into the city and pushed the rioters into the hippodrome. (Racetrack).
Initially the rioters were fighting each other in a "sports fan" factional dispute. Like Yankees and Mets might do. This went on for days and then grew into a general action about unhappiness with the Emperor and the rampant corruption.
At his wife's urging the hesitant Constantine murdered nearly all of the rioters he could find, once rounded up. That settled things down quickly. Like the Tienanmen "solution."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nika_riots
When the smackdown came, it was epic.Replies: @The Alarmist
Which is the same resource Justinian had. The local commander, Belisarius, waited until the rioters were in the Hippodrome (horse racing track), got maybe half of them to leave the Hippodrome, then blocked the entrances (just like Antifa did for police stations they were trying to burn), and had his troops kill everybody inside, 30,000 people. Not easy with just swords and body armor, but it was done.
Remember, these are the same Democrats who have blocked and falsely persecuted a sitting President and his immediate circle of associates while bragging about it every day of the year. That's pretty crude. Could they do more crude stuff if they thought it was that or their neck? What do you think?
Among other things, I think Pres. Trump made a good move when he decided that maintaining order in the cities is the responsibility of the locals, with any Federal forces being auxiliaries at most. Running the cities without enough money and a population extensively conditioned to hate government itself is a no win.Replies: @Muggles
Has Wal-mart told the city of Chicago, "We've had enough"?
It seems to me that Wal-mart's decision not to reopen in Chicago would be the death knell for Chicago retail, not Macy's. With things the way they are in the US, I don't doubt that another upscale American retailer is anxious to take over Macy's lease so they can show the world how "woke" they are.I expect those rents were paid with the assumption that the people paying them could expect police protection when they needed it.
Now that Chicago has clearly shown that is not the case, it will be interesting to see the effect it has on the rents Chicago landlords are able to charge.
Is it possible that we will see "wokeness" supplant goodwill on certain company balance sheets?
PS: was Steve in Chicago for both the 1992 and 1993 riots?Replies: @Anonymous, @Muggles
>>PS: was Steve in Chicago for both the 1992 and 1993 riots?<<
Now we're getting somewhere. Coincidence? I think not…
Could it be that the entire Democratic Party is so desperate for basic survival funds that it supports the Biden/Harris ticket?
Remember, COVID-19 showed that the US was so poor that it had no remaining emergency response reserve. CDC, for example, had been repurposed as a political support for the Democrats during the HIV emergence back in the 1980s through 1990s. Maybe it's too poor to police cities. Maybe the police were called off the riots because they would have lost the fight, either physically or by having to resort to lethal force to win. Remember that political leadership might be crazy, but it's not (very) stupid, and putting a good face on a loss is more or less routine.Replies: @Anonymous
Well, Chicago PD, like NYPD, has to support tens of thousands of active and retired officers making six-figure salaries or pensions. But unlike NYPD, Chicago PD doesn’t have the extra expense of having lots of officers and resources over in European, Middle Eastern, and Asian cities to support.
This emphasizes that the US has spent its money, and for all intents and purposes can at most keep its current expenditure schedule. The time of expansion is over, has been over since 2008. No more "throwing money" at problems, and probably no quick withdrawal from domestic agreements already made.
Since the subject here is rioting, this summer’s favorite non social distancing entertainment, here’s a question:
What happened to sending police dogs to unruly “protests” (i.e. riots) to keep the peace?
Did Bull Conner screw that for everyone, forever?
Of course using tear gas would have to be done after the dogs are gone, But what moronic antifa rioter or LARPing Wonder Womanette is going to charge into a snarling German Shepherd or Belgian Malinois?
An attack dog is something to be feared. And if some would-be revolutionary tries to shoot one, the cops will shoot back. Police dogs are beloved and often considered “officers.”
Sergeant, release the hounds! Arf, arf!
I know I have.Replies: @Gary in Gramercy, @Ancient Briton
What? All twenty volumes – some pants!
Makes me sad and reminds me of the Jimi Hendrix lyric: “And so castles made of sand, fall in the sea, eventually.”Replies: @HammerJack, @Buffalo Joe, @Neoconned, @sirius
I often look at old pictures from the 30s and WW2:
https://allthatsinteresting.com/holodomor-ukranian-famine#2
…..& the thought crosses my mind….were 5 years away from this sh-t if we aren’t careful….
TROUBLE, TROUBLE, TROUBLE. We have learned from life experience, reality TV, Forensic files ADMIT IT. Their lives do indeed matter a lot as THEY HAVE VISITED MORE SHEER misery on Homo sapiens much of it to themselves.Replies: @Neoconned
And yet its like crack to dumb women who get tingles galore from the violence….
Compare that to the AT&T building at 10 S. Canal:
https://legallysociable.files.wordpress.com/2018/06/10southcanalstreetchicago.jpgUsed to contain the ATT Long Lines Chicago 6 & 7 toll switches.
BLM keeps it up, that's the future of Downtown Chicago, if it has a future.Replies: @El Dato, @Muse, @Boy the way Glenn Miller played
One of the major alterations in this building in the late 90’s early 2000’s was that an entire room was stripped clean of the old switching equipment, and all the fiber coming into downtown Chicago was routed into that floor. Fiber splitters were installed and all data streams are now routed to the NSA data center in Utah. The NSA has the keys to the wiretap room. This information was widely shared amongst IBEW union members.
So I guess that AT&T building, which used to have microwave transmission horns on top, is now a BIG data transmission/ data diverter for The Man.
A true Corporate/USG partnership!
Wal-mart put a lot of retail establishments out of business.Replies: @Anonymous
What I mean is:
If Wal-mart were to give up on Chicago, is it possible that other retailers could look at their decision and think to themselves, “Well, gosh, if the denizens of Chicago are so far gone that even flippin’ Wal-mart, of all retailers, cannot work out a way to make money off of them, what chance do we have?”
My view is that Wal-mart is used to catering to the lowest common denominator. Ergo, Wal-mart giving up on Chicago and refusing to rebuild would be their way of telling the world, “These people are too low-rent, even for a low-rent outfit such as we.”
I suppose it all comes down to whether or not you view Wal-mart as a sort of canary in the retail coal mine. I get that Steve is enamoured of the high-end retailers, but offhand, I would think that Wal-mart is more indicative of whether Chicago is a viable retail venue in 2020 than Macy’s would be.
As others have pointed out, Macy’s wanting to break their lease in Chicago may have far less to do with Chicago per se and a lot more to do with Macy’s being a high-end retailer trying to flog their overpriced gear during a time of austerity and not being able to make a go of it.
I’m sure that both of those lads could have been the legendary “Sons of Obama”.
but I miss used-book stores
Used book stores are on the Internet now, Gramps.
They’re selling more used books now than ever.
Makes me sad and reminds me of the Jimi Hendrix lyric: “And so castles made of sand, fall in the sea, eventually.”Replies: @HammerJack, @Buffalo Joe, @Neoconned, @sirius
the great achievements of human civilization seem like just a thin veneer over ignorance and barbarism…..
Seem? I’ve always held that civilization is nothing more than a veneer, those exact words btw. This goes back to barroom arguments in the 80s, often starting with some friends/acquaintences who acted like the Germans were unique in what they did for a few years. I would point around the bar and say, “see this crowd, under the right circumstances x percent would be concentration camp guards, NKVD/GESTAPO, etc.”.\\
And here we are.
Imagine, for a moment, being faced with a book that you have absolutely no hope of reading and whose contents will forever remain a mystery to you. I should think anyone faced with such a situation would be only too glad to fling the offending tome from his sight.
It's true that greed drives a great many of the rioters. However, I expect that at least some of the looting is driven by the fact that a fair number of the rioters sense, if only unconsciously, that the Information Economy has no place for those who cannot Read The Manual.
If only BLM stood for "Black Literacy Matters."Replies: @Rob McX, @John Cunningham, @AceDeuce
Is that considered “book crime”?
Great historical reference!
For those who may not know about it, Emperor Constantine (reportedly at the urging of his former prostitute wife) ordered his military troops into the city and pushed the rioters into the hippodrome. (Racetrack).
Initially the rioters were fighting each other in a "sports fan" factional dispute. Like Yankees and Mets might do. This went on for days and then grew into a general action about unhappiness with the Emperor and the rampant corruption.
At his wife's urging the hesitant Constantine murdered nearly all of the rioters he could find, once rounded up. That settled things down quickly. Like the Tienanmen "solution."Replies: @JerseyJeffersonian, @Anonymous
Correct in outline, but Constantine was long dead. The Emperor in 532 CE was Justinian, and his wife was Theodora, a real tough customer it would appear. Here is a link to the Wikipedia entry on the Nika riots:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nika_riots
When the smackdown came, it was epic.
Constantinople/Byzantium in 532 CE/AD was history as tragedy ... DC in 2020 CE/AD is history as farce.
Here’s an article about the ongoing violence and looting in downtown Chicago this summer:
https://news.yahoo.com/chicago-luxury-stores-hardest-hit-234047355.html
It’s not just this riot, the violence has been ongoing and getting worse for years.
He’s a graphic video of the aftermath of the “FBG Duck” shooting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=44&v=gh_xarae9CU&feature=emb_title
Apparently, Mr. Duck dissed gang rivals in a rap song just days before the shooting:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/12322623/rapper-fbg-duck-dropped-diss-track-taunting-gang-rivals-before-he-was-killed-in-chicago/
One never knows what will turn up - rare gems in the rough.Replies: @Oo-ee-oo-ah-ah-ting-tang-walla-walla-bing-bang
This. Goodwill in college towns, where professors or next of kin donate is good. Best is college towns/wealthy areas that directly abut poor areas. Some of the great books bleed into the poor Goodwill but no one there knows what they’re looking at.
Unfortunately, there’s now bar code scanning apps that tell you what something is going for on eg amazon so it takes the skill out of it
‘…The stunned proprietor could barely conceal his anger and frustration. “I have no explanation for it,” said Brent, who has operated the store for 47 years. “Think of the shame they brought to one of the three or four great streets in America. The thing that frightens me is how close we are to barbarism.”…’
Until you can say ‘black,’ you’re not even admitting the problem.
Not in England they weren’t. My own provincial burg, Northampton, had at least three excellent bookstores all within walking distance of each other in the 1950s-60s: Marks in the Drapery, Mrs Billingham’s in St Giles St with a big 2nd-hand stock, and [forget name] in Bridge street, where I first discovered Ray Bradbury.
When I went up to university in London, 1963, Charing Cross Road was just one bookstore after another all the way along. Foyles and Dillons were mega-bookstores — I have spent whole days in them. Probsthain’s Oriental Bookstore — still in business https://www.abebooks.com/arthur-probsthain-london/4494352/sf — was the go-to for anything in that line, way back before 1990: I first patronized Probsthain’s in the 1970s. London was Book Heaven.
Did the USA only get decent bookstores in 1990? Don’t believe it.
You mean the Really Smart set is winning. So clever. They made all this happen. You know, those guys who dramatically increased the “intellectual atmosphere” of universities in the 60s.
Keep putting them on a pedestal. LOL
When James Ellroy was a junkie he stole Joe Wambaugh’s “The Onion Field” as soon as it was published. It convinced him to stop being a junkie.
I hear the digital edition is more thief-friendly.
Of course, the police were allowed to be police back then and city councils weren't anywhere near as woke and anti-police as the great awokening era that we now live in.Replies: @Anonymous
What is so bad about it?
As a student at the University of Michigan I saw, firsthand, how the Dems and the Black Panthers destroyed Detroit, formerly one of the wealthiest cities in the country. Detroit is now a mostly bulldozed hulk.
With the Black Panthers moribund the Dems have found new allies in BLM and Antifa. Their new allies will help them destroy another American city — Chicago. Seattle and Portland may also be on the table for decimation.
I have no sympathy for the residents of these cities. After all, they voted for it.
I am very familiar with this Macy’s and with Water Tower Place. I hope this Macy’s does not close, but it has not been doing well in a long time. I think when this store opened (as Marshall Field), its intention was to serve the moderate to middle-income residents in the many 1960s-era buildings within walking distance. Of course many things have changed since 1975.
If this Macy’s closes, there will be no store anywhere near walking distance for many household items, for instance. Near North lost a bedding and bath chain store some years ago. With the exception of a good newsstand in the atrium, the other shops in this indoor mall are useless and overpriced in my opinion. The store that probably does best in Water Tower Place is sort of the other anchor, a doll store that caters to tourists.
But here’s something most people don’t know: for at least the last six or seven Thanksgiving nights (I think–I stopped going) this Macy’s has hired a rap DJ and blasts the music throughout the store. It did not generate much in the way of sales during the short time I was there.
To those asking about Wal-Mart, Target, etc., reopening, my understanding as of early June is that both of these chains intend to reopen all stores (Target has probably already done so). But Wal-Mart does not have many Chicago stores, and people can always mail order from them.
JC, may the “D” of your correction bless you.
One reason l read the comments here is that they’re usually free of the irritants that “Alarmist” so blithely provided.
JC, may the “D” of your correction bless you.
One reason l read the comments here is that they’re usually free of the irritants that “Alarmist” so blithely provided.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nika_riots
When the smackdown came, it was epic.Replies: @The Alarmist
It’s a shame Melania isn’t channelling her inner Theodora to put a little lead in The Donald’s pencil to stop this coup in its tracks. None of the Generals he relied so heavily upon is a Belisarius, and Mark Milley certainly isn’t.
Constantinople/Byzantium in 532 CE/AD was history as tragedy … DC in 2020 CE/AD is history as farce.
He shoulda ducked.
They killed Tiny!
Your paranoia about the Mag Mile is really extreme and, I'm sure, long preceded the St. George Floydanyl hoax. Seek counseling for that. Under normal conditions, if you wanted danger along that stretch of Michigan Ave., you'd have needed to head to the lower level of N. Michigan Ave. where the loading docks are, from the river to about Grand St., if I recall correctly. Also, you might try your luck 3 blocks to the west on N. State St. from Kinzie to Illinois, esp. at the 7-Eleven on the southeast corner of State and Hubbard. It could be dangerous there during broad daylight even before 2020. Another area of longstanding opportunity to find danger has been the area near the Red Line entrance at the n.e. corner of Chicago Ave. and N. State, one block north of Holy Name Cathedral.Replies: @Anonymous
You might want to walk around in condition White (https://modernsurvivalblog.com/security/coopers-color-code-definition/) but I don’t. It’s not safe.
You point out that I perceive threats more than untrained people. Well, I can describe threats better, but when it comes to going into dangerous areas, I’ll do it if there’s a good reason. Your average high income shopper won’t, and that’s the person the Miracle Mile needs. Heck, I’d go into the Miracle Mile if I had a good reason, but what’s there isn’t good enough.
You point out that other places are also unsafe — so they are. That doesn’t make Miracle Mile safe.
Guy, the point was that the Miracle Mile has changed. If the looting happened during a shopping day, nobody would be safe at the looting scene, except perhaps the looters. That even includes people with training and experience and pistols and body armor. There is no way to shop in Chicago’s Miracle Mile and be safe — or to work there and be safe. Miracle Mile is dead.
Been there years ago. Great places then, and I’m serious. They epitomized the hope and intellectual rigor of the 1950s and early 1960s. Not worth the risk now, though.
One can prepare also for the darkest of the semisavages of the urban environment, who are descended from imports of the capitalist class. Of course, other breeds, too, provide savages. For example, we have white trash in the area. Yet all that crap remains mostly unmolested largely because white Caucasians, Asians, and Hispanics are too timid and too servile to do anything about them. Many want the savages for a variety of reasons. The worst of us of cry habitually for the plantation's masters to send the plantation's wranglers (cops) after the savages. Evidence has been everywhere for decades that this cowardly approach is a loser and a dead end.
A few of your comments are worth quoting. For example,I suggested that you overestimate threats and are paranoid. Also, I provided evidence that you are ridiculously pessimistic. You wrote that "the Miracle Mile" is "about the only remaining attraction in Chicago", but I trounced that easily.I pointed out that other places are more dangerous, though the sites mentioned are nothing like Englewood or Austin, to give two examples. Yet I didn't argue or suggesst that the Mag Mile was risk free. Any danger at all would be enough to qualify it as unsafe. Safety is a matter of degree. If you want perfect safety from external threats, crawl into a cave and build a reinforced concrete wall across the opening. Bring some scuba tanks for air and a big box of your favorite bugout food. You'll have plenty of safety for a few days.
If you would have a higher tolerance for risk, you'd tend not so much to overestimate hazards. But you prefer ultra low risk, crave "safety", and won't perform anything like a coherent cost-benefit analysis in terms of risk. This makes you like many wild animals which spaz out when they encounter any human, whatever its character and mentality. Probably you have a way of visually encouraging threats, too, or at least of making it easier to detect your fearful presence and to focus attention upon you. Ask your counselor how to bring your fight-or-flight reactions under better control, and how to put a mask over your irrational fears if you can't uproot them. You will, I'm sure, be given some therapy to work on your pigeonhole mindedness, too. This disorder is rampant among the USA's white Caucasians, as I have assumed that you are.
Look within yourself and see the timid, fearful excuse for a human being that you are. I expect that if you are duly observant, you will find a bootlicker and a common Eurolamb who deserves to be chased to the Atlantic coast and told bluntly, swim for home. In fact, maybe some people in the cities ought to organize freedom teams to hunt down your ilk in the suburbs and the countryside. Cowardice invites its own attackers, and sloth deserves to be overrun. This activity, too, I'm sure, would be worth the risk and experience. There would be some gains of territory at the expense of unneeded people, and it would be fun to tell the recruits that people like you plan to exploit the loop hole of the 13th amendment.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/chicago-shuts-down-its-business-district-overnight-weekend-due-continued-riots-and
"And we're going to bring them to justice."
You'll do wonders.
Great historical reference!
For those who may not know about it, Emperor Constantine (reportedly at the urging of his former prostitute wife) ordered his military troops into the city and pushed the rioters into the hippodrome. (Racetrack).
Initially the rioters were fighting each other in a "sports fan" factional dispute. Like Yankees and Mets might do. This went on for days and then grew into a general action about unhappiness with the Emperor and the rampant corruption.
At his wife's urging the hesitant Constantine murdered nearly all of the rioters he could find, once rounded up. That settled things down quickly. Like the Tienanmen "solution."Replies: @JerseyJeffersonian, @Anonymous
Seriously, it wouldn’t surprise me if something like that happened. The cities’ Democrat government is quite capable of using raw force, and are clearly losing control of their cities — exactly as Justinian was. Since the city governments don’t have money for bribes, and can’t preempt leadership of the rebels (Antifa, BLM), that leaves force. The police force is unusable at this point. That leaves the city government with the National Guard and DoD.
Which is the same resource Justinian had. The local commander, Belisarius, waited until the rioters were in the Hippodrome (horse racing track), got maybe half of them to leave the Hippodrome, then blocked the entrances (just like Antifa did for police stations they were trying to burn), and had his troops kill everybody inside, 30,000 people. Not easy with just swords and body armor, but it was done.
Remember, these are the same Democrats who have blocked and falsely persecuted a sitting President and his immediate circle of associates while bragging about it every day of the year. That’s pretty crude. Could they do more crude stuff if they thought it was that or their neck? What do you think?
Among other things, I think Pres. Trump made a good move when he decided that maintaining order in the cities is the responsibility of the locals, with any Federal forces being auxiliaries at most. Running the cities without enough money and a population extensively conditioned to hate government itself is a no win.
I doubt if any American political leader will round up rioters and shoot them all in a sports stadium. I hope not.
There may be a point when rioters are shot by police. If rioters seriously try to injure police or citizens with real weapons (not stones, bottles, etc.) and succeed. If cops are killed, or civilians, on the streets antifa will be in serious trouble.
Also it depends upon locale. If the political leadership is weak and pro communist (as it really should be deemed) and fails to back reasonable law and order measures by police, then rioters will act more violently. As we see. Where the populace is more conservative, police are confident that they can take measures to defend themselves. Just like citizens can.Replies: @Anonymous
I don’t have time to read all the comments here, so forgive me if I am repeating someone, but Macy’s (stock market ticker M) has been downsizing its bricks-and-mortar business and switching to online for quite a while now.
It is actually the 10th largest e-merchant in the US.
While the Chicago store is apparently on leased property, Macy’s owns vast amounts of prime real estate that is worth more when not used as a department store, but redeveloped in other ways.
So probably they were on the way out of Chicago anyway.
Another beehive of construction during the past year has been the old Tribune tower, which is being converted to residential use, iirc.
Have won, Steve. No point in pretending any longer.
When a great nation cannot summon the will to fire upon the barbarians – and put the survivors in cages for life (because these crimes, unlike a ‘sports riot’, strike at the heart of civilized society) – it’s over.
It has nothing to do with a lack of courage, and everything to do with dereliction of duty.
Looks like the only way you can earn the full wrath of the kritarchy is to defend yourself against that same mob. That is why – whether or not he wins re-election – the most definitive blow Donald Trump can strike for American civilization is to grant James Fields a full pardon on his way out the door, either this year or in 2024. What the hell – they’re not just going to despise his memory regardless, they’re going to fuel their own remake/remodel of the once-Free World by encouraging our children to despise him twice as much, and by any means at hand. Undoing a terrible wrong and letting that kid go free can’t damage his legacy any further than what they already have planned, no matter how warmly they might smile when they lie about it.
PS: Springing those Proud Boys railroaded by Andrew Corleone would make a just digestif after the meal.
https://www.cadence-education.com/balacynwydschool/wp-content/uploads/sites/43/2019/06/road_sign_at_bala_cynwyd_school_for_young_children_bala_cynwyd_pa-675x450.jpg
Not to mention these places:https://cloudfront.traillink.com/photos/uwchlan-trail_144231_sc.jpg
https://images.activityhero.com/56697/crop/708dd04c-754a-48b6-8938-34137d44dfa4.pngMost people of any race would run in horror from names like this. What would be next up-- Cthulhu?Replies: @Flip, @winter (is here)
yo, Reg, didn’t know you were from Philly. As a resident of Tredyffrin, I resemble that comment.
And the way they protected the mall was indeed heartening. The fact that they are recreating the city in KoP Town Center, less so.
Steve is talking about shops for new books. It was a wasteland for quite a while outside of maybe Manhattan.
But of course the used book places are what mattered and yes, they are now largely gone. Berkeley was full of them in my day; last time I was there, some six or seven years ago, there were perhaps two of any note to be found along the whole stretch of Telegraph Avenue.
San Luis Obispo had two or three really fine ones; only one left now.
And these are university towns.
Barbarism indeed.
Steve writes “You have to imagine how bad bookstores were back in the B. Dalton age before the Barnes & Noble revolution of the 1990s.”
Maybe in California or Chicago or Houston. In NYC there were 2 score or more bookstores all up and down Fourth Ave. not to speak of elsewhere in Manhattan. For example, Barnes & Noble had a monster used book store on 2 floors on W. 23d street or environs. The 8th Street Bookstore was notable. And a number of publishers’ outlets on Fifth Ave. very chi-chi.
Just goes to prove that NYC in days gone by was a wonderland, atypical of the rest of the country. Ah, the memories! Sic transit gloria mundi.
I know of someone who was down inside an underground complex in the 1990s near the Prudential Building downtown that saw a room where the communications cabling was being routed to and upon approaching the room was presented with an armed man.
So I guess that AT&T building, which used to have microwave transmission horns on top, is now a BIG data transmission/ data diverter for The Man.
A true Corporate/USG partnership!
You point out that I perceive threats more than untrained people. Well, I can describe threats better, but when it comes to going into dangerous areas, I'll do it if there's a good reason. Your average high income shopper won't, and that's the person the Miracle Mile needs. Heck, I'd go into the Miracle Mile if I had a good reason, but what's there isn't good enough.
You point out that other places are also unsafe -- so they are. That doesn't make Miracle Mile safe.
Guy, the point was that the Miracle Mile has changed. If the looting happened during a shopping day, nobody would be safe at the looting scene, except perhaps the looters. That even includes people with training and experience and pistols and body armor. There is no way to shop in Chicago's Miracle Mile and be safe -- or to work there and be safe. Miracle Mile is dead.Been there years ago. Great places then, and I'm serious. They epitomized the hope and intellectual rigor of the 1950s and early 1960s. Not worth the risk now, though.Replies: @Allan, @Anonymous
There are many ways to be unsafe without being a cripple of one’s own brain stem. For example, there was no way for me to scuba dive in the pitch black cenotes of the Yucatan “and be safe”. The activity is inherently dangerous, much more dangerous than walking along the sidewalk on N. Michigan Ave. at Chicago Ave. Yet I did it anyway. Likewise, I’ve skied some scary stuff in Austria, Colorado, British Columbia, and elsewhere. Again, more dangerous than walking the Mag Mile or N. State Street. Having prepared for all that activity, the risks and financial expense were well worth the experiences.
One can prepare also for the darkest of the semisavages of the urban environment, who are descended from imports of the capitalist class. Of course, other breeds, too, provide savages. For example, we have white trash in the area. Yet all that crap remains mostly unmolested largely because white Caucasians, Asians, and Hispanics are too timid and too servile to do anything about them. Many want the savages for a variety of reasons. The worst of us of cry habitually for the plantation’s masters to send the plantation’s wranglers (cops) after the savages. Evidence has been everywhere for decades that this cowardly approach is a loser and a dead end.
A few of your comments are worth quoting. For example,
I suggested that you overestimate threats and are paranoid. Also, I provided evidence that you are ridiculously pessimistic. You wrote that “the Miracle Mile” is “about the only remaining attraction in Chicago”, but I trounced that easily.
I pointed out that other places are more dangerous, though the sites mentioned are nothing like Englewood or Austin, to give two examples. Yet I didn’t argue or suggesst that the Mag Mile was risk free. Any danger at all would be enough to qualify it as unsafe. Safety is a matter of degree. If you want perfect safety from external threats, crawl into a cave and build a reinforced concrete wall across the opening. Bring some scuba tanks for air and a big box of your favorite bugout food. You’ll have plenty of safety for a few days.
If you would have a higher tolerance for risk, you’d tend not so much to overestimate hazards. But you prefer ultra low risk, crave “safety”, and won’t perform anything like a coherent cost-benefit analysis in terms of risk. This makes you like many wild animals which spaz out when they encounter any human, whatever its character and mentality. Probably you have a way of visually encouraging threats, too, or at least of making it easier to detect your fearful presence and to focus attention upon you. Ask your counselor how to bring your fight-or-flight reactions under better control, and how to put a mask over your irrational fears if you can’t uproot them. You will, I’m sure, be given some therapy to work on your pigeonhole mindedness, too. This disorder is rampant among the USA’s white Caucasians, as I have assumed that you are.
Look within yourself and see the timid, fearful excuse for a human being that you are. I expect that if you are duly observant, you will find a bootlicker and a common Eurolamb who deserves to be chased to the Atlantic coast and told bluntly, swim for home. In fact, maybe some people in the cities ought to organize freedom teams to hunt down your ilk in the suburbs and the countryside. Cowardice invites its own attackers, and sloth deserves to be overrun. This activity, too, I’m sure, would be worth the risk and experience. There would be some gains of territory at the expense of unneeded people, and it would be fun to tell the recruits that people like you plan to exploit the loop hole of the 13th amendment.
Which is the same resource Justinian had. The local commander, Belisarius, waited until the rioters were in the Hippodrome (horse racing track), got maybe half of them to leave the Hippodrome, then blocked the entrances (just like Antifa did for police stations they were trying to burn), and had his troops kill everybody inside, 30,000 people. Not easy with just swords and body armor, but it was done.
Remember, these are the same Democrats who have blocked and falsely persecuted a sitting President and his immediate circle of associates while bragging about it every day of the year. That's pretty crude. Could they do more crude stuff if they thought it was that or their neck? What do you think?
Among other things, I think Pres. Trump made a good move when he decided that maintaining order in the cities is the responsibility of the locals, with any Federal forces being auxiliaries at most. Running the cities without enough money and a population extensively conditioned to hate government itself is a no win.Replies: @Muggles
Yes it was Justinian, not Constantine, who ordered the massacre. My error, which as I thought about it last night I realized I made. Constantine was earlier. In the past few months I have read bios of both, very interesting. Also one of Belisarius .
I doubt if any American political leader will round up rioters and shoot them all in a sports stadium. I hope not.
There may be a point when rioters are shot by police. If rioters seriously try to injure police or citizens with real weapons (not stones, bottles, etc.) and succeed. If cops are killed, or civilians, on the streets antifa will be in serious trouble.
Also it depends upon locale. If the political leadership is weak and pro communist (as it really should be deemed) and fails to back reasonable law and order measures by police, then rioters will act more violently. As we see. Where the populace is more conservative, police are confident that they can take measures to defend themselves. Just like citizens can.
However
Justinian's problem was isomorphic to that of US cities. The only control he had left was the Roman Army. Now, the Roman Army of his time was still effective and very versatile. It was great at field fortifications, seige works, even fighting cavalrymen. It had some very nice muscle powered field artillery. What it wasn't was a police force, nor was it all that large. Belisarius had just one chance of not being surrounded and annihilated by the city mob in the hippodrome: quick and decisive action, attacking and winning before the opposition could get organized or call up enough reinforcement to attack the rear of his forces. So he killed 30K people, with some help from his infantrymen. Him or them, once Belarusian accepted the mission.
That is not so very different from what contemporary armies face. Note the similarities to Belesarius' operational problem:
“Urban battle will remain a slugfest, with the basic ingredient remaining heavy doses of high explosives. No technology is emerging to replace that.”
“If you stay stationary for any length of time, say more than a couple of hours, you are probably going to get killed.”
Long logistics trains won’t be available. And targeting must be more precise even than it is now.
“We can’t go out there and just slaughter people,” Milley said. “That’s not going to work.”
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-army/2018/03/06/the-future-battlefield-army-marines-prepare-for-massive-fight-in-megacities/
Milley, above, doesn't say why it's not going to work. He's really saying he doesn't want it to happen. I don't either. The problem is that, once forces get committed, the situation takes on a life of its own.
If the urban governments get themselves into a situation where, say, a mid-sized group has declared a liberated zone and is decimating or worse the population within that zone, urban governments might just think they have to go in and use the National Guard light infantry. If the mid-sized group has enough weapons and explosives and people, the National Guard light infantry will take heavy losses and then yell for help. The mid-sized group starts using dwellers as human shields. The Army might well respond, and at that point the situation looks a lot like the Hippodrome. The Army has to win, and quickly. See the article above on urban combat.
And here's how they did it in WW II. Today's Army isn't quite so well equipped.
See also: https://mwi.usma.edu/world-war-ii-capabilities-need-todays-urban-battlefield/
My suggestion? Don't do it. Urban governments shouldn't put themselves in the position of having a mid-sized group with foreign weapons take over a part of the city. I'm available as a consultant if any urban government wants me to actually do anything, but to date, they just don't listen. Ah, me. So this is a warning of what could happen should the Great Reorganization/Depression actually happen. I sincerely hope that the West can keep its transition as bloodless as the USSR did back in the 1990s.
You point out that I perceive threats more than untrained people. Well, I can describe threats better, but when it comes to going into dangerous areas, I'll do it if there's a good reason. Your average high income shopper won't, and that's the person the Miracle Mile needs. Heck, I'd go into the Miracle Mile if I had a good reason, but what's there isn't good enough.
You point out that other places are also unsafe -- so they are. That doesn't make Miracle Mile safe.
Guy, the point was that the Miracle Mile has changed. If the looting happened during a shopping day, nobody would be safe at the looting scene, except perhaps the looters. That even includes people with training and experience and pistols and body armor. There is no way to shop in Chicago's Miracle Mile and be safe -- or to work there and be safe. Miracle Mile is dead.Been there years ago. Great places then, and I'm serious. They epitomized the hope and intellectual rigor of the 1950s and early 1960s. Not worth the risk now, though.Replies: @Allan, @Anonymous
Re: Chicago Miracle Mile too dangerous for shoppers:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/chicago-shuts-down-its-business-district-overnight-weekend-due-continued-riots-and
“And we’re going to bring them to justice.”
You’ll do wonders.
Massive floors meant to support switching equipment with vertical cable drops, not to mention private "secure offices" for the local NSA presence.
Computers don't need windows, so there aren't any.
Now everything is IP & fiber so much more compact but in the 00's the equipment must have been heavy indeed. Can't imagine what it must have been when switches were still electro-mechanical and Mr. Detective or Agent Johnson sometimes came in to put a "black box" on a designated line.
https://theintercept.com/2016/11/16/the-nsas-spy-hub-in-new-york-hidden-in-plain-sight/Replies: @Clifford Brown
33 Thomas Street is the epitome of Form Following Function.
It is actually the 10th largest e-merchant in the US.
While the Chicago store is apparently on leased property, Macy's owns vast amounts of prime real estate that is worth more when not used as a department store, but redeveloped in other ways.
So probably they were on the way out of Chicago anyway.Replies: @Allan
Some of that real estate may be the old Marshall Field’s store on State St. in the Loop. Now, I have no idea what the ownership situation is. It could be that Macy’s sold the building and is merely leasing the space it needs, but when last I was there, in Dec. 2019, a few upper floors of the building were being gutted and completely redeveloped. I don’t remember what use is expected for those floors, but there was a beehive of construction activity on the floor which I visited.
Another beehive of construction during the past year has been the old Tribune tower, which is being converted to residential use, iirc.
I doubt if any American political leader will round up rioters and shoot them all in a sports stadium. I hope not.
There may be a point when rioters are shot by police. If rioters seriously try to injure police or citizens with real weapons (not stones, bottles, etc.) and succeed. If cops are killed, or civilians, on the streets antifa will be in serious trouble.
Also it depends upon locale. If the political leadership is weak and pro communist (as it really should be deemed) and fails to back reasonable law and order measures by police, then rioters will act more violently. As we see. Where the populace is more conservative, police are confident that they can take measures to defend themselves. Just like citizens can.Replies: @Anonymous
Me, too.
However
Justinian’s problem was isomorphic to that of US cities. The only control he had left was the Roman Army. Now, the Roman Army of his time was still effective and very versatile. It was great at field fortifications, seige works, even fighting cavalrymen. It had some very nice muscle powered field artillery. What it wasn’t was a police force, nor was it all that large. Belisarius had just one chance of not being surrounded and annihilated by the city mob in the hippodrome: quick and decisive action, attacking and winning before the opposition could get organized or call up enough reinforcement to attack the rear of his forces. So he killed 30K people, with some help from his infantrymen. Him or them, once Belarusian accepted the mission.
That is not so very different from what contemporary armies face. Note the similarities to Belesarius’ operational problem:
“Urban battle will remain a slugfest, with the basic ingredient remaining heavy doses of high explosives. No technology is emerging to replace that.”
“If you stay stationary for any length of time, say more than a couple of hours, you are probably going to get killed.”
Long logistics trains won’t be available. And targeting must be more precise even than it is now.
“We can’t go out there and just slaughter people,” Milley said. “That’s not going to work.”
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-army/2018/03/06/the-future-battlefield-army-marines-prepare-for-massive-fight-in-megacities/
Milley, above, doesn’t say why it’s not going to work. He’s really saying he doesn’t want it to happen. I don’t either. The problem is that, once forces get committed, the situation takes on a life of its own.
If the urban governments get themselves into a situation where, say, a mid-sized group has declared a liberated zone and is decimating or worse the population within that zone, urban governments might just think they have to go in and use the National Guard light infantry. If the mid-sized group has enough weapons and explosives and people, the National Guard light infantry will take heavy losses and then yell for help. The mid-sized group starts using dwellers as human shields. The Army might well respond, and at that point the situation looks a lot like the Hippodrome. The Army has to win, and quickly. See the article above on urban combat.
And here’s how they did it in WW II. Today’s Army isn’t quite so well equipped.
See also: https://mwi.usma.edu/world-war-ii-capabilities-need-todays-urban-battlefield/
My suggestion? Don’t do it. Urban governments shouldn’t put themselves in the position of having a mid-sized group with foreign weapons take over a part of the city. I’m available as a consultant if any urban government wants me to actually do anything, but to date, they just don’t listen. Ah, me. So this is a warning of what could happen should the Great Reorganization/Depression actually happen. I sincerely hope that the West can keep its transition as bloodless as the USSR did back in the 1990s.
Let’s hope their restaurants and bars go out of business, they lose their unemployment and Covid checks, and they become homeless beggars.
Compare that to the AT&T building at 10 S. Canal:
https://legallysociable.files.wordpress.com/2018/06/10southcanalstreetchicago.jpgUsed to contain the ATT Long Lines Chicago 6 & 7 toll switches.
BLM keeps it up, that's the future of Downtown Chicago, if it has a future.Replies: @El Dato, @Muse, @Boy the way Glenn Miller played
What carries the weight of the other tall buildings in Chicago? I’m just curious.
a) lie about it and put down whatever you can, such as pilings into unconsolidated rock. That's what the 3 Gorges Dam did, also the old John Hancock Building in Boston (famous for shedding windows in its top stories as the frame deformed).
A better way to do it than lying and hoping is to build a boat, actually a raft, and put the building on top. As long as the total weight of the building plus raft is less than the weight of the soil/rock removed, the building will float under Archimedes Principle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes%27_principle). You can put a building on alluvial fill, or a small building in a bog, if you want to pay for the raft and fight the humidity. (See: https://theconstructor.org/geotechnical/causes-of-failure-of-foundations-in-buildings/5840/)
and here's a building with no foundation, built close to a a hillside.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NqUdbhWRjA
)
As usual in engineering, there are more failure mechanisms than you'd think possible, and the engineer/architect as to catch them all. Bedrock is best, and is one of the reasons that Manhattan has skyscrapers -- it has bedrock also. But if there is no bedrock, and the moneyman takes the lowest bidder, the Skyscraper Construction and Screen Door Company -- well, the building might stay up. Maybe.Replies: @Steve Sailer
Exactly why Trump is right to resist federal taxpayers being forced to bail out big-spending, profligate, fiscally irresponsible corrupt (and often white-hating) cities.
Let the state and city governments live with their cruel and foolish decision to destroy people’s livelihoods en masse through lockdowns and through refusing to eliminate looters and rioters. They will need to make drastic cuts in spending, which eventually will even hit those sainted urban government-school time-wasters and indoctrinators (“teachers”).*
Well said, Stick. I would add, though, that these left-fascist states are NOT good for working people, blue or white collar, in general. They are good mainly for GOVERNMENT “workers” — at least until it all collapses.
Mocking people for wanting bookstores closer to their homes — illogical and petty.
Mocking people for wanting to avoid the increasing unpleasantness, filth, intimidation, vulgarity, and property crimes of the cities — just meanspirited.
John, nice bumper sticker…if you drive a junker.
David, Ah, the internet, where you ca find a book for sale but not page through it and admire, for instance, illustrations by N.C. Wyeth.
But of course the used book places are what mattered and yes, they are now largely gone. Berkeley was full of them in my day; last time I was there, some six or seven years ago, there were perhaps two of any note to be found along the whole stretch of Telegraph Avenue.
San Luis Obispo had two or three really fine ones; only one left now.
And these are university towns.
Barbarism indeed.Replies: @Charlotte
The Kansas town that I lived in back in the 80s had a small store that sold paperbacks, nothing else in a town of 15,000+ people. The nearest real bookstore was a 60 mile drive; actually not too bad-people in that part of the country are used to driving. It finally got a chain bookstore in the 90s.
If you can’t reach bedrock, then:
a) lie about it and put down whatever you can, such as pilings into unconsolidated rock. That’s what the 3 Gorges Dam did, also the old John Hancock Building in Boston (famous for shedding windows in its top stories as the frame deformed).
A better way to do it than lying and hoping is to build a boat, actually a raft, and put the building on top. As long as the total weight of the building plus raft is less than the weight of the soil/rock removed, the building will float under Archimedes Principle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes%27_principle). You can put a building on alluvial fill, or a small building in a bog, if you want to pay for the raft and fight the humidity. (See: https://theconstructor.org/geotechnical/causes-of-failure-of-foundations-in-buildings/5840/)
and here’s a building with no foundation, built close to a a hillside.
)
As usual in engineering, there are more failure mechanisms than you’d think possible, and the engineer/architect as to catch them all. Bedrock is best, and is one of the reasons that Manhattan has skyscrapers — it has bedrock also. But if there is no bedrock, and the moneyman takes the lowest bidder, the Skyscraper Construction and Screen Door Company — well, the building might stay up. Maybe.
a) lie about it and put down whatever you can, such as pilings into unconsolidated rock. That's what the 3 Gorges Dam did, also the old John Hancock Building in Boston (famous for shedding windows in its top stories as the frame deformed).
A better way to do it than lying and hoping is to build a boat, actually a raft, and put the building on top. As long as the total weight of the building plus raft is less than the weight of the soil/rock removed, the building will float under Archimedes Principle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes%27_principle). You can put a building on alluvial fill, or a small building in a bog, if you want to pay for the raft and fight the humidity. (See: https://theconstructor.org/geotechnical/causes-of-failure-of-foundations-in-buildings/5840/)
and here's a building with no foundation, built close to a a hillside.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NqUdbhWRjA
)
As usual in engineering, there are more failure mechanisms than you'd think possible, and the engineer/architect as to catch them all. Bedrock is best, and is one of the reasons that Manhattan has skyscrapers -- it has bedrock also. But if there is no bedrock, and the moneyman takes the lowest bidder, the Skyscraper Construction and Screen Door Company -- well, the building might stay up. Maybe.Replies: @Steve Sailer
Manhattan has lots of bedrock to anchor its skyscrapers too. Chicago and Houston have mostly dirt. The magnificent 100 story John Hancock building on the Magnificent Mile in Chicago was tough to build because the bedrock was much further down than expected. When I was in Houston in the late 1970s, they were putting up a lot of 70 story skyscrapers despite no bedrock by just digging out a hole in the ground equal to the weight of the future building. Peering through the fencing in Houston in 1979, it was impressive how gigantic of a hole in the ground they’d dug in the middle of a bustling city.
https://twitter.com/nwmalinowski/status/1294054663843651584?s=20Replies: @Anonymous
It would surprise me but little should several of the largest cities in the US have some sort of high cost activity like the overseas post in NYC police department (NYPD). Typically, unions establish a wage/benefit scale for one high prestige organization (that can afford it, supposedly), then impose it on all similar organizations. As your post points out, NYPD is more expensive than one would think. I’d suspect that all police departments those US cities reporting riots are more expensive.
This emphasizes that the US has spent its money, and for all intents and purposes can at most keep its current expenditure schedule. The time of expansion is over, has been over since 2008. No more “throwing money” at problems, and probably no quick withdrawal from domestic agreements already made.
I’ve seen large shopping areas shut down because of shoplifting, this was in the late 1990s, before shoplifting became legal. One of the large box store groceries/clubs survived for at least a while, and towards the end the urban police department stationed a K-9 unit, with dog, out in the parking lot of the large box store. Several other shopping centers in other parts of town remained open, so the closure apparently really was caused by theft.
Store closures from theft have been going on in second tier cities for quite some time. I’ve also seen it suggested that brick and mortar stores are not closing because of e-competition. E-commerce just doesn’t have the dollar volume to replace the closed stores. Brick and mortar stores are closing (it was suggested) simply because the middle class (who shops there) being depopulated by descent into the poor and occasional ascent into the rich. Theft level simply determines which stores close first — about the same number of stores would close even if there were no theft. I’d suspect that the effect of theft is substantial, but not dominant.
The above is an appealing thesis. It is consistent, for example, with the spread of “homelessness”, people who have lost everything (*), with the diversion of CDC into politics to such an extent that is is denying effective treatment to vulnerable populations, with the inability of urban areas to pay their police force, with the hysterical denial of obvious facts (like the high GINI coefficient (a bit larger than Nigeria’s) in SanFran, and the distraction of all groups from this poverty through media censorship, inflation, and distraction with emotional issues such as man/woman disputes and racial disputes.
Since no effective action is being taken (except some by Pres Trump, who has been largely neutralized), I’d expect the situation to worsen.
*) Homeless mnemonic is CATO 4321: 40% Crazy, 30% Addicts, 20% Tramps, 10% Out of Luck. Supposedly used by social workers. These are people who have been forced out of their lives, one way or another, and can’t find new lives.
See: https://anti-gnostic.com/2019/06/15/homelessness/ for a longer account of this division.
Most of them aren’t even from Chicago. They came here to live the dream by wasting their 20’s in the bar scene. Most of them will go back to the podunk towns they came from. The rest will O.D. or kill themselves. A sad bunch.
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