This has really bad optics
Submitted by gjohnsit on Wed, 05/25/2016 - 10:45am
This is not the way to do it people.
What started as a calm protest outside Donald Trump’s rally Tuesday erupted into fiery violence as protesters jumped on police cars, smashed windows and fought with Trump supporters and police.
Police faced such an angry crowd that they called in reinforcements from around the state, seeking to double their numbers to counter the protesters, whose numbers swelled beyond 600. Police said on social media that at least one person was arrested in “the riot” and that multiple officers were injured after being hit by rocks.
And then there's this.
Here's video of anti-Trump protesters walking on and jumping on police cars in Albuquerque pic.twitter.com/Ekk2f9pvdF
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) May 25, 2016
Comments
...and Bernie supporters are 'violent.' Right. n/t
'What we are left with is an agency mandated to ensure transparency and disclosure that is actually working to keep the public in the dark' - Ann M. Ravel, former FEC member
Has this been blamed on Bernie supporters?
I can't tell. Nothing is credible on MSM. If it was Sanders supporters, really stupid. There are pot-stirrers everywhere.
How will it be painted other than BernieBros?
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.
Think Nixon. It will either target hippies or Blacks.
Either Berniebros or race war.
"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
They are blaming Mexicans/Latinos
Trump called the protesters "thugs flying a Mexican flag" on his Twitter feed. I also saw a Faux News article this morning talking about them waving a Mexico flag and shouting "viva Mexico" and such. They don't care if these were Bernie supporters or not, it's another escalation of the racial issue.
Oh, right. It was in New Mexico
If you're in NM, TX, or AZ--or Southern CA--you can substitute in Mexicans and Latinos for Black people.
They really really really want a generalized race war.
What Bernie's doing is very important. I hope he sees what I see--it will motivate him to keep the movement going. His movement is a barrier standing between us and the deluge.
"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 makes a carefully crafted message built up for months
that Trump supporters are violent, an irrelevant message.
It takes away an important weapon from the Dems.
I embedded the tweet for you, g...
with the working video.
Practicing for Philly.
This protest was clearly either not savvy, or not prepared, and went up like tinder when agents provocateur lit a match. Either that, or it actually didn't, and all there *was* were a few agents provocateur smashing police cars, and the media reported it as a mass riot when it wasn't one.
Pardon me if I don't take reports at face value after Nevada.
I'm sure these optics are exactly what the media and their ownership want them to be.
"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
So unfortuantely the Faux viewers and MSM believers
will be outraged Yet.Again. Can't see or even consider the manipulation going on. For more eyeballs (and votes, those useless things).
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.
The Faux viewers
Will likely either have grudging sympathy for those protesting against Hillary Clinton and the DNC, or will gleefully rub their hands together, thinking the Democratic party's implosion is going to benefit them.
Either way, I'm not worried about them.
It's the CNN and MSNBC viewers that we need to worry about. And the NPR listeners.
"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
True dat.
Wingnut SIL goes around big-boobed in a T saying Hillary for Prison.
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.
I don't think "optics" were a consideration at all.
If there was any deliberate planning of this violent action, the planners -- whoever they are -- merely took advantage of a long-existing situation. Non-college jobs which pay enough of a wage to permit a single breadwinner to support a family have been dwindling over the past 40 years and are now essentially extinct in this country. By the time an adult has secured such a livelihood and paid off the loans necessary to do that, (s)he's pushing 50 -- far too old to be starting a brand-new family. This situation is far more than mere dry tinder; it's more like boiling gasoline in an atmosphere of pure oxygen. One tiny spark, and it's "boom, today". And along comes The Chump, Mr. Tesla Coil himself.....
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Well, you think that this was not a manipulated event
It's possible you're right. My first assumption is that what I see is, as the pro wrestling world says, "a work."
"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
More like VERY low-hanging fruit.
Any literate seventh-grade kid could manipulate the environment around a Chump rally into violence.
As I said, boiling gasoline -- before any and all sparkage.
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Your point on severe economic stress is right on.
Economic stress fuels the campaigns of both outsiders — Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump — who appeal largely to people caught up in the neoliberal austerity of income inequality that started under Reagan. They share a working class base, but the Trump group blame their misfortune on "foreigners" and the Bernie people blame their misfortune on "policy."
The Trump people were fighting on the side of the police.
But the anti-Trump people are not Bernie supporters. That makes no sense and serves no purpose.
They could be Mexicans and Latinos, who are under attack by Trump. That makes sense.
That may also make them low-info Clinton Supporters, which is logical given the people and place.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Those of us who lived through the 60's and 70's
tend not to take things at face value, either.
That's right, our deep suspicion of media, government
Is always confirmed, even when we try to see things through innocent eyes. It was there before, it is there now. I am not on facebook, I use an alter identity online ( although I acknowledge it would be an easy reveal). I do not trust the government, the pharma industry, any corporation whose goal is shareholder profits. They were out to kill us in the vietnam war, their mission does not seem to have altered. It is as it was.
Those us of who marched in the 2000's and 2010s
also do not take this at face value.
"Love One Another" ~ George Harrison
George Orwell
Very true, thank you. nt
"Love One Another" ~ George Harrison
I was in Chicago in 1968.....
and in the massive peace march of over 10K in Seattle which was carefully crafted to look like "a few hundred people" as those shites at KOMO, KING and KONG ALL THREE REPORTED THAT EVENING, just before Shock and Awe took place. and Bush and Company made sure that there was a helicopter grounding in the city so no one could see the entire parade path over 2.6 miles long was sidewalk to sidewalk, starting point to federal building downtown JAMMED WITH PEOPLE ON THE MARCH OVER 9k STRONG.
2 days later I had a colon tumor the size of a personal watermelon collapsed and removed laparoscopically and was unable to lift a coffee mug for a month or longer. I was in the 2nd or third row of that march the entire time. We ALL behaved. People were passing bottles of water to the Seattle police on bicycles escorting the march.
Times have changed since then. Everyone on that side wears full body armor even when demonstrators have FULL PERMITS.,
::sigh::
I SO want Philly to be peaceful for all.
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Muerte al fascismo. Muerte a la tiranía. colapso total de los que promueven tampoco. A la pared con el unico porciento%
I was there too. My first ever anti war protest. There
were over 20,000 people marching down 5th Ave to the Federal Building. I remember the helicopter crash but didn't see any violence.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - JFK | "The more I see of the moneyed peoples, the more I understand the guillotine." - G. B. Shaw Bernie/Tulsi 2020
Wow. a full 20,000 of us?
I was in SO much pain. The tumor didn't "hurt" per se, but it was full of fluid and very heavy and pulled on everything inside the intestinal omentum (the sac that holds the guts and organs in place below your diaphragm and behind your abdominal muscles) and made it ache, and it made me very short of breath. In spite of that, my friend and I remained in the first 3 or 4 rows the entire march. I peeled off across the street from the federal building and sat on some steps in a rare bit of shade, dizzy, sick and waiting for us to be able to board the busses back to where we were parked near the school where the march began on Capitol Hill. I remember thinking then that it wss probably the last big march I'd ever be in and live through, and I just sat there and cried.
During the last speech, people were STILL arriving from further back in the marching crowd. My friend moved back to where she'd left me and pulled me to my feet and we slithered to one of the busses and got on. They had a/c running and it was pretty hot by then, so it was a relief. When I got home to Seatac, I slept for almost 24 hours. My late husband told me they reported the demonstration as "a few hundred anti-government malcontents" acting out their "hatred of our brave soldiers."
It was bullshit and lies, start to finish. CBS propaganda from KIRO 7 at its ugliest.
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Muerte al fascismo. Muerte a la tiranía. colapso total de los que promueven tampoco. A la pared con el unico porciento%
Me too
I could see "a few hundred people" from where I was marching...
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
thank you guys for your service--in a different sense
than I usually say that
"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
While the narrator and video
say "some protesters" jumping on cars, there is one protester doing so.
There you are!
Even if not false flag/provocateurs, there's always the chance of some (usually testosterone-fueled) young hothead or a few. While disowning OTT actions, let's not forget to remind people about the litany of violence already done by T-Rump supporters to protestors who were 100% peaceful.
Euterpe2
God damn the mainstream media. God damn them.
They want a violent insurrection, or a generalized race war--either would do.
So far, the American people have declined. Yes, I know there is a race war on, and it is abominable, but it's not the race war they want. Wrong scale.
"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
After I saw Maddow sell out, I have expected all lies,
all the time.
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Muerte al fascismo. Muerte a la tiranía. colapso total de los que promueven tampoco. A la pared con el unico porciento%
Are you not entertained!
Cue the Gladiator theme music.
Not much has changed since Roman times.
"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott
I've seen large predators turn on prey animals before.
No, I'm not amused.
and the bread was moldy.
So was the grain mush.
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Muerte al fascismo. Muerte a la tiranía. colapso total de los que promueven tampoco. A la pared con el unico porciento%
Yeah it's like the one chair held up become
a full scale crap-throwing riot in Nevada...
Lies lies and more lies. That's why I asked if Berners had been blamed yet.
Oh, my. I just realized the term for us is that of the slang used to describe Bernese mountain dogs.. a breed I LOVE... I've met more high IQ therapy Berners than any other breed.. and they don't live very long. So gentle... And so SHEDDING HAIRY. ::sheepish smile::
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Muerte al fascismo. Muerte a la tiranía. colapso total de los que promueven tampoco. A la pared con el unico porciento%
People are beyond frustrated
First off, Albuquerque has some nasty ass brutal cops there. They'd rather shoot a sleeping homeless man than deal with paperwork. Roadside cavity searchers on commuters. Highway robbery, which is where they pull you over, take your money or valuables.
Not condoning this but this is going to happen more and more.
What pisses me off is we have similar footage of white college kids doing about the same over football rallies win or lose, some pumpkin harvest back east annual turns into a car burning and rioting and that's usually just fine dandy because it's just people letting off steam. But when a community rises up against such hate it's instantly seen as bad. When black mothers demand justice for their slain children they are depicted as bad mothers who raised their children to end up being killed by a police officer.
We as a nation are told not to get uppity. Not to get mad. Unless it's over something REALLY important like... a football game's outcome.
I don't condone the violence but I'm beginning to understand. Since voting is no longer available to many of us how else will millions of people's voices be heard? My own case of registration fraud "may take up to 5 to 7 months to get cleared up"... in the meantime me and my husband's registration is still "EMPTY". So no voice.
I've protested in the streets and seen a group of men dressed in black talking with the cops on horses and then those same black dressed people start throwing shit and then we the protesters get blamed or harmed.
We don't know if these were agents. We don't know if these were Democrats or Sanders supporters. Hell, it could even be Trump supporters just having a good old time.
We don't know if this is the community and loved ones fighting back against a man who wants to enslave them into building a fucking wall like another comb over fool - Hitler. I mean... it's "bad" to get so angry and rage against the machine that intends to chop you up into pieces. When can we the people fight back? When can our voices be heard through the gags?
But I do think we will see more and more frustration and violence.
It's so easy to say this violence is bad. Our history books tell us that once you lose rights, and we all have, you never get them back by asking please sir may I have my rights back?. It always takes bloodshed in this country.
It takes people fighting back and our society has become a society of rules and laws only meant to suppress the people. Do not tell me that the laws are equal and that all criminals go to jail. Because as I see it, the true criminals are in politics and corporations and the laws and the cops are there to protect them. Not us.
We have no power. No Voice. No protection. All the while without a safety net.
Only dark times ahead if Trump/Hillary get "voted" in.
"Love One Another" ~ George Harrison
So sorry, DJ, that you and husband
have been officially made nobodies. It may happen to more of us. But we still owe taxes!
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.
Yeah, about that--
Heh. Thoughts for later.
"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
WAY back in the dark ages, I spent 120 days
workinug for the IRS personnel office in Dallas via a temp agency's placement with the carrot on string of a good federal pay grade full hire after 180 days.. I burned out before then.. A revenue agent came in and pulled his weapon on one of my fellow clerks. The IRS was using the NAVY personnel computer program and it was complicated but if *I* could learn it (and the manual was HUGE.. over 1K pages and sat on my desk in special binding and rack on steroids, making me have to look at it over my left should while working on my keyboard with my phone in a special "holder" jammed against my neck and ear). For the 9th pay period in a row, he was paid nothing and his vacation time denied when he had almosts five months of accumulated time. This was a guy in a killing rage. We ALL hit the floor and scrambled into the kneeholes under our desks. I called my agency and that office and refused to return the following day. Oh well.
The thing is, the IRS agents SEIZE your house, freeze or EMPTY your accounts at the bank, PULL YOU off the road on the highway, drag you out of your car and it gets pulled right up onto a tow van and you're left on an 8 lane highway with your purse or wallet and no escort out of the median during rush hour. Your furniture will be thrown out in your former yard if it's not deemed good enough to be seized for auctiom, etc. Revenue agents have even been known to chase non-dangerous pets out of yards and chased until they run away.
No, I'm REALLY leery of nonpayment of taxes, whether one is an annual or quarterly payer.
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Muerte al fascismo. Muerte a la tiranía. colapso total de los que promueven tampoco. A la pared con el unico porciento%
I've been pissed off long before that
I've been told for decades that voting is stupid and that the elections are rigged. I've just been lying to myself that we were a democracy.
As to taxes... ha. Damn straight they want my taxes... on a job the Feds say is illegal. Feds can raid my workplace and still demand my tax dollars.
First thing by nutty tea bagging mother in law said to us was - if you can't vote you shouldn't have to pay taxes.
But I'm angry about so many things.... and we strive to be a non-violent, anti-war, anti-poverty family. We try so hard to walk the talk, "what did you do, once you knew". But man.. I am feeling so angry myself.
A rage is building and I don't think it's just within me...
I have protested. I have had those talks with my family about the risks I could face - physical harm, financial harm, being arrested and held over the weekend... I've always held firm that some times we have to risk being hurt over. That I was willing to be attacked.
I have never been willing to do the attacking. But when there is no justice, no voice, no protection, no freedoms, no rights... I mean really people... FREE SPEECH ZONES??? Maybe we should have burned those fuckers down the first time they were rolled out.
But as my spouse knows - and due to all these protest activities - I am aware of a growing anger in me. One that does ask what am I truly willing to risk.
I do fear, and I will share it with you, that if it were my child killed by a nasty ass cop, I know I couldn't live too long. I know I would be consumed by rage, anger, sorrow. I don't know how I could just breathe in and out and wake up and go to sleep.. .without my son alive. I am aware of the dark edge that I might slide over. My husband sometimes jokes that it's just a sense that mother's have and "hell has no fury blah blah" but I'm not sure it's just that. I think of No Justice. No Peace. But it goes the other way.. You can't have peace without justice. Justice for all.
Then I read stuff by a blogger who bought the terrorist's children's gifts... so I still have hope. But hope and anger are so hard to reconcile. Thanks for letting me vent, share or just ... grieve.
I think I'm angry because I'm grieving the loss of so much in this country and the world. Very dark times... it's hard not to reflect on what we are truly made of, who we truly are as a person. More and more I'm just so angry and frustrated.
Thank you.
"Love One Another" ~ George Harrison
Anyone asking for Peace without Justice is asking for
a Police State.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Yup
pearls go so nicely with jackboots at one's throat.
Thank you for the song/reminder.
"Love One Another" ~ George Harrison
Fight back in the way they don't want
Not in the way they want.
Damn, I wish we had an IRL component to all this. Some discussions are way better in person.
Short version: they really, really want people to go for their guns. Or knives, or whatever.
What they appear to be afraid of (oddly enough) is cultural and economic (and even electoral, which kind of blows my mind, b/c I thought they had that system sewn up!)
My general MO: look at the weapons or tools they're trying to take away from me. That's what they fear.
If they feared our guns, it wouldn't be so easy to get them.
"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
Thank you
I have fought back in many ways.
In fact, all my life I have fought back. Starting out when I was a kid and fighting back against an abusive, addictive family. Raised in a cult of hate and bigotry...
I have fought. Broken many chains and now I have my own family. A family of peace activists and people who feel that serving your country means feeding people. Not killing them.
I have done the right, decent and the HARD things.
All my life I have fought back. Taken the higher road. Turned the cheek at times...
I was told my son would never speak - that reading to a "deaf" child was silly and some form of denial. I fought to help my son be the best he could be.
I almost gave up once. After fighting back and finding I had no support. I figured what was the point of survival if you are still blamed for the attack.
So I know about fighting back and keep putting one foot forward.
As to the guns... we are anti-gun and it was the first thing my husband said about the voter fraud. There is a complete shut down about this fraud. No screaming... no "rioting", even. But if these fuckers had stolen our guns... there'd be a lot of noise about it.
I'm all about election reform now and I intend to jump into it. But ... the anger and frustration is just growing and growing. I see it all around now.
Thank you for being so kind and concerned. I'm okay - as long as I share my doubts and hopes... I''m okay.
"Love One Another" ~ George Harrison
No problem--and btw
I don't mean you hadn't already fought. I assume everybody on here has. Seems you've had to fight more than most.
Blessings
"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
No worries :)
take care my new friend.
"Love One Another" ~ George Harrison
Wise words.
"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"
Thanks!
"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
Guerrilla warfare
No need to get out the guns and ammo. Hackers and buckets of sand should do it. Anyone ever read The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey? There are some really good pointers in that. = )
The story is about environmental activists actually, but their tactics would do well. It even starts in Albuquerque.
A few really good hackers could freeze, move or hide a lot of 1% assets. Then we just sit back and watch them go nuts.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
That sort of thing is much better than going for guns.
There are plenty of things one can do that aren't illegal as well.
Well, they're not illegal yet, anyway.
"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
Then there's things like not paying your taxes.
That scares me, I'll admit, but it sure as hell would get their attention.
Not sure if that's bad or good at this point.
"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'm a HUGE fan of the original concept of
Anonymous, but I have yet to see it really REALLY live up to the potential as originally described. I've learned some hackery, but I'm slow, behind the time and don't have the tools or aps or firewalls to do what a really good hacker allegedly can do.
Oh, well.
As for guerilla war. I've had horrific nightmares in which all the towns and cities of my state were run over by right wing revolutionaries who began going from town to town consolidating their dominance, and 10 or 12 of them, to bully me, based on reports, show up at my house and demand i cook them a huge meal.
Okay, here's the deal. I've made herbal remedies most of my adult life. I've grown, harvested, dried, made tinctures and decoctions of a lot of difficult little herbs and roots and flowers, some of which are VERY harmful, downright lethal, unless seriously diluted. Some of the efficacy of some of the more toxic ones increase if the alcohol based tinctures are well sealed and age a decade or more.
In my dream. I manage to kill 19 of these automatic weapon toting assholes without anyone shooting me before s/he passes out. I wake up with 19 dead people in my house in my dream and no one around I can trust or tell to get help to remove them and bury them. I'm crying when I wake up, but I remember that even without knives, guns or bombs, one can fight back, if things get horrific.
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Muerte al fascismo. Muerte a la tiranía. colapso total de los que promueven tampoco. A la pared con el unico porciento%
My psyche is shaky at best.
I could not imagine having those dreams. I am sorry to hear that you are being subjected to them and wish sweet dreams to you. Maybe you can change the narrative so that the people are not actually dead but are being reverse engineered pod people, so when they "awake," they will once again be humane.
The book, The Monkey Wrench Gang, is non-violent-to-humans guerrilla warfare. The acts they perform do not harm humans but the machines that are used to carry out, in this case, environmental damage. It has actually been quite a while since I read it, but there was a lot of humor in some of he actions they took to stop companies from destroying the planet. I am thinking we could use similar tactics against harmful financial and governmental policies.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
Even shorter:
My objections to this sort of thing are not primarily moral, but tactical.
"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
We agree then that moral boundaries have been leapt
and now it's down to tactics. I am friggin 63 but I can still move and not hold a gun.
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.
I'm not trying to say that I have NO moral objections to
violence. I would much prefer, morally, to take pretty much any road other than violence. But I'm not prepared to make a blanket condemnation of all violence. Some people here probably believe in the American Revolution, or would have believed in it had its proponents been willing to treat black and indigenous people with respect. The overthrow of monarchy and establishment of a Republic is an idea many, though not all, people here think was a good one. Well, we killed people to do it. And that's just one example of many from around the world. Much worse things have been suffered by people--if someone in Guatemala, for instance, fought back against the death squads, should I condemn them for picking up a gun?
But the point I'm making here is that, thankfully, we really don't need to debate the morality of violence at this time.
Luckily, the tactical situation is such that it makes absolutely no sense to use violence, which is great because I don't like it in the first place!
"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
What are your actually fighting for?
Isn't it available somewhere else so you don't have to waste your time struggling?
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
No, that's not it.
My home is not portable. I'm 67, it's paid for, i can't sell it for enough money to get a smaller one and pay it out and I'm unable to work now. I and others my age and who are poor can't flee to Canada. She doesn't want the poor flooding her borders. We'll be homeless, shelterless, AIDless in Candu.
My country isn't portable. the concepts that created it are still under the sludge here. It's a matter of shovelling off the sludge, flushing some of it. Burying the rest of it.
Just a question: Do you consider it better to run away with nothing and die than to fight for what you think is of value and die?
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Muerte al fascismo. Muerte a la tiranía. colapso total de los que promueven tampoco. A la pared con el unico porciento%
Not really.
I'm fighting for: a planet that isn't declining into a wasteland that I and most other life can't inhabit
An economy that doesn't gobble up people's lives and non-human life endlessly to feed unending greed
A political system that will enable me to get those things
That's leaving out some other things that are also extremely important, like
A legal system that doesn't steamroll over people's basic rights and dignity, killing, torturing, imprisoning and extracting forced labor
A military that doesn't gobble up people's lives endlessly to feed unending greed (see above)
"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
Thanks. I was asking myself that question
…and I inelegantly deflected it to you.
So, you're fighting for a planet with a decent future. And you name one means to achieve that end:
Since the issues are global, and the US is a super power of wealth and resources, if a moral "political system" came to exist, it could lead the way into planetary well-being for all mankind. Thus, you take a stand in the United States to transform its government into a proactive, noble force for good in the world.
I get that. I can see taking a direct approach from inside the heart of the devil that you know. It's a selfless path with elaborate struggles. Many US Americans are doing the same thing, some with eyes open — to varying degrees — to what that really means in terms of time and effort and steep odds.
The very commonplace option of relocating to a country with better values and opportunities is rarely considered by US Americans — even though that's how they got here in the first place, not so long ago. But most appear to be held back from boldly acting in their own best interests. Leaving the US and its spreading dystopia behind very rarely comes up for conscious consideration. The record-breaking US hunger and homelessness (both of them human rights violations in developed nations) doesn't alarm the American people the way it did their ancestors, who would already be packing. I'm beginning to think it's the geography — of a nation that is isolated by two vast oceans from the populated world, which is stacked altogether on the other side of the globe — this geographic reality makes invisible the people's full range of options, and hides from them their own lack of human rights and individual sovereignty. They draw no comparisons from the world to help them reflect. For US Americans, the world is out of sight, yet it a threatening place filled with "dark-complected people who need to be bombed."
By "government" decree, they are afforded no personal economic security in the post-industrial era, so US society is based on a dog-eat-dog zero-sum game. To quell their ever-present insecurity, the people arm themselves with weapons and bellow that they are going to "Stand their ground."
::: smacks forehead :::
Who does that in the developed world, anymore? This is soooo 17th century! A perfect reflection of the antiquated and entrenched Constitution that flung them into the 21st century disempowered, indentured, and feeling trapped inside the plantation.
For my part, I figure that technology developed several hundreds years too soon; the industrial revolution impacted too fast. This species was on the threshold of conscious evolution in the nineteenth century, but it was derailed by the raw power that technology unleashed, which activated the darker sides of human nature. Human greed for power over others got the upper hand, and shut down philosophical reflection in all its forms. Humans are now surrounded by technology, but they never developed the moral compass to use it in a conscious, far-sighted fashion so they don't kill themselves. The species has no collective prescience to guide them into the future. And, there are definitely not enough cynics.
So, I'm fighting to help evolve them, starting with the most dangerous humans on the planet, USians. Their propaganda machine is formidable.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Great response, great discussion--
Should probably be a diary!
Since the issues are global, and the US is a super power of wealth and resources, if a moral "political system" came to exist, it could lead the way into planetary well-being for all mankind. Thus, you take a stand in the United States to transform its government into a proactive, noble force for good in the world. - See more at: http://caucus99percent.com/comment/93784#comment-93784
Well, that was supposed to be the idea, but it's proving to be very difficult to achieve.
The very commonplace option of relocating to a country with better values and opportunities is rarely considered by US Americans — even though that's how they got here in the first place, not so long ago. But most appear to be held back from boldly acting in their own best interests. Leaving the US and its spreading dystopia behind very rarely comes up for conscious consideration.
The problem is that I now see my enemy, and it's unfortunately not the Bush faction of the Republican party that I thought it was in 2000-2008. It's not even the Republicans, which I thought in 2009. Hell, it's not even the Republicans AND the Democrats. It's international businessmen and financiers with an incredibly ugly philosophy (if you can call it that). Willing to burn the world down in order to maximize profits--not to make them, but to maximize them--and, even more importantly, to maintain an imperialistic level of control.
It took me years to figure out it wasn't primarily about being and remaining rich. A bunch of us idiots wrote books and lobbied, trying to explain to these people that they could still be rich and powerful w/out burning the planet down and destroying people's lives w/economic sabotage. They already knew that. But what the new, fairer capitalism-on-a-leash based on renewables would have denied them was the ability to put their finger on an economic scale and overthrow the government of Venezuela, for instance, without even needing to send an army. Or the ability to conquer Greece from a bank.
They're apparently willing to burn the world down so they can keep that power. Rarely have I seen a victory so horrendously mismanaged. But they've redefined victory to mean "I get it all and nobody can tell me `no,'" not caring that their victory is built atop a minefield of their own construction.
"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
No. THIS is the "great response"
We were all on that journey you took. And made those same dismal discoveries.
I think that is especially the case for the folks who migrated to c99.
There is something about the courage it takes to forsake "denial" — no matter how galling or inconvenient — that yields significant benefits. It takes steely resolve to look squarely at reality and recognize the folly of one's participation. For important benefit, they will always know the patterns of political grifting and will recognize them forevermore. For another, they will learn how to hunt down the real motivations of the forces yanking their lives around. Just as you tracked it. That alone reveals strategies to stop it in its tracks.
But most timely, I think, this overt and abrupt paradigm shift into a denial-free state contains a great deal of information. The fact that it happened during the most intense blast of citizen brainwashing (with media cooperation) in American history, is stunning. The pundits and the establishment were hit by a runaway train — and they are the only ones who never saw it coming.
We are probably living through something future historians will refer to as "The Great Disconnect."
They build this. And we are the unintended consequences. Nothing will ever be the same.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
And so, I no longer believe there is anywhere to run.
For a while, South America seemed hopeful, but obviously some assholes somewhere are taking care of that.
"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
The US neoliberals are the assholes of which you speak.
They took the Brazilian president out as an act of revenge, and also because nationalized oil.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Heh. You fear what I might do or advocate.. and yet
I fear what you might advocate and how those who try it might be paid...
I DO with an untaped IRL discussion opportunity over all of this.
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Muerte al fascismo. Muerte a la tiranía. colapso total de los que promueven tampoco. A la pared con el unico porciento%
Well, some of my ideas are pretty Girl Scout vanilla
It's just that the system has gotten so rotten that a lot of decent and not yet illegal things have now become revolutionary.
"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 always takes bloodshed
It always takes bloodshed, everywhere and at all times. History shows us this lesson again and again; and we, as humanity, have yet to learn it.
We're supposed to have the rule of law; instead, we have the rule by lawyers, with the effects you describe above.
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
we are lead by fear and ignorance
we have allowed this scam to happen by looking the other way so long that when it's in our very face we are told not to fight back... to let things work out, to wait and see, to wait for more and better, to not be uppity, to not raise our voice...
To not be aware that we are enslaved. We just have a shit ton of stuff is all. But regardless of how much shit we have in storage... the jackboot is on our throats.
why did we let this happen? how did we let it go on so long? I remember seeing the "Free Speech Zones" and wanting someone to do something... we always want someone else to do something don't we? I should have burned down the first one I saw.
"Love One Another" ~ George Harrison
Which came first - The
Which came first - The jackboots and teargas of the police state or the riot?
I very much hope
none of these protesters were holding a Bernie sign or wearing a Bernie shirt, or anything Bernie related. The media and TOP will go nuts. Bernie doesn't need that distraction now.
From those vids
It looked like most were watchers taking film. Hard to see any throwing.
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.
Violence Will Rise
If nothing else gets their attention, riots are inevitable. If the DNC is not ready for Bernie, the hood will explode.
Skid Row, Watts and Compton will burn. We're ok with that.
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
I suspect agent provocateurs
were behind the violence.
"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott
All I needed was an excuse, no wait, I didn't need one...
but thanks.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jpf-eC-Xlk width:420 height:350]
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8O317T6Zlno width:420 height:350]
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xa-y5RjL1vg width:420 height:350]
Bad optics, but...
...facebook petitions and voting for Democrats hasn't changed crap.
yup.
“There are moments which are not calculable, and cannot be assessed in words; they live on in the solution of memory… ”
― Lawrence Durrell, "Justine"
No argument there
If we can't achieve a revolution by ballot
This may be what we have to look forward to.
I will admit, though, that "direct action" protests in the 60s didn't achieve any more than the peaceful ones did.
Life is strong. I'm weak, but Life is strong.
Direct Action Protests Got Nixon Elected Twice
and gave us Henry Fucking Kissinger.
Who knew that two supposed democrats who opposed Vietnam would be singing that old war criminal's praises more than forty years later? It makes me sick, literally, and more outraged than I was when Milhouse was in the WH.
Bernie supporters are not mentioned at all.
Here's the TV report I watched this morning: http://krqe.com/2016/05/24/calm-turned-to-chaos-unlawful-trump-protests-.... It's ABQ, we have problems - 'nuf said.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Oh, I'll betcha within 24 hours, Sanders
supporters will be blamed for all of that crud.
::sigh::
Wonder if Trump's having it done himself.
******************************
Muerte al fascismo. Muerte a la tiranía. colapso total de los que promueven tampoco. A la pared con el unico porciento%
I'm sure they were all violent Bernie supporters
so it's all good for Hillary.
"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott
STOP BELIEVING THE HYPE. SHEEESH
I just watched a video of a supposed OUT OF CONTROL RIOT in Anaheim. If I had only listened to the sound I would believe CHAOS AND BLOODSHED AND MURDER AND MAYHEIN occurred... But I watched the video tape and basically saw military clad cops walking through the crowd spraying EVERYONE with tear gas... Same as happened in NYC during OWS.
If you have not read 1984. GO READ IT
and please please please DO NOT BELIEVE THE CORP CREATED MEDIA HYPE
we have absolutely no idea who threw rocks... But given our nations history it's a good bet it's agent provocateurs (sigh).
SAME AS IT EVER WAS
SAME AS IT EVER WAS
Orwell was an optimist
I was there
but I left before the trouble started.
Trump was speaking at 7:00, for about 3 hours before that there was a perfectly reasonable protest involving I'd guess about 1000 people. There were no problems. To their credit, the police weren't wearing riot gear at this point - they must have put it on later.
I, and a lot of other people, left at about 7:00. It looks like at some point later, a much smaller group caused this trouble. The organizers and other peaceful protesters tried to stop them. It looks like the number of people causing trouble was on the order of dozens, out of 1000 peaceful protesters.
While I was there, I only saw a couple of Bernie supporters. I'm sure plenty were there, but no one was advertising it, wearing shirts or buttons, or talking about it. The only unifying theme was anti-Trump. Anyone who tries to blame this on Bernie is wrong.
In my opinion, the media is making a bigger deal of all the "violence" than they should (though take my opinions with a grain for salt, because I wasn't actually present for that part). It looks like a police car window was broken, a convention center window was broken, and some Trump merchandise was set on fire. Which is still unacceptable, but I think the media is exaggerating it.
Anyone who tries to blame
Of course, when has being wrong (i.e. knowingly lying) ever stopped them?
Economic: -9.13, Social: -8.56
Hummmm, kind of surprised this happened in Abq
Further south like in Las Cruces, maybe. NM does not have that high of a Mexican-born population. These numbers are from 2010, but in the past few years there has been a huge number of immigrant Latinos returning to their countries or origin.
70 percent of the Mexican born resided in just four states.
California had the largest number of foreign-born residents from Mexico (4,254,415, or 37.3 percent of the total) in 2008, followed by Texas (2,396,390, or 21.0 percent), Illinois (720,106, or 6.3 percent), and Arizona (611,410, or 5.4 percent).
The remaining six states with the largest numbers of Mexican immigrants include Georgia (282,290, or 2.5 percent), Florida (256,911, or 2.3 percent), North Carolina (250,614, or 2.2 percent), Colorado (250,329, or 2.2 percent), New York (235,254, or 2.1 percent), and Nevada (233,899, or 2.0 percent).
It is almost funny, but NM doesn't seem to get a lot of Mexican immigrants. There are a lot of drug and alcohol problems in the state, but throwing rocks at police is not a norm.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
Actually, we do have quite a few Mexican immigrants.
New Mexico is a border state with lots of Mexicans here. My dad hired an undocumented worker to take care of my mom. It's not uncommon here. What fascinates me is the native Hispanics (of which I am one) attitude toward Mexicans - legal or undocumented. They don't like them. I've never understood it because I don't think that way. However, you never said to my dad that he was a Mexican. He would correct you and say he is Spanish. He traced the family line all the way back to Spain and could show they came here via New Orleans and the Mississippi River, taking the Santa Fe Trail from St. Louis. When Raggedy Andy worked for the county road department, the local Hispanics there would deride the Mexicans all the time. To me, we are all originating from Spain but come via Mexico, Cuba, Latin America, etc. But, that's me. Local Hispanics were not likely in the riots last night. It would have been the Mexicans. Sorry to put it this way, but it's the reality I live in.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Until recently, the land you live on was Northern Mexico
…for many centuries. Genetically, Mexicans carry the Native American genome and have lived on these lands for 30-50,000 years, continuously.
Immigrants from many parts of the world now live on the lands of indigenous Native Americans. Early settlers included Germans, English, Irish, Chinese, Jews, Portuguese, French, and Spaniards. None of them have Native American genetics or genetic ties to the land.
Your dad sound right to me. It's complicated because Spanish happens to be a second language regionally. Isn't he making the point that his ancestors (and he) carry genetic markers wholly indigenous to Europe, and typical to Spain — and his heritage is not related to the Spanish-speaking Native Americans, who were conquered by Spanish explorers 500 years ago?
It's a very unique and exotic insight.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Well, Dad would tell you he had
Indian blood, as well. He claimed that. He just didn't want to be referred to as Mexican in any form. I didn't understand it until I was around those that still live on land grants. They are the ones that demean Mexicans. I've heard it myself. They, like my dad, spoke Spanish as their first language, not second. That's how it is in New Mexico. Now, though, there are many Mexicans here. I work with hundreds of them, as well as native Hispanics (which I am, as well). I can't tell the difference unless I ask, but it's not important to me to ask.
Native Americans were not Spanish-speaking and most still are not unless they intermarried or learned it to trade. The tribes and pueblos have their own languages - Tewa, Navajo, Cree, Ojiwba, Cherokee, etc.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
The Native Americans on the Pacific Coast
…from Northern California to central Mexico all spoke their own languages. Then the Conquistadors arrived to take the gold and silver for Spain. They mated with the Native American women. Then the catholic priests from Spain arrived and taught the Native Americans and the children of the Conquistadors to speak Spanish. They opened missions and churches from Napa Valley in the north to the bottom of Mexico to the South. The silver mines went inland past Nevada and Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico and part of Texas. The Spaniards followed the mines. The priests followed the Spaniards, the Native Americans worked the mines, and half-Spanish children were born. The western third of the US became Mexico before the East Coast colonies got started.
Mexico stretched from Oregon to Central America. It was a Catholic country, Spanish was spoken in the cities along with native American languages, some still in use today. It was ruled by Spanish royalty from Mexico City until the 1800s, when the Spaniards were thrown out and the Native Americans reclaimed their country. By that time, Spanish was spoken by most of the Native Americans of Mexico, but all connections to Spain ended forever. The top half of their country was seized by forced by the Anglos pushing west from the colonies.
The Anglos drew an imaginary border, but the Native American/Mexicans who populated that land for thousands of years just laughed and went about their business and travels, ignoring the Anglo border. There was a web of family ties throughout Mexico, and borders mean nothing where indigenous families are concerned. Arizona didn't become a state until 1910, and there still was no border. It was an Anglo fantasy to the Mexicans. Their cultural ties to the land spans millennia.
It's not much different today. Except for the guns and the fences. The Western US will always be Mexico, spiritually, and the Mexicans will continue to eat, laugh, and pray together.
I see them as a wonderful and eternal people of the land.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
My mother's family is from Spain
and have been in NM for the last couple of centuries, for the most part in Santa Fe. I am very aware of their attitude toward Mexicans, even though I was born and raised in California. In California, we lived about 15 miles from Tijuana, Mexico, in a "nice, white, middle-class neighborhood," so my mother took special care to make sure that we could not be "mistaken" for Mexicans including not letting us learn Spanish at an early age.
My parents moved back to NM in the 70's and I moved there in 1989. I lived there for 15 years in a town about 20 minutes south of Albuquerque. Background aside, there is not the huge number of Mexican immigrants in NM as there are in many other states. As noted in the information I posted, NM is not even in the top 10 states that the immigrants choose to go to. The total of immigrants would be less in NM than Nevada which has 2%.
This "riot" would have made much more sense in Texas, Arizona or California which have much much higher numbers of immigrants. I would say whoever planned it chose NM because of its name and the perception that there would be a large number of immigrant Mexicans there. As I said earlier, even Las Cruces would have made more sense than ABQ as there is a larger contingent of immigrants there and the "riot" was based supposedly based on Trump's immigration policy.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
A riot is the voice of the unheard
- MLK
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
Where's The Violence?
Are you kidding me? Looks way more peaceful than a few Lakers fans whooping it up a little bit after a big game.
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
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