White Rage America Wants to See the World Burn.

[evildevil]

White America says “Let the Fire Burn”
What the Philadelphia firebombing of 1985 can tell us about the culture of white rage that led to the shutdown

In Jason Osder’s disturbing and extraordinary new documentary “Let the Fire Burn,” which entirely consists of archival footage, we see a Philadelphia police officer named James Berghaier testify at a

Comments

[chasingtides]

[blackflamerose]

::headtilt:: I'm not exactly sure what I'm looking at, here. What's up with the three center lines of...buildings? that makes them stick out so much?

[mastadge]

Here you go if you'd like to zoom in and investigate: http://goo.gl/maps/no1IJ

[chasingtides]

It's that they're still bombed out.

[deevee45]

I don't know about Osage Ave. but MOVE had rifles when they were in the house previous to Osage. I know because I lived a few blocks away at that time and we had to detour if we had to walk by the house. Nevertheless I always felt like they were hounded and that it was in response to that. The few times that people talked to them they found them very reasonable and thoughtful.

[romp]

I remember that MOVE bombing--it was one of the first times I saw authorities not be able to spin their way out of a catastrophe. I was a teen still deep in Repub country but there were a lot of images that came out of it so there was no way to deny it was like a natural disaster, only one created by the police.

I thought myself a bit cynical after Obama was elected because the US didn't grind to a halt. The US I knew from growing up could not comprehend of anyone being president other than a straight white man. So I've watched the growth of the Tea Party with some relief that I hadn't imagined that population. And, you know, dismay that they haven't moved on.

Thanks for the heads up about the documentary, OP.

[nesmith]

I think I've reached a point where I wonder sweet Jesus when does it end and the reasonable, civilized, intelligent human beings come in and take over? The cynic in me says never.

[deevee45]

I try and be optimistic. At least we are having the conversation. But you read about these tea-party dodos and it does make you kind of cynical that anything will ever change.

[nesmith]

And there's no getting through to them. They've been fed so many lies for so long that there's no getting through. These days I'm almost in an Apolcalypse Now "incinerate them all" mindset. What else can you do with deliberately dumb and evil?

[louisadkins]

I think the best you can hope for is that they want it to burn so bad they go up in smoke, and take as few of the reasonable people with them as possible. Not likely, since our current world is so interconnected, but that's where my optimistic streak has taken me.