Writer for 'Progressive Newspaper' Learns About Riots the Hard Way When Office Gets Destroyed
Leigh Tauss, a writer for the progressive Durham, North Carolina-based alternative newspaper Indy Week, finally knows how it feels to be one of the innocent victims of recent riots after her publication’s Raleigh office was trashed Saturday night.
Violent demonstrations in Raleigh over the weekend left businesses looted and buildings damaged, according to WRAL.
Many in the establishment media tacitly supported the nationwide mayhem as an appropriate response to the death of George Floyd, who died May 25 in Minneapolis after a police officer knelt on his neck for roughly nine minutes during an arrest which quickly went viral.
WARNING: The following post contains vulgar language that some readers may find offensive.
Tauss, who serves as Raleigh news editor for Indy Weekly, tweeted photos of the publication’s damaged office on Sunday morning. The office’s large plate glass windows had been broken, shattered glass was everywhere and an obscenity had been spray-painted outside for good measure.
“I’m devastated,” she captioned photos of the aftermath. “We are a progressive newspaper. Last night I was inside when the first brick was thrown.”
I’m devastated. We are a progressive newspaper. Last night I was inside when the first brick was thrown #Raleigh pic.twitter.com/MJvPdscyqf
— Leigh of House (@LeighTauss) May 31, 2020
At least now, maybe Tauss can sympathize with the business owners and police offers who, as the targets of violent outbursts throughout the nation, have been blamed and punished for a death they had nothing to do with.
Her lament is very telling, as she incorrectly assumed that Indy Week’s liberal bonafides should protect it from the vandals, as if the people smashing windows and stealing merchandise have more than a tenuous connection to the issue they’re supposedly protesting.
If that were true, Indy Week would certainly be passed over, as even in the immediate aftermath of the attack on their office, an article Tauss co-wrote insinuated that police inappropriately used tear gas on protesters.
In an article published Wednesday, the publication went on to explicitly blame Raleigh police for the violence in the city.
Tauss needs to realize there is no appeasing or making friends with marauders who are fueled by anger and emboldened by a mob mentality.
What’s more troubling about her Twitter statement, however, is her implication that the publication deserved to be spared for its viewpoint, which hints at her belief that maybe right-leaning businesses are getting what they deserve. Her ideas are not only wrong, but infuriating to anyone who is watching as American cities senselessly become smoldering war zones.
At least Twitter users would not let her get away with her flawed assumptions, as many replied to her tweet with sarcasm and even sage advice for the misguided journalist:
Hate only begets hate and calls to violence only incite violence. Evil has no friends. It consumes everything in it’s path. It always has throughout history.
May your eyes may be opened and your heart softened to the belief that progressivism doesn’t actually lead to progress.— Xaviere (@Xaviere29370219) May 31, 2020
It was a brick of peace.
— Johnny Wu ? (@BaizuosBTFO) May 31, 2020
“Why is this lion eating me? I work for the World Wildlife Fund!”
— MuzzleforMaxine (@Hunter572Randy) June 1, 2020
Are you saying veiledly that it could be ok if the newspaper were conservative? Try your medicine, honey.
— Sofía Rincón ??? (@Sophistidomme) June 1, 2020
I’m sorry that you had to learn this way that Antifa doesn’t care. You didn’t deserve this any more than that Mystery/ SciFi bookstore in Minneapolis did.
Unfortunately the Revolution eats its own, as Robespierre and Trotsky both learned.
— furious_Stay Six Feet Away_a (@furious_a) May 31, 2020
When other people’s livelihoods and homes literally go up in smoke, progressives such as Tauss are more than happy to defend civil unrest as an outlet for righteous anger — that is, until the destruction finally is turned on them.
It’s funny how rioting, vandalizing and looting are all fun and games when it happens in someone else’s neighborhood.
What Tauss and her progressive comrades in the establishment media need to realize is that out-of-control anger and destruction that erupts amid civil unrest aims to consume anything in its path.
Senseless violence cannot be reasoned with, and needs to be controlled with law and order. Otherwise, miscreants will continue to overrun and destroy indiscriminately.
The time has come to stop the madness and mayhem — not only for the sake of life and property in the targeted cities, but also for the very cause the “protests” ostensibly support.
Actual protesters and their allies in the media need to denounce the violence, because right now, their message is being drowned out by the roar of cities being destroyed.
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