Via American Greatness
Her name is Vicky Osterweil. It’s a pity that she is only emerging on the scene now. Had her ideas enjoyed broad circulation even a month ago, she could have made a major and clarifying contribution to the Democratic Party’s platform.
Many commentators, from the Left as well as the Right, grumbled that the Democrats’ convention lacked a clear policy agenda. Sure, we all knew in general outline what they were about—they were “against racism,” “against white supremacism,” above all, they were “against Trump.”
But the policy particulars that flowed from these sentiments were more adumbrated than stated directly. Vicky Osterweil (formerly Willie) fills in some blanks. Too bad she didn’t have a spot speaking at the convention. She sums up so much of what the Democrats are about today.
Like Joe Biden (and like his mentor Barack Obama), she is passionately committed to “fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” Peeking out of his basement in May, Joe Biden saw “an incredible opportunity to transform America.”
Vicky Osterweil agrees. “[W]e need a total transformation of our society,” she writes in her new book. “This society we live in under capitalism is entirely structured around the production [and] circulation of commodities. It is a cruel system, built for the creation and revocation of things not for the flourishing of people.”
In her interview with Stephen Colbert earlier this month, Joe Biden’s running mate Kamala Harris cheerfully noted that the “protests” coruscating across the country were “not going to stop.” “This is a movement,” she explained, smiling. The riots “are not going to let up and they should not and we should not.”
Osterweil sees Harris’ bet and raises it. She, too, regards the riots as part of a “movement for liberation,” a movement that is just getting started.
I mentioned Osterweil’s new book. It is called In In Defense of Looting: A Riotous History of Uncivil Action. I should note that the word “riotous” as used here does not mean “uproariously funny.” In means “having to do with riots,” i.e., violent insurrectionary action: looting, destroying property, burning things down. These are the actions that Osterweil recommends to bring about that “total” or “fundamental” transformation of society that she, like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, longs to bring about.
Osterweil’s great virtue is her frankness. You always know where you stand with her. When she says “a defense of looting,” she means a defense of that “method of direct redistribution of wealth, from the store owners and capitalists to the poor.” In case there is any confusion, she took the opportunity afforded by a respectful profile on NPR to clear things up: “the mass expropriation of property, mass shoplifting during a moment of upheaval or riot. That’s the thing I’m defending.”
Got it.
According to Osterweil, “Looting represents a material way that riots and protests help the community.” How? “[B]y providing a way for people to solve some of the immediate problems of poverty and by creating a space for people to freely reproduce their lives rather than doing so through wage labor.”
Looting, she writes, is “a practical immediate form of improving life” (though not, of course for the store owners or capitalists who are looted). Basically, it’s a variation of Willie Sutton’s response to the question of why he robbed banks: “because that’s where the money is.” A straight-talking man, Willie Sutton.
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