Radicals Smash Bank Windows, But The WaPo Can't Connect It to the Left

While Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is quick to associate mainstream conservatives and veterans with the fringiest of racist and neo-Nazi kooks, liberal media types are not allowing anyone to associate the radical left with the mainstream liberal establishment.

Notice the utter lack of labels when radical-left protesters started breaking bank windows on Saturday. The Washington Post’s Sunday Metro section has a major article – authored by three reporters – all about smashing bank windows in downtown Washington to oppose capitalism:

Two bank branches in Logan Circle sustained more than $110,000 in damage before dawn yesterday when at least 15 people dressed in black used bricks, hammers and sticks to smash windows, smearing red paint symbols that denounced the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, police said....

The scale of vandalism was highly unusual, even in a city where political demonstrations are commonplace and sometimes unruly. Six people were arrested, and another person was charged later in the day when police clashed with almost 200 demonstrators.

The headline was "A Day of Vandalism, Violence: IMF-World Bank Protesters Clash With Police, and 2 Buildings Are Damaged." That seems to half-blame the police for the violence, and not directly blame the protesters for the damaged property.

Nowhere in this dispatch do reporters Michael Alison Chandler, Aaron Davis and Hamil Harris use any liberal or left-wing ideological labels. There’s two references to "anarchists," but nothing about the radical left or communism. Most of the protesters’ hatred of the American free-market system comes through in the quotes, not in the labels.

The Post didn’t provide readers with a photo of the damaged property on the front page of Metro. Instead, they published a large picture of protesters under a "cloud of pepper spray" surrounded by police in helmets. (Inside, there’s one damaged-bank photo, and one of a policeman spraying pepper spray into protester faces.)

Readers learned that the policemen were reminded of left-wing anger and vandalism after the second Bush inauguration:

Capt. Jeffrey Herold of the Special Operations Division compared the vandalism to the rampage through Adams Morgan after George W. Bush's second presidential inauguration. The impromptu incident in 2005 left windows smashed at a police substation and two bank branches, and about 80 people were arrested.

There were no labels for the organizers of the "peaceful" demonstrations – those are the ones who didn’t bust bank windows, but refuse to obey the police until the pepper spray and batons come out.

The District-based group Global Justice Action sponsored peaceful demonstrations Friday with about 75 people participating in a "speak out" at Edward R. Murrow Park. Speakers said the IMF is contributing to the worldwide economic downturn and hurting people in impoverished countries. Organizers said they support policies that put people's needs ahead of profiteering.

That protest and others were also planned as a reaction to the G-20 economic leaders' decision this month to earmark $1.1 trillion for an IMF-World Bank rescue fund, organizers said.

Global Justice Action’s website carries the motto "New ideas after the capitalism casino goes bust." Their promotional lingo didn’t sound non-ideological:

Starting in front of the IMF and World Bank, the leading ambassadors of the "free market" system that has ruined the world, the Carnival Against the G20 celebrated the opportunity to present new ideas.

The Post divided the protesters into amusing and threatening, as if threatening to crush economic liberty with dance moves wasn't threatening:

Yesterday's demonstrations were sometimes whimsical and sometimes threatening, with different splinter groups adopting different tactics.

About 8 a.m., a group of about 50 people marched in tank tops or spandex, doing fan kicks and arm curls while chanting "Kick out the capitalists!" and "Pump up the people power!"

Later, they joined with a group that had marched down Connecticut Avenue led by self-described anarchists. Members of that group dressed in black, and many wore hooded sweat shirts and bandannas over the mouths.

About 9:15 a.m., as they snaked down Pennsylvania Avenue past the IMF headquarters, chants turned darker. "No bailouts, no thanks! We'll burn down your [expletive] banks!"

A 20-year-old area college student and member of an anarchist collective said the group was not responsible for the vandalism but supported it.

"Banks should be abolished, and we believe in the destruction of capitalism and all organizations that support it," said the student, adding that he would not give his name because he feared government retaliation. "Housing is a right, and the banks are taking that away through foreclosure, so we do support any action against banks."

Doesn’t this kind of property damage suggest the Department of Homeland Security should be devoting more resources to worrying about the radical left? The Post treated this only as a Metro story, not a National story. No one asked Napolitano or left-wing groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center to denounce these attacks or the beliefs that animate them. And no one asked whether Barack Obama has succeeded in healing our divisions.