The National Public Radio (NPR) has been caught giving Antifa author Vicky Osterweil a platform from which she can talk about her latest book: In Defense of Looting. In this interview, Osterweil talks about how looting is, in fact, a moral act that “strikes at the heart of property, of whiteness and of the police.”
Osterweil finished her book back in April, right before the rioting began. In it, she argues that rioting and looting are both ways for people “to bring about real, lasting change in society.” She also argues that the violent mobs who smash storefronts and steal from small businesses are questioning the validity of law and order.
Speaking to NPR reporter Natalie Escobar, Osterweil argued that looting was just another form of wealth redistribution and was not a criminal act of stealing or destroying another person's private property. Osterweil further stated that looting is just another way the people marginalized by an unequal society can reapportion its assets.
Osterweil also tries to argue that the “mass shoplifting” events that Americans have been witnessing since late May in cities like Minneapolis, Seattle, Chicago, Portland and Kenosha are not violent actions. This lack of concern for property also extends to life, because Osterweil tries to argue that people don't actually get hurt when looters ransack stores.
“Most stores are insured,” she argues. “It's just hurting insurance companies on some level. It's just money. It's just property. It's not actually hurting any people.” (Related: The rule of law is dead in California: Contra Costa DA will allow looters to steal anything they “need.”)
The fact that mainstream media outlets like NPR are giving radical leftists like Osterweil a platform proves their complicity in the actions perpetrated by Antifa and Black Lives Matter. Listen to this episode of the Health Ranger Report, a podcast by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, and learn more about how the media is attempting to gaslight law-abiding Americans into believing that the violent rioting and looting is actually “peaceful.”
Antifa author criticizes small businesses who complain about looters
In another part of the interview, Escobar asks Osterweil about the legitimate argument that many people who respect property have made concerning small businesses. Escobar points out that many small businesses in the neighborhoods of cities like Minneapolis and Portland are even owned by Blacks, Latinos and other immigrants and people of color, and that the fact that looters are robbing from these stores hurts the supposed cause of racial justice supported by the Black Lives Matter movement.
In response, Osterweil showed that she had no sympathy at all for local and small businesses that have been destroyed by rioters and looters:
“When it comes to small business, family-owned business or locally owned business, they are no more likely to provide worker protections. They are no more likely to have to provide good stuff for the community than big businesses. It's actually a Republican myth that has, over the last 20 years, really crawled into even leftist discourse: that the small business owner must be respected, that the small business owner creates jobs and is part of the community. But that's actually a right-wing myth.”
To try and justify her argument, Osterweil points to 15-year-old African American girl Latasha Harlins, who was killed in 1991 by a Korean small business owner. This, along with the incident involving African American man Rodney King, helped kick start the racially motivated Los Angeles riots of 1992, which led to over 50 people dying and 1,000 buildings being destroyed or damaged, with the estimated cost amounting to over $1 billion.
“[The Korean business] was a family-owned and immigrant-owned business where anti-Blackness and white supremacist violence was being perpetrated.”
Conservative voices criticizing NPR and Osterweil
Many people have taken to social media to criticize the interview. Some are pointing the blame at Escobar and NPR, which is taxpayer-funded, for giving a radical leftist like Osterweil a platform from which she can air her socialist views. Others have expressed disbelief at how Osterweil can simply handwave away the violence perpetrated on communities by rioters and looters alike.
“This glorification of looting and property damage is absolutely despicable and shameful,” said Erielle Davidson, a senior policy analyst for the Jewish Institute for National Security of America.
“Can you even begin to imagine what would happen if [Osterweil] were supporting violent MAGA protests with this insanity?” said Ben Winegard, an assistant professor of psychology at Hillsdale College in Michigan.
Winegard also said that he supports the right of Osterweil to express herself and that she should not be harassed for being a leftist. However, he also believes that the arguments she presented on NPR were “extremely poor” and that it is surprising that the mainstream media outlet both had her on for an interview and published the interview knowing the lack of substance she put forward.
Keep an eye out for the fake news being peddled by the so-called journalists who work for mainstream media outlets such as NPR by reading more from alternative media websites that hold mainstream news outlets to account, such as MediaFactWatch.news.
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