Today Kelley and I checked out what had happened last night in Germantown here in Philadelphia, along Germantown Avenue from around Wister Street to Chestnut Hill, and along Chelten Avenue. All the places we saw broken into were small local pharmacies, small jewelry and cash-for-gold stores, and liquor stores. My sense is that this looting is by rootless criminals who aren't even from here, with no political cause at all, just being opportunistic, taking the chance to break into places where they can steal stuff easy to make money from, because they see that police aren't able to protect these local stores.

My sense is that the people doing the looting in Philadelphia and the rest of the the country are not the people demonstrating in memory of George Floyd gone wild, but are just opportunists with no political consciousness. And I think the people doing the arson are anarchists with an insane political consciousness, if they have any political consciousness at all.

I admire the people demonstrating peacefully in memory of George Floyd and others who have been wrongly killed and hurt, but I think people planning peaceful demonstrations should take into account that there are people who are hijacking your cause and using you to distract the police while they loot and burn.

And if you think "Fuck the Police" is a legitimate message, you should be more aware that people with weak minds may translate that into throwing cinder blocks off overpasses into the windshields of police cars, and mobbing police when the police are trying to protect your local stores from being looted and trying to protect people's homes and your local businesses from being burned.