Gimme da Loot, Gimme da Loot!

I was invited to post a story that the media has ignored. But I want to do something a bit different and instead discuss something the media has been paying *too much* attention to. The buzz in the media surrounding Ferguson has lately had to do with the looting and vandalism that took place after the non-indictment of Darren Wilson.

But the media can't tell you what it doesn't know, and it definitely can't analyze a situation objectively when a few burnt cars and looted businesses eclipse the reality that a young black teenager is dead, his family is torn apart, and Darren Wilson and others like him are the real danger we should worry about.

There is also a media discussion about the discrediting of protesters over the looting. Sure, it discredits something. It discredits a legal system too racist to admit its white supremacist agenda and offer compensation to the victims of its police violence, compensation so unattainable that the only way to get anything for their suffering is to steal a few pairs of shoes.

Oh, and there is a fact the media has repeatedly overlooked: commodity fetishism. They're just shoes. They're just cars. Private property is not more important than human life, nor is it the source of protection of life. It is used to enslave living laborers, marginalize and under-employ others - particularly minorities and women - and in the meantime, everyone's crying about the destruction.

Attacking private property makes perfect sense from the perspective of people aware that the cops are the thugs of the State charged with protecting it and privileging it over the lives of the people it dominates.

And that's something the media can't say because it doesn't know it. And if that weren't enough, Mother Jones recently released this charming visual graphic: https://twitter.com/MotherJones/status/537089891524698112/photo/1