Skip to content
May 29, 2023
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Instagram
  • Reddit
  • Telegram
  • TikTok
  • LinkedIn
  • Discord
Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond

Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond

From Venezuela and made by Venezuelan Chavistas

Primary Menu
  • News
  • Opinion
  • About us
    • About us
    • Who we are – Becoming a Volunteer
    • Editorial guidelines for contributors
    • Our Sources
      • Venezuelan Sources
      • International Sources
    • Contact us
  • Categories
    • Politics
    • Economy
    • Security and Defense
    • International
      • Africa
      • Asia
      • Europe
      • Oceania
      • US/Canada
    • Latin America and ALBA-TCP
      • South America
      • Central America and the Caribbean (+Mexico)
    • Ideology-Commune-Labor
    • Health-Education-Sport-Culture-Technology
    • Solidarity and Social Movements
    • OT Specials
  • Support Us
Light/Dark Button
YouTube Channel
  • Home
  • Opinion
  • The Best Moment of 2020: The Burning of the Third Precinct
  • International
  • Opinion
  • US/Canada

The Best Moment of 2020: The Burning of the Third Precinct

December 18, 2020

By Hamilton Nolan – Dec 15, 2020

Everything else was bad

This year, wretched as it was, was not steadi­ly wretched from begin­ning to end. It was more like a wave, crest­ing right at the edge of opti­mism before crash­ing down hard and wash­ing every­thing back out to the black and hope­less sea. It’s espe­cial­ly easy to remem­ber the high points in a year like this: They were brief moments when events broke the heavy pull of grav­i­ty and rose up, before falling back down again.

On Feb­ru­ary 22, under bright and mild blue skies, I went to a plush casi­no on the Las Vegas strip and watched hotel work­ers vote over­whelm­ing­ly for Bernie Sanders in the Neva­da cau­cus. Bernie won by a mile, and there was a swelling sense of ela­tion — this was our time. He stood, that day, as the clear favorite for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­na­tion, the man who was poised to sweep away our grotesque leader and ush­er in a new age of humane progress. Joe Biden’s cam­paign vol­un­teers were stay­ing at my hotel, and I remem­ber look­ing at them with pity as they stood around in their Biden shirts in the lob­by, a sad bunch of mis­fits fruit­less­ly try­ing to res­ur­rect a long-dead dream. The peo­ple pow­er was on our side. The atmos­phere was gid­dy. There were cel­e­bra­tions. There were crowds. Every­thing was open, and you could see, just down the road, the world that we want­ed, just waiting.

RELATED CONTENT: Texas Member of Boogaloo Bois Charged with Opening Fire on Minneapolis Police Precinct During Protests Over George Floyd

One month lat­er, Joe Biden had the nom­i­na­tion well in hand. The Las Vegas strip had been shut­tered, along with every­thing else. The mighty Culi­nary Union, whose mem­bers ran the casi­no indus­try, was suf­fer­ing from 98% unem­ploy­ment. New York City was in lock­down, the pan­dem­ic had begun to rage, and our bizarre nation­al night­mare of sick­ness and death and soli­tude and dev­as­ta­tion was begin­ning to unfurl in all of its hor­rif­ic majesty.

And it’s been pret­ty bad since then. The year teased us with false hope, then snatched it away and unveiled a grind­ing, cease­less cal­en­dar of monot­o­ny stirred togeth­er with tragedy. Even mod­est­ly good events like Trump’s elec­tion loss or the mak­ing of vac­cines were leav­ened with the heavy knowl­edge that there is an alter­nate world where they would have turned out much, much better.

There is only one moment in 2020 that stands out as one of undi­lut­ed ela­tion. That moment came on the night of May 28, three days after George Floyd was killed by police. The protests that would soon sweep the nation were still cen­tered in Min­neapo­lis. Around 10:00 p.m. that night, I sat a thou­sand miles away, slack­jawed, watch­ing a live stream of riot police evac­u­at­ing from the Third Precinct head­quar­ters. The cops all scur­ried away, and pro­test­ers pro­ceed­ed to burn down the police station.

RELATED CONTENT: Minneapolis Approves Replacing Police With a Community-Run Public Security System

The cops ran away and the pro­test­ers burned down the police sta­tion. That was one of the coolest fuck­ing things I’ve ever seen.

Is that imma­ture? I don’t care. The cops ran away. The peo­ple burned down the police sta­tion. Take that! Stu­pid cops! If the sheer cin­e­mat­ic gall of such a thing does not fill you with some lev­el of delight, you are too mature. You have allowed an impor­tant part of you to die. I pity you. You see, nor­mal­ly, cops chase peo­ple. Police come into our homes and do what they want. In this case, the peo­ple chased the police. And they went into the police’s home, and they burned it the fuck down. Now do you see? This was beau­ty. This was, for a few hours at least, the tri­umph of hope. It was like watch­ing a very ephemer­al war being won. I do not care that one of the peo­ple lat­er indict­ed for this was a right winger — that just makes that night a very rare exam­ple of the entire polit­i­cal spec­trum achiev­ing a com­mon goal. I do not care to hear any ratio­nal argu­ments about what such an action did or did not “accom­plish” in a cold, ana­lyt­i­cal sense. Life is full of injus­tices large and small, of pow­er­ful insti­tu­tions that sub­ject us to all man­ner of unnec­es­sary incon­ve­niences and out­rages, and noth­ing embod­ies this per­pet­u­al state of unfair­ness more than a police sta­tion. Some­times it is nec­es­sary to see the pow­er of the peo­ple in action, just to feel alive. I will tell you what this action accom­plished: It was awe­some. We all need­ed that.

This was a bad year. But it was also the year that the cops ran away, and peo­ple burned down the police sta­tion. I guess you nev­er can tell when your luck is going to turn around.

 

 

Featured image: CARLOS GONZALEZ/STAR TRIBUNE VIA GETTY IMAGES

Hamilton Nolan is a labor reporter for In These Times. He has spent the past decade writ­ing about labor and pol­i­tics for Gawk­er, Splin­ter, The Guardian, and else­where. You can reach him at Hamilton@InTheseTimes.com.

(In These Times)

Don't want to be a victim of the Algorithm?

SIGN UP TO RECEIVE OUR WEEKLY DIGEST WITH ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT VENEZUELA AND BEYOND

We don’t spam! Read our privacy policy for more info.

Orinoco Tribune 2
+ posts
  • Orinoco Tribune 2
    https://orinocotribune.com/author/yullma/
    Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. Photo: United World.
    May 26, 2023
    It’s the Time of Nkrumah!
  • Orinoco Tribune 2
    https://orinocotribune.com/author/yullma/
    CNE President Diana Atamaint. Photo: Twitter/@CNEGuayas.
    May 26, 2023
    Ecuador Defines Calendar for Early Elections
  • Orinoco Tribune 2
    https://orinocotribune.com/author/yullma/
    A baby on a shopping cart. Photo: Getty Images/Caroline Purser.
    May 25, 2023
    Russia Has Lowest Inflation in Europe – PM
  • Orinoco Tribune 2
    https://orinocotribune.com/author/yullma/
    Republican Party leader José Antonio Kast at a press conference in 2021 Photo: Mediabanco Agencia / Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 2.0.
    May 25, 2023
    Far Right Holds Chile Hostage
Tags: George Floyd looting Minneapolis Minneapolis Police rioting US

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)

Continue Reading

Previous Previous post:

China and Russia to Guarantee COVID-19 Vaccines for Poor Countries in 2021

Rich countries have bought almost all the doses of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for next year (Photo: EFE)
Next Next post:

German Expansionism in Europe and the Tsarist Regime’s Fall

Subscribe to Our Weekly Newsletter

We keep your data private and share your data only with third parties that make this service possible. Read our Privacy Policy.

Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription.

NEWS: Most Viewed 72 Hours

Calendar

May 2023
M T W T F S S
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
293031  
« Apr    

Categories

OPINION: Most Viewed 72 hours

We are on Telegram


Receive our news directly in your cellphone or PC, join us on our TELEGRAM channel: https://t.me/OrinocoTribune1

 

Download TELEGRAM, click the link above and then press the JOIN button.

We are on Discord


Now we are also on Discord you will be able to follow our every move and interact with our team.

Join us by clicking here



All our work is free to use and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.

We are on Reddit

If you are more into REDDIT, join our Orinoco Tribune Community.

 

Just click below and then click JOIN
https://www.reddit.com/r/OrinocoTribune/

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Instagram
  • Reddit
  • Telegram
  • TikTok
  • LinkedIn
  • Discord
Copyleft, No rights reserved.