THE VICKY OSTERWEIL DELUSION: In Defense of Looting: A Riotous History of Uncivil Action by Vicky Osterweil reviewed.

Such hot bias pervades Osterweil’s treatment of history as well. On page 3, as Pranesh Prakash pointed out, a quote that the word ‘loot’ was used as a ‘bond of union’ in India is attributed to an English colonial officer but actually comes from Amir Khan, Nawab of Potok. Another small example — but a telling one in how it illustrates the firmness and narrowness of Osterweil’s blinkers — comes when she bangs on about McCarthyism for pages but does not spend as much as a sentence admitting that there was extensive Soviet infiltration of the US. If you are going to reference the execution of Julius Rosenberg in the context of a long rant about ‘paranoid fear-mongering’ I think you are obliged to admit that he was guilty.

Osterweil spends a lot of time arguing that violence and destruction are not bad per se. I agree! Armed self-defense? Good! Resisting illegitimate authority? Often good! But when it comes to arguing that violence and destruction in modern-day America is justifiable, Osterweil is not merely unpersuasive but actually makes me think she might be an undercover conservative trying to make the left look bad. Consider this emoting:

‘We can no longer let the police, that despicable occupying army, seem “natural,” nor let anyone paint resistance to the settler state as an enemy of peace. Their peace is the peace of the grave.’

Eh? I’m not sure if that pseudo-poetic flourish merits a response but it might be worth pointing out that less than one-fifth of the black Americans that Osterweil does a lot of speaking for in In Defence of Looting want fewer police on their streets.

Osterweil “actually makes me think she might be an undercover conservative trying to make the left look bad”? At this point, to add to what Glenn has written, this entire summer of BLM and Antifa is feeling increasingly like a Roger Stone GOTV campaign for Trump on Jose Conseco levels of steroids.

Incidentally, Osterweil is discovering a strange new respect for private property the hard way: In response to her interview on NPR going viral, she’s locked her Twitter account, which as Ben Sixsmith notes in the above review has the charming handle of ‘Vicky_ACAB’ (“all cops are bastards,” Antifa’s cri de coeur.)