"You have the right to writhe on the ground in pain"

by The Cranky Media Guy

Richard Riordan

If you're an aging white guy and you fear the "loss of your manhood", as they used to say in the old patent medicine ads, you can get your doctor to prescribe some Viagra.  In short order, your pencil will have lead in it again and you and the Missus will be having marital relations once more.

Apparently, pills don't cut it for aging big city mayors, though.  They seem to need to open an remote-controlled industrial-size can of Whoop Ass to feel like Real Men.  Thank God for aging hippies, One Worlders, crypto Commies and anarchists.  Without 'em, who would these impotent old farts take the rage they feel at their unresponsive willies out on?

You'd think Richard Riordan, mayor of Los Angeles, would have enough to worry about, with a World Class police brutality scandal ongoing and every two-square-block area of town wanting to secede and become its own city.  Nope.  Mayor Dick found time in his hectic schedule to warn the protestors who will be in the City of Angels for next month's Democratic convention that they better tow the line while on the Double R Ranch.

"The police...and other law enforcement agencies will be confronted with demonstrators trained in violence, and the police will have to be tough.  The image of a police officer arresting a young person...may not play well on television, but there may be no other choice.  It is important that city leaders not play into the hands of anarchists.  We must not handcuff police in their use of non-lethal weapons, such as rubber bullets and pepper spray, when necessary."

Um, "demonstrators trained in violence"?  Would you like to back that up with some evidence, Mr. Mayor?  If you go to websites like indymedia.org, you'll see that some of the groups that plan on protesting the conventions are offering workshops on passive resistance and the usual leftie stuff.  Who's doing this training in violence, pray tell?  Oh, I'm sorry.  I interrupted you, didn't I?  Well, continue, by all means.

"Rogue demonstrators and anarchists whose sole intent is violent disruption...will try to make the police look unnecessarily brutal in counteracting them [by writhing in pain when they're shot with rubber bullets and pepper spray?].  If you watch the videos of the Seattle riots, you will see that the rioters were not angry unionists or environmentalists.  They were white, middle-class young adults who coldly and methodically destroyed property with various types of weapons.  It was no coincidence that so many of these rioters were swinging tire irons."

Hey, Mayor, know what you'd also see by watching the videos of the Seattle riots?  That there were 40,000 to 50,000 protestors in the city and only about two dozen people were involved in destructive behavior.  The rest of the crowd was largely composed of angry unionists and environmentalists.  But you don't really care about them, do you?  Just thinking about your cops shooting off those rubber bullets has a kind of Freudian effect on Little Richard, doesn't it?  Makes you feel like a man again, huh, Mayor?

Be honest--if not with the public, at least with yourself; you're trying to provoke a riot, aren't you?  Why else would you make a statement like, "We must not allow Pershing Square to be used for demonstrations," when you know full well that its the only open public space in all of downtown L.A.?  Where are they supposed to protest, Anaheim?

Let's face it, Mr. Mayor.  You're an aging old coot who's staring mortality in the face and the best way you can think of to send one last shot of testosterone into your blood stream is to cheer from the sidelines as your municipal army "serves and protects" by kicking a little hippie ass.  How dare these people be young and vital when you're rounding the clubhouse turn and heading into the home stretch on a horse named Dirt Nap!  You'll teach them to come into your city and riot, even if you have to start the damn thing yourself! 

You could have called a meeting with the leaders of some of the protest groups and tried to work out a compromise that would protect their right to peaceful assembly while insuring that the city suffered as little disruption as possible.  Reasonable negotiation wouldn't make you feel like you had a rigid digit again, though, would it, Richie?  It's ever so much more fun to hide behind your goon squad as you threaten to crack skulls.  It's also what's made you the Weasel of the Week.  (In case you're wondering, your counterpart in Philadelphia, the host city for the Republican convention, will probably be joining you in the Hall of Shame soon.  The smart money says that, unless someone else does something incredibly weasely, that tough-talkin', Constitution-shreddin' Broad Street bully is probably next week's recipient.)