Uncivil war: plenty of people must think the Red Guards were a really nifty idea…
…because they’re advocating going down a road that would have an excellent chance of leading there.
For those unfamiliar with the Red Guards, please see this.
And for those who think I’m engaging in hyperbole, please read an essay appearing today entitled “This is just the beginning.” One of the many interesting things about that sort of call for action is that if the right was anywhere near as power-mad and oppressive as the author seems to think it is, he and his fellow-travelers would already be in prison or worse. But they’re not.
As Orwell said, “So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don’t even know that fire is hot.”
That quote is often offered without its context, but if you go here you’ll see the Orwell essay from which it came. Orwell was a politically complex man himself (I wrote about his socialism here), but he was certainly more aware of the dangers than most people.
Here is an except from his essay that shows you the context of the quote, which is about why British writers of the ’30s gravitated towards Communism. I think it’s instructive to take a look:
…[W]hat do you achieve, after all, by getting rid of such primal things as patriotism and religion? You have not necessarily got rid of the need for something to believe in.…
I do not think one need look farther than this for the reason why the young writers of the thirties flocked into or towards the Communist Party. If was simply something to believe in. Here was a Church, an army, an orthodoxy, a discipline. Here was a Fatherland and — at any rate since 1935 or thereabouts — a Füehrer. All the loyalties and superstitions that the intellect had seemingly banished could come rushing back under the thinnest of disguises….
But there is one other thing that undoubtedly contributed to the cult of Russia among the English intelligentsia during these years, and that is the softness and security of life in England itself. With all its injustices, England is still the land of habeas corpus, and the over-whelming majority of English people have no experience of violence or illegality. If you have grown up in that sort of atmosphere it is not at all easy to imagine what a despotic régime is like. Nearly all the dominant writers of the thirties belonged to the soft-boiled emancipated middle class and were too young to have effective memories of the Great War. To people of that kind such things as purges, secret police, summary executions, imprisonment without trial etc., etc., are too remote to be terrifying. They can swallow totalitarianism because they have no experience of anything except liberalism.
Orwell goes on to quote a poem by W. H. Auden, who during the 30s was a Communist supporter. It contains the phrase “necessary murder” (of the type that is necessary under Communism), and of this Orwell writes [emphasis mine]:
Mr Auden’s brand of amoralism is only possible, if you are the kind of person who is always somewhere else when the trigger is pulled. So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don’t even know that fire is hot. The warmongering to which the English intelligentsia [on the left] gave themselves up in the period 1935-9 was largely based on a sense of personal immunity.
The left in America today thinks it’s already the target of enormous persecution. On the contrary; it enjoys freedoms and liberties only dreamed of in most societies. Fomenting a civil war is a kind of playing with fire by people who may know that fire is hot, but who don’t think it ever will burn them.
The egregious “mad Maxine”, whose stupidity is matched only by her venality, lives in a mansion worth many millions located miles away from the district she supposedly represents. Michelle Malkin has written often and very well about this quintessentially corrupt swamp-creature.
I think those fomenting violence, intimidation and delegitimization on the Left understand very well that “fire is hot”.
But, led by a sordid media that delights in fanning the flames of outrage, the Left has so discredited—and dehumanized—its political opponents that it believes it will suffer no real consequences from the conflagration its members are fomenting and seem to be so avidly hoping for.
http://thefederalist.com/2018/06/25/steve-scalises-call-for-civility-and-respect-draws-unbelievable-response/
I remember once seeing Mad Maxine on tee vee, and remarking to my young son (he’s almost 34 now), Maxine Waters is evidence that aliens have landed and are living among us.
Barry Meislin:
That’s more or less what I meant by the last sentence of the post.
The sole purpose of the Red Guards was to abet Mao’s regain of power. Communism was always meant to be the tool for the pseudo intellect 2% to manipulate the mass into helping them overthrown the productive 1%er so the 2%er can become the new 1%er in the expense of the everyday people who supported them by having the economical structures, infrastructure morality of the nation completely destroyed in the process.
“…. because they’re advocating going down a road that would have an excellent chance of leading there.”
Instead of where that road led in Mao’s Communist China, that road taken here ends not in leftist glory but in guns and an increasing pile of heads, mostly theirs.
Like the meme of the day says, Q: “How many times can 1B rounds of ammunition go into 70 million registered leftists?” A: Once.”
https://i.imgur.com/5rcNbO3.jpg
I know that neo does not like this possibility and goes to extremes to find another way, but those ways are being rapidly closed off.
I certainly hope there’s a place on this road for a U-turn but I’m not seeing it.
Hmm. Seems I didn’t read your post all the way to the end.
Sorry about that….
I’m married to a woman from Beijing and have spent months in China on many trips since the 1990’s.
Here we often get together with Chinese who have emigrated to the US and the thinking ones are dismayed by the Reed College type of behavior, and even moreso by the responses to it. They really thought they left that behind them.
BTW, the other dinner party topic – for many years now – is the unfairness to their children of college admissions. I always joke that all they need to do is change their surname from Yang to Young, Zeng to Zane, etc. The upshot . . . their children work even harder.
I wish your post could be printed in every newspaper and read on every TV network in the country.
Looks like Gaia is also a tad upset…
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2018/06/25/new-supervolcano-is-brewing-under-massachusetts-vermont-and-new-hampshire.html
Over at Townhall, Columnist Kurt Schlichter makes a somewhat compelling argument that, “Liberals’ Hatred Will Inevitably Turn Into Violence”
Maxine Waters, at the far end of the nutso left’s spectrum just called for total harassment of administration officials. Pelosi spoke out against it but she’s not in charge and the increasing radicalization of the democrat party will continue.
“Life and Death in Shanghai” by Nien Cheng is her story of living in and being imprisoned during China’s Cultural Revolution. Students were encouraged to take over their schools and universities and denounce many of their professors. Of course, other professors were organizing them behind the scenes.
The students were called to form the Red Guards which would grab people and would shout at them to confess and renounce their crimes. They were called to have “struggle meetings” to accomplish this. The RG then began to beat up, torure and kill those who resisted their methods. After many demonstrations and riots, the military had to be called in to restore order.
I believe the Progressives have been following the path of the Cultural Revolution for quite some time. But this may meet armed resistance if they attempt much more of these actions.
Oh, I am sure that the people urging on social war, and egging on thugs like Antifa know very well that fire is hot and burns. They just expect that other people will step up and do the necessary burning.
Mad Maxine – what a trip! Flapping her gums like aged castanets, never having the slightest thought crossing her almost vacant brain cavity that two can play at the social war game.
Or that the logical extension of the actions she is encouraging might involve businesses posting signs on the windows, advertising “No Conservatives Here!” Or demanding that conservatives mark themselves with a nice bright-colored armband, to be worn when out in public. I guess the next logical step for her might be a demand for separate drinking fountains, or something.
The events of the weekend along with Mad Maxine have certainly got a lot of people’s attention. I read no less than 4 articles today, not including Neo’s, essentially warning about this road the Dems are taking. As usual for me, Kurt Schlichter says it best:
https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2018/06/25/liberals-hatred-will-inevitably-turn-into-violence-n2494043
Many of us here over the past year have been concerned about the civil war turning hot. It seems like the Dems definitely want to go down that very painful road. As has been noted a lot of places, an inflection point is coming where someone is going to be killed by the Left and what happens after that is anyone’s guess. It almost happened with Scalise.
Nice surprise that Nancy Pelosi has come forward with at least a mild rebuke of what Maxine Waters said:
Chuck Schumer, who makes sense about once a year, also criticized Waters. At least some people haven’t lost their minds.
However, speaking of people who have lost their minds, here is a tweet from Judd Apatow. Thinking of this, it struck me as odd that 2 of the last 3 presidents Americans have elected are Nazis. (remember Bushitler?)
“He’s a Nazi. He wants no judicial process. He kidnapped children and commits acts of violence for political gain and to support his racist views.He admires violent dictators. Trump is a Nazi. The debate is over. Soon we will have proof he is a Nazi supported by the Russians.”
The article you linked to, “This is just the beginning,” contained some of the most fatuous, poisonous reasoning I’ve ever encountered. Where was this nasty clown hatched?
I’m afraid the answer is America’s university system, which has produced a cohort of moral imbeciles who believe America is the worst land of all and must be destroyed, root and branch.
Yet just about everybody wants to come and live here.
My thinking too, about this nasty writer, is that there is no talking, no reasoning with people like him. It’s them or us.
That is pathetic, Ann. Pelosi rebuked Trump, not Waters. Not unexpected *at* *all*.
If you click on the link I provided, you’ll see that Pelosi’s statement was attached to a retweet of CNN’s report of what Waters said. And please note the word “unacceptable”, which refers to what Waters said.
I started reading “This is just the beginning” and was really grooving with the guy. I mean, who could argue with this:
“One thing that people who wield great power often fail to viscerally understand is what it feels like to have power wielded against you. This imbalance is the source of many of the most monstrous decisions that get made by powerful people and institutions. ”
I was mid-way into the article before I realized he wasn’t talking about the tenures of Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter.
Silly me.
While the recent film “The Death of Stalin” isn’t a great film, it is interesting in this context.
It’s a black satire, where Stalin is incapacitated in the opening minutes of the film. Some leaders such as Khrushchev and Beria are comfortable with the monstrosity of their government and others are not, though maybe they’re just uncomfortable with the power struggle they know is coming and its likely winner, L. Beria. Beria is in his element and is cleverly working towards the prize.
There are two concerns for those like Beria who get their hands dirty with torture and murder. The obvious one is blow-back karma, the less obvious is the direct self destruction it entails. Both are portrayed in the film. Beria engages in rape on an industrial scale, and the blow-back hits him in the film’s climax.
I love re-reading the articles and comments at neo’s old posts; sometimes they are eerily prescient, sometimes they make you realize that nothing has changed much since then.
Neo: “It is my opinion that Orwell came very close to understanding that his vision of a planned economy plus freedom could not come to pass, that the contradiction was basic, and that socialism would always sow the seeds of its own destruction. I just think he couldn’t fully face and embrace that knowledge because to do so would have meant renouncing a lifelong dream. So he clung to some notion of a kinder gentler socialism without the totalitarianism, while at the same time he wrote tirelessly about the evils of Communism.”
Kurt Schlichter (a man who saw what happened in Kosovo when this sort of hate got released)has this to say today:
” These Democrat idiots are going to talk themselves into a Second Civil War and then act surprised when it works out poorly again.
I wish I had some suggestions about how to make this not happen. I’ve pulled the alarm about it here at Townhall and in books highlighting the potential for the country to split apart and descend into chaos. But there is nothing we can do to stop this because we did not start it and we are not driving forward. This is a result of a liberal elite (supported by its Fredocon fellow travelers) enraged that it has been ejected from the positions of power in the government by the mass of Normals their own mismanagement and greed have turned resolutely militant.
Only liberals can choose not to go down the road to widespread, systematic violence. But if they choose poorly, Normals are ready, willing, and able stop them. Last month, Normal Americans bought over two million new guns. They’ve got 400 million already. Normals are sitting on a towering mountain of lead-launching freedom.
But we’d prefer the option the liberals have ignored – a return to a society where disputes are resolved via the processes outlined in the Constitution and the individual rights set forth within it are respected.
Don’t go with violence, progressives. It will end badly.”
https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2018/06/25/liberals-hatred-will-inevitably-turn-into-violence-n2494043
And it will. Big time.
David Harsanyi enters the fray and makes a couple of good points; although the first is sometimes debated, the second is undeniably true:
http://thefederalist.com/2018/06/25/real-world-starting-resemble-twitter-thats-problem/
“Now, if you believe Sanders works for an “inhumane and unethical” administration, as the co-owner of the Red Hen does, that’s fine. (It is interesting that her supposed moral outrage seems to be wholly predicated on policies that existed under the Obama administration.) I’m sure Republicans can relate. I’m sure social conservatives saw the Obama administration’s support of abortion with virtually no limitations just as morally repugnant. Many liberals don’t even want to allow people to protest the practice.
To some extent, Trump invites this sort of reaction. Then again, to some extent, political Trump exists because of the decades of hyperbolic attacks on Republicans. Fact is, Democrats make little distinction between soft-spoken moderates like Paul Ryan or crude sometimes-conservatives like Trump. Democrats have been comparing Republicans to Nazis since the 1960s.”
The second built on this observation:
“Now, should it even be said that if any conservative had called for mobs to badger Democrats when they’re at the supermarket, the nation would be thrust into a national dialogue about the growing and perilous incivility on the Right. There would be a flood of anxious op-ed pieces and cable news roundtables featuring chin-stroking hypocrites contemplating the future of discourse in America. No one would be spared. Every Republican politician on Earth would be asked to condemn these comments.
Why am I speculating? This is exactly what happened during the peaceful Tea Party protests.”
It’s hard not to get upset when you read these kind of threats and the nonsense of the left but there is a lot, and I mean a lot of strength on our side. It’s quiet and it is seldom displayed overtly, but it’s there.
The first time I saw it but didn’t recognize it for what it was, was Ronald Reagan’s funeral. The press was in its usual condescending pompous mode about the senile old man who bumbled his way through two terms, but the public thought differently. They started coming to Washington, and coming, and coming to pay their respects. They stood in line for hours just to walk by his casket. It would have gone on for many, many days but the body had to be shipped to California for burial. Then they had to have a second viewing of the casket in California for all the people who couldn’t come East. The press and the know-it-alls of the left never figured it out.
And then there was Chic-Fil-A and the owners who stuck to their Christian beliefs and wouldn’t endorse gay marriage. The boycott and vilification of their business backfired spectacularly with an enormous volume of business within days.
The most recent example was the Second Amendment eight year gun and ammunition buying spree under Obama.
There’s a lot of support on our side, it’s just not noisy and in your face like the left.
I am an avid reader of history and I have often wondered, what the hell were they thinking when disputes ended up in devastating wars, which is the history of mankind. Unintended consequences are sure to occur when two sides reach critical points and actual aggression occurs.
I don’t think many people have a true grasp about the history and now here we are, living in interesting times.
Olde Tyme Sign of the Times:
“Germans! Defend yourselves! Don’t buy from Jews.”
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DgfhuZ2U0AAhjmV.jpg
Neo — Auden must have recovered his senses by1940, because he then published one of the greatest anti-state poems ever written:
The Unknown Citizen
W. H. Auden, 1907 – 1973
(To JS/07 M 378
This Marble Monument
Is Erected by the State)
He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn’t a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content
That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went.
He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his
generation.
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their
education.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.
TommyJay. I remember reading Khruschev’s autobiography and his claim that he personally shot Beria. It was quite the committee meeting.
It also reminds me how out if his depth John Kennedy was as President. He believed his own press and insisted on a summit meeting with K. in Vienna against the advice of his diplomats. Playboy Johnny, who bacame a war hero by getting his boat run over, versus Stalin’s political commissar during the Ukrainian famine and later the siege of Stalingrad, and capped off with the execution of his rival for power.
First a disclaimer – I am NOT advocating violence of any sort.
But, for Neo’s last comment “a civil war is a kind of playing with fire by people who may know that fire is hot, but who don’t think it ever will burn them” and other’s saying, yes, those on the left seem to want a civil war; I often want to remind those on the left that they have forgotten which side of the political spectrum has more gun owners.
And I am not just kidding. Many of the “actions” taken by those on the left such as harassing politicians on the right will eventually lead to someone getting hurt if not killed.
Far too often those on the right have taken blow after blow – think of those pies hitting Donald Rumsfeld in the face, or the most unhinged who yell at Trump’s family when out with their children, to the most recent left meltdown chasing after the AG in the movie theater – and sometime someone’s body guard or that victim themselves might feel it is a real threat and respond appropriately.
Which reminds me of a movie scene I saw years ago (sorry, I don’t remember which movie and I think it has been redone in several other movies as well) in which a little kid is bothering his older sister by holding his finger just a couple of inches from her face saying “I’m not touching you, But, I NOT touching you” until she finally ups and whacks him hard. He cries to his dad that his sister hit him – dad replied; “well then, it wasn’t worth it. Was it?”
I kind of think that those on the left are like that kid, those on the right are his older sister, and his Dad’s response is what the majority of voters will say (and in one sense have done by electing trump)
I said it before and I’ll say it again, and again, and again.
This is why we have the second amendment.
KRB
Maybe if enough people figured this out before 2008, it wouldn’t be inevitable. Sadly, nationalism and patriotism often produces the very conflict that it seeks to avoid. Societies tend to fall into factionalism and then later war. You can’t avoid it other than by killing the factions.
Killing the factions without a war, usually isn’t looked upon favorably. Hence by attempting to avoid war through peace, people made war inevitable.
with K. in Vienna against the advice of his diplomats.
Same diplomats that wanted Diem to die so that Vietnam Republic and the US could both go to hell in a hand basket.
The funny thing about DC State Department diplomats is that people think they aren’t part of the DS. That is because most people didn’t even know there was a Deep State.
They don’t know when to stop.
Or more precisely, given their process view of reality, their metaphysical materialism and their progressive and directional fantasy version of “evolution” (wherein they drive the species forward) there is no place to stop.
I mean, reality supposedly commands that they do whatever it is that they are supposedly doing in the name of universal acceptance and inclusion and affirmation and in order to cleanse the world of you and consign your selfish interests to the ash heap of history, as the founder of their intellectual feast was wont to say.
These are people who claim to speak on behalf of progressing “humanity”; but who are at base moral nihilists and philosophical nominalists who deny teleology is real, and who go on to say the same about natural kinds and categories. Their “morality”, is a kind of performance art.
Yet what’s finally left of them, when you perform the final logical reduction according to their own operating manual, but a bag of self-serving, venom spewing, pointless appetites, masquerading as altruists?
One wonders why they don’t just go somewhere else.
But they cannot back off and mind their own business, because they have no business other than involving themselves in your business; and no being, but the being that comes with that business of minding and controlling yours.
My brother-in-law’s sister showed up at the funeral parlor for my dad’s viewing about a week ago. I had not seen her in some years. The last time was at a cottage around the 4th of July. After she greeted me, she sat down and then went on as if it was the most natural thing in the world, to say ” That Goddamn Bush” something or other.
When she sat down in the funeral home after greeting me with what seemed to be real affection, she turned to her professor mother and started in about Trump; sotto voce of course.
I actually felt sorry for her. And when she and I were 25 years younger and she still had traces of strawberry blonde dewy youth about her, I think that she may have been receptive to any overture I might have made.
But now, God bless her, she’s becoming a kind of mannequin, trapped in a resentment loop which she cannot escape.
God help her. God help us all.
This will not end well. The left somehow believes what they seek to impose on 50% of Americans can be accomplished by twitter rants and egging on BLM and the facist antifa. This will not end well. I am aging, but still hale, don’t count me out Maxine.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44604844
When Laura Ingalls Wilder becomes persona non grata you know something’s seriously about to pop.
John Guilfoyle.
I read about the successful campaign to taint LIW as other. Sad, and just another instance of the left’s need to tear down what is sane and wholesome. Read Prairie Fire by caroline Fraser. LIW was not a perfect person, who is?, but her stories are a lesson in how lucky we are to not face the hardships she faced.
Parker,
I think it’s actually worse than what we all imagine…they aren’t tearing down just the “sane & wholesome,” but the whole damn house.
Today they “other” an innocuous author, tomorrow it’s someone else but ultimately they’re aiming higher. If the left can “other” the Founders & by extension the Constitution and framework for who we are as USA, and if they can other Christianity…then what’s left but smoking tribal ruins & the bloodletting and carnage of another civil war…but it will likely be more than a US phenomenon which means there’ll be bloodletting in lots of places.
I don’t think the crazy Maxines & Peters & Roberts on the left will enjoy one whiff of the victory they hope to achieve.
OldTexan Says:
June 25th, 2018 at 8:23 pm
I am an avid reader of history and I have often wondered, what the hell were they thinking when disputes ended up in devastating wars, which is the history of mankind. Unintended consequences are sure to occur when two sides reach critical points and actual aggression occurs.
I don’t think many people have a true grasp about the history and now here we are, living in interesting times.
* * *
The meme “that’s how you get more Trump” is now out of date.
The new meme is going to be “this is how you get Hutus and Tutsis.”
John Guilfoyle Says:
June 25th, 2018 at 10:32 pm
* * *
I recently finished reading all of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, which I didn’t get around to in my youth, because one of my grand-daughters was reading them with her mom — who is a moderately leftish sort of mostly conservative. She never raised any question of the language with me, but maybe she just quietly censored them while reading aloud, as I had to do when reading my favorite books to my children’s elementary-school classes, when someone of a cheery disposition was referred to as “happy and gay.”
Cuts both ways, dudes.
I did, in fact, notice the “antiquated” references, many of which were spoken by the unsympathetic characters, not the Ingalls family itself, and which were balanced by other “inclusive” actions and behavior.
Please note: if the books get banned because LIW is an icky racist (kind of like Einstein, only his remarks were in private journals that were never published), then we will also lose all the references to the massacres of settlers by said Native Americans — which may, in fact, be the driving agenda.
From the linked article:
“Some fans of the novels say they offer an important historical perspective and should be used as teaching tools for children.”
They made the same argument about Twain’s work for the same reason; so far, he hasn’t been burned in the public square, but a lot of schools don’t assign his books either.
I suppose someday they will take out all references to communist killers because the “bad names” will hurt someone’s feelings.
I notice they never censor books about red-neck crackers or drawling Texans. But that’s okay — because I learned in my grade school that sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.
parker Says:
June 25th, 2018 at 10:24 pm
This will not end well. The left somehow believes what they seek to impose on 50% of Americans can be accomplished by twitter rants and egging on BLM and the facist antifa.
* * *
On the gripping hand, we are often told that the 3% of fighting patriots in the American Revolution imposed their will on the 97% of “independents” and Royalists.
Of course, they used guns, tar & feathers, and a lot of the same “shun & shame” tactics now in action by the left.
It’s another “first person; third person” situation, as usual.
Here is another example of a diatribe by a leftist writer where you could substitute “Josh Earnest” for “Sarah Sanders” and “Obama” for “Trump” (with a little massaging of the agenda & events) and get exactly the same POV from the other side of the mirror.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/sarah-huckabee-sanders-and-who-deserves-a-place-at-the-table
Somewhat related is the “theme bursts” discussed by Thomas Lifson recently, and analyzed here by Dyer:
https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/06/25/seeding-the-news-we-need-a-new-word-for-the-phenomenon-of-creating-media-echo-chambers/
She agrees with Lifson that there is no “conspiracy” in the usual sense of the word, but not with Lifson’s conclusion that we are only dealing with an uncoordinated movement by people with the same POV.
Dyer points out that the news stories come too closely together in time, have too much of the same wording, and (an interesting point) give the same basic story and then chime in with “new details” (which I was actually noticing last week about some of the immigration pieces).
It is therefore no stretch to conclude that we are dealing with “campaigns” that are carefully orchestrated, in the can before the first story hits the public, and roll out in a co-ordinated fashion as determined by the originators and others (lots of details on that).
Indeed, we are looking at an avalanche of media (dare I say the word?) collusion.
(pulled a duplicate post with slightly better grammar)
Neo: Well and truly spoken.
The only thing I can add is: Bring it on, Lefties, so you can see the intolerance of our fire and be consumed.
There won’t be a civil war over Trump, maybe some civil unrest akin to the 60’s, but no civil war. Economic conditions are still too good. Those conditions could change very quickly however.
If you want to worry, worry about what the Chinese are up to. Did anyone notice that Xi stopped in Alaska to view glaciers? He compared the state to Shangri La.
The Chinese government released no explanation for the stop in Alaska, but the country has been frank about its interest in Arctic affairs and the region’s economic promise as melting sea ice exposes new shipping routes, fishing grounds and rich deposits of oil, gas and minerals. China is an observer nation to the Arctic Council, a diplomatic body chaired by the United States until next month, when Finland takes over the rotating chairmanship.
https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/2017/04/07/chinese-president-makes-surprise-visit-to-alaska-following-summit-with-trump/
That was in April after Xi and Trump became buddies in Mara Lago.
This is today:
EIELSON AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska (Reuters) – The United States needs to “up its game” in the Arctic and deal with an increasingly important and developing part of the world, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Monday, as a warming Arctic opens up new sea lanes and oil and minerals reserves.
“Certainly America’s got to up its game in the Arctic. There’s no doubt about that,” Mattis told reporters in Alaska before leaving on an Asia trip.
Mattis said part of that would be an increased coast guard presence.
China’s increasing prominence in the region has prompted concerns from Arctic states over its long-term strategic objectives, including possible military deployment.
http://www.businessinsider.com/r-americas-got-to-up-its-game-in-the-arctic-mattis-2018-6?r=UK&IR=T
I’m sorry, but I just can’t get myself worked up over a few loudmouth leftists, and some restaurant owner who refused service to Trump’s press secretary. At least the Red Hen owner didn’t stand on her religious beliefs when she escorted Sarah Sanders to the door, nor arm the help with ax handles.
Well, that didn’t take long.
Looks like someone took up Maxine Waters’ invitation.
Remember: yelling “fire” in a crowded theater is a hate crime.
https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/06/25/dhs-tells-staffers-keep-doors-and-windows-locked-after-burned-animal-carcass-left-on-officials-porch/
(source is a WaPo article, which is behind a pay wall)
“I just can’t get myself worked up over a few loudmouth leftists, and some restaurant owner who refused service to Trump’s press secretary. ”
How about Steve Scalise?
Pelosi is still blaming it all on Trump
Jeff Dunetz is not happy with the Hitler references, and specifically mentions the inappropriate immigration analogies here:
https://lidblog.com/appropriate-nazi-references-modern-politics/
“When my daughter was young, we were visiting the home of my wife’s aunt who is also an Auschwitz survivor. I remember my daughter staring at the numbers tattooed her aunt’s arm until she finally asked why she wrote on her arm.
Hitler chose that method of identifying the Jews because tattooing is prohibited in the Jewish faith (he didn’t realize that people couldn’t be punished for forced tattooing). Either way, if Trump doesn’t force those separated children to tattoo numbers on their arms, then he probably isn’t Hitler.
In fact, Donald Trump never wrote a book about a future genocide like Mein Kampf, never forced people to put tattoos on their arms, or crowd them into death camps where they would suffer torture till they were gassed, shot, thrown in ice water, or died some other horrible death. Nor do those centers housing illegal immigrant children run brutal “experiments” on twins. Trump never ordered the mutilation of corpses by taking out gold teeth, prosthetic limbs, etc., anything that could be reused. And he never had bodies thrown in mass graves or crematoria.
Since Trump never did any of that, nor are children tortured where they are housed, any comparisons to the horrors of Nazi Germany are not only absurd but also, they are an insult to those who perished or survived the Holocaust, and even to those of the “Greatest Generation” who fought to rid the world of this evil.”
On the counter-productive tactics of the Left, which never saw a compromise it wouldn’t spurn because the “cause” is never the real agenda, here is how President Trump has responded to their increased griping after he “caved” (per some of the right-wing) and gave them everything they wanted in his EO on immigration.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-trump/trump-calls-for-deporting-illegal-immigrants-with-no-judges-or-court-cases-idUSKBN1JK0OL
At the risk of sounding like a sycophant, this post is both brilliant and timely. The Orwell essay is spot on. I’ll use it early and often with friends. It captures this moment.
I’m a new visitor here, but I’ll be back regularly. For what it’s worth, I’m a lifelong leftist who became a conservative while living in Europe and watching the aftermath of Merkel’s decisions in August 2015.
I’m with Orwell on the left not knowing that the fire they are playing with is hot. Just like Orwell said they are soft middle class living in an ideological bubble. He is also correct that Marxism functions like a religion. I would add – but without the depth of a religion. Marxism is all righteousness and no humility. It is psychologically naive – projecting all evil on the other. DNW above points precisely to the problem in his account of his relative bing trapped in a ‘resentment loop’. And DNW exhibits the normal reaction by feeling sorry for someone caught in that kind of obsession. My sense is that it would be very good if the Republicans retain the house in November so that the left is not encouraged in its fantasies. That is has to question itself before it gets back in power. But perhaps it would be better if they live out their impeachment fantasy only to see Trump reelected in 2020. What will happen is far from clear, but I think it is a contest between who will turn off more swing voters – Trump or the left.
FOAF:
What about Steve Scalise?
What about all those leftist marches, sit-ins, and bombings in the 60s that didn’t lead to civil war? What about those assassinations of MLK and Bobby Kennedy that didn’t lead to civil war? If you weren’t around then, here is a picture:
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/pacificaviet/sfdemonstration.jpg
NO CIVIL WAR!
What exactly would it take? The left in power, nationwide, gun confiscation, and a depression like the 1930s. Then maybe we can talk.
Interesting. Would Huck make up a story like this? Is someone trolling? If it did happen, why isn’t the MSM talking about it? Do I really need a sarc tag?
https://pjmedia.com/trending/mike-huckabee-red-hen-owner-followed-sanders-party-to-another-restaurant-and-organized-protest/#comment-3960773944
https://pjmedia.com/trending/how-to-go-out-in-public-as-a-trump-supporter/#comment-3960793756
Except the title is misleading: it’s about how to go out in public and not be attacked as a Trump supporter.
It’s not from The Onion, but it could have been.
Per The Other Chuck, “… I just can’t get myself worked up over a few loudmouth leftists, and some restaurant owner who refused service to Trump’s press secretary. At least the Red Hen owner didn’t stand on her religious beliefs when she escorted Sarah Sanders to the door …”
But, STILL: we now have the precedent that IT DOESN’T MATTER if you don’t want to “bake the cake” — or if you don’t want to serve a meal to a member of This Heinous Administration Which Is Evil As The Nazis. Seems to me it’s been decided that if you are an establishment serving the public, YOU *MUST* SERVE *ALL* THE PUBLIC. Sarah H Sanders should sue the Red Hen Restaurant!!!
As Kurt Schlicter said, “The Leftists aren’t going to like the new rules they’re making, when those new rules come back around to bite them”.
The Other Chuck
As you know US in the 1960’s was completely different than it is now , demographically, culturally and in every meaningful way
90% White Christian Industrial Age America is not the same as a Post Industrial Multicult and you can’t assume the population will respond the same way
Also we had a mini civil war in the 1970’s called the Days of Rage, I don’t want a repeat of that especially as unlike in that period, the Right is a lot more eager to fight and with good reason
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/the-tale-of-sarah-sanders-and-the-red-hen?utm_campaign=wex_widget&utm_source=weeklystandard.com&utm_medium=wex_widget
“Ana Navarro, a conservative-turned-full-time-Trump-hater, argued that anyone who would “defend baker’s right to refuse service to gay couples” ought not to “whine” about people “refusing service to a person who’s the face of a deceitful administration. What’s good for the goose, is good for the Red Hen.”
But the analogy is inapt to the point of casuistry. Social liberals’ inability or refusal to see the difference is telling. Refusing to serve someone as an equal because of who he or she is is wholly different in kind from refusing to provide specialized services tailored to an event that in good conscience you find objectionable.
…
The tale of the Red Hen is, in contrast, one of outright discrimination. It could have been analagous to the cases that went to the Surpreme Court only if, for example, the White House wanted to book a special dinner to celebrate “Sarah Sanders’ brave role in serving the American people.” If a restaurant owner objected, and thus refused to be implicated in such an event, that would be a matter of conscience.
Sanders, however, was there simply to have dinner. She was asking to be treated the same way as every other customer. Serving her dinner would not have expressed agreement or acceptance of her work. It would simply have been selling her the restaurant’s goods and services, the way it does to everyone else. Nobody was being asked to endorse or participate in anything Sanders was doing.
… The distinction made by most people between refusing to serve the person and refusing to participate in his activity is not one made broadly on the Left. The notion of a human as a human, separated from his or her politics, is not one that today’s revved-up Left tolerates. You are your politics.
The personal is political, as they say, so the Left cannot accept the argument of the florist and the baker. They cannot accept the distinction between Sanders, a woman who wanted a meal, and Sanders, the spokeswoman whose boss they detest.
If the distinction between a person’s humanity and her politics is destroyed further, we will find it hard to maintain civic peace. That priceless commodity is already battered and derided. It is in the nation’s profound interest to preserve it and to repudiate the intolerance of those who seek to destroy it.”
A reminder about what Real Nazis were doing:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fab874741ca31da7870f1b31ae5b3a3cf7d66efd2d1edb8ba4b6de9caabfa3c7.jpg
Caption: You don’t need guns, they said. Then they said, Board the train.
What about all those leftist marches, sit-ins, and bombings in the 60s that didn’t lead to civil war? What about those assassinations of MLK and Bobby Kennedy that didn’t lead to civil war?
The Other Chuck: You make a good point. It’s all but forgotten that the terrorist fringes of the New Left, such as the Weather Underground, exploded literally thousands of bombs during the seventies.
In a single eighteen-month period during 1971 and 1972 the FBI counted an amazing 2,500 bombings on American soil, almost five a day. Because they were typically detonated late at night, few caused serious injury, leading to a kind of grudging public acceptance.
–http://time.com/4501670/bombings-of-america-burrough/
I am dismayed by the current self-righteous viciousness of Democrats and the left, but we’ve got a ways to go before civil war IMO.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders is probably the safest person in the world right now, I have no doubt that democrats have deployed a large number of secret agents to secretly protecting her ensuring her safety, anything happens to her Democrats will lose in November. What worries me is democrats manufacturing something such as hiring some fake hitmen or inciting some crazies to fake a hit on some prominent democrats to blame the republicans, we saw that happening during the brexit referendum.
While Obama was president, I worried he would be assassinated. It would have been one of the worst possibilities.
No matter how it happened, Obama would become St. Obama, the Right would be blamed, and the Left would lose their minds.
Like JFK.
Professor Bret Weinstein commenting about his experience at Evergreen State College noted:
Intersectionality is not viewed as a religion by its adherents, but it often does seem to function as one, giving them purpose, a conversion experience, a sense of right and wrong, even the original sin of privilege.
On a lighter note, this is not something unique to our present time. Al Capp created the acronym SWINE – Students Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything in the 1960’s.
“They can swallow totalitarianism because they have no experience of anything except liberalism.”
No experience of reality is the key issue.
The accepted bombings in the USA were, to a big extent, to stop the USA from winning in Vietnam — and, after winning the war in the 1973 Paris Peace, to lose the peace to the commies in 1975 (after Dems win the House in 1974).
US Democrats are ok with genocide, and most of them, like J. Kerry, actually supported the US not fighting against commies in SE Asia in 1975. Meaning he, and most older Dems, accepted Cambodian Killing Field genocide (25% of the people). The worst human rights abuse in my life (most of the killing done while Dem Jimmy Carter was President).
The Dem PC bullies will continue to increase their bullying, insulting, protesting, harassing — and more violence.
The PC bully goal is to provoke Rep counter-violence, so they can claim to be victims, and paint all Reps as Nazis / KKK evil violent people.
Charlottesville is their preferred outcome — they provoke counter violence so they have a martyr and more justification to claim victimhood.
What to do?
Sanders should sue the Red Hen. Bullies win when they get what they want, with no consequences.
Vouchers for K-12 all schools throughout the country; help create more parent-controlled schools.
Increase support for on-line colleges & accreditation for on-line degrees.
New taxes on excess compensation for non-profit and not-for-profit orgs >> the leaders shouldn’t be working for money, and if they’re getting more than the median (~$60k/year?), they’re likely a bit overpaid.
New taxes on excess endowment of the most endowed Universities (Harvard, Stanford, Princeton) — if they’re not increasing their enrollment, their excess endowment isn’t being used well. Better if the gov’t takes it to reduce the deficit/ maybe have some tax credit reduction of education loans.
More Trump on Twitter, and more other Rep gov’t folk on Twitter and/or gab.ai or other less censored platforms. It would be good to have more Breitbart news, and alternative to Dem mainstream often-fake news.
The logic of his post collapses on itself.
The Left is advocating going down a road that has an excellent chance of ushering in Communism. This road is justified by the spectra of Fascism, or so the Left tells us.
But the road chosen more or less parallels the road chosen by the Right. Judging from the Maxine Waters incident, this includes vague-threats of mob-violence coupled with a vigorous exercise of property-rights to exclude would-be totalitarians.
The Leader of the Republican Party has gone down this road over and over again. I’ll provide cites if anyone needs them. He and his lawyer have also used Nazi analogies to attack Law Enforcement. (Again, I’ll provide cites upon request).
So if this is the road to Communism, then hasn’t Neo just made the case that the Trump Admin has chosen a path that has an excellent chance of ending in Communism’s non-human-face equivalent?
Manju, you crazy.
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Manju: So if Trump says things which upset the Left and the Left goes communist, then it’s Trump who ushered in communism?
I often can’t figure out your comments, other than you are disagreeing with neo or another commenter.
Perhaps you should include cites to give concrete clues. Also it might be handy to quote the passage you are concerned with or paraphrase what you think the other person said.
Arguably it was the militant demonstrators who elected Nixon to a narrow win over Humphrey in 1968 after the debacle at the Chicago convention. Nixon’s landslide victory in 1972 was a similar story.
Americans were tired of the Vietnam War but even more concerned the country was coming apart.
Assuming there is no civil war, I’d say the Left’s craziness will redound to Trump’s favor and I suspect Trump knows it.
Overall Americans don’t favor the radical progressive agenda which Democrats are now wedded to. They didn’t like it during the Obama years either, when they stripped away Democratic control of Congress and even more at the state and local levels.
The Deep State will determine when Civil War 2 happens, usually by their US disarmament programs. The Leftist alliance doesn’t decide what to have for breakfast.
In the 1960s, they failed to achieve power with bombs so they achieved power by hijacking institutions and the Gramsci march. Why would anyone waste time on a war when they can get the same thing via diplomacy and threats.
In the 1960s, most youth was neutral or divided over Vietnam only because of the draft. Without the draft, people calmed down. Now a days, the Leftist mind control of youth generation is much stronger. In Cuba, only 2 social tiers was needed for revolution: the poor and the rich.
What people never learned about war in their Western indoctrination degrees, is that wars are fought for strategic reasons not merely ideological. A revolution is fought for political and ideological reasons. The Left has ideological reasons, they merely need a more practical reason to disarm America and put people in concentration camps. To that extent, FDR and Wilson showed them how it was done.
When America is attacked… then you will see what happens to the “nationalists” who will now become the pawns.
The fanaticism of the Red Guards, and the scope and fury of their roving orgy of denunciations, struggle sessions, beatings, public humiliation, torture, and killings is hard for us to imagine.
Rare reports coming out of China have even noted that the hysterical orgy of violence and destruction that was China’s Great Proletarian Revolution included incidents of cannibalism taking place.
And yet somehow when America was attacked on 9/11/01 the Deep State did not put “nationals” and non-nationals into concentration camps. And of course American internment camps of FDR didn’t quite have levels of death and misery of the concentration camps pioneered by Great Brittian during the Boer War. Or for an American example, of Andersonville during our Civil War.
It is all so simple, except when it isn’t.
Several commenters have observed that things are getting bad, hence we should fear the possibility of civil war or revolution breaking out.
In fact, things appear to me to be getting better — lower unemployment, a generally improved economy, etc. Which makes me worry more — not less — about the possibility of revolution or civil war.
A sociologist by the name of James Chowning Davis proposed in the sixties a somewhat counter-intuitive theory of the cause of revolution: the J-curve theory of revolution.
Wikipedia defines it: “the so-called “J curve” theory of political revolutions, . . . seeks to explain the rise of revolutionary movements in terms of rising individual expectations and falling levels of perceived well-being.”
I remember studying it at the time and thinking “well we don’t have to worry about that,” because things weren’t getting better.
Now, however, it seems to me we are at at point where this could indeed be operative.
We live in interesting times.
If the authorities were to crack down now on this political shaming, threats, intimidation, and violence, for instance, by making serious efforts to track down, indict, and prosecute both members of violent organizations like ANTIFA, who have committed acts of violence, and individual actors—for instance, prosecuting Congresswoman Maxine Waters for “inciting to riot”—or those who have made violent threats on line–they might be able to tamp this increasing violence down.*
However, it looks like they won’t.
Either because some of these authorities are actually sympathetic to the Leftist ideology of the rioters and find their threats and violence somehow justified, or, because they are afraid that by cracking down now they will further enrage the Left, give it rallying points and more justifications for it’s violence, actually aiding in ratcheting up the violence.
Yet, if the authorities take rather small steps now, they could avoid having to take much harsher steps later, when this violence very likely escalates.
* P.S.–While, under the “speech and debate” provisions of the Constitution, members of Congress are immune to prosecution or suit for anything they say on the floors of Congress, they do not have that same protection for anything they say outside of the halls of Congress.
There was a good novel Tor pulled from a Chinese author recently: Three Body Problem. It gave a rather stark view of how the Red Guards were misled and how the daughters turned against their intellectual fathers for thought crime. I look at the US and it is trying to be more Mao than China is. Is that not ironic. More Marxist than the Russians even.
In fact, things appear to me to be getting better — lower unemployment, a generally improved economy, etc.
Cuba and Iran’s economy was quite better before the REvolution than after. The point of a Revolution is not to make things better. People were never taught that.
It is precisely the delusion that because yesterday was better than 10 days ago, and today better than yesterday, that Castro got the con in against these human marks.
Long term strategic analysis is not something I notice amongst Normals.
“…in terms of rising individual expectations and falling levels of perceived well-being.”
Interesting.
If I’ve understood this correctly, it is precisely in the interest of the Democrats (the opposition/”resistance”) to make it appear as though things are getting worse, or are about to get worse.
Or to actively MAKE things worse than they are.
For political gain (at least as they perceive it).
And so we see the consistently pathetic prognostications of Paul Krugman. We have the fervent hopes expressed by Left-wing pundits that the economy go south as quickly as possible. We witness the total dismissal of Trump’s diplomatic efforts (whether vis a vis N. Korea or I/P).
We witness the turning a blind eye to ANTIFA, the glorification of BLM, the relative ignoring of the Scalise shooting, etc.
This together with a tsunami of fake news on any and every topic (e.g., Trump is flat out wrong to claim that there are “no-go” zones in Sweden or other parts of Europe; or he’s totally wrong about protectionist policies in Canada).
And combined with the need to extol Obama’s extraordinary “achievements” (whether they be ObamaCare(!), the economy(!!) or foreign policy (!!!)).
All the while, ignoring the extraordinary scandals and illegalities that peppered (or rather characterized) his “no-scandal”, “most transparent” administration.
So yes, the Democrats, believing they wuz robbed (that they had to have been robbed—there’s no other possible explanation), believe firmly, even religiously, that Trump and those who support him must be torn down, shunned, ostracized, attacked, ripped to shreds.
By any means necessary.
For the good of the country(!).
At the same time, the more hysterical the Left becomes, the more they risk being seen through by more and more of the “decent middle”.
This is what has begun to happen, though to what extent is anyone’s guess.
The delusion is predicated upon the logic that given continuing trends and social actions, progress will continue. While that is true in so far as no new data or changes are introduced, a revolution is such a dramatic change that it would break the trend itself. Whatever led previous generations of Americans to success, won’t be allowed in a revolution. And the revolution usually precedes or causes the open conflicts later on.
It is a version of Karasu or counting crows. 99 counted crows are black. Thus all crows are black.
Thus this isn’t a crow. https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Crow+White&FORM=IRIBIP
It’s a fake crow, and anyone who says it is a crow needs to be ostracized and treated as a crackpot flake that needs less whiteness.
Humans believe they use logic but it is merely often times a form of rationalization. They want to believe what they want to believe.
A significant number of geniuses have the size of human brains, thus the only animal able to match human intellect must be those with bigger brains. Except crows are smarter than some humans. There goes that “continuing trend” where everything must be better in the future because it was better in the past. That’s not a cycle.
I’ve heard revolutions happen when things start to get alittle better. Then people get ideas that maybe things could and should get a lot better.
However, if people are kept ground down, as in North Korea, they will stay down.
Of course, what happens after the revolution is another matter. If it’s a hard left revolution, things get worse.
I’ve sometimes wondered if the American Revolution was a proper revolution or if it needs another name.
At some point, if more, and more extreme Leftist violence starts to occur, and things really start to get out of hand, and the police are not willing or even able to tamp things down, it’s not going to be the police that are going to be relied on, it’s going to be the military, as has been done in the past–and, despite the damage that Obama tried to do, they are no fans of the Left.
Victor Davis Hanson with some sane-sounding “push-back” on the immigration issue:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/mexico-what-went-wrong-economy-based-on-exporting-poor-people/
Problem, though, is that one person’s sanity is, for another, “fascism”.
(Or in other words, one person’s “reasonable need to defend, maintain and strengthen” is another’s “moral imperative to destroy”.)
IMO, this unrest and violence is the beginning of a reprise of the1960s and 70s. For those who don’t remember those days, let me tell you they were violent. Massive college protests, burning of buildings, the Manson murders, the Zebra killings, attacks on police, bombings of federal facilities, the Kent State shootings, and much more. It was a chaotic time. I remember flying over Baltimore and Los Angeles as they burned. I remember lay overs in hotels with police patrolling the lobbies with German Shepherds and sub machine guns. I remember avoiding being beaten by a gang of black thugs in Chicago. It was a violent time. Quite a bit of blood was shed, along with destruction of property before the passions died down. It was mostly fueled by resentment against the Federal Government and racial animus. Most of the violence came from the left. It took cracking down hard and the deaths of a number of leftist activists/revolutionaries before it ended. When people begin to die in some numbers, cooler heads will prevail. But, IMO, this is just beginning. My guess is that we have a few more years of thuggishness and violence by the left before sanity returns.
. It took cracking down hard and the deaths of a number of leftist activists/revolutionaries before it ended.
Killing people works. Just look at Pinochet, Mao, Stalin, etc.
But Americans tend to think of it as being a warmonger or jingoist. Very short sighted.
The New Wave or New Guard Leftists in 1960s paved the way for Leftist power now. Alinsky to Clinton/Ayers, and Ayers to Hussein, your X US President, Obamaca.
The precursor stress fractures in the first US Civil War didn’t start in 1850 or 1860 or 1861 or due to Lincoln’s elections. It started even before 1830. Count the number of decades between 1960s and now.
Americans can’t comprehend the paradigm surrounding the next civil war because they never understood the first one.
I have to digest all of the morning’s comments while I get some work done today, but two points in passing:
Yes, the 60s and 70s were bad, and we didn’t devolve into full-on civil war, but back then we still had a majority of the population who still believed in civil society; the illegal population was much smaller, for various reasons; we didn’t have Islamic terrorists in the mix; and we have now had 50 years of increased animosity from both sides.
Invoking the Steyn Maxim (which has been paraphrased above): when you drive reasonable people out of the public discourse (and what else are the recent leftists tactics doing?), the only people left are the unreasonable ones.
That never ends well.
On revolutions: my graduate degree is in political science, and I have read a good deal of history, and the conclusion holds up: significant revolutions occur when the pressure on the peons is eased, and then it is clamped down again, or when rising expectations (usually economic, sometimes political) are disappointed.
Iran is about to become a case in point.
On The Red Hen: you have probably seen Pres. Trump’s tweet about the restaurant’s cleanliness, and he accidentally is correct (I sincerely doubt he sent anyone to look up their inspection reports, although it could have happened). Most of the problems stem from their niche as trendy-foodie, but the lack of regular inspections is not a good sign.
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2018/06/red-hens-clean-but-some-inspection-reports-a-bit-curious/#.WzJbSadKhPY
As the commenter there said:
Nuncle Lear • 8 hours ago
Sounds like Saunders may’ve been fortunate to have been asked to leave. (sic)
JJ:
The beginning of a return to the violence of the 60s and 70s is probably correct. We’ll see how much further this goes, but I certainly hope it simmers down.
On revolutions: my graduate degree is in political science, and I have read a good deal of history, and the conclusion holds up: significant revolutions occur when the pressure on the peons is eased, and then it is clamped down again, or when rising expectations (usually economic, sometimes political) are disappointed.
AesopFan: Thanks!
Snow on Pine suggests that major unrest will be quelled either by the police or the military. Under Trump I suppose that would be true.
But recall that Obama promised in 2008 that he would create a “civilian national security force” equal in size and funding to the U.S. military. There were a variety of guesses as to the meaning of that statement. I presumed that the correct one was the myriad of federal agencies that have heavily armed sections within them.
The most obvious example of this was the armed stand-off between Cliven Bundy and supporters, and the armed agents of the BLM. But did you know the Social Security dept. has an armed branch? And many others.
More to Snow’s point, the U.S. military has required all its members to swear an oath of allegiance to the constitution. It used to pledge a defense of the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. Under Obama, the words “and domestic” were deleted.
I used to naively think that posse comitatus was a clause in the constitution, but it’s just a federal statute and easily revocable.
manju’s willfully dishonest and pathetically stupid comment blaming Republicans for leftist violence reminds me of a drooling halfwit I once encountered on the Internet who denied blame for Stalin’s mass murders by calling communism “state capitalism”.
The problem here is that the Deep State actors at the FBI, DOJ and elsewhere in the government, plus the MSM. members of the former Obama Administration and their allies in Congress—both Democrat and Republican—are not cooperating with the current Trump Administration, and Committees of Congress, are obstructing, stonewalling, and defying them.
It is also obvious that Attorney General Sessions has been neutered. Either he only pretended to be on Trump’s side and willing to carry out his agenda and orders or, the Deep State has something very powerful on him that renders him powerless.
Why doesn’t Trump fire and replace the lot of them, why doesn’t he declassify all of the documents that the DOJ/and the FBI refuse to give to Congress on various pretexts, and order them put out on the Internet for all to see?
What exactly is going on behind the scenes, and what are the considerations and constraints that are preventing Trump from taking these and other decisive and curative actions?
What exactly is going on behind the scenes, and what are the considerations and constraints that are preventing Trump from taking these and other decisive and curative actions?
Snow on Pine: It is to wonder. I know I certainly have.
Manju, you’re calling Trump “the Leader of the Republican Party,” which is technically true of a sitting president – by default that person leads the party s/he represented in the election. But of course the Republican establishment doesn’t accept him as such, and his staunchest supporters don’t want to tar him with that brush. Furthermore, the presidency is the only Republican leadership position he’s ever held. Waters, OTOH, really is a senior leader in the Democrat party. So your analogy falls down.
And you might go back through even just recent history and see who calls whom “Nazi” the most. (By “the most,” I mean “pretty much exclusively.”) You might also take note of which side of the aisle calls for #resistance (because a hashtag means you’re serious!) whenever it loses a political point or election, and which side, while obviously unhappy about such an outcome, instead redoubles its calls to win elections and influence public policy by working within the system – a system that has proven itself to be stable and flexible and respectful, generally, of individual rights.
Tommy Jay–Luckily Dear Leader Obama’s unscripted eruption of the wish from deep within his psyche for a “National Civilian Security Force,” one of equal size and budget to our military, never came to fruition.
But you are right, a surprising number of government agencies and entities that you would think could not justify having them have, over the years, acquired their own armed agents and police forces.
It also appears that having these myriad agencies buy tons of small arms ammunition was also a backdoor attempt by the Obama administration at a little gun control i.e. ordering so much small arms ammunition drew down the supply of such ammunition available to the civilian market, while simultaneously driving up prices to civilians for what was left.
Congress should make a concerted effort to disarm most of these agencies, and to transfer their armaments and ammunition stocks to the military, or direct them to be sold on the civilian market.
and the conclusion holds up: significant revolutions occur when the pressure on the peons is eased,
They are missing the details.
There are 3 general classes of people, and selective data massaging of one class is insufficient to look at the overall conclusion.
…the U.S. military has required all its members to swear an oath of allegiance to the constitution. It used to pledge a defense of the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. Under Obama, the words “and domestic” were deleted.
On the U.S. Army website, it shows the words “and domestic” are still in the oath.
“and domestic”
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2018/06/25/heres_one_unverified_leak_the_feds_wont_make_about_loretta_lynch_.html
Manju, as usual, thinks he is being slick, in this case by conflating Comey, Strozk, Page, Ohr, et al, with law enforcement. The IG Report shows that the people at the top actually have no idea what law enforcement means, at least when it gets in the way of their politics.
Trump got the endorsement of the Fraternal Order of Police. Anyone who’s lived on the East Coast knows how important the FOP has been to the Democrats. And he won the endorsement of the Border Patrol Officers Union — a government employee union!
On the subject of a potential civil war II, I point out that, as Max Weber wrote, organization beats everything. If it ever comes to that, we’d better get organized — they certainly are! I suppose that’s why in coups and revolutions, the plotters or revolutionaries always seize the radio (and now tv, soon to be the internet) stations first.
F — possibly the most erroneous idea Marx ever introduced was that economics was the major motivation for human behavior. Not so: is the Red Hen better off for turning out a party of eight? Were segregationists better off for only serving half the population? Why do members of my tribe “Live like Episcopalians and vote like Puerto Ricans?”
If there is one thing you can say about human behavior, it’s that economics plays a very small role in it.
Civil war? We’re already in one. Antifa produced the initial skirmishes.
David Horowitz published a letter he had sent to his old Communist mentor, Ralph Miliband. From footnote 2:
“At the core of Marxist politics, there is the notion of conflict [as]…civil war conducted by other means. [Social conflict] is not a matter of ‘problems’ to be ‘solved’ but of a state of domination and subjection to be ended by a total transformation of the conditions which give rise to it.” Ralph Miliband, Marxism and Politics, Oxford 1977, p. 17
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/207161/road-nowhere-david-horowitz#_ftn2
“…a total transformation…”
Precisely (and a fascinating formulation—a coincidence, perhaps?)….
Yes indeed: transform, baby, transform!!
Here’s VDH from Oct. 2013:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2013/10/obama-transforming-america-victor-davis-hanson/
Nate Whilk Says:
June 26th, 2018 at 9:22 pm
Civil war? We’re already in one. Antifa produced the initial skirmishes.
David Horowitz published a letter he had sent to his old Communist mentor, Ralph Miliband. From footnote 2:
* * *
Fascinating article; thanks – too bad more socialists don’t listen to Horowitz and their other disillusioned (“woke”?) dissenters.
Snow on Pine Says:
June 26th, 2018 at 10:10 am
…
Yet, if the authorities take rather small steps now, they could avoid having to take much harsher steps later, when this violence very likely escalates.
* * *
Although the “hands-off” non-policing of leftist violence is indeed appalling (and has been going on for decades now), the authorities stepping too early in to forestall “bad things” is just as dangerous, as the recent court cases demonstrate.
As usual, rational people can’t win either way.
It’s a good letter. In it, Horowitz puts paid to the propaganda peddled by socialist polemicists, that Marxism somehow sprang out of the researches of Das Kapital, like an empirical conclusion, or at least a proposition logically entailed.
Instead it was a quasi-philosophical vision that much predated it. An anti-metaphysical metaphysical dogma and “Promethean” anthropological fantasy developed by the young Marx, and which was developed first, as the “Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts” demonstrate.
The only important concept which occurs to me that is later, is strident dialectical materialism in its most developed form; and that is often denied by Marxian fanboys as pure Marx, and laid at the feet of Engels.
Horowitz:
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Sharon W Says:
June 26th, 2018 at 7:30 pm
“The Supreme Court was instituted to protect the natural rights of the minority.” Doug Purdie
No it wasn’t. It was to protect the Republic as detailed in the Constitution.
* * *
In fairness to Doug, one could make the connection that the SCOTUS protects the Constitution, the Constitution contains the Bill of Rights, and the BoR is most often used to protect a minority (because the majority POV doesn’t need protection).
DNW:
Shorter version of Horowitz: We always found a way to justify our power lust.
“We always found a way to justify our power lust.”
Indeed.
See the comment I just posted on the Kennedy thread.
The Civil War is already being fought in the Senate and the courts.
As for “when” the tipping point into full-out war might come, and the hope that it is a long way off still, this suggests that it already happened.
http://www.neoneocon.com/2018/06/27/justice-kennedy-those-retirement-rumors-turn-out-to-have-been-correct/#comment-2390585
Thoughts on the coming hot civil war, from someone who knows what Leftist despotism really looks like.
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2018/06/27/strange-days/
“Unfortunately this has created their isolation. You see, every song, every movie, ever history book, every fictional book, assures them they’ll win. They know that “the people united shall never be defeated.” They also know that though held back by patriarchy, racism, sexism and all the micro aggressions, the people really are with them. HAVE TO BE, because they’re ideology of the future, and history’s arrow points to their paradise. Every book, movie, etc. says so either subtly or openly. So they KNOW. Everybody knows.
Only lately they’ve been suffering injuries to their world view. It started with Trump’s election. Or rather it didn’t, but that was the one strong enough to hit them in the face. The rest hadn’t made it past the faith.
They’ve tried to deny it and invalidate it by every means possible. The crazy Russia thing is more an attempt to restore their certainty and peace of mind than anything else.
But reality keeps hitting them in the face.
…
They’re going insane. It’s not just their dominance (and it is that too. All the celebrities went all in for Hillary and they still failed.) It’s their world view, their sanity, their certainties about the world they live in. They’re sure there’s some clever and dirty trick being pulled that makes their stuff not work and the “stupid” non Marxist stuff work. There has to be. Otherwise they’d be wrong.
…
Now it looks like the two sides have had enough of talking and that “the blood on the streets” will be impossible to avoid.
Will our side win? Possibly. Even likely, given that we have most veterans with us. Will it be a good thing?
At this point the world of Starship Troopers is a best case scenario after the confrontation. And it wasn’t … precisely… a free world. Stable sure, but not the same way we’ve enjoyed it the last hundred years or so.
The worst case scenario looks like all those things that the left keeps accusing us of being:a world in which what you can do, think and be is determined by your circumstances at birth. A world in which the eccentric, the Odd, the creative is very hemmed in. A world none of us wants.
And possibly the most likely one, since the people who will get at the head of the movement have a good chance of being types attracted to absolute power, and also, frankly, not only they but us (those who survive) will emerge on the other side of this will be — justifiably — suspicious of the left and every cause and group they championed and sanctified. And we’ll be angry. Really angry. Blinding fury doesn’t begin to describe it.
In this moment of silence, before we all go over the trench and the shooting starts, there’s time to stop. My inner sensors tell me the conflagration is somewhere between two months and a year away (it’s unlikely to happen in winter. But it could surprise me. My guess is if their blue wave fizzles, they’ll go truly, bizarrely insane.)
There’s still time to turn back, to re-examine assumptions, to realize that maybe they don’t have the mass of the people with them, and that this will end badly for everyone, but particularly for them.
But of course, I can’t reach them, and the ones who do skim this blog only do it till offended.
So, here we are. It could go off any minute. Do we have any real coffee left, not that chicory stuff? And does anyone want a last cigarette?
I can hear the cannons in the distance.”
Aesop, read what Brigham Young and Joseph Smith wrote about the future war and South Carolina in the US.
See what I did there.
There are a lot of people predicting that the Left/Democrat’s calls for angry, in your face confrontation of Trump’s cabinet and Administration members and Trump supporters will eventually lead to serious violence, as someone in Trump’s Administration or family circle, in Congress or, more likely, a much less well protected average government employee, Trump supporter or supporters will get seriously hurt or killed.
Note, too, that this rising tide of calls for and actual political violence has been met with little if any attempt to tamp it down, and to identify and punish those responsible by our police/political/judicial “authorities.”
Thus, it looks like—unchecked—this incipient violence is going to just keep rolling along and building in intensity.
(When the almost inevitable attack happens, you can be sure that the Democrats and their MSM will try to their best to minimize this violent incident, and to almost immediately shove it down the memory hole, a la the very deliberate attempted assassination, by a Bernie supporter, of several Republican Members of Congress that almost killed and severely injured Congressman Steve Scalese a year ago.)
Quite likely, after this ‘triggering” event, unchecked copycat political violence by the Left will get more and more common and widespread, eventually leading to a violent reaction by someone on the Right that will be played up by the Left and the MSM and—there you go—incipient Civil War.
Unfortunately, I think that these predictions are all too plausible.
Just stand back and think a minute:
We have politicians on the Left trying their best to divide our country—the “rub(bing) raw of the wounds of discontent”—the manipulation of people that Saul Alinsky saw as the way to seize and accumulate political power.
We have massive influxes—one might well call it a slow motion invasion—by illegal aliens—many hundreds of thousands each year, most from Mexico, Central and South America, where political violence is very commonplace.
Leftist politicians and activists deliberately trying to destroy the absolutely essential social cohesion of our country by re-instituting the ethnic, linguistic, and cultural chauvinism and tribalism that our traditional “Iron Triangle” melting pot system of School-Church-Family used to dissolve, turning immigrants into Americans,
Leftists trying very successfully to pit each group—divided up by race, or sex or sexuality, or ethnicity, or culture, or state of residence or place of birth, or language, or religion, or income, or education, or political belief—against each other.
All this in a nation that is increasingly saturated with all the bad example normalization and incitements to violence you could want in violent movies, TV shows, video games, and other “entertainment” and now, increasingly, on the Internet.
Added to this, we have hundreds of thousands of mentally ill street people—who used to be hospitalized—camped out on our streets and wandering around the country—and many millions more people strung out on drugs.
Along come prominent political figures, activists, commentators, and celebrities on the Left who say, it’s now OK to physically get in the face of, to harass, and try to intimidate and drive from the public square and society your political opponents and their supporters, people who those on the Left increasingly say are “outside the Pale,” are “Nazis.”
Given this scenario, what do you think is likely to happen?
The Left always lectures us about how we should not regard people who aren’t like us as alien beings, as the “Other,” outside our “Tribe,” someone who can be ignored, who can be treated as shabbily as we want, who is to be feared, and to whom anything can be done because, by definition, they are strangers, alien, they are not “us.”
Well, labeling your political opponents as “Nazis” is about as successful an “otherization” as you can pull off.
As Tucker Carlson pointed out on his show the other night, if you convince yourself that your opponents really are ”Nazis,” just like WWII Nazis, and thus outside the norms of the “civilized world,” are, in fact, dedicated to destroying that ”civilized world” all it’s norms and, ultimately–if they succeed–likely you and all you hold dear, well, then, any and all tactics you might use against them—no matter how violent—would be justified and acceptable.
“Given this scenario, what do you think is likely to happen?” – Snow on Pine
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2018/jun/28/capital-gazette-shooting-annapolis-latest-live-news-updates-today-maryland
We will have to see what they find out about the shooter and his motives, but it could just as easily be another Scalise case as not. From either side.
Just for closure, the Annapolis case seems to be a non-political personal vendetta.
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