You cannot sit and watch
What is happening in Charlottesville is not a spectator sport. People are being injured, maybe killed (again-Black Lives matter, Black Panthers, Labor Union members, etc.) and it is not for your entertainment nor for you to sit and be outraged. Every time violent force is used against any of us it is against all of us.
Social order effectively disappeared (again) with the election of Trump. It will only get worse. There is only one answer if we are to maintain our social order. Non-violent peaceful protest, general strikes and economic boycotts must be begun and maintained. Waiting for the next scheduled event is not enough.
There has to be some coordinated National effort to make the people heard. It is clear that the Democratic Party is on the other side in this struggle yet so many well meaning people are taken in by them still.
I am a member of DSA and certainly see that organization unready to lead the country at this moment. IT is time for a coming together of all groups who oppose the fascist takeover to assemble. Make plans and then act decisively. Every moment lost is precious. We are the people but they have us divided and impotent.
The Various factions that have banded together as a fascist movement are not waiting. They have been planning this for decades.
They are very dangerous because they have nothing o lose. Only by standing up to them can we stop them and put them in their place for good.
This is no time to be a spectator. The time for action is now.
Comments
The politics of hate and division will have only victims amongst
"we the people" and it not only the right wing that have been playing with this division. There was more than enough wrapped up in the Democratic Party primary to last me a lifetime.
@LaFeminista they are the real threat
An idea is not responsible for who happens to be carrying it at the time. It stands or it falls on its own merits.
The marchers involved with the car were terrified.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
what can us crippled people do?
As a crippled person myself, I hear you altogether too well! I'm semi-bedridden because of the pain levels involved in standing and walking.
So what can we do?
We can communicate. We can support. We can honor the General Strikes and Boycotts of which don mikulecky spoke of in this Essay. We can use tools like c99 to make sure that the message isn't silenced. We can hit the oligarchs' favored search engines like Google and Bing with queries which must return the items that the oligarchs would rather not appear -- and raise an industrial order stink if they fail to appear.
I will say it again: The small things you can do are worth more than the giant things you can't.
And I even have an example of someone like us making such contributions to a successful Revolution, too: Jean-Paul Marat. M. Marat essentially lived in his bathtub because of a debilitating skin condition he suffered from; yet by communicating his ideas (his L'Ami Du Peuple was in many ways the c99 of its day) he was a major driving force behind the French Revolution.
I hope this helps. As you can see, it is a problem with which I have wrestled, often. I used to march and protest, way back in the ancient days when I could still do that. But my marching days are behind me, I fear. Today, I'd be more of a liability to my comrades than an asset.
So I find other ways I can assist.
Solidarity, riverlover! And love and peace to you, too!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
share with your neighbours
question everything
teach
In the "old days", we'd call this "each one teach one". But your way is more like "we all teach each other well" and is, therefore, better in every way!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
but is we learnin' ?
Entropic
(in cosmology) a hypothetical tendency for the universe to attain a state of maximum homogeneity in which all matter is at a uniform temperature
expansion
question everything
learnin'
As other writers here have pointed out, such sharing is at the core of every successful revolution:
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
@thanatokephaloides well said "I will
An idea is not responsible for who happens to be carrying it at the time. It stands or it falls on its own merits.
"They...
...are the real threat."
Which they, exactly? The Right Wing? Yeah, they're a threat.
Some will say the antifa are a threat.
The Democrats that LaFeminista cites? There's plenty of threat there, for anyone who looks beneath the propaganda.
Some will say the police are a threat, and they sure as hell let this get out of hand. As apparently their superiors wanted, or else they'd have received those orders they said they were waiting for.
You mention non-violent protest, but I fear the days for that may largely be in the past. Protests aimed at who, exactly? To what purpose or end? To what audience?
You mention general strikes and economic boycotts. I'm all for that, but who's organizing any such thing? And that would inevitably be aimed primarily at the Powers That Be, who benefit from our participating as eager consumers of their shit.
Absent an overarching narrative of who's pulling this crap on us, the outrage at what is happening in Charlottesville is just that -- outrage -- not focused action. Everyone is participating in being outraged by some element in what's happening today, and not just in Charlottesville. As you counter LaFeminista's post are you organizing the solution, or expecting someone else to?
Outrage is an ineffective response. Who, besides the Right, is organizing a response that is effective, and against what or whom?
Which they indeed.
The state security apparatus who are working to stymie and oust the duly elected President to both start a real civil war here, and to get a guy with a hard-on for Armaggedon as President?
It needs to become a truism to everyone that anyone involved in pushing violence and incivility is a dupe, regardless of whether Right or Left, or any other considerations.
Orwell: Where's the omelette?
Good comment!
Here is my take. Feeling outrage is not a bad thing, but can be a very good thing in that it leads us to doing something to change things, and that may be as small as reaching out to educate others.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
WTF is Antifa?
Is everybody who is anti-fascist antifa? Was the US army and the other allies who fought Hitler in World War II Antifa? Is fighting evil being part of Antifa? It seems to me that "antifa" itself is an evil word and the people who created that word have evil motivations.
Beware the bullshit factories.
Double post
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
It's the new sneer-smear,
serving the same purpose as "Premature Anti-Fascist" during the McCarthy Era.
What makes this one worse is that it's deliberately intended to echo "intifada" and associate the labelees with "Islamic terrorism".
Dirty. Very dirty.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
I guess President / General Eisenhower
Was the Antifa in Chief.
Beware the bullshit factories.
I don't know who they are or who/what
They are, but I do know that sine of them are stupid violent shits, even if they do teach college Philosophy.
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
Here’s what Wikipedia has to say
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifaschistische_Aktion
@dance you monster Then you are calling
An idea is not responsible for who happens to be carrying it at the time. It stands or it falls on its own merits.
I agree with you that TPTB have been planning this for decades
and that this is only the beginning. The problem with this
is that people can't assemble to peacefully protest.
People are being peaceful until the cops show up with their riot gear and military equipment and they are the ones who start the violence. This started with the OWS protests and more than half the country cheered the police on. They don't realize that one day they are going to be on the receiving end of this action.
It's my understanding that when the protests started getting violent, the cops did nothing to stop it. This happened with this protest again.
What is the end game for this type of action? I believe that TPTB will let this fester for awhile and then declare martial law.
Let's not forget that Bush created a military organization that can work inside our country going against Posse Comitaus, and Obama signed a law stating that the military can arrest people and hold them indefinitely without charges or a trial. This is in one of his NDAAs.
Thanks for writing this important essay.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
To me, this is nothing more
I've honest to FSM been waiting for a mass shooting this weekend. This is just as bad--no, it's actually worse. Because it was against people protesting.
yup, martial law is the aim
question everything
It will take away any that we have left
the Patriot act that was passed right after 9/11' but was written before the event took away place which took away a lot of our freedoms.
Patriot Act
Next came the military commission which was passed during the Bush administration.
Wikipedia on the military commission act.
Habeas Corpus was re-written during Obama's tenure becaus the first one was declared unconstitutional because of our right to Habeas Corpus. So what did TPTB do about this?
Why they suspended it and now anyone accused of terrorism can be arrested and then sit in a jail cell indefinitely or until someone remembers you are still there.
What did our constitutional president do?
Obama signs NDAA 2013 without objecting to indefinite detention of Americans
Then DiFi was able to pass legislation that made photographing animal cruelty at big agricultural farms illegal a felony charge of domestic terrorism.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
@snoopydawg The system works because
An idea is not responsible for who happens to be carrying it at the time. It stands or it falls on its own merits.
Can't we as a community
make a statement to be tweeted out, put on FB
and ask each of our members to pass it on and
ask those that it's passed on to do the same.
This country is well on the path of self destruction
and as you say Don sitting back and watching isn't
going to cut it.
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
I saw this on Facebook.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
This protest just got much worse
Charlottesville officials: 1 dead, 19 injured after crash near 'Unite the Right' rally
Tweets are saying that the cops didn't intervene immediately when the violence started. This is the second time that the police stood by when the violence started. During the first protests, they sat back and watched as the protests got more violent and then they finally tried breaking it up.
Anyone want to guess which side many of the cops are on?
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
The incident in question
The driver immediately backed the car up and subsequently fled the scene.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
@snoopydawgRead the SPLC reports.
SPLC
Read the SPLC reports. They have been infiltrating the police for a long time. Their goal is race war.An idea is not responsible for who happens to be carrying it at the time. It stands or it falls on its own merits.
Trump's Merica is Gelling Nicely
Whaddaya expect when he appoints a White Supremacist as a key white house advisor. Assholes On Many Sides of the white house.
Donnie The #ShitHole Douchebag. Fake Friend to the Working Class. Real Asshole.
As I stated in my previous comment
When the police brutally took down OWS, there were many people who were okay with their actions because it went against the people that they didn't like. I said that one day this action was going to be against them and today this came true.
The Guardian has a few articles on the car that deliberately ran people down and possibly killed 3 people. One person is confirmed to have died from this.
Charlottesville: one dead after car rams counter-protesters at far-right gathering
Here is my previous comment coming true:
Poor guy. He must have thought that the police would only attack people who were different than him. What a rude awakening to see himself on the receiving end of the cops brutally breaking up HIS protests.
How far are TPTB going to go before they declare martial law? The NC national guard have been deployed to the protests and TPTB did a trial run after the Boston bombings when SWAT teams were able to kick people out of their homes and search them without a warrant. They did that to see how people would react to it. The people failed miserably because they were afraid of the bombers.
This was a terrorist act by an American on other Americans. The boogeyman ISIS weren't the ones who committed this heinous attack, it was an American citizen.
ETA this bit of irony:
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
Yeah, Richie...Boo the fuck hoo.
No sympathy for that stupid mother fucker. He and his merry band of Trump sucking astroturf idiots can go to hell.
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
And El Trumpo can't call them out
because the fascists are all the supporters he has left. Mostly all he had in the first place.
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone
@WoodsDweller I thought I saw his
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Um, yeaaah... But
Defending Trump? Really. Hahaha.
Donnie The #ShitHole Douchebag. Fake Friend to the Working Class. Real Asshole.
@Citizen Of Earth You missed my point.
Like, they are haters as well.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Ah ok. Got it.
Trump inferring that Lefties are just like freaking douchbag Nazis. Trump is such an idiot. But his base are idiots so they eat his shit right up.
Donnie The #ShitHole Douchebag. Fake Friend to the Working Class. Real Asshole.
He also said this in the guardian article I linked
DK has a diary on this and there are many videos of the car that deliberately drove into the protesters. I can't believe that there wasn't more people killed.
I think the person who was killed was hit so hard that her shoe came off and she was flipped up on to the car that the driver ran into.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
I wouldn't say that
"many sides" constitutes calling out fascists. Calling out fascists means identifying them as the "domestic enemies" that our soldiers take an oath to oppose. It means stating in no uncertain terms that murder by automobile of protestors is terrorism, and American fascists have crossed the red line that we won't back away from.
But I'm not hearing that.
Hell of a day for the President to forget how to tweet.
J.K. RowlingVerified account @jk_rowling 8h8 hours ago
I would recommend you take a good look in the mirror & remember it was White Americans who put you in the presidency, not radical leftists. https://t.co/Rkfs7O2Ykr
— David Duke (@DrDavidDuke) August 12, 2017
How do you identify "radical leftists"? They're the ones not carrying swastikas and Confederate flags, not wearing Klan hoods.
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone
@WoodsDweller Please see my comment
The President, by saying hate from all sides is calling the counter protesters bad guys.
Can I make this clearer: Our President is calling out people who protest white supremacists as haters! And part of the blame for the violence and death(s) today.
Geesh.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
I fear the PTB think this is just another "Pied Piper"
strategy.
There's no WAY such a repulsive and horrible philosophy could ever take hold if we tacitly support it, and hold down all other opposition!
The elites are playing a very dangerous game focusing on this. They're going to keep screaming how we need to unite against PURE EVIL, while quietly supporting it through their actions. Full coverage news, top of the charts, and some great stories which will get them phenomenal ratings and show us that we must defeat TRUMP!
I'm sure they think they have the Nazis under control. A few deaths... well, that's the cost of business.
Just FYI, elites:
YOU NEVER HAVE THE TERRORISTS UNDER CONTROL.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
under control
Just like last time! "We have hired him!" -- von Papen to von Hindenburg re: Hitler
To paraphrase The Anarchist Cookbook: Terrorists, like bombs, have no loyalty -- not even to their own creators!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Nope, you're wrong Don,
I can and will sit(or stand) outraged. Peaceful protests have gotten us NOTHING except cracked skulls, jail time, or death.
I wrote a comment in another essay that people would die in protest.
But protesting WHAT?!? dRumph? People are treating him like Berlasconi- protesting the Man and not the policies that both Dems and Repukes are shoving through; stacking the injustice system against the people, dismantling any agency that advocates for the people or on their behalf, INCREASING the militarization of the piglice,
Trump is just the latest Symptom in a race to the deathknell of what little freedom we might once have had.
The Bully is here, Now, in our time and space. Yet you exhort us to what end(s) for what purpose? So We may become victims of the heavy hand of 'Authority'?!?
Boycotts? Yeah, That will work when the fuckers are global. Blockade?
What, exactly are we supposed to blockade? Malwart? Amazon? The media?
This site claims the mantle of the 99%, yet it gets less than 50k hits a month. How many of those hits are from new, young, or people of whatever? Gotta Love Identity Politics! Barf.
As long as we amerikkkan serfs can eat our icecream and watch our 'reality' show unfold before us, We do not give a fuck(ephemeral 'we')!
Protesters getting killed by the cops? Fucking hippies.
Blacks or gays or trannies(sorry Robin) getting killed for whatever reason( or none)? Fucking gangbangers, or queers, or just not right in the head. That's amerikka! Greatest nation on- oh fuck OFF already.
We've been had. My ENTIRE LIFE we've been had.
I served as a potential serial killer for this nation, but that ain't where I learned to shoot or hunt. I'm older now, but certain life skills have Not diminished.
Are you thinking we need to employ said skills nowadays? I hear your words of nonviolence and peace but they don't ring true to Me. I see the 'peaceful' protests and the reactionary response-are you suggesting willing cannon fodder should volunteer their lives and 'sacred' honour in a 'noble' cause?
Because if so, I call Bullshit.
We've had how many 'million whatever' marches on Washington and Nothing changes. Except to get Worse for the people. Sure, the 'Sixties were 'different'. Really? Cracked skulls and people dying then, also, as I recall. And the shit got worse then, as well.
I understand I'm not as 'educated' as a lot of regular posters here are. However, I read Everything I can get my hands on. Do I understand it all? Hell No! But it induces me to Think, to cogitate, to see and make relational the systems in place necessary for cohesion of society and those systems are breaking down all around us. Even a rube like me notices a brick wall in the face when I run into it.
The time is coming when that 'wall'( please, no floyd) will have to be broken down.
And that is never done without violence of some sort.
I love you, don, I respect you, and I'm still calling bullshit on this essay's theme of 'nonviolence'.
We either eat or we're meat.
Time for you all to bust on me, I guess.
Stop These Fucking Wars
there Is no peace
Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .
Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .
If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march
I'm with you.
If that had been the left out there instead of alt right, the cops would have busted them up before they got ten steps. They haven't militarized the cops and privatized the jails for nothing.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Well, at least
I won't be alone on their (many)lists.
Stop These Fucking Wars
there Is no peace
Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .
Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .
If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march
Edited Out
I'm confused(big surprise)
by your reference to 'a mound of dirt'. If you mean 'sacred honour' or 'noble' cause in my comment, they were, and are, in quotes to signify the ridiculousness of exactly that idea. I was, and to a certain extent, still am, brainwashed about this country.
I have lived in Europe and traveled it extensively and would love to go back. Not gonna happen.
There are no safe places anymore with climate chaos intensifying so now I live in a region that can very easily be made isolated and all the models show one could have a decent chance of survival.
Nuclear winter would negate that plan, of course.
Stop These Fucking Wars
there Is no peace
Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .
Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .
If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march
@Tall Bald and Ugly
I didn't know you replied when I removed my remark. I can certainly put it back. The tone was wrong and didn't match what I was trying to say. I am empathetic with you, but it sounded like I was arguing.
I'm just saddened that folks actually feel that desperate. And that they feel so trapped on this mound of dirt. But, I am glad to hear you live in a place that might not be hit by the projected drought.
Pluto, we're good.
I didnt take it as arguementative, I truly was confused as to your reference in relation to my comment. So i replied.
I would like to say(and should write an essay on) that I am so grateful to have you folks as companions on this journey we are all on. The knowledge that I AM NOT THE LAST SANE PERSON ON THIS PLANET helps tremendously(although there are people who would argue with that statement).
Stop These Fucking Wars
there Is no peace
Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .
Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .
If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march
@Tall Bald and Ugly violence will be won by
An idea is not responsible for who happens to be carrying it at the time. It stands or it falls on its own merits.
The cops protect their own.
The streets are not the way as this proves. It is 2017, and I can't believe we can't outsmart them.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Did you follow the #Charlottesville link?
there are some interesting tweets in it.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
SHEEPPEOPLE
Righteous Rant Bro!Been thinking alot on just what your saying,we are just sheep being lead to slaughter by both partys
DW
Peaceful protests will not do
Armed violent revolution will not work either. We are terribly outgunned. Even our police are armed with weapons of mass destruction. Purposefully for killing huge numbers of people. This weaponry was not to counter dozens or hundreds or even thousands of terrorists. Their purpose is to counter millions of outraged and lightly armed citizens.
Are only hope is personal boycott. I know, sometimes I sound like a broken record. But it is our only avenue.
Credexit.
We must make a personal commitment to stop borrowing money from them.
We must move our paychecks, savings, bill paying, and financing away from the banking giants. Cut up our credit cards and use only cash wherever we go.
We must stop doing business with all corporations and patronize only local businesses. Keep our money local.
Stop consuming or at the least, cut down.
Elect dog catchers, postmen, gas station attendants, common everyday people. They become wrenches in the gears of government. A government that on longer responds to us, the people. Prevent it from responding to the PTB.
Our biggest problem is getting the word out and everyone on board.
Our little c99% doesn't have the reach.
We need a bigger megaphone.
This is where I'm stumped.
IMHO
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.