“The Giants easily won this years World Series with a sweep over the Detroit Tigers and a celebrate that started with a calm crowd has quickly turned into a full on riot. Police officers are being hit with bottles and rocks and couches are threatening to catch power lines and buildings on fire,”
reports The Inquisitr.
The scenes were a repeat of riots that hit the city in the aftermath of the Giants’ 2010 World Series triumph.
Video clips of last night’s raucous celebrations are almost on a par with scenes witnessed recently in places like Greece and Spain, the difference being that those riots were driven by genuine grievances and were not in response to an ultimately meaningless sports result.
To reiterate – the game wasn’t even taking place in San Francisco – it was in Detroit. In addition, the Giants
won. Imagine what the reaction would have been like if they had
lost?
These images serve as a reminder that mass civil unrest could easily be sparked in America by any number of events or crises. Given that this weeks “Frankenstorm” has been dubbed by some as potentially
posing a bigger destructive threat than even Hurricane Katrina, are we to prepare for a repeat of the
widespread looting and disorder that occurred in the aftermath of the 2005 disaster?
In addition, a contentious presidential election result could enrage Obama supporters who have already made it abundantly clear that they will stage riots if Obama loses to Mitt Romney.
As we reported last week, thousands of tweets by Obama supporters threatened mayhem and disorder if Romney defeats Obama. Others threatened racial violence or even targeting Romney for assassination.
Threats to riot included tweets such as, “Black people gonna riot harder than Rodney King if Obama loses!”, “If Romney becomes President watch it be a riot in L.A.,” and, “Obama wins, we party. Romney wins, we riot. EIther way shits gon get ****ed up.”The federal government has been preparing for riots in the aftermath of the election for the best part of the last six months. Back in July, the
Department of Homeland Security put out an urgent solicitation for hundreds of items of “riot gear,” in preparation for expected unrest at next year’s presidential inauguration.
Police departments have said they are
not expecting civil unrest on election night, but given the fact that Americans will riot over a game of baseball, these assurances seem somewhat naive.
The behavior exhibited by Giants fans last night re-emphasizes how sports act as our modern day bread and circuses. Imagine if Americans displayed the same vehemence and passion over things that really effect their lives? The government would be in a perpetual state of terror, fulfilling Thomas Jefferson’s quote, “When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”
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