Title shamelessly lifted from some Facebook $hitposter. :D
Well, no real huge news but I had to swing through central Charlottesville to go visit my daughter before she heads out on another adventure. On the way in I saw evidence of massive police presence, just kinda skirted the affected area. So, I just couldn't help myself, on the way back I had to sightsee. Sadly my phone was toast, no camera.
-Virginia, your tax dollars, you have none. State police helo was orbiting from five when I hit town and still there at ten when I left. I assume at least three were deployed local. Armored trucks, massive police presence, public works vehicles parked to block streets, just about a military occupation.
-Police action seemed to match what I had heard on the news, keep vehicles and squishys separate. Lots of barrier fences to that effect. I made two laps, south end of the mall, all the way up and then back down a very empty Market St. I asked, cops had no problem with pedestrian traffic on an otherwise cordoned street. At the time I was the only one for two blocks. Dropped in a local wine store, only customer, shot the breeze, owners cheerfully sold me a big glass bottle of Porter after the cops had worked so hard to make a huge projectile free zone which we were inside. :D
- I saw nothing too exciting the first pass, win of the night goes to local watering hole Miller's that was semi open. Sign out front:
Prohibited Items
Catapults
Photography
Hand Signs
Catapults
Now to be fair, maybe they have had some catapult issues, or some drunk said they'd get medevial and did, but it was funny. Also to note, from a field guide standpoint it takes a careful observer to discern antifa from your run of the mill charlottesvillian downtown mall dwellers. So, it looked normal. Returned to my secret parking spot, went into another reliable watering hole of South African persuasion, left a tip more than the beer because the place was dead and then decided to go back since I had seen what I think were police escorted protesters being moved by school bus. Put my handy Porter bottle in the car and went back to Market St.
This time was more entertaining, earlier I had walked past Lee Park(offensive wrong name trigger warning!) And it was empty save the multiple barrier layers and two hundred cops. I didn't go up to Lee Park, came in a block down at the corner of antifa and tard. I think there was Nazis in the park and the police deployed in the street blocking further progress of I'd say about five hundred progressives. It was a sad march, they stood in the street near McGuffy art center and shouted for a few minutes and then started marching back down the hill. Going my way back to parking, so I was in the herd for a little. I saw very few minorities, a lot of Students Against White Supremacy shirts worn by white kids and a dizzying array of hair color and body modifications. They think they have won because the have a town that is not too far off their loonies they think are political positions.
Oh, and they have won, you defeated evil capitalists, because on a warm summer Saturday night with the college kids back in town and many of the parents too(with really good credit cards) many of the businesses downtown were shuttered and the ones that weren't were ghost towns. You blocked up Emmet St at Barracks Road for awhile and I hope no one's family members died in an ambulance while trying to get down the main route to the hospital. You put the cops out, put air crews in the air to the inherent risk of giving the bird to gravity, the same activity that killed their colleagues last year. Who knows what real police emergencies got poorly responded to because every cop in the state was in one spot.
