Defending the statue of Christopher Columbus

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot continues to turn her back on the rule of law and defending all of the city’s ethnic and racial groups, taking no action to punish ands identify individuals engaged in the destruction of statues including an attempted destruction of the Christopher Columbus statue in Grant Park. Lightfoot instead defends the protestors, excuses the rioters, and blames police for the outrageous rise in gun-related crime that is worse today under her rule than under any past administration

By Ray Hanania

Instead of tearing down Chicago’s statue of Christopher Columbus, a symbol of American history, we should be demanding the resignation of Mayor Lori Lightfoot, a symbol of wishy-washy, ineffective, confused and dysfunctional leadership.

Last week, protestors – basically a mob of idiots who wrapped themselves in racial slogans to wreck society, tried to bring down the statue of Christopher Columbus in Grant Park.

These protestors are morons, racist haters who are out there to cause destruction, vandalism and violence all behind the cover of a movement they twisted falsely claiming they fight for racial justice.

Black Lives Matter is a leaderless mob that one day fights for justice and another day bludgeons injustice. There is no organization and often get out of control. Their anger hurts people and they want to destroy public property that they have no right to destroy.

This past week’s protest at Grant Park is a good example of how screwed up BLM really is, turning from a movement of fighting for racial equality and justice (for all!!!) to a movement of gangbangers and bullies who not only selectively attack historical statues but also attack the Police and many innocent civilians.

Christopher Columbus discovered America for Europe, which then settled America. America had a population of Native Americans” who had their own societies. While those societies had cultures, they were wild and violent in many cases. Certainly, Native Americans were never treated justly by America’s governments, betrayed and lied to not only by the leaders of the Confederate South but also by leaders of the Union North. If you want to fight for Native American rights, do it. But that’s not what these fools are doing.

These rioters have no idea about any of the facts as they throw rocks, beat at police, vandalize cars, break windows, loot and burn down stores – 12 Arab American stores were among dozens destroyed in Chicago and Lori Lightfoot and her street mob still have done nothing about it!

The worst part about the protesters is their hypocrisy. They scream and attack and damage property and threaten lives, and then when they get in a scuffle with police who are protecting American lives and property, they get hit in the face, lose their teeth and they blame it on “police brutality.”

Worse is that Miss Ineffective Mayor Lori Lightfoot mutters incomprehensible rhetoric weakly defending law and order and then tearing into a rampage attacking the police. She named a Police Commander who is so ineffective he looks like a Deer in the Headlights.

First of all, no one has a right to tear down anything in the public. They have a right to protest and to address the elected governments and demand actions and the government then decides what’s right and wrong. Even Native American cultures had that lawful system in place.

Second, anyone who destroys property should be arrested and thrown in jail. They should be punished and forced to pay for their damage.

Lightfoot hasn’t done a damn thing for the businesses and people whose properties were damaged or destroyed during the post George Floyd riots. And she has done nothing to stand up to the lawless mobs that control Chicago’s neighborhoods. Violence is skyrocketing, not dropping. Children are being shot and killed. Many of the murders are by gangbangers who the community residents know but won’t rat out because of some distorted sense of racial allegiance.

Here’s a little education for those school system flunkies:

Chicagoans of Italian descent donated Grant Park’s Christopher Columbus monument, dedicating it on “Italian Day” in 1933 as a part of Chicago’s second World’s Fair, “A Century of Progress.”

The ceremony was attended by tens of thousands of people, White, Black, Brown and everyone, and a Catholic Priest, Bishop Bernard J. Shiel, blessed it.

The Depression Era monument not only commemorated the arrival of Christopher Columbus (1451–1506) to the “New World,” but also conveyed the spirit of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “New Deal.”

That’s what Columbus stands for. Law and order. Respecting decent people’s rights. Punishing the lawbreakers. What are the protestors going to put in the place of Columbus, a statue of a rioter waving a bat and holding a rock?

Originally published in the Southwest News Newspaper group including the Des Plaines Valley News, The Regional Newspaper, The Palos Reporter Newspaper, and the Southwest News-Herald newspaper Thursday July 23, 2020

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Ray Hanania

Ray Hanania is an award-winning opinion columnist, author & former Chicago City Hall reporter (1977-1992). A veteran who served during the Vietnam War and the recipient of four SPJ Peter Lisagor Awards for column writing, Hanania writes weekly opinion columns on mainstream American & Chicagoland topics for the Southwest News-Herald, Des Plaines Valley News, the Regional News, The Reporter Newspapers, and Suburban Chicagoland.

His award winning columns can be found at www.HANANIA.COM Subscribe FREE today

Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.

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