I would like to mention that I had an uncle who was an academy award winning screenwriter whose career was ended by the HUAC, the House Unamerican Activities Committee. So, from family legend, we are quite aware that "advocating the overthrow of the USA government" is illegal and in modern times, even if one lives on the opposite side of the world from Washington, DC, the results for advocating such a thing can get you, and your children and grandchildren massacred by a drone strike. That is to say, I don't give a rats ass what you all Usians do with your government just as long as you leave ours alone.

Now, on this forum, all over my facebook and twitter feed there is an overwhelming chatter against the demonstrations which are sweeping the USA this week. I really need you to read an article to see the extent of the protests sweeping the USA.

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/02/02/harl-j02.html

Also a bit of a quote to orient those who think the protests are controlled by the Hillarybots, and Uncle Soros.

The demonstrations, which have taken place in scores of cities and towns, as well as airports and college campuses, have in recent days become increasingly focused on the new administration’s attack on democratic rights, including its executive edicts attacking immigrants and refugees and Trump’s nomination of the far-right figure Neil Gorsuch to replace the Supreme Court seat vacated by the death, one year ago, of Antonin Scalia. . .

Across the US and internationally, the demonstrations since Trump’s inauguration have been characterized by a high degree of spontaneity, illustrated by the ubiquity of homemade signs. They have been routinely larger than organizers’ expectations, and have often focused on issues related to attacks on democratic rights and public education, rather than the narrow single-issue questions associated with identity politics—the stock-in-trade of the upper-middle class protest groups, layers that are openly seeking to divert the opposition to Trump back into the Democratic Party, whose policies differ in no fundamental respect from those of the current administration.

After first distancing themselves from the protests, Democratic Party politicians are now attempting to prevent it from emerging as a challenge to the two major capitalist parties.

I also need you to watch these two videos to show what it looked like on the ground in Bolivia.

Part I.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UU9c3NVY5q0]

Part 2.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raWUM-ZZofQ]

My part at this stage was I helped block the road through our provincial capital so that food from our agricultural area couldn't get into the capital. That included manning barricades made out of downed trees.

I would say that what the protests were really about was 500 years of colonial and neocolonial rule. Although often led by our industrial, teachers, mine-workers and farm workers unions, neighborhood committees, Trotskyites, socialists and anarchists, the protests were for the most part spontaneous outpourings of rage over centuries of discrimination and neoliberalism creating a failed state. Nevertheless we tackled one issue, the sale of natural gas to our sort of archenemy, Chile, at fire sale prices thus generating profit for big oil transnationals while our schools, hospitals, civil institutions crumbled through austerity measures and privatization.

Of course, the capitalist and land-owning class went through all the variations of "the protesters are thugs, lets kill them all, they are actually controlled by the US Embassy (LOL). . . in other words the same kind of crap I am seeing all over Fakebook, Twitter and even here. Trying to discredit the protests with straw men and silly legality arguments, not to mention the mistaken belief that anything at all can change without disruption i.e. legal peaceful protests in free speech zones! The ballot box! Ja Ja Ja.

Our President at the time was a clown named "Goni", now residing in a mansion in Bethseda, Maryland after committing numerous crimes in Bolivia. A well known mining magnate with no experience in governing. He was, like Trump, a minority President put into office by our version of the electoral college. He barely even spoke Spanish. "Been-us D-US COMP-pan-air-ose". The Vice President was a weak, non-political history professor. Thats our second plot point.

So, it started out against selling gas to Chile. But, out there in the rural area near the indigenous teaching college the campesinos (indigenous Aimara or Quechua speaking subsistence farmers) and students decided they were going to block the road, thus "trapping" a half dozen American citizens in a small tourist town where they had gone to take part in the annual patron saint fiesta (a big drunken, five day brawl more or less). As you can see from the first part of the video, another first protest came from high school students in front of the Presidential Palace.

The orders came from the USA Embassy: break the blockade with the military. So, Goni sends in the special forces, the police etc. with live rounds, all backed up with helicopters and ancient fighter jets. The campesinos were armed, like the Palestinians, with stones. The armed forces were shooting at protesters, actually anything that moved and killed a little 8 year old girl who was looking out the window. her name was Marlene Rojas.

Next day, the protests became nationwide, all roads between cities were blockaded. Check the videos. The new demand, "GONI RESIGN". Thats important. there was no "Impeach Goni". The demand was for him to resign.

We know how to block roads in Bolivia. We make barricades with everything from junk cars, to railroad cars, tear up the road, spread boulders over miles of highway, and toss tear gas canisters back at the police or military. We throw stones, and roll boulders down mountainsides. We mobilize cities by the block and snarl up downtown traffic for days (weeks) at a time. We block ministries, the Presidential and legislative palaces. We don't allow anything (food) from the rural areas or the movement of fuel of any kind from the refineries to the cities.

In the case of "Goni resign" we mobilized marches numbering up to one million protesters (about 10% of the total population). These were essentially leaderless, spontaneous from rural and block syndicates (unions, committees et al).

Meanwhile, huge sacks of cash were going in and out of the USA embassy and the Ambassador "suggested" that such illegal protests should be met with the full force of the military. And, there they were with their tanks and machine guns (luckily pre- WW II vintage) shooting protesters. Every time people got shot and died, the protests doubled in size. More women and children were shot down peeking through the windows or over the top of their balconies. Once again, the protests doubled in size. The country was effectively shut down. No food or fuel into the cities.

In the meantime, some of the leaders were negotiating through the Catholic Church. Here is what we wanted and what we got: Goni was to resign and leave the country. The Vice President was to call a referendum for nationalizing the hydrocarbons, and call a constitutional convention.

And one fine day, about a month after the protests started, Goni and his henchmen, after wheeling out loads of cash from the Central Bank, jumped on a fancy USA helicopter to get to the airport and flew to Miami. The Vice President took over, and having no political support from anywhere, just went with the flow. The hydrocarbon nationalization referendum was called and won overwhelmingly and the constitutional convention was organized.

The constitutional convention and the protest battles involved is another story. Maybe I'll tell that one some day.

So, I am reading that Trump can't be impeached, and if he was that means Pence would take office, or if he is convicted of some high crimes and misdemeanors, Ryan takes office. Really, impeachment is a stupid methodology. The President needs to resign (like Nixon), and Vice President as well (like Spiro Agnew). The House, seeing the writing on the wall needs to elect some weakling acceptable to all as Speaker.

The thing is this:

One one hand, the USA doesn't have, as far as I know, anything analogous to block, neighborhood, farm and industrial and worker syndicates and unions. The political parties in the USA are useless shells of corporate malfeasance and parties like Green are mostly tulips. Also much of the population has been brainwashed for so long that they support committing harikari against their own interests.

On the other hand, when governments of any sort, such as that in power in the USA now, respond to demonstrations and disruptions with mass arrests and the military (national guard, police) shooting protesters, the protests grow like grass seeds on a football field. The rebellion wins.

So, as a non-participant, I don't mind watching, popcorn in hand, the protests being "anti-Trump". I would prefer "Trump and Pence Resign" as the plot, and some weak do-nothing house speaker to preside until the next election until a constitutional convention could be organized to get rid of your slavery oriented crumbling piece of now useless paper. None of my business really, except I will hope that in the new constitution they have "War is prohibited except to defend within the borders" as a fundamental human right. And, well, all this disruption does distract from trying to subvert our governments in the south.

Got to go to work now.