Hipster riots then and now

Next week will be the 40th anniversary of the riots at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. Right before that ignoble anniversary, we get word of another riot in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. On one level, the socioeconomic tensions of the Williamsburg riot are the same as forty years ago. In both cases, young, privileged leftists were acting weird and unpredictably, which prompted the brutality from a blue-collar, lower class police force of the same age who couldn't understand why anyone would act that way.

The difference, however, is the purpose behind the two events. In 1968, there was an unpopular, pointless war, and even the weirdest of the radicals were politically driven in their weirdness. Today, we're in the same kind of war, and the purpose of the event that spurned a riot was to dress like pandas and be crazy.

Now can you see why I hate irony?