American Intifada

The riots that kicked off in Los Angeles last weekend aren't just about illegal immigration — they're part of a revolutionary movement.

"Anti-colonialism" is a term often heard in America's college classrooms, but off campus virtually no one takes it seriously.

It's just another harebrained radical academic theory, right?

Yes, the theory is mostly silly — but the practice is deadly serious.

Most Americans and Europeans today feel ashamed of imperialism and racism, and they're glad to be rid of colonies and slavery.

All that injustice is a thing of the past, however much its legacy haunts our present.

But the ideology of anti-colonialism says otherwise: imperialism and thoroughgoing racial exploitation never ended and never can end, not until "settler" and "colonizer" power is overthrown everywhere.

Israel's the focus of the most vitriolic and violent anti-colonial rage, but the United States is just as guilty of being a "settler-colonial state."

Mexico, and indeed all of Latin America, is America's Palestine, and when illegal immigrants cross the border, when they resist deportation, when they and their allies riot, this is justified resistance to colonialism.

In Palestinian terms, it's an intifada, or at least the beginnings of one.

Palestinians launched two intifadas against Israel, from 1989 to 1993 and from 2000 to 2005.

These "uprisings" involved rioting, throwing stones at police and soldiers, hurling Molotov cocktails, and violence up to and including suicide bombings, as well as boycotts, strikes and other forms of economic coercion and nonviolent protest.

An American might recognize many of these tactics — though not suicide bombing, thank G od — not only as scenes from Los Angeles in recent days but as familiar features from other left-wing protest movements, including those inspired by Black Lives Matter and the killing of George Floyd five years ago.

There isn't some grand anti-colonialist conspiracy directing all of this, although there are links between one outburst and another: usually the thugs who call themselves "antifa," for example, are in the vanguard of the provocations.

But a conspiracy isn't necessary — the ideology is a franchise, teaching anyone who believes in it to immediately identify enemy groups and what slogans to chant when harassing or hurting them.

No radical has to wait for orders to know what to say and do to police or Jews.

On social media, conservatives have joked about the Mexican flags some LA rioters have been waving: after all, if you're proud of Mexico and its flag, why would you object to being sent back there?

But those flags aren't being waved to make a point about Mexican territory — they're making a point about American territory, Los Angeles itself, which in anti-colonialist eyes belongs to illegal aliens at least as much as to any American.

Never mind that Mexico was a product of settler colonization (by Spain) and practiced settler colonization itself in places occupied by indigenous peoples.

Anti-colonialism is not about history or consistent philosophical principles; it's about power and acquiring it for those who are willing to take to the streets.

That's one reason the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol four years ago was so shocking, when right-wing supporters of Donald Trump were willing to use a little of the force that left-wing protest movements routinely employ.

The Jan. 6 rioters saw themselves as decolonizing the Capitol, viewing their enemies as a privileged elite who had somehow stolen the election and therefore the country.

That riot didn't involve arson to the degree seen in Los Angeles these past few days, but it was frightening to the left, the political middle and most conservatives because it showed radicalism could expand into the right.

Too many Americans who would never dream of rioting themselves have for too long simply accepted that left-wing protests are allowed, even expected, to be violent.

They were unprepared for the activist right — not Nazi extremists, but a small subset of otherwise unremarkable Republican voters — to learn from what the anti-colonialist left was allowed to get away with.

The lesson all Americans have to learn now, before it's too late, is this kind of violence will keep expanding as long as it's tolerated in the name of anti-colonialism and other progressive causes.

There will be more riots, and then there will be more than riots: the premises of anti-colonialism call for intifada, not just in Palestine but right here in America.

Law, and law enforcement, has to prevail in Los Angeles, but this is a battle that has to be won in the classroom, and the conscience, as well as in the streets.

There will always be some violent extremists, but what sets fire to our cities again and again is the complacency of ordinary Americans who fail to recognize a radical premise when its consequences are broadcast on the nightly news — and world news, too.

(COMMENT, BELOW)

Previously:
• 06/04/25: DEI: The Dems' Concrete Shoes
• 05/27/25: Trump, Harvard, and the Brain-Drain Myth
• 05/20/25: China's Power Is a Virus
• 05/13/25: How this GOP Governor's Miracle Became a Curse
• 04/15/25: Is UnitedHealthcare CEO's murderer the Left's Donald Trump?
• 04/01/25: Lawfare Isn't Beaten -- In France or America
• 03/25/25: Will Trump Turn Nationalism Against America?
• 03/18/25: The Dems' Civil War
• 03/11/25: Can Donald Trump Win a Trade War?
• 03/04/25: Europe's Decline Was a Choice
• 02/25/25: How Trump Makes Europe Stronger
• 02/20/25: Tax-payers funding a sham of democracy
• 02/11/25: What Kind of a Populist Is Elon Musk?
• 02/03/25: Can Trump Win Trade Wars Before They Start?
• 01/21/25: Trump Inaugurates a New Era
• 01/14/25: Dems Aren't Democracy's Party
• 01/07/25: Donald Trump's Worldwide Election
• 12/31/24: Harmless self-deception?
• 12/17/24: Communism thriving, including HERE
• 12/10/24: Birthright Citizenship Is a Breach in the Border
• 12/03/24: Identity Politics, Not Biden, Cost Dems the Election
• 11/19/24: Why Dems Are Losing Tomorrow's Elections Today
• 11/12/24: Dems Are at a Dead End, Unless They Learn From Trump
• 10/29/24: Harris Targets Married Women
• 10/22/24: Vibes Turn Bad for Kamala Harris
• 10/15/24: Why Veterans Are Voting for Trump
• 10/08/24: How Donald Trump Can Win the Popular Vote
• 10/01/24: Iran Targets America's Elections -- and Trump
• 09/24/24: Trump's Would-Be Assassin's Explanation
• 09/17/24: When Character Assassination Becomes the Real Thing
• 09/10/24: Kamala Harris Runs Like a Republican -- and Misleads
• 09/04/24: Where Trump Is Moderate -- While Kam Is Maximalist
• 08/27/24: Donald Trump Is Reagan's Heir
• 08/20/24: Will Voters Settle for Joe Biden's Wing(wo)man?
• 08/13/24: Trump Has to Run Like It's 2016 Again
• 08/07/24: Is Trump Running Against Harris -- or Donald Trump?
• 07/30/24: Kamala Harris' 'Mean Girls' Election
• 07/23/24: Kamala Harris Is the Opponent Donald Trump Wants
• 07/16/24: Ready for Biden's Counterattack?
• 07/09/24: Biden Faces Richard Nixon's Choice
• 07/02/24: Should Biden Drop Out -- or Resign?
• 06/18/24: Separate Sexual Identity and State
• 06/18/24: Nigel Farage Makes the Trump Moment Permanent
• 06/04/24: State that's long eluded GOP turns toward Trump
• 05/21/24: Trump's Sun Belt Hopes and Rust Belt Needs
• 05/14/24: What Trump Sees in Doug Burgum
• 05/07/24: The Vietnam Era Never Ended for Biden's Party
• 05/06/24: Nationalists of the World, Unite?
• 04/25/24: Foreign Policy Splits
• 04/16/24: How pro-lifers stand to lose everything gained in overturning Roe
• 04/02/24: PBS Misremembers William F. Buckley Jr.
• 04/02/24: Who Wants to Be House Speaker?
• 03/26/24: Trump Hunts for a VP Close to Home
• 03/19/24: Princess Kate and Democracy's Discontents
• 03/12/24: Can Biden Buy the Voters?
• 03/05/24: Veepstakes Give Trump an Edge
• 02/20/24: Do Americans Trust Either Party?
• 02/13/24: Vladimir Putin -- A Passive Aggressor
• 01/23/24: Will 'Lawfare' Take Trump Off the Ballot?
• 01/16/24: Will Africa Save America?
• 01/09/24:'The Sopranos' at 25: A new world tragedy
• 01/02/24: Trump, Biden and a Fight for the Heart
• 12/12/23: What Happened to Ron DeSantis?
• 12/12/23: Biden Looks Doomed -- But Is He?
• 12/05/23: A Test for Trump and His Rivals
• 11/21/23: When Inequality Is Fatal for Men
• 11/14/23: Nevermind, The Battle's Over
• 11/07/23: War in the Dem Party -- and at the Opera
• 10/24/23: Israel's Lesson for 2024: A Lib Crackup
• 10/17/23: Libs' Dilemma: Immigration or Israel?
• 10/10/23: Why Bidenflation Defines Bidenomics
• 10/03/23: Will Gavin Newsom Copy Trump?
• 09/26/23: Biden's a Loser -- but Dems Can't Ditch Him
• 09/19/23: Do Sex Scandals Matter?
• 09/12/23: Cornel West Spells Doom for Biden
• 09/05/23: What Trump Does for Democracy
• 08/2/23: Ramaswamy: A Trump Versus Trump?
• 08/22/23: Take 'Rich Men North of Richmond' Seriously
• 08/16/23: How America Kills Its Own
• 08/08/23: The Biden Pardon That Can Spare America
• 08/01/23: Harding, a consevative for the ages
• 07/25/23: Demography Destiny, for Us and China
• 07/18/23: The Frontrunner Who Looks Like a Loser Is Biden
• 07/11/23: Britain's Bad Example for American Conservatives
• 07/05/23: Could We Still Win a Revolutionary War?
• 06/27/23: Civilizations Clash -- in Ukraine and at Home
• 06/20/23: China Comes for the Caribbean
• 06/13/23: Fertility, Family and Bio-Socialism
• 06/06/23: From American Dream to Orwell's Nightmare
• 05/23/23: Ukraine war is an existential struggle --- for the West
• 05/23/23: Learn the Right Midterm Lessons -- or Lose in 2024
• 05/16/23: Feinstein Today Is Biden Tomorrow
• 05/09/23: Trump, DeSantis and Political Courtship
• 05/02/23: RFK Jr.'s Threat to Biden
• 04/25/23: Biden's Lost Generation
• 04/25/23: Who's In Charge of Clarence Thomas?
• 04/11/23: Beyond AI, Our Cyborg Future
• 04/04/23: 2024: 3 Leaders, 1 Way to Win
• 03/28/23: Climate Science Makes a Bad Religion
• 03/21/23: All the Conspiracy That's Fit to Print