False Flag Attack

Obviously the major news of the day is that Israel has started a war with Iran that it hopes to drag us into. I’ll have things to say about that in the near future. I had this piece written, however, before Netanyahu launched his attack.

For free subscribers, I’ve removed the paywall on my piece from two days ago on the violence in Los Angeles. I hope you’ll read it.

—LW

At the historic immigration protests in Los Angeles in 2006, when a half million people marched downtown to oppose new federal legislation on immigration enforcement, much of the viewing public saw only one thing: Mexican flags.

They were everywhere, and the optics were terrible. A movement of immigrants making the case that they belonged in America seemed to be advertising their fealty to one of the very countries they were fighting to not be sent to.

Immigration hardliners had a field day. Fox News’ Brit Hume called it “a repellant spectacle.” A group of immigration restrictionists in Arizona burned the Mexican flag in front of the Mexican consulate.

The movement learned quickly from the experience, and within weeks, immigration marches in L.A. were a sea of stars and stripes. The bill was stopped, but immigration reform never happened. A decade later, Trump was elected, then re-elected 8 years later, and here we are.

Now, once again, immigrant rights protesters in L.A. are being castigated for waving Mexican flags. It’s easy to understand the criticism: the images play right into Trump’s depiction of undocumented immigrants as a fifth column in America.

But if I were the son of undocumented parents in Los Angeles today, I’m not sure I’d care this time around. There’s no bill to lobby for. There’s no public opinion to be won over. We’re far past the point of persuasion. Voters were given a choice and elected Trump; he has a mandate on this issue. For the immigrant community in L.A., the fight is no longer political. The resistance effort is physical.

I was in downtown L.A. last Sunday afternoon, when the weekend’s violence reached its crescendo. Activists had taken the southbound lanes of the 101 freeway, and had then been pushed off of it by California Highway Patrol. For the next few hours, the police defended the freeway while protesters stood on surface streets and overpasses about 25 feet above them, hurling rocks and shooting industrial fireworks at the officers, who shot rubber bullets and flashbangs in return. Black plumes of smoke from torched Waymos clogged the sky. Police helicopters and quadcopter drones flew overhead. There were ear-ringing explosions every minute. Amber alerts kept popping up on my phone warning me of the conditions in downtown L.A. that I was right in the middle of.

There must have been a Mexican flag every 15 feet, interspersed by the occasional American flag or combination Mexican-American flag. Under the circumstances, it didn’t seem the least bit inappropriate.

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