Call out the instigator

I've been collecting links and reading through accounts of the Krewe of Eris conflict and the associated police raids on a flea market, bicycle shop, and a bookstore in the Bywater/Marigny last week. I'd like to recommend that everyone read through this post by Varg and this one by Lord David as they seem to be the most thoughtful and informative respectively that I've seen so far.

I hope people will also recognize that we've just watched a month long protest in Wisconsin where teachers and janitors and clerks and firefighters and all other manner of unionized working people who are actually fighting for something of substance managed to not charge a police barricade or throw a brick or jump on anyone's car. Whereas, in New Orleans, some artsy types led by someone who "used to winter" here don't want to pay the 10 bucks or so per head it would take to do something self-indulgent with the blessing of the police and suddenly it's revolution time.

I wonder how many of these wintering hippies who throw bricks at police also buy into the often thrown around myths of "union thuggery" conservative pundits use to de-legitimize organized labor. I wonder how many of them also support the contracting out and de-unionization of New Orleans public schools. I'm willing to bet it's more than a few.