The acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse: A judicial travesty

Rittenhouse, 17 at the time of the shootings, had traveled to Kenosha from Illinois to join a far-right “patriot” vigilante militia calling itself the “Kenosha Guard,” which had been mobilized to “defend property” and assist the police with crushing the protests that had erupted two days earlier following the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

During these protests, armed far-right vigilante militias, which had been mobilized months earlier in opposition to measures to stop the spread of COVID-19, were brought forward to assist the police in the brutal nationwide crackdown orchestrated by the Trump administration. The Kenosha shootings, which occurred on the eve of the Republican National Convention, were embraced by Trump and the Republicans in the period leading up to the violent coup attempt on January 6, during which the Proud Boys and other paramilitary groups constituted the shock troops for the assault on the Capitol.

[wsws.org]

{The Rittenhouse verdict will embolden these violent paramilitary forces that have been cultivated in the orbit of Trump and the Republican Party.

The acquittal of Rittenhouse follows a travesty of a trial in which a right-wing judge systematically undermined the prosecution by excluding all of the evidence that would have rebutted Rittenhouse’s claim that he was acting in “self-defense.”}

I have been warning from the beginning, as from the articles of WSWS, that the democrats have been complicit in allowing this to become normalized in our society since Trump's campaign to become president. A new standard within protest has now been established, essentially now an unprecedented constitutional prevision indoctrinated into our society without a representative vote enacted by a fascist political organization, a judge, and compliant prosecutor, while the entire democratic party stood in silence watching it take place.

While the very activist during those protest have seemingly become beholden under the Biden election win, they may very well become the next victims when the next protest take place.

{This double-standard was on full display during closing arguments earlier this week. While the prosecutors were admonished not to make the case “political,” Rittenhouse’s attorney was permitted to deliver a full-throated fascistic diatribe.

Midway through his closing arguments, Rittenhouse’s attorney Mark Richards effectively dispensed with the fiction of “self-defense” and suggested that Rittenhouse’s victims had it coming because “they were rioters.”

While prosecutors could not mention that Rittenhouse was affiliated with the Proud Boys, Richards specifically emphasized that Gaige Grosskreutz, a volunteer medic Rittenhouse shot in the arm, was affiliated with “People’s Revolution.”}

The trial was a right-wing spectacle from beginning to end. At one point the judge, wearing an American flag tie, led the jury in a round of applause for one of Rittenhouse’s experts on the grounds that he was a “veteran” who “served his country.” At another point the judge’s cellphone rang with a Trump rally ring tone. At the end of the trial, he let Rittenhouse pick the jurors’ names out of a tumbler like it was a circus raffle.

Innocent deaths are drastically related to the glorification of veterans. I'm sure it was pure accident that the judge forgot to turn off his phone or leave it in his chambers. Circus pretty much sums it up.

{Where the law was clearly against Rittenhouse, the judge simply moved the goal posts. While countless left-wing protesters were subjected to violent attacks and the threat of arrests by police for violating the curfew in Kenosha, the judge threw out the curfew charge against Rittenhouse on a flimsy evidentiary technicality. While Wisconsin law prohibits juveniles from carrying firearms, the judge threw out the underage firearms charge on the basis of laws that permit juveniles to go hunting.}

Well, as he stated, he was there to hunt. And he got 2 kills and took another 1 down, crippling him. They just weren't looting though. Just another technicality though, right.

{After the verdict was announced, Trump immediately issued a statement congratulating Rittenhouse. The violent and fascistic elements around him joined the chorus. “Today is a great day for the Second Amendment and the right to self-defense,” tweeted Republican representative and January 6 conspirator Lauren Boebert. “Glory to God!”}

Yep, add god to that also. We just about have all the makings of indoctrinations for making a good fascist going here. I wonder if the ruling class within their gated communities would hire my newly founded security services made up of 17 year old AR carrying men, known to be interested in fascist groups, around their children and homes?

Biden, meanwhile, set the tone for the Democrats’ response by solemnly declaring that “the jury system works”—a remarkable statement given the legal travesty that had just unfolded in broad daylight on live television.

Joining the open fascists in their celebrations of the verdict are a collection of pseudo-left and libertarian figures like Glenn Greenwald and Jimmy Dore, who worked throughout the trial to present Rittenhouse as a sympathetic figure.

!Everyone remember this day like your life depends on it! Because it very well may. Especially those of you who live in a state where anyone can carry a concealed weapon. My state of Ohio is presently attempting to legalize this. I'm not happy one fucking bit about it. That means no background checks in which anyone that might be disqualified for what ever reason would be allowed to carry a concealed gun. No specific amount of CCW training course to go with that. It's bad enough there's right wing course instructors out there spewing right wing propaganda bullshit within the class (I know because ours did, referred to us by Mary's brother) but now the already ignorant indoctrinated right without any real sense of legal use with a hot temper can carry. And to get out of murdering someone all they need to do is be taught how to act like this asshat did in court to go along with the injustice.

{In contrast to those seeking to blind the population to the political issues involved, the World Socialist Web Site warned that the campaign around Rittenhouse is an effort to normalize and legitimize far-right vigilante terror.}

Ok, they wrote it before I did. I love it when I'm right though.

{The aim of this campaign is to create conditions where Proud Boys and other far-right vigilante groups can march into future left-wing demonstrations and brandish loaded guns. Unchecked and undeterred, they will come to strikes, to lectures at universities and to socialist political meetings. They will wave guns in the faces of journalists and school board officials. And if anyone tries to disarm or evict them, they will open fire and yell “self-defense,” knowing that there are cops and judges who will bend and twist the law to shield them.}

Hell, it's probably open kill for no reason if you're a socialist or communist. Is there a worse in that? Being most American's don't know the fucking difference. The fucktards don't even understand how they'll ignorantly supporting the current communist structure they live in as it is. Or that their groups leaders are using them as tools while NGO groups are orchestrating their indoctrination.

These are your children's work places and universities also. Let that sink in for a moment. Do you need a moment? I bet some of you do. Let me help you with that. Go back up and find the parts where I and WSWS stated that the democrats are complicit with this new social adjustment. We're not being represented now. A brutal dehumanizing ideology is though. Ever hear this quote? And then they came after me. It's ringing ever so loudly now?

The above doesn't say it. But if you live in a place like, ole, say Texas, and there's a strong right wing issue going on during election cycles, I don't want you lefties and progressives to feel left out. Just something to think about when you campaign for your local choice in public. Leave the kids at home!

{The Proud Boys and other violent far-right militias are being brought forward not because American capitalism is in a position of strength but because it is in a position of weakness.

These forces are being elevated under specific conditions: In the midst of a pandemic in which millions of people have died as a result of policies that have prioritized profits over human life and amid a social, economic and political crisis to which capitalism has no solution except war and repression.}

We have great resources that have been spelling this out for us for several years now. It has been a slow progress for decades that began in the Reagan era off the heels of the Carter administration. Bush Jr pushed us into the warring aspect drastically from Regan's Latin American wars. Within the Obama administration it has exacerbated tremendously and progressed into the financial aspect via ruling class welfare highly expanding inequality. Trump, Virus, Floyd, Biden. The elements highly exposing the moment to fascism in which Chris Hedges so pin pointedly speaks of with the fall of capitalism. Richard Wolff. Karl Marx. This court case just told us it's back after 100 years.

{While the US political establishment is moving ever further to the right, embracing mass death in the COVID-19 pandemic and legitimizing fascist violence, the great mass of the population is moving to the left, amid a major upsurge of working-class struggle.

In that context, the acquittal of Rittenhouse will only serve to further discredit the whole American political system in the eyes of millions of people.}

We're expendable. It should serve to discredit. It's time to pick a side. The 2 party establishment isn't on our side though. It's time to think outside and step outside of their box trap.