The Corpo-Dems are running a political bustout on progressives.
I have never seen anything like the circus surrounding Charlottesville. The neoliberal corporate media is stoking the fires by letting both sides say outrageous things - the same way the police stoked the riots by standing aside and refusing to do their jobs. The two sides seem to be the standard far right and a newly minted FAKE far left calling itself antifa.
As far as I'm concerned, this is a disparaging umbrella term for anti-facists of all political persuasions (Jews, gays, anarchists, socialists), which (based on Google trends) had no real circulation before April 2017. Interestingly enough, most of the queries came from Germany, which leads me to belief that this term was coined there and the American alt-right just adopted it, rather than invented it
Here is more commentary on the fake-ness of ANTIFA from the real left (in fact, the website most heavily targeted by Google's algorithmic censorship):
While thousands of Berkeley students turned out to protest peacefully against Yiannopoulos, a reactionary provocateur who laces his speeches with Islamophobia, racism and right-wing nationalism, a minority of about 150 black-masked demonstrators organized under an amorphous coalition describing itself as ANTIFA, standing for anti-fascist, marched onto the campus and carried out acts of gratuitous violence that an overwhelming majority of the students at the protest opposed.
The ANTIFA contingent smashed windows, set fires, shot fireworks at police, assaulted the few Trump supporters in the area and vandalized local stores, buildings and ATMs. The intervention by these hooded vandals managed to turn a mass protest into a police provocation.
These actions were precisely what Yiannopoulos and his supporters desired, allowing them to drape their virulent anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant racism in the mantle of “free speech.” Trump responded with a threat to cut off federal funding to UC Berkeley, and the turmoil was seized upon by various politicians as a pretext for promoting laws to suppress genuine protests and strikes.
There has been a long experience with the violence of the so-called “black bloc,” anarchist and ANTIFA protesters, not only in the United States, but in Europe and around the world. The politics of these movements are thoroughly reactionary, based upon a visceral hostility to any struggle to mobilize the working class and youth in an independent political struggle against the capitalist system and for socialism. They attract demoralized and disoriented elements from the middle class, along with a sizable number of police provocateurs who hide behind hoods and masks and egg on the violence to provide an excuse for repression.
World Socialist Web Site comment on Berkely riots of February, 2017
The media gives as much free air time to antifa as they did to Donald Trump. They literally go to the bank on the controversy incited by over-the-top Antifa statements. Its all about riling up everyone while making the left (via Antifa) look as bad as the racist right. Just like Hillary wanted to run against Trump, TPTB want to run against the fake left. They want to reduce any public forum for politics to a riot so that they do not have to answer to the public.
The genuine left, the peaceful left, the thoughtful left - they are the victims of this political bustout[NOTE]. The bustout has embezzled the political credit of a century of progressive politics to publicize a bunch of grandstanding IdPol tools, leaving the real left to pay the bills of right wing reaction and inevitable media criticism for "extremism" as soon as Antifa has served its purpose of "dirtying up" the left.
The overreach of Antifa and other IdPol actors is creating a caricature of the left that corresponds to the worst nightmares of every right winger. The banning of people from webistes is a major escalation in the war on free speech; and it has been challenged by the Electronic Freedom Foundation (yeah, they are libertarian hippies, but they are on our side most of the time).
The blog post reflected years-long tension in Silicon Valley, where many company executives want to distance themselves from extremists but are concerned that picking and choosing what is acceptable on their platforms could invite more regulation from governments.
"Protecting free speech is not something we do because we agree with all of the speech that gets protected," Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote. ‘We do it because the power to decide who gets to speak and who doesn't is just too dangerous to hand to any company or any government.’”
"This Is Dangerous": Digital Activists Slam Tech Firms For Banning Neo-Nazi Websites
The temporary license given to the fake left by the corporate media is really like Chairman Mao's "Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom" campaign - i.e., give people enough rope and they will hang themselves and their political group. Witness some idiot from Missouri:
Democratic Missouri Senator: "I Hope Trump Is Assassinated!"
We seem to be in the middle of an orchestrated propaganda campaign that is simultaneously a provocation (turn loose rightwingers and fake left wingers), a strategy for repression (wait for the violence to get out of control and impose Draconian police tactics), and a distraction (sucks all the oxygen - no time for the budget ceiling, our obscene military, police, and prison policies, climate change and fracking, etc.) I'm surprised no one has been able to blame all this on Putin yet. But its hard to simultaneously say "Putin supports Trump", and "Putin is behind those undermining Trump".
----
Quite frankly, I give up. Even on this board, people (myself included, for one spin in the barrel, before I realized I was just playing the game they wanted me to play) are being divided and conquered over racism. That's really easy to do in an America that has never come to terms with slavery, Jim Crow, and the New Jim Crow. Discussing the treatment of the black population over the past three centuries (and its really hard to draw a line somewhere in that time period) is like Tasering the conversation. That's because the media, and the inevitable trolls, want this to be a fight, not a discussion.
What to do? Don't play. Work on and talk about anything but Charlottesville and all the other scripted-for-maximum-media-exposure terrorist attacks around the world. They want to paralyze us with fear and lobotomize us with hatred. My advice is to stay away from this topic. It does no one but TPTB any good.
NOTE:
Bustout - a confidence scheme in which an established business is taken over, a large stock of merchandise is purchased on credit and quickly sold, and the business is then abandoned or bankruptcy is declared
Comments
@shaharazade Hi, Shaz.
Hi, Shaz.
My problem with the left in this case is that their tactics are so horrendous as to create in me some doubt as to whether they are acting in good faith. Because what they have done so far has given far more benefit to the fascists than to Black people or the left.
Either the left in this case is
1)rock stupid,
2)selfish and irresponsible (As in "yay, I really stuck it to that fascist asshole!" without any concern for the consequences of one's actions),
or
3)acting in bad faith.
That's my conclusion.
I'll be damned if I choose one of these two sides. Not out of indifference, but out of, on the one hand, disgust, and on the other, distrust. No way.
I hear that the cops backed off and didn't actually do any policing. That's interesting.
The corporate media are giving all this mondo coverage. That's interesting too.
Neither of these things generally happens at genuinely revolutionary, or even reformist, events. Think about Occupy, about Standing Rock. The cops didn't back off and let it ride then. Why? Because the establishment didn't want those events to happen. The corporate press didn't give lots of coverage to either of those movements.
When the propagandists give your movement full voice, it's time for any person of good will to re-evaluate tactics. At the very least.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
It is a case of "the dog that didn't bark"
Well said. The police behavior and saturation coverage scream psy-op and provacation.
@arendt No freaking kidding.
No freaking kidding.
No. Sale.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Agreed (n/t)
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
@arendt
Exactly! Seems to me that The Psychopaths that be and their lackeys are fascist themselves,
want the 'right' of fascists (this to now include fascist population groups, not just the [edit: misappropriated public and private lackeys of the] wealthy and powerful) to intimidate and attack population groups (initially those seen as being most vulnerable, and long-targeted by corporate/right-wing media campaigns, so accepted as 'fair game' by a number of citizens already fear/anger/contempt propagandized - from where the fascist ideology can spread more easily to be used against other 'disposable' population groups) supported by and 'normalized' within the divided/programed-for-self-attacking public
and want those demanding democracy and civilization vilified and rejected by that fear/hate/contempt conditioned public, again propagandizing the public to actively reject their own interest in favour of TPTB 'might makes right' hostile takeover of not only their country and law but their perceptions. Their minds.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Love your sig line Gulfgal
Is this one of yours? Or is this a quote?
What left are you referring to?
Her point is that the left gets infiltrated all the time by the people seeking to make the left look bad, from the CIA to ordinary members of the right. I agree. We saw that during Occupy and we see it every time the left mobilizes.
Besides, I don't know if punching a neo Nazi during a demonstration of neo Nazi "rights" is such a bad thing--and I'm adamantly non-violent. I wouldn't do it myself, but I won't condemn anyone who does it, either.
I too wonder about Antifa, Shaz
Who are they? Where did they come from? There is a certain aroma of Agents provocateur about them. For that matter, a small number of the white nationalists seemed to stand out, at least in videos from the event, as phony.
Antifa reminds me
of the black bloc during Occupy. They suddenly appear to commit violence which is then equated to Occupy being a subversive terrorist organization. Now we see antifa appear once again to commit violence ostensibly on behalf of the left thus casting the left as being violent. I believe the majority of both were hired agent provocateurs and/or police.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Naturally thought of the same thing, GG, from the Occupy days.
Of course Hedges speaks very clearly about the tactics of Black Block (and AntiFa, I'd suppose too) as ultimately working against the Left, because of their tactics. His case being that violence and damage of property puts people off, sets them against your cause and you lose prospective allies, which is the most important thing.
But both Hedges and his great friend Cornel West say that while they are pacifists there's a point at which self-defense may require such force (did you know Hedges was a former boxer?).
Have you seen this story yet? On Democracy Now, Cornel West & Rev. Traci Blackmon: Clergy in Charlottesville Were Trapped by Torch-Wielding Nazis
Here's West:
There's a lot to unpack with Charlottesville. But one thing for sure for me is, when Cornel speak I listen closely.
"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
- Kurt Vonnegut
Yes, I saw that
Perhaps it is possible that antifa could be both. I do not know.
Obviously I listen to Dr. Cornel West too. My sig line is from a talk he gave to Occupy Tallahassee in Jan 2012. I was there and had the opportunity to meet, talk with, and get a hug from this great man. I can attest he is a very warm human being who seems to really care about people. He talked on a personal level to dozens of us there.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
@Mark from Queens I trust
I trust anarchists, generally, more than I trust Antifa, though there is overlap of course. In an age like this, you have to be so careful of labels--the person using the label could be sincere even though the label was created in bad faith.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
It sounds like a George Soros operation to me.
Ukraine is a good example. Although the CIA gets good results with fake protestors, too.
The Craigslist ad that was running for two weeks leading up to this crisis made one alert to the possibilities.
Holy Shit. They advertised for photographers?!?!
Nothing to see here. Move along.
This is crazy-making stuff.
What do we call it...Liars for hire? Professionalized deception? Politics as illusion?
native
@Pluto's Republic I thought it
I thought it was Charlottesville, not Charlotte.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
It is C'ville.
As I said, the propinquity makes one "alert to the possibilities." This ad landed them in Snopes, in fact. Astroturfing is something of an industry, apparently. It takes a lot of fake rebels to overthrow a government, as I'm sure Mr. Soros is well aware.
No, punching anyone is doing what TPTB want.
They want violence. They want emotion. They do not want to deal with rational arguments, with organized groups that refuse to play the violence game.
I reject personal violence. I want the legal system to enforce the law. The whole point of governments is that they have the monopoly on violence. Otherwise, its concealed carry and Castle Doctrine and Stand Your Ground - in short violent anarchy.
seems inconsistent to me.
@HenryAWallace I'm not talking
I'm not talking about that, though I think that punching a Nazi rank-and-filer is a fairly ineffective way of fighting Nazism. In the first place, you're not reaching the leadership of any of those organizations, nor are you monkey-wrenching them in any significant way. Punching some scrub who believes in Nazism doesn't do a hell of a lot. If anything, it gives Nazis something to put on YouTube so that they can claim victim status.
And as far as violence goes, if one decides to fight Nazis in the physical sense, punching them is not what you do.
I'm sure you get me.
All that punching shows me is that people on the left are not taking all this as seriously as they should be, and their behavior is being directed, not by any strategy or revolutionary concern, but by personal emotion without regard for consequences. It seems crazy that they aren't taking it seriously, given that their lives are at stake, but they're acting like this is a pro wrestling match.
Our culture has really devolved. Even in the 80s, nobody I knew on the left would have contemplated violent opposition to Nazis in terms of throwing some punches at some random guy at a Nazi rally. We all knew that if we crossed the line into violence, it would be something very different than that, and horrifically serious.
But what I was talking about was two things: One, the focus on the statues (and monuments, because now we're including "bombing Mount Rushmore" on the menu). Two, the identification of four rank-and-file Nazis and their subsequent firing from their jobs (how do I know they're scrubs? Because they work at the equivalent of Sbarro's.) Both of these tactics are, to put it tactfully, crap. They increase risk for Black people (and perhaps other opponents of Nazis) without any hope of a commensurate reward.
In other words, if you're in leadership of a revolutionary movement, or even a reform movement, you might make a decision that will put your people at risk, resulting in more of them being hurt or getting killed, but such a decision should never be made unless the possible gains are commensurate with the risk. Otherwise, you are an irresponsible leader at best, and someone whose goals are not revolutionary at worst. And again, that's as tactful as I can be.
There's an idea floating around that one has to support the left in this case, or else be racist. But I feel like people have every right to examine the leadership and its choices before deciding whether to give support or not, especially given that this is a fight where people get killed.
Also, like I said to arendt above, I get very suspicious when a supposedly revolutionary movement gets copious coverage from the corporate press, and more suspicious when the cops back off and don't interfere with either side. It's not conclusive proof that this is a puppet show of sorts, but it is highly suspicious. I felt the exact same way about the Women's March. I've been protesting long enough to know that there's only two speeds to how the cops behave in response to a sincerely anti-establishment protest:
1)They stand there looking irritated, doing nothing at all unless violence occurs among the protesters, or between protesters and counter-protesters, at which point they come in and either do their jobs, or take the violence as an excuse to act like authoritarian shitheads. This is how they were at the Climate March in 2014, the anti-Keystone XL protests in DC, and really any protest where big NGOs and a lot of white people are involved, and the protest is only going to last for a day.
2)They act like the fucking Stasi. This is how they act when big NGOs aren't involved, or when a lot of POC are involved, or when the object of the protest is something, like a petroleum company or Wall St, that the establishment will brook no criticism of. It's also how they act when the protest is persistent, lasting for weeks or months (they did the same thing to the Bonus Army back in the day).
What they don't do is back away from violence and watch like they are at a wrestling pay-per-view.
And the media? Don't get me started. 95% of the protests I've been involved in during my life, the corporate media has either responded with a blackout or a series of character assassinations on the protesters. This has been true from the time I was protesting against piss tests in the late 80s to Occupy to the big climate march in 2014.
When the corporate press gives lots of coverage to a protest, it means something is fishy. If they are giving positive coverage to the protesters, it's doubly fishy.
And not in the awesome Ted Peter's Famous Smoked Fish kind of way.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
OMFG!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ted Peters...the taste of my childhood. Every so often Mom would go to Ted Peters and get smoked mackerel for dinner. Pure heaven!
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
@gulfgal98 OMG yes!
OMG yes!
We really, REALLY should get together in St Pete/beaches sometime. Ted Peters is still excellent, and I didn't see much difference from 30 years ago (they've added salmon and tilapia to the mackerel and mullet).
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
my family
lived on the south side (the wrong side) of St. Pete. I went to Glenoak Elementary, Southside Jr. High, and St. Pete High. Glenoak sadly no longer exists. I am not sure about Southside, but I think they closed it too. I would love to go to Ted Peters and meet you some time. My visits to St Pete are very few now though.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
lots of overlap
in this case the left is:
1)rock stupid,
2)selfish and irresponsible (As in "yay, I really stuck it to that fascist asshole!" without any concern for the consequences of one's actions),
or
3)acting in bad faith
Happy to see a post from you!
@HenryAWallace Me too. I've missed
Me too. I've missed Shaharazade.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Me three!
It is so good to see Shaz post again! Please post more often Shaz, and Shah too!
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
That's Charlottesville not Charlotte.
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
Those who were there
in the 70s know that the organs of state security jumped for joy when identity politics came about and did what they could to exacerbate the divisiveness inherent in that. In fact IdPol was what took the initiative from the then growing liberal trend in US politics.
Orwell: Where's the omelette?
It was Nixon who started the quotas crap
Quotas were the beginning of tokenism. That is, we will let a few minorities (cough, cough, Obama) into the club to show we are not prejudiced. The rest of them can go suck an egg.
IdPol derailed "color blind" equality under the law; because that was starting to pinch.
Few people, in general, are aware of 50 year old history. That is why we are condemned to repeat it.
Figures. That yahoo isn't called Trick the
Prick for nuthin'!
Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.
I agree with you about Cointelpro, rule of men not laws...
I agree the Dem Party are gangsters running a bustout.
Given all that, exactly how and what will you protest about c'ville?
I applaud your willingness to protest. Myself, I'm stumped as to how to do so without either giving unearned credit to the IdPol crowd or being dismissed as antifa.
Will you protest RWNJ and Antifa? Will you protest the lack of police intervention, as demonstrated by the black guy who was beaten with baseball bats? How can that be done without it being either forced into fake-liberal IdPol talking points or rejected as antifa? Is it possible to protest the racism and avoid the deflection onto the symbolism of the statues?
Not a criticism. I just don't see how to thread the needle.
@arendt We should do our own
We should do our own work, rather than reacting to the menu of political choices we've been given. You are right in your conclusions.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Excellent, excellent work.
Quite frankly, I give up. Even on this board, people (myself included, for one spin in the barrel, before I realized I was just playing the game they wanted me to play) are being divided and conquered over racism.
No, we are not. Some of us disagree with some others. We are strong enough to tolerate disagreement. There is no hatred here, and little vitriol that I've seen. GeorgeJohn and I like each other very much--he came here because he and I were Twitter friends, and I invited him over. We are in disagreement on this issue. That has not made us hate one another or stop talking. That pattern is repeated over and over again on this site. That is why this site is important. That is why every place like this is important.
We need to create Semi-Permanent Autonomous Zones. This is one.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal The reason, I think, is
The reason, I think, is that we all know that we are all in opposition to fascism and white supremacy. Neither fascism nor white supremacy are debatable in the sense of "is it good or not?" We all agree it's not.
The division is, rather, that some of us perceive that we are being played, and the possible endgames are horrible to imagine. The establishment wants an expanded race war with a side of ideological war. And they want more and more people to abandon their principles because there's a horrible bad guy.
They are trying to do to us what they did to the right wing after 9/11. Except the bad guy is now Trump and these fascists, and the evil is racism, instead of the bad guy being Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein, and the evil being terrorism.
Because we are deeply opposed to white supremacy and Nazism, for some of us, it is intolerable not to side with anyone who is fighting Nazis and racists.
It all depends on whether you hate Nazis and racists so much that it no longer matters to you that you are playing a role in the establishment's puppet theater. Me, I distrust the people in charge so much that I must join my favorite detective, Archie Goodwin, in saying "Nothing on earth could justify a man putting himself under the orders of Lt. Rowcliffe."
I'm all about cutting the puppet strings. As much as possible.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Absolutely n/t
Ignore Charlottesville at peril, please do indulge in
sharing the intelligence about its spin, straight up propaganda.
Very mixed feelings about this essay.
On the one hand, I think you are probably right that we're being played to one degree or another. Then again, when aren't we?
On the other hand, I have strong, visceral reactions against shaming other posters about posting about this subject or that.
Then again, I don't think anyone defeats capitalism or much else in this society by posting or not posting about racism. Or any other topic. At most, we may inform each other about something or may cause each other see something in a way we not previously seen it.
Also, it's one thing to say, "I am not a racist simply because I think economic justice is important." It's another thing to say "Let's not post against racism because economic justice is important." And, btw, Nazis were not only racist and neither are neo Nazis.
Yep, those sure are mixed feelings
Thanks for sharing.
I think that's how we all feel in this house of mirrors and fake-IdPol groups. We feel, at best, confused. Confused as to who are our friends and who are our enemies.
And that is the intention of the exercise.
I invite you to think about why it is so hard to come to a conclusion, and to conclude that we are all being played.
Um, mixed feelings does not = confused. And
the first sentence of my prior post agreed that we are all being played, but we usually are. So, IMO, that is not a reason to suggest what others should and should not post about.
Mere civility is revolutionary
To repeat myself in another essay; and not for the last time.
Orwell: Where's the omelette?
I have
heard and read so Much about Charlottesville, I decided to spend some time(okay, an afternoon) just rolling through youtube.
The smash and dash attack happened After the confrontation in the park was well and truly over.
This was done by an individual even the U.S. Army wouldn't take?!?
To the clash at the park; every single video I watched showed the cops funneling a couple hundred(at most) nazi/skinhead/kkk idiots to only one exit FROM the park. Waiting for them was a veritable Gauntlet of- who the hell knows?-not humans. There was little to no humanity visible in that mob.
Now, at this point a Lot of you might be saying,'Good! Teach those fuckers a lesson!'
What lesson, exactly, may I ask, was that?
That the idiots weren't the only ones that seemed to be able to discard their humanity at will.
BOTH sides discarded their humanity; the far right(fuck alt anything) gave up theirs whenever it was that they started espousing their views; and their opponents shed theirs faster than shedding a week old pair of underwear after a camping trip that day.
What I saw(stupidity) of the violence that day AT THE PARK was not instigated by the fascists.
The fascists might be dumb, they may be ignorant, they may just be Desperate to Not Feel Alone in this world- but I don't believe they are suicidal.
Three hundred(if that) fascists taking on at Least 2500-3000 people Surrounding the park?
These fuckers Ain't That Brave! Not even in a group this size are they any more than cowards. What I saw on more then thirty different vids of the park action was the opposite group throwing what appeared to be shit and piss from the nearly universal reactions from the videographers. Another thing I saw was the oppo group using pepper spray and/or mace/bear repellant on non-aggressive individuals Peacefully Exercising their First Amendment RIGHT of Assembly and Speech.
That's what I witnessed on multiple videos from multiple perspectives and angles
Am I defending the fascists? Fuck no. Don't be that stupid(if you were thinking that of course).
What I will not do is excuse, or condone, the actions of a Great Many of the opposition that I witnessed on these vids.
I wrote an essay about the precise application of violence in regards to overturning a System that refuses to be influenced by Any Other Means that are available to us.
THIS Was Not an example of that essay's intent.
On this one, folks, dRumph got it right. GAK! That Fucking HURT to write that.
BOTH sides displayed their Ass To The WORLD.
BOTH sides displayed Text Book examples of STUPIDITY.
BOTH sides left their HUMANITY at home that day.
BOTH sides were Fucking WRONG.
But only One Side INSTIGATED the violence.
And it Wasn't the fascisti.
Unless we've Suspended the First Amendment now(as well as the fourth, the fifth , the eighth. . .).
That's what I saw at The Park.
Stop These Fucking Wars(ALL of them)
peace(ever further away)
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
"dRumph got it right" Heretic!
thanks for saying that, and wading through the youtube evidence to make your comment. Thanks a lot.
I am pretty tuned out, but it seems Bernie and the Ds are total failures in response, they refuse to agree because it is Trump saying the words that happen to be true this time. Trying to score points for the next election as people are beaten and assaulted. What kind of animal saves up excrement to throw at another? A human animal, wtf? Anything to shock an audience. TV at its worst.
Really appreciating the comments about provocateurs and cointelpro here too. Brings back bad memories, AIM and Earth First, two groups impacting my youth and early adulthood bigly. First time I saw a sign saying "Abolish the FBI" I was stunned. Then who would arrest all the crooks? LOL I was so naive. They are the crooks, sometimes.
I never forget Judi Bari and Daryl Cheney sued the FBI for lying, and they won. The bastards still never arrested the asshole who bombed them, why would they. Our government is always vicious against its own citizens, especially to those at the very bottom of the heap who are simply trying to stay alive, keep their livelihoods from being destroyed by greedy assholes and the politicians on retainer. Violence begets violence.
good luck
That's what I saw at The Park.
you have to go with your eyes.
thanks for telling the truth.
I knew some "let's go fight fascists" people in the 60s.
that is all they had at the end of the day.
and let's not forget agents of all sorts.
I also saw the "new left" fractured by race issue.
ask Bernie what happened to CORE in chicago.
there is a reason john lewis never saw him.
we were split from labor on war & drugs.
not again, please.
@Tall Bald and Ugly What I would say to this
What I would say to this is that, as a leftist, I don't need the police to help me fight Nazis, and if they are helping me, there's something fishy going on, and I ain't going to lift a finger to do jack or shit until I find out what.
Cops and bosses are not, generally speaking, my allies.
And I don't mean that every individual cop is a shithead, nor that anybody who employs people is a shithead either. But the police as an institution and corporate employers are on the side of my enemies.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@Tall Bald and Ugly Also, I wouldn't commit
Also, I wouldn't commit an act of violence unless the risks and potential benefit were commensurate. They rarely are. In this ugly era, they are almost never commensurate.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
You can't know how much an act of violence will cost
either party, but it will leave a mark on both.
imo
@irishking No, but you can
No, but you can engage in some thoughtful consideration BEFORE you do anything, and make the most rational decision possible about whether you're going to commit a violent act or not--which is better than just flailing around being violent b/c it makes you temporarily feel powerful. Y'know?
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
my difficulty is trying to imagine the cases
in which violence is justified, other than personal self defense.
I am way over on the "anything but that" side.
to be honest, way back when I met too many "revolutionary" fools who claimed they had the right to kill people.
they were f**kups in every sense of the word. not comfy with a new crew of the same type.
we don't have time for this misdirection, imo.
there is a lot of room for civil disobedience,tech, demonstrations.
confront & move people who have power, not a group of delivery boys.
so I am for the considered rational response angle. I don't think the right answer will be violent.
certainly not this type of stupid display.
@irishking I phrase it the
I phrase it the way I do because I am not a pacifist, and I don't want to be mistaken for one. The reason I don't want to be mistaken for one is NOT that I disrespect pacifists, but because I want to avoid annoying conversations in which the person on the other end attacks me on a whole series of beliefs I don't hold.
If I don't phrase my comments on this issue precisely, it leads to misunderstandings, and conversations in which I'm attacked on, well, grounds that don't even apply to me. IOW, I respect like hell your right to defend the moral ground you stand on, but I don't want to have another dozen conversations in which really condescending people instruct me on how stupid and bourgeois pacifism is (not that I think it is; I'm just not a pacifist), or how I'm somehow a fascist sympathizer because I don't think punching fascists is intelligent (it isn't.)
Even when I make it clear, repeatedly, to various people I've talked to on the so-called "hard left," including people that I respect deeply for their work, that I'm objecting to some violent tactic on tactical and practical, not moral and spiritual grounds, they keep on having a pre-fabricated argument that doesn't have diddly squat to do with me or my objections to their tactics.
And for some reason, this particular issue has the power to make smart people stupid: people who have shown deep intelligence in, for instance, books they've written, will say stupid-ass things like this:
If we punch the fascist, he will know there's a cost to be paid for advocating these views in public, and he will be less inclined to show up in public with those views again.
(No, if you punch the fascist, he will be happily confirmed in all his beliefs and show up next time with a bunch of his buddies, ready to rumble. Probably after making a YouTube video about how unfairly he was treated by the left.)
or this
Punching the fascist doesn't have a practical value, but it has a symbolic value.
This is such mushy thinking it's hard to even respond to it:
1)To whom does it have a symbolic value?
2) What is that value? What does the act of punching the Nazi in the mouth symbolize?
3)Symbolic value doesn't exist in a vacuum. People have to perceive the symbolism to endow it with value, and that means they have to receive the information; it's even better if they receive the information from a source that doesn't present the event in a negative light. How is knowledge of the symbolic act going to be disseminated to those who would, I suppose, gain some kind of morale boost from it?
4)How many people will get a morale boost from it?
5)Is the symbolic value worth the energy and labor that will be spent in dealing with the consequences of the action? (This is something that needs to be asked about every tactic, but apparently, the question of violence vs non-violence means that you just line up with your group and its beliefs, and stop thinking.)
What it comes down to is that people on the hard left who advocate for a diversity of tactics basically have an ongoing longstanding argument with people like yourself, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, and they really REALLY want to keep having that argument, whether the person they're currently talking to is a participant in that argument or not. It's one of my least favorite non-lethal human behaviors, attacking people for beliefs they don't hold and didn't state, because one has a burr up one's butt from some other longstanding feud with somebody. I fall into it myself, on occasion, but try to always catch myself and apologize to the person on the other end.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I am not sure we disagree.
I don't think I ever said I was a pacifist. certainly not holy about it.
but I am not flip about violence either.
I am wary about saying it's ok to assault people. not that you ever said that.
when you assault someone there is going to be a cost.
I don't think one can know what it will do to you. (or them)
I think of combat vets I have known. once you cross the line you can not go back.
this is my thinking. you are not asked to follow me.
this leaves aside the obvious tactical stupidity of this sort of thing, upon which we agree.
just the energy wasted on the "let's go fight" gang.
they are descended from some people I once knew & would rather forget.
@irishking I'm curious
I'm curious about the people you would like to forget, but since you want to forget them, I won't ask.
I think we are more in agreement than not.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
excessive drama on my part.
like many of my generation, I was attracted to "new left" .
against the war, pro civil rights movement, pro dope & rock, etc.
as it became apparent we were dead ended, some people became impatient & called for violence.
in my view these folks finished off what little chance we had that time round. chicago, days of rage etc.
I mean, for example, weather underground & their disciples.
b.dohrn even tried to present manson as a righteous revolutionary,for god's sake.
locally I found some very dim people wanted to appoint university faculty.
these same idiots liked to talk about violence.
I just felt that truth didn't matter any more. checked out.
no more than that.
btw I certainly don't put you with that crowd.
@Tall Bald and Ugly Finally, I would be
Finally, I would be generally disinclined to attack 300 people with 2500.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@Tall Bald and Ugly
Please bear in mind that it's hardly unlikely that both sides were arranged to create that violence in order to create disgust with 'the left' and in order to trigger sympathy/tolerance for the Nazi's/fascists in the public consciousness.
We're being manipulated 9 ways from Sunday and we should always keep that salt shaker handy, especially when we know that 'crowd actor'/photographer' rentals for such 'events' is an active business proposition and that similar previous tactics have been used by police and other public officials in order to generate bad PR against the genuine Left.
Can't find the C-99 server again; bet it double-posts, though, as I've just belatedly discovered that a sentence change left a 'not' in exactly the wrong place...
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
If Hawaii Democrats were serious about no longer honoring
racist historical figures, they would immediately change the name of (Teddy) Roosevelt and McKinley High Schools in Honolulu.
T.R. and McKinley were the guys who shat on the Hawaiian people and stole their (our) country through fake annexation. Fake, because not by international treaty passed by 2/3rds of the Senate, but by simple resolution. As a Hawaiian leader might ask: since when does the legislature of your country get to declare by simple majority vote that my country is now your territory and has ceased to exist, without my people having any say at all?
McKinley as global Robert E. Lee: sign the petition, for Hawaii!
https://www.change.org/p/take-down-the-mckinley-statue-in-hawaii-white-s...
(excuse me, it's late) Does your headline suggest
that the Democratic Party is committing electoral so that it can take down the True Left with it? That the last forty years - identity politics, neoliberalism, etc. was a carefully executed plot to discredit truth, justice, and the American way?
I can believe that.
On to Biden since 1973
Your idea (take down left) is correct, your ascribed method...
is a matter of interpretation.
The Third Way Dems mission was always to throw the left out of the party, and replace them with moderate Republicans. The idea was to occupy the mythical "center".
Problem is that moderate Republicans had no use for globalization, Wall St. excesses, and constant wars. So, the Third Way succeeded in shoving the left out of the party, but the expected replacements never showed up.
Its not that the plan was to commit party suicide. But the plan was so stupid that that was the end result. Have no worries, the hapless Third Wayers are still enjoying their first class cabins on the Titanic.
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