The face of anarchy

If you've never witnessed a scene like this, consider yourself lucky. The chances are you live well away from the decayed inner-city core of Los Angeles, New York, or almost any big American city.

The Los Angeles Times explains the video above:

Los Angeles police released security video today that captures unruly celebrants of the Lakers NBA finals victory helping themselves to merchandise at a Shell gas station convenience store blocks from the Staples Center. The footage, shot June 14 by a security camera at the rear of the store in the 600 block of West Olympic Boulevard, shows a group of about two dozen men swarming the store and helping themselves primarily to juice, soda and energy drinks in a large cooler.

The mob shouted, “Free soda, free soda” as they grabbed merchandise in a two-minute rush in which they also smashed bottles on the floor, trampled bananas, knocked over display racks and broke a window.

To you, a sight like this might be a shocking anomaly. For the many people in the urban underclass, it's business as usual. Today, raid a convenience store. Tomorrow, boost a couple of cars and deliver them to the chop shop. If Thursday is a slow day, settle for decorating a highway-side retaining wall with more graffiti. When things get lively, the toys get pulled out and the gangs try to decorate one another with bullet holes.

To the Leftist Establishment the mob takeover of a convenience store is an incident. Thieves are "unruly celebrants." Just high-fivin' for their sports team, a little overenthusiastic. After all, they're members of a gold medal victim group. Oppressed, you know what I'm sayin'? They're freelance redistributionists. Spreading the wealth around.

Total damage from that night has been estimated in the tens of thousands of dollars, but LAPD officials said it was far less than the 2000 Laker victory celebration beset by violence and looting that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Investigators released the video today, hoping people would recognize looters and report them to authorities. Beyond security video, Vernon said the LAPD is reviewing images posted on various social media sites, including YouTube and Flickr.

Would the police even bother to make a serious effort to identify the store invaders if eight police cars hadn't also been damaged? Maybe; police can be awfully retrograde. There's something quaint, a little comical, about looking for clues, asking witnesses to come forward, as if they were trying to catch a burglar or a James Cagney-like, '40s-movie type gangster. But what they're up against isn't an individual lawbreaker, or Bonnie and Clyde. They're facing a subculture that the Liberal Establishment has in large part created.

Borderless borders. Catch and release. Taxpayer-supported childbirth and childcare for the feckless and impoverished. Enforced multi-culturalism. Racial preferences. This is not your father's America. Just ask a wise Latina.

"Free sodas, free sodas." Free healthcare. Free everything, except politically incorrect speech. Our Jacobin president and his enablers understand the convenience store party-ers in a way that the language of the Los Angeles Times does not. The Obama Crew want you to believe that they are all about giving. But what they understand is taking, and calling it giving.