If what happened in San Francisco in June of 1967 was the Summer of Love, what are we to make of the protests that occurred in major cities throughout the country during the summer of 2020? And what can we learn from these events?
On the one hand, we learn that if you peacefully assemble in public to protest a “safety first” dictator who arbitrarily shuts down businesses deemed “non-essential,” while allowing other businesses deemed “essential” to remain open—in accordance with nebulous criteria that are never adequately explained—you get tarred and feathered as a “grandmother killer,” because you, dear protestor, are participating in a “super spreader” event and thus contributing to the propagation of a deadly virus.
If, on the other hand, you assemble in public to protest the police or “systemic racism”—however peaceful or violent the gathering—you somehow are not spreading a deadly virus. Therefore, dear protestor, you are not a killer of grandmothers. Rather, you are a virtuous human being exercising the right of free speech.
This is what we learned during the Summer of Hate.
Regardless of one’s views of the protests, it is undeniable that there is a double-standard here. The corporate news media’s unequal treatment of these two groups of protesters has to insult the intelligence of any thinking person who is not blinded by partisan hatred. It also has to be the crowning absurdity of the most absurd, Orwellian public relations campaign of the century.
So far.
Ahh, but the century is still young…