 I guess over the last weekend, large numbers of teenagers in various areas in downtown Chicago aggregated together, hundreds of them outside in various junctions around Millennium Park, but also in other areas in the downtown vicinity. There was a number of videos floating around YouTube and other places of some of these teenagers beating up on passes by, not exactly clear what the passes by did to deserve the beatings, but well, probably nothing. Nobody deserves a beating like we saw on these videos. But to invoke the beatings, to generate the beatings, but it does look like it was a pretty brutal weekend. Police are not much to be seen on these videos. Police were way outnumbered by these teenagers and it looks like police backed off. A lot of stores shut down and actually had to find different ways through back alleys and so on to get their customers out because the exits seem dangerous to go into these crowds of teenagers. This is Chicago. If you remember during 2020, Chicago was one of the worst cities. In Chicago, the so-called demonstrations around Black Lives Matter turned very quickly into riots and turned very quickly, more so than I think in other cities, into looting. So in Chicago, many people, many gangs turned the demonstrations into opportunities to loot, particularly to loot high-end stores on the Millionaires Mile on Michigan Avenue, Louis Vuitton, and other stores like that were looted. People ran in, grabbed bags, grabbed other stuff and ran out. In Chicago, I remember the mayor defending the looting, basically calling it just a form of reparations. Reparations, redistribution of wealth, a little bit of redistribution of wealth is not a bad thing. They argued, not surprising, Chicago had some of the worst riots in Millennial Park, where passerbys again were beaten up, where police were beaten up. It was brutal. This is continuing. I don't think that the teenager, there was some event with police that sparked, I think, this teenager. It wasn't exactly a demonstration and it wasn't exactly a riot. It's hard to characterize it again. But this violent outburst and against law-abiding citizens in the city, it's just brutal. And the fact that the police will do very little or nothing. Police are supposed to have the kind of equipment to deal with riots. If there are beatings going on, it is the police's responsibility and job to do something about that, including, I don't know, using tear gas, using whatever mechanisms they have in order to break up a riot. You can't just let ordinary people be beaten up by people just because they're teens or just because they're large numbers of them does not give you an excuse to do that. And if you don't have enough police, hire more police. But of course, this is Chicago. Chicago's super tolerant of riots, super tolerant of disruption. You know, you should, I don't necessarily recommend watching these videos. And some of the videos, the attribution is questionable. We're not exactly sure. But of course, the mayor of Chicago, Chicago just elected a super left-wing mayor. Chicago's just a disaster zone. The mayor came out and said, well, of course, we're always against violence and we'll get property crime and we're against this stuff. But he said it's not constructive to demonize youth who have otherwise been starved of opportunity in their own communities. So basically, it's not their fault that they're beating up people and that they're robbing stores and that they're committing vandalism because, you know, they're starved of opportunities. And this is just another form of redistribution, reparations. This is to compensate them, you know, beating once in a while makes them feel better, I guess, given how oppressed they are the rest of the time. He says, quote, our city must work together to create spaces for youth to gather safely and responsibly under adult guidance and supervision to ensure that every part of our city remains welcome for both residents and visitors. Good luck with with Chicago's recovery. If this is the attitude of Chicago leadership towards violent crime against people just going in and out of stores and visiting the city. I mean, who the hell wants to go and be a tourist in Chicago when they might be assaulted in, you know, close to Millennium Park, which is a tourist attraction. Many commentators expect that the coming weekend we'll see teenagers again. And it is just it certainly is unbelievable the extent to which Chicago voted given the history of violence, given the amount of violence that's happening in Chicago that Chicago voted for a soft and crime progressive instead of somebody who ran explicitly on and we don't know how good he would have been but on a tough and crime agenda and they rejected that. Lowry Lightfoot, you know, condemned what was going on. You know, she said this was reckless, disrespectful and unlawful behavior. As I've said before, we as a city cannot and will not allow any of our public spaces to become platform for criminal conduct. More importantly, parents and guardians must now must know where their children are and be responsible for their actions instilling the important values of respect for people and property must begin at home. Yeah, where was she when she was mayor? I guess she's still mayor. She's the city mayor. The turnover hasn't happened yet. But where was she? What happened to all that redistribution stuff? What happened to the to the soft hand of the police and the soft hand of the city authorities during the BLM riots that inflicted Chicago and the looting that happened during that time? Give me give me a give me a break. Why not deploy the national God? Given given that the police seem to be outmanned, outnumbered. There are lots of things that can be done. Lots of things that can be done. But I know. Thank you for listening or watching the Iran book show. If you'd like to support the show, we make it as easy as possible for you to trade with me. You get value from listening. You get value from watching. Show your appreciation. You can do that by going to iranbookshow.com slash support by going to Patreon, subscribe star locals and just making a appropriate contribution on any one of those any one of those channels. Also, if you'd like to see the Iran book show grow, please consider sharing our content and of course subscribe. Press that little bell button right down there on YouTube so that you get an announcement when we go live. And for those of you who already subscribers and those of you who already supporters of the show, thank you. I very much appreciate it.