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Bourgeois society is adept at absorbing any ostensibly radical blow and selling it back to us partly tamed. This clothing, like punk itself, was meant to be a slap in the face of mainstream culture, but it was also meant to sell. The Marquis de Sade (and, more recently, Camille Paglia) might argue that after a period of liberationist optimism (such as the hippie episode), a more aggressive period of negativity is inevitable, as people remembered that unfettered human nature is not all sweetness and light. There’s a sense in which de Sade was conservative relative to Rousseau simply because de Sade was more pessimistic, more aware of our potential for violence. The same is arguably true of the punks relative to the hippies. And perhaps even of those Republican bondage fans recently reimbursed by the Republican National Committee relative to, say, mellow residents of a free love commune. —“Capitalism for Punks,” Todd Seavey, Reason

A roar of banging metal, screams and shouting is approaching. Passersby stop in their tracks. People had heard rumors of riots in the provinces but their eyes swell with shock as they see what is marching forwards. Hundreds of men are on the move. Their eyes have turned to glares. Men enter this mob as shopkeepers, drivers or factory workers — only to lose themselves in the surge. They are moving as one body, copying each other as they pick up the rhythmic chants and grab rocks to hurl at police. A man in a gas mask is waving an AK-47. All work has stopped. Shop fronts are being boarded up.
Society is dissolving. The grief of a people who have seen their quality of life slide continuously since the fall of the Soviet Union is turning into a frenzy born of despair. A middle-aged man grabs me. His hair is grey and his eyes are brown. He wants me to understand. “We are living like Africans now … we are not blacks …” —“Blood in the Streets of Bishkek: My two days running with the mob in Kyrgyzstan,” Ben Judah, Foreign Policy

Once categorized as fighting dogs, the pit bulls were assumed inherently dangerous, too aggressive to live—no matter the evidence of their friendliness and vigor and regardless of the absence of any proof of actual fighting. Deemed “threats to the public,” they could be killed summarily. According to Louisiana law, “fighting dogs are contraband per se.” An arbitrary label put an end to their lives, without any recourse, appeal, even notice to their owners. Not only were they no longer personal property, but once seized from their owners, the dogs were legally disposable too. —“Dead Dogs: Breed bans, euthanasia, and preemptive justice,” Colin Dayan, Boston Review