Let us understand that the attack on the capitol, while it included many tourists, included some very serious, coordinated people who had temporary restraints and a plan.
They genuinely believed, because they have been told this over and over and over again, that the election had been blatantly and massively stolen, and that democracy in the United States had been overthrown. As such, it was their duty to right the wrong that had been done, including taking captive those most responsible like Nancy Pelosi.
It’s hard to find general polling data, but over 50% of registered Republican voters think the attack was justified. Almost half blame Biden more than Trump. Fourty-five (to 43%) think the protest/attack was justified.
Republican support, like Democratic support, is geographically concentrated.
These numbers are more than sufficient to sustain a long term insurgency.
It’s worth understanding how insurgencies get better. Let’s take Hezbollah as an example: if as a Hezbollah member, let alone commander, you get sloppy in your security at any time, you get dead, because Israel has the best American surveillance and e-lint equipment, plus jets and drones and assassination teams.
Israel, over the years, has killed a ton of Hezbollah officials.
Hasn’t slowed Hezbollah down one bit, instead it has acted as a perfect Darwinian crucible. If you make mistakes, you get dead and probably so does your family and most of your unit.
Israel kept doing that, and now mistakes hardly ever happen. In fact, in the last Israel-Hezbollah war, Hezbollah won the e-lint war (against American equipment, remember) and won the ground-battles. Over decades, Israel had created the perfect enemy, absolutely optimized to beat them, and arguably the best light infantry force in the world.
Nowadays Israel is scared to patrol near the Lebanese border, because Hezbollah has told them that the moment Hezbollah can, it will grab Israeli soldiers, and Israel is now the sort of society that can’t handle that. So Hezbollah has not just beaten them on the ground; electronically and in the spy-game, it has achieved psychological dominance.
Now, of course, an American right wing insurrection is not the same. Among other things, American forces will be operating in their own county, plus, this is the start, not the end.
But boobs like those who went the capitol and live-streamed the attack, those people will quickly be taken out of the picture. Even the slightly smarter, caught because the wore the same gear as in previous protests or didn’t wear masks and goggles. People who used credit cards to travel and took their phones with them. They go to nasty prisons, and they learn or drop out of active life in the resistance. Over time, security becomes tighter and tighter. People learn.
America is a big country: far, far larger than Lebanon, which is barely a postage stamp. Lots of people and lots of terrain. The security services are at least somewhat sympathetic and clearly massively infiltrated by race-warriors and other “fellow travelers” of the right.
So what seems like a distinct possibility is a low grade insurrection, combined with protests that often turn violent, by very heavily armed people. Biden will pass his Patriot Act II, even more cameras and security checks and intrusive laws and unjust nonsense like the no-fly list (which is not made good or right because it was used against right wingers) proliferate.
The US becomes even more of a police and prison state.
If this metastasizes into the next stage, well, the US is full of Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. They know how area denial works (repeat after me, IEDs) and there will be techies willing to make them drones and so on. Parts of the country become no-go zones, where the security services can only go in convoys or by air, and even then at great risk.
Far-fetched?
Perhaps. But the US has a large enough and geographically concentrated enough population who genuinely believe that the election was stolen and that it is their patriotic duty to restore democracy to sustain an insurrection. It has compromised security forces, a geography that in many places is almost made for insurrection, and a vast amount of arms spread around the population along with the knowledge and means to make more.
As usual, this sort of thing takes time to really get going and there are actions which could be taken to limit it and drain the swamp.
But understand clearly that the conditions for a long term insurrection which cannot be put down with force short of imprisoning millions of people in prison camps (or killing millions) currently exist in America.
Legitimacy, for millions of Americans, is truly and completely broken. They consider the government about to be inaugurated to one that has no right to be in power.
Update: A reader notes:
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Synoptocon
Two small challenges with the neo-Darwinism perspective: the ornately aggrieved no-necks are not Hizbullah, the US Army is not the IDF. That selective pressure on this feedstock generates mush – loud, expensive mush.
Michael Ismoe
As such, it was their duty to right the wrong that had been done, including taking captive those most responsible like Nancy Pelosi.
Do you have any proof of this statement or is this now Naked Capitalism where only the owner of the blog can make shit up?
Ian Welsh
If you first take “the election was massively stolen” then it follows that it is your duty to undo that.
This is why lies and propaganda are bad. Once you control the reality someone lives in, you can get them to do anything.
It is wise to not the jerk the knee, as well. I am warning you, and you would do well to listen.
js
How many Republicans support it is debatable, or at least what they will tell pollsters. 18% by this poll (scroll down).
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/most-americans-blame-trump-for-capitol-attack-but-are-split-on-his-removal
I mean their party had many in the House who wouldn’t confirm Biden and won’t impeach Trump, as well as some at the coup. So the party is trash. And yes Republican voter’s positions on most issues are bad, but what they think of all this who knows.
Mark Level
A right wing insurgency, added or “opposed” to—
A Right Wing government which runs the ideological gamut from “Center Right” (Hillary, Biden, etc. Neoliberal, NeoCon interventionist and Wall St. owned and controlled) v. Modern Repub. NeoConfederate/ White Supremacist, anti-China, Far Right/ QAnon?
How will that work? I thought the breakdown would make us somewhat like Bosnia? Will it be more like Cambodia and Year Zero?
Michael Ismoe
It is wise to not the jerk the knee, as well. I am warning you, and you would do well to listen.
Another egomaniac who cannot abide anyone asking where’s the evidence for the chage of kidnapping? I guess it’s time to get banned again. LOL. You should merge with NC. You have the same MO.
Ian – so, you’re one of those loathesome people who, on being banned, are such children, they keep coming back to a place they aren’t welcome?
Stirling S Newberry
I will again point out that there is a sharp difference between conservative and reactionary. One can summarize the difference between supporting democracy and not. In the West, it has been a slow evolution out of reactionary to conservative forms and at times horrific in the violence – think Holocaust. The Republican Party has drawn near to reactionary forces for a larger number of reasons.
The donks are Conservative; the phants are Reactionary.
Astrid
I’m thinking of right wing insurgencies and not coming up with much. I can think of many right wing death squads supported by the local elite with US support, but not a native insurgency like the IRA, the Communists, 19/20th century nationalists, and the Hezbollah. Left movements with sufficiently good ideology and leadership can self sustain and be anti-fragile, I can’t think of a right wing movement that can sustain it’s momentum without a lot of money and support from outside.
I could see a replay of the Nazi rise to power, with US playing the role of Deutschland. But I don’t see why any US oligarchs would support them yet. Maybe the Chinese or Russians will, or some ambitious oligarch might go for the brass ring once things are crazy enough, but I don’t think we’re there yet. Life is too good for oligarchs as is, why kill the current cushy setup when it still allows so much raking from the populace?
That’s not too say they won’t get their moment in the sun, but it might be more as warbands as things breakdown further. Or perhaps as right wing death squads if even slightly lefty politics actually take hold in this country.
Astrid
Thinking a little further, I guess Alqaeda might qualify, but it has a coherent and compelling message and oodles of Saudi money and US logistical support. So I don’t think the conditions are analogous.
Hugh
It depends on how terms are defined. To a lot of Trumpers, democracy means white folk run things. So defending democracy doesn’t mean defending majority rule or rule by the many. It means defending rule by them.
As for a right wing insurgency, Timothy McVeigh blew up the Federal building in Oklahoma City back in 1995. And he was hardly new or unknown back then to the American political scene.
Right wing terrorist is already the major source of terrorism in the US, and again has been for a long time.
Even in very red, rural states, there are urban centers , and these are much less red. Also red staters are not real big on having their family and friends getting blown up or killed for the cause.
I can see right wing terrorism increasing but there needs to be broad popular support for it, and that’s the downside of trying to run it out of the middle of nowhere. There’s no people, no popular.
Chicago Clubs
>there is a sharp difference between conservative and reactionary. One can summarize the difference between supporting democracy and not.
A conservative is just a reactionary who doesn’t think they can get away with saying so. None of them truly believe in democracy because the entire animating ethos of conservatism is that some people deserve to rule and some deserve to *be* ruled.
ella
From what I’ve seen most of the American race warriors and libertarian fanatics are not willing to die for their cause (although the Nashville bomber might indicate a change in that trend). So if there is any kind of insurgency brewing I suspect it will target the weak. By weak I mean populations that do not have enough political clout to force the state to protect them. So poor neighborhoods populated by white US’s favorite scapegoats: gays, blacks, Latinos, Native Americans.
The 3%ers and Proud Boys figured out decades ago they can fight their insurgency and get paid for it by joining police departments over the country. Hide behind the blue and get away with murder of undesirables all at the same time.
With the Republican loss in Georgia being credited to large turnout of black voters, that’s where I expect the first IEDs to be set off. If you’re white in America, you’re fine. For now.
Stirling S Newberry
“I’m thinking of right wing insurgencies and not coming up with much.”
You don’t the news then.
Mark Level
As to “conservative v. reactionary”, there may be differences in other countries, Europe say, but not, during this century, in the US Ruling class.
The Dem’s (“conservative not reactionary”) now venerate the National Security State, endless wars, Cops & the Military, Wall St. looting, etc.
I dropped out of reading sites like Eschaton when it got taken over by comfortable, moronic “liberals” who claimed that Hillary was a “feminist” and “progressive.” Let’s not even spend much time on her bloodthirsty support for the Iraq War or $400K speeches to Gold Sachs, for some laughs enjoy this 2004 speech on how “sacred” Hetero marriage is and why the (filthy, nonconformist) Queers therefore should not be asking for it– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6I1-r1YgK9I
How are such “beliefs” only conservative and not deeply reactionary? She is the equivalent of the ReThugs who passed that transvaginal penetration law before women could get an abortion. We, the betters, need to “advise” the little people of their moral impurities– & never mind our marriages or how we behave, we are in a better class and don’t answer to the likes of you.
I will agree that some Dem politicians honestly don’t believe in social control of the lessers, or that “illegitimate births” can be controlled via shaming or starving the children, per the Newt Gingrich wing, so I guess in that way they qualify as “conservative”. But as to the big issues, as stated, the US is a reactionary, dying Empire.
Glad to see 10 (R)s split from party orthodoxy today and NOT endorse a mob that was there to beat or kill them. Even reactionaries can occasionally see what is going too far. However, there is no actual Left allowed in the US electoral-political system, and the masses will be slowly strangled via increasing inequality under a system as decrepit as the USSR in 1916 or 1988.
The choice is to battle over the scraps or to organize and create a livable society. I wish I could bet on the latter, but I think too many of the Olds and Boomers (a group to which I belong) have a death grip on the declining Corporate Imperial state, so breakdown is guaranteed in my lifespan. A decent or livable society that the foreigners “envy” is a fairy tale that has now died.
anon
Not if all their leaders have their necks stretched their assets seized and their citizenship stripped, then ship all their kin to Russia.
Astrid
I don’t consider a couple thousand, maybe tens of thousands of proud bois, widely scattered and ideologically confused, to be much of an insurgency. They’re a useful tool for the oligarchs, who gave them a free pass in order to distract the rest of us from the massive looting taking place last year. Sure, there are a lot more who are potentially sympathetic, but they’re too fearful and insufficiently uncomfortable to jump into open rebellion. This doesn’t seem like a pool that you can generate self improving talents from.
Dan Lynch
What Ian envisions is certainly possible, but I see Balkanization as the more likely undoing of the U.S.. Balkanization does not necessarily require a major insurgency, it just requires the Federal government to lose support and more or less collapse. Then the country fractures along geographical and cultural lines. It will not be pretty for those of us who live in red states. I would have to kiss my Social Security check & Medicare goodbye. The local economy, which is heavily dependent on Federal dollars, would tank. Environmental regulations would be erased and the wilderness would be logged and mined. Oligarchs would call the shots. Think Ukraine.
Ché Pasa
All my life, the US has had either a right wing ascendancy or insurgency — often both at the same time. It’s largely a legacy of the Civil War and the failed Reconstruction. But there are “intellectual” and “spiritual” components that are found among the hyperwealthy and Protestant hyperreligion.
Whether the trained and armed groups of (mostly) white men scattered all over the country, many of whom are currently in police forces and active duty military, will coalesce sufficiently (if they haven’t already) to maintain periodic insurrections, overthrows and seizures of elected governments, I can’t say.
It’s always a possibility.
As I’ve said a civil war isn’t likely when only one side is likely to fight. Right now, that’s where we are. But that can change.
nihil obstet
I think Dan Lynch has identified what will probably hold the U.S. together — the benefits that people will be unwilling to give up. As long as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, agricultural subsidies (that was 40% of farm income last year), highways and transportation subsidies, and the like are being paid, residents are not going to secede again. And there’s no way to reproduce the financial structure that produces the funds to pay the benefits that will sufficiently lure the residents away from the current union.
Min
What you are describing is the Jim Crow South. Which is pretty much where the Trumpistas come from.
Willy
The degree and danger of the lunacy was a spectrum thing.
From all the videos I’ve seen, as a general rule the closer one got to the Capitol the more lunatic fringe one was. Those far back were more your typical brainwashed evangelicals, while up front were the domestic terrorist nutjobs. Of course, a few idiots got caught up front, like Elizabeth of Tennessee, Q Shaman and that fool who got shot in the window.
If there’s no pushback, no consequences, no accountability leading to any soul searching, it’s not hard to imagine the “typical brainwashed evangelicals” will be moving closer to the front next time.
That’s when the real fun will begin. I wouldn’t want to be accused of being a “socialist” or even a “progressive” or even a “conservative Democrat” if caught in a mob of those people.
Willy
I had a neighbor who was a government employee who knew some NSA. Ten years ago he told me that the overwhelming majority of dangerous domestic terrorists weren’t socialists or Muslims or even old black panthers. They were white nationalists.
Min
What this means, I think, is that the right wing insurgency will survive because it has already infiltrated the police. Even if there is a widespread crackdown, the Yahoo Militia may be imprisoned or go underground, and even some police will be expelled, such as happened in the last century, but most of those in the police will remain in place. They won’t have to learn how to be more effective insurgents, because they will be safe.
Huntly
Would the Taliban not be considered right-wing?
mago
Wanna see how it’s gonna go and have a shot at success? This so called insurrection new/old way stuff?
Think Mormon.
I grew up around it. Know of what I speak. (Not a beehive kinda guy, however.)
Not interested in explaining.
Basic survival tip? Know your food sources, how to procure, cook and store it. Have a community.
Stay out of dark alleys and good effing luck.
S Brennan
Oh for eff-sake Ian, you are my brother, but damn it man, take a step away from the precipice of madness..get a grip on reality.
S Brennan
Excellent post Mark Level…my bad that I forgot to put that in my comment..sins forgiven and all that…
Astrid
I thought about the Taliban too, but they started as an anti-imperialist insurgency against the Soviets, and got a ton of US/Saudi support in the 1980s. Houthni might fit the pattern better, through Yemen has been war-torn for decades.
But my initial thinking wasn’t very clear, it’s not so much left v. right, but that an insurgency needs a coherent and appealing philosophy to recruit high quality recruits, and make them willing to die for the cause. That’s what’s necessary to keep an insurgency going organically. That good reason usual comes from the left, but it can also come from religion or irredentist nationalism. I don’t think the incoherent mishmash of Trumpers have the intellectual capacity to stick to it past the first substantive use of force against them. They may be vaguely disgruntled, but not enough to convince the smart ones to stick around once they’re targeted.
I’m only supposing a situation where they don’t have substantial support from oligarchs or foreign support, and where things don’t get so out of hand that warbands start forming. I don’t think the conditions in the next 5 years are likely to be sufficiently dire, but it’s possible they can be if the federal government rapidly weaken and local plutocrats start using recruiting their private armies from this group.
Mark Level
Hello, SB.
My great surprise (mouth originally agape) that a crypto-fascist like yourself (& I am being kind in putting crypto- as a prefix) would praise ANYTHING that I write!!
As much as I have any “ideology” it is basically anti-authoritarian, equally intellectually thought thru and emotionally felt.
So fuck the CHUDs (to whom all your writing indicates you belong) & the faux Resistance TINA crowd, who are the Dem Establishment.
Are you American? If so, congrats on living in a failed society. I believe people like myself will have better survival prospects than your crowd. IF there is any hope for the future it comes from younger people who see the failed state.
I don’t think that you or the QAnon shaman (ok, chronologically he is borderline) are part of that group. Nor am I, technically, but if I choose to cling to any hope it comes from there, not from Contrarians who worship at the Trumpist altar.
Eric Anderson
I’m theorizing that most of it, in it’s varied forms, is just psychological displacement.
I mean, can you imagine being a trump voter and having all these high dreams of the vague revolution happening, only to see over the course of several years that you’ve been flim flammed again and again?
Nah … you don’t admit you made such an obviously horrible choice in public. Too much “face” to lose. You double down on rationalizations and displace the aggression you really feel toward dear leader and yourself for being conned.
Psychologically, it’s often easier to draw into a smaller and smaller circle of like minded people who have the inability to admit wrongdoing, and thereby at least save face among them. Actually gain face in some cases by being more and more radical in your doubling down among your new smaller cohort. See … viking dude.
It’s the exact psychology that enables true demagogues who know how to use it to be seriously dangerous. The racism is always one easy and sure displacement route. But lots of other conspiracy theories also seem to be swirling among that mass. The Qanon folks are the classic disillusioned ones inventing fantasies to rationalize a dream gone poof. A lot just used the occasion to bully the DC set they see as all corrupt. Which isn’t nesessarily wrong.
All the fear and rage is there to be manipulated though. This was a dress rehearsal in support of the theory of a more effective demagogue if we get more of the same neoliberal crap.
Which, it seems we will — probably on steroids.
different clue
@Mark Level,
If you are hoping that the death and passing of the Olds and Boomers in command will permit things to get better, here is something to think upon.
Barak Obama is way younger than the Olds and Boomers. So is Kamala Harris. So is Jeff Hawley. And so is Elon Musk. And Jeff Bezos, I think. And others.
S Brennan
ML,
Don’t get carried away with your self-infatuation, I was referring to your remark:
“The [neoD’s] now venerate the National Security State, endless wars, Cops & the Military, Wall St. looting, etc.”
The rest of it was largely gibberish but..I was trying to be kind…sadly, your over the top egocentric reply precludes my effort to be kind to your remark/delicate ego…no good deed goes unpunished eh?
different clue
I think it could be a while before whole regions go insurgent. That would give the System Lords time to make things just-less-bad-enough that whole regionloads of people might decide to “just wait . . . for now”.
There could be mini-mass to maxi-mass militia movement terrorism. People like what was discussed in this linked-to story could be part of such. Smarter White Power terrorists won’t write about it on Parler, though, or anywhere else.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/davidmack/proud-boy-threaten-raphael-warnock-parler?utm_source=dynamic&utm_campaign=bffbbuzzfeed&ref=bffbbuzzfeed&
White Power policemen and police departments will probably try quietly working with White Power Militiazoids in their areas to force-multiply their effectiveness and give them cover. That might be something to watch for.
Some hardy perennial militias and aggressionists in the West of the Sagebrush Rebellion and Wise Use Movement sort will uprise here and there.
This is all just a guess and a feeling, of course.
different clue
Here is some interesting new Ran Prieur material which I will copy-paste here on the subject of Trump just lately.
“January 13. I’m ready to comment on the storming of the Capitol. It’s important to keep in mind that the rioters are not monolithic. That mob, and the bigger mobs to come, contain all kinds of motivations and mindsets. Some of them want to exterminate Jews and some of them just want to fight the police.
I distinctly remember a mythic image, a blurry pic of a scruffy guy with a trickster smile, raising a stick or something, leaning over a podium. Now I can’t find it anywhere, and I wonder if my brain constructed the memory, or if I glimpsed fairyland.
Anyway, in a more topically symbolic moment, someone tore down an American flag and replaced it with a Trump flag.
Donald Trump has no creativity, and no awareness of truth and falsehood. I’m defending him. CNN is like, he’s making up all these lies to lead his followers astray. No, he’s a salesman filling a market. He’s practically a bot, testing the feedback from his audience until he’s giving them exactly what they want.
Trump is a mean rich kid who figured out that if he does a good Archie Bunker impression, every lost soul with an authoritarian father will think he’s the messiah. We’re lucky that he cares only about himself, instead of having some crazy utopian agenda. But the power, and the agency, is with the disaffected citizens of a declining empire, tasting barbarism.
This is all about people wanting to be part of a group that’s part of a story. Lately, some of the big group-stories have been dying: sky father religion, American supremacy, the conquest of nature, the virtue of wealth-seeking. In their place, young and clumsy group-stories struggle and rise.
Matt comments on Monday’s post: “I like the term ‘manichean tribalism’ because it acknowledges there might be inclusive types of tribalism.” I’ll spell it out:
It is possible to divide the world into us and them, without dividing the world into good and bad. The best example I can think of, is fanbases of different metal bands.
The danger is when a vigorous group-story stacks us-them with good-bad. Because then, attacking the baddies makes you feel alive. To prevent the spread of this emotional pandemic, I suggest two rules of moral distancing:
1) There are no bad people, only bad actions. (I wonder if there aren’t even any people, if personality and identity are illusions.)
2) Morality is not transitive. Associating with a doer of bad actions, does not make one a doer of bad actions, let alone a bad person.”
And since a lot of the devoted trumpists are basically a Jonestown-type Qanon-MAGA Death Cult rather than a political insurgency in the making, I will also give the link that Ran Prieur recently gave to an article by a game designer about how the Qanon engineer(s) is(are) a very effective game designer – game player manipulator.
https://medium.com/curiouserinstitute/a-game-designers-analysis-of-qanon-580972548be5
someofparts
I think Americans would be better at that kind of warfare than any of the enemies the military has faced so far, or would quickly learn to be better, as Ian noted. I’m wondering which parts of the country might become no-go zones.
Biden Democrats – antipode to the insurgents – feel like aliens these days. They are ecstatically happy right now and they are not delusional to feel that way because for them things are about to get even better. Domestic mayhem will be kept off of their radar as easily as foreign mayhem has been.
In the world that I share with my neighbors, there is a pandemic, people are out of work, stores are closing, children are going hungry and millions have no healthcare access at all.
The upper-middle class has completely pulled away from the regular middle and the poor. It used to be fairly normal to pull oneself up an economic quintile or two with enough hard work, but that isn’t commonplace anymore.
It feels like the people popping corks in the comfort of the wealth bubble plan to ignore the rest of us. Our part of the public conversation won’t be spoken of by their press or hosted by their platforms. Along with that, they will double down on surveillance and physical controls the way Ian described. Everybody outside of the wealth bubble will keep sliding into greater and greater poverty.
In the scenario Ian describes I feel caught in the middle. I would never want to join the rebels, but I wouldn’t turn them in either. I wouldn’t betray my worst enemy to neoliberals.
nobody
Sustained armed conflict is expensive. Long-term civil wars generally only continue because of external support or because both sides hold enough territory to have an economic base to tax/extort. Neither scenario seems hugely likely in the US. No external power will risk getting caught supporting an internal rebellion on US soil. Any rebel group, of realistic size, that tries to hold territory will be crushed by the US military. This leaves only domestic funding as a means to perpetuate an insurgency.
The level of violence going forward will be far higher if any billionaires are willing to support an insurrection, and are able to do so without being stopped by their peers, than if insurrectionist groups need to self-fund.
If some portion of the billionaire class chooses to fund an insurrection then the outcome may well be along the lines of a genocide, such as happened in Rwanda and Cambodia. It is unclear if enough of the billionaire class is sufficiently demented to try this; genocide is bad for business.
If the billionaire class decides not to back armed conflict then the outcome is much more likely to be large numbers of semi-coordinated killings of non-whites and suspected Democrats, but not on a scale large enough to put social stability at risk. Any non-billionaire supported armed conflict that grows enough to threaten social stability will be put down with whatever force is necessary.
Where the US goes from here depends entirely on whether the malefactors of great wealth believe their own PR or not.
different clue
@someofparts,
In the scenario you describe, what is sustaining the wealth bubble that BidenLand lives in? Where does the wealth come from to keep maintaining the wealth bubble of the BidenLanders? And when we speak of “wealth bubble” for the Bidenists, do we mean “wealth” or do we mean “money”?
If we mean “money”, the “money” which the Bidenists can use to buy the things of real wealth which is to say physical goods and services and attributes, then where does the money come from to keep coming into the Bidenist areas to keep their wealth bubble ( really money bubble?) maintained in size or even growing?
And where does the matter/energy/things which the Bidenists can buy with the money come from? Also from the geographic Bidenzone? Or from somewhere physically beyond and outside of the Bidenzone?
Stirling S Newberry
“Sustained armed conflict is expensive. Long-term civil wars generally only continue because of external support or because both sides hold enough territory to have an economic base to tax/extort. Neither scenario seems hugely likely in the US.”
Let me introduce you to the concept of enslavement…
Do you go to classes to divorce yourself from reality or is it a natural gift?
metamars
At 24:27 into this video*, you can see police officers politely stepping aside so that rioters can vandalize the door, shortly before Babbitt is shot. The window is already broken, so clearly this isn’t their first coffee break on this shift. Yeah, sure, there’s armed Secret Service dudes on the other side of the door, one with a pistol ominously pointed, but they’ve probably already had their coffee break.
What’s fair is fair!
Quite possibly, their coffee break is not legitimate. However, being that the coffee being offered is of superb quality (being normally served to US Congress critters, after all), I think we can sympathize with these officers wanting to imbibe a little extra. Can you imagine how tired they must be of Dunkin Donuts coffee?
I wonder, too, about the donut situation in the Capitol building. In fact, I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that Capitol building donuts are far superior to Dunkin Donuts donuts.
* youtube: False Flag Weekly News 01/09/2020
Jason
Barak Obama is way younger than the Olds and Boomers. So is Kamala Harris. So is Jeff Hawley. And so is Elon Musk. And Jeff Bezos, I think. And others.
But the narratives that nurtured their rise and sustained them no longer work. Not enough people buy in.
Barry Fay
When I saw the phrase “included some very serious, coordinated people who had temporary restraints and a plan” , I thought “How sad to see that Ian actually bought into the completely over-the-top MSM narrative. There was obviously NO PLAN, and ONE GUY going along a corridor ALONE carrying some plastic ties is just that and nothing more. The fact is that NOTHING HAPPENED, even though the police gave the DEMONSTRATORS practically carte blanche. This is one of the greatest witch hunts I have ever witnessed. Are there no same people left who can resist the Main Stream Media bullshit and think on their own? (BTW – I am a Trump hater!)
Plague Species
Has anyone else noticed the Nazis penchant for purposefully misspelling the names of Dems they despise, and that pretty much includes ALL Dems? The latest is “Barak.” I don’t know why any of you entertain these cowards let alone read what they type. I am long past that at this point. They’re not interested in debate. They don’t act in good faith. They are scum and it’s disgusting they infiltrate left-leaning blogs and muck up the commentary pretending to be anti-establishment leftists.
Stirling S Newberry
“Barak Obama is way younger than the Olds and Boomers. ”
He is the youngest of the baby boom generation.
Plague Species
The key to a successful fascist putsch is for it not to be taken seriously. Operatives are dispersed to marginalize and dismiss the first shots and the testing of limits so it can creep up on you, and then one day, it’s here, in the flesh and fully formed. You’ve been lulled to sleep while they took over the house. Caught with you pants down and you come to find out, the dog, a pit bull no less but effectively a chihuahua, let them in and showed them the pantry and the safe where you hide the family savings and jewels.
A large swath of the population is being primed to be receptive to and support genocide. It’s right out of the fascist playbook. My wife and I have said for the past four years or more, our families, if it came to that and it might, would turn us over to the authorities to be sent to death camps. The writing is on the wall. This is where this is headed. Bosnia on the Potomac. Bosnia on the Mississippi. Because hey, we had so much fun breaking up the former Yugoslavia, why not our own backyard this time? Think about how it will improve our black budget.
The same folks who brought us Barack Hussein Obama also brought us Ali Alexander. You can’t make this crap up because they made it up. The alphabet agencies are complicit in this. There is NO WAY they can’t be.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/01/13/ali-alexander-capitol-biggs-gosar/
Plague Species
For a fascist putsch to be successful, it, initially at least, cannot to be taken seriously. Operatives are dispersed to marginalize and dismiss the first shots and the testing of limits so it can creep up on you, and then one day, it’s here, in the flesh and fully formed. You’ve been lulled to sleep while they took over the house. Caught with you pants down and you come to find out, the dog, a pit bull no less but effectively a chihuahua, let them in and showed them the pantry and the safe where you hide the family savings and jewels.
A substantial percentage of the population is being primed to be receptive to and support genocide. It’s right out of the fascist playbook. My wife and I have said for the past four years or more, our families, if it came to that and it might, would turn us over to the authorities to be sent to death camps. The writing is on the wall. This is where this is headed. Bosnia on the Potomac. Bosnia on the Mississippi. Because hey, we had so much fun breaking up the former Yugoslavia, why not our own backyard this time? Think about how it will improve our black budget.
The same creeps who brought us Barack Hussein Obama also brought us Ali Alexander. You can’t make this crap up because they made it up. The alphabet agencies are complicit in this. There is NO WAY they can’t be.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/01/13/ali-alexander-capitol-biggs-gosar/
Plague Species
Sorry for the double post. Not all is lost with the in-process fascist putsch. At least it’s diversified. Ali proves it.
These creeps (alphabet agency goons) are beyond-the-pale cynical and maniacally malevolent. They’re getting a huge kick out of this. This has been their psychopathic world for the past 70 years and now they want it to be your world, and my world, too.
someofparts
Well dc, I mean wealth in the form of property and investments and money in the form of sky-high income and most especially I mean social capital, as in everyone they know beginning in childhood, is well-off.
As to how they do it, where does the wealth come from … how should I know? Maybe if I knew the answer to that question I wouldn’t be broke, ya know. I read the news, just like you do, and I watch our lizard overlords hand financiers and big business truckloads of money, just like you do. So I guess the people I see living in million-dollar lofts and driving cars that cost more than I make in three years must be getting a few crumbs from all that money our rulers are giving the wealthy.
What I was trying to get at dc, was how oblivious and indifferent these people are to the concerns of those less fortunate. That detachment is always noticeable, but under our current circumstances, it is even more striking, because things have gotten so extreme. I don’t think they are so sheltered they don’t see the mile-long lines at food banks, or the homeless encampments under the freeway overpasses, or the neighborhood shops that are shuttered and gone. I think that they see these things and it makes no impression at all because they are so excited, so psyched up, about the beach house they will be able to afford this year. Like that.
someofparts
While the rabble use guns, our lizard overlords use more sophisticated measures.
https://twitter.com/PaulBieniasz/status/1345195420033691648
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/13/moderna-ceo-says-the-world-will-have-to-live-with-the-coronavirus-forever.html
Or maybe they are so greed-blind they have devolved into incompetence, themselves hoisted on the traditions of bad faith they have used to plunder the rest of us.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/12/an-internal-medicine-doctor-and-his-peers-read-the-pfizer-vaccine-study-and-see-red-flags.html
https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara/2020/12/18/solarwinds-hack-throws-wrench-in-private-equitys-most-profitable-market/?sh=1597e622ef73
cdp
While I personally don’t think the material conditions are present for sustained “right-wing” insurrection, I’d like to accept the premise of the post to examine another question. Would a sustained right-wing insurrection on the American main be bad for the world?
It appears to me that most of the participants on Ian’s forum are North Americans, and most would likely identify as left-leaning. It seems to me that a sustained right-wing insurrection would garner little ideological or material support here. It would likely make hash of many of our lives. But if you believe that this system is un-reformable, and sliding deeper into cruelty and injustice with regards to its citizens and those of other nations. Then wouldn’t the scenario described limit its ability to project its destructive power beyond its borders? Would it not then be a net positive in the long run?
You can’t start a nuclear war in the South China Sea, if those LA class submarines are blockading Mobile Bay.
Eric Anderson
meta mars:
The cops moved off the door way b/c their more heavily reinforcements had arrived and were stepping in to take their place. The video clearly shows it. You can even hear them saying that it’s ok for them to leave now.
Just, stop.
Ché Pasa
It appears the opinion leaders in the major mass media are doing everything they can to convince us that Everything’s Fine, despite the unusual incidents of the last couple of weeks. Everything’s under control, all the proper precautions are in place, we can go on with our lives now.
The Real Problem, they want us to know, is the fractured and problematic Vaccine Rollout, still badly administered practically everywhere. Oh, and the virus is out of control, and if you’re old or sick or poor or brown or black, you’re going to die.
That is all.
Prof K
What you’re anticipating is a multi-decade-long Maoist insurgency by the anti-China American nationalists of the heartland!
zot23
I think you are over-extending your analogy Ian and massaging the reality to fit your chosen narrative. Sure, 50% of Republicans support this action, but well over 50% of Rs these days are 55+ yrs of age. The hardest of hardcore Fox News viewers are all 65+ and are dependant on govt run healthcare to put it all together.
I know this as it seems fully half of them live in my town or are in my actual family. Comparing them to Hezbollah is incredibly kind: their days of camping in wet ditches and existing on hard tack while traversing the winter landscape on foot are well and truly over. You wouldn’t know it by the blovating tales they spin about X war their generation fought (but not usually them personally) over Thanksgiving Dinner, but the struggle they exhibit getting from their little rascal to the dinner table seat (usually with a strong young “Socialist” like myself helping them not fall on their back end) tells a different tale.
Israel spent decades denying these people food, electricity, and medicine to try and genocide the Palestinian people. Hezbollah was born, raised, and cured in the fires of survival and necessity. Y’all Queda in the USA are upset that blacks have the audacity to kneel at sporting events and show up to vote. These are not the same greivances by a country mile. I hear what you are saying about Darwinism during war, but by my estimation, it would take approximately 167 years of trimming the fat to get the American Right into “Hezbollah” fighting shape (both mentally and physically.) IEDs and zone control movements, are you kidding? How would Me-maw get to the Piggly Wiggly and back to buy her weekly beef from TX, veggies from CA, and her processed cheese-like foods from the local Kraft distribution center? She wouldn’t make it a month.
Much more likely would be Balkanization as Dan Lynch said above. They have experience at this sort of thing (aka the American South), they could live that way for a long time AND it would make the super-rich (Koch brothers) happy. All this assumes that everyone else in the USA just sits around and watches it happen.
metamars
@Eric Anderson
Here are the links to my previous posts on this subject:
Jan 8
https://www.ianwelsh.net/americans-have-found-the-enemy-and-it-is-they/#comment-121988
Jan 9
https://www.ianwelsh.net/open-thread-85/#comment-122038
Jan 10
https://www.ianwelsh.net/the-terrible-bind-americas-elites-are-in/#comment-122179
Jan 12
https://www.ianwelsh.net/the-terror-of-liberals-in-a-time-of-insurrection/#comment-122353
Jan 12
https://www.ianwelsh.net/the-terror-of-liberals-in-a-time-of-insurrection/#comment-122354
They’re all instant classics, I like to think.
In the Jan 10th post, I observed:
In a Jan 9 post, I wrote
In the 28 seconds of the “good job” (I assumed this was addressed to the SWAT guys, but the duration on the scene and movement of them doesn’t depend on whether or not I’m correct on this detail) the SWAT guys have turned around and are LEAVING the scene. You can see this with your own, lying eyes. A naïve reader of your comment would assume that they are proceeding in the direction of the door, since that’s where the cops were that you say the SWAT guys are replacing.
NOT what happened. The door was abandoned, with a potentially lethal shooter poised right behind it.
If I was Babbitt’s husband, I’d be furious at this dereliction of duty. Come to think of it, if absence of evidence is evidence of absence (not generally true, of course) then I would find the lack of any comment by him on this subject rather suspicious.
From a comment I read, well, somewhere, it’s not the Secret Service’s job to de-escalate. You make the wrong move, they shoot to kill. But that would make it even more imperative for cops and SWAT on the scene to contain the ‘riot’, wouldn’t it?
someofparts
cdp – “But if you believe that this system is un-reformable, and sliding deeper into cruelty and injustice with regards to its citizens and those of other nations. Then wouldn’t the scenario described limit its ability to project its destructive power beyond its borders? Would it not then be a net positive in the long run?”
net positive? more like divine intervention
and here’s another log on the fire of the original conversation in the thread
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/regulation/biden-vows-defeat-nra-gun-sales-continue-soar-2020-background-checks-40
Astrid
I still don’t think the ingredients for a successful insurgency is on the horizon, but assuming it happens, the conditions seem very close to the Taiping Tienguo rebellion in 19th century China.
Ché Pasa
And another thing:
Insurgency against what, exactly?
We’ve seen repeatedly that the Establishment/Government will yield instantly when armed insurrectionists make demands — for example, ‘end lockdowns’, or ‘open the Capitol’. There is literally no resistance at all from the Government (at whatever level.)
You can’t have a civil war when with only one side fighting.
All the security theater being set up right now all over the country will be met with… probably nothing. Few demonstrations, little yelling and screaming, minimal damage.
Trump — their God-Emperor — told them to stand down. For now.
But when they gear up again, as we’ve seen again and again, they’ll get their way.
Insurgency? Or extortion?
Eric Anderson
And now … for the rural view (hey ten bears, where ya at?) —
The crux of Ian’s conversation centers on “if” the american experiment devolves into another shooting gallery (one more pronounced than that already in place).
Should it so devolve, law enforcement would likely devolve with it. The sheriff’s are largely Bundy humping nuts out in rural west and they hold a ton of independent decision-making power. And yes, as can be expected, the insurgent population would be very well armed and proficient with their weapons.
There’s only one problem. The overwhelming majority of them have a hard time even remembering their best fighting days. And those that are prime to fight don’t live there anymore. It would last as long as a gerontocratic insurgency possibly could.
Willy
I’m fascinated by the part where Trump brazenly exhorts and inspires, and then runs to his safe space to watch it all on TV. You’d think these people would’ve figured things out by now.
Willy
Eric, according to all the videos, most of the patriotic heroes doughy geriatrics, loony tunes, or kids told that masturbation is socialist. From such humble beginnings, can a mighty rebel army be forged? For starters I’d think they’d need a qualified Dear Leader.
Kim Il sung, Castro, and Hitler were (at least public-personified) to be popular manly men who got personally involved with the battles. I don’t see anybody like that on the horizon.
Willy
(for the comment in mod)
Sorry, should be: “are doughy…” Grand and mighty leaders need to be better proofreaders.
Stormcrow
One thing nobody seems to have mentioned so far: last week’s amateur stormtroops had no idea whatsoever what “operational security” even is. Let alone how to achieve it.
And this has been a characteristic of the extreme right wing going back at least half a decade. Their worst enemies are nearly always their own big mouths. The attacks that succeed, to any degree at all, are usually “lone wolf” attacks by “stochastic terrorists”. Presumably because if even two of these chuckleheads discuss their ideas with each other, they’re going to do so in a venue that’s as open and vulnerable as possible.
Mother of god, the people who put in the 1/6 attack actually had the backing of the President. And they still failed miserably. What’s worse, they did so in the most compromising possible way. So now, they’re in the process of being rounded up, sure as radioactive decay.
The endless reports of arrests of participants in the 1/6 siege are simply the coda, which nearly anyone with a lick of sense could have predicted in their sleep. What in god’s name did these people think they were doing, broadcasting the details of their exploits all over social media sites that any thoughtful 10 year old child would assume the Feds were closely monitoring?
And by this time I suspect you’ve read about the humiliating security issues with Parler, which it’s founders seem to have assumed would become the mainstay of the “resistance”. The term “information leakage” is beggared by what actually took place. Did nobody in the radical right even think to do an assessment of the risks, together with a bit of cautious pen-testing? I imagine there were buckets of tears shed in many FBI field offices, when Amazon pulled the plug on that service, and ruined their lovely game blind.
I’m not going to argue Ian’s major point one way or the other, except this far: before any real American insurgency gets off the ground, its members are going to have to spend some serious quality time actually studying how historical insurgencies have failed, and why, and how later insurgencies attempted to circumvent those problems.
Otherwise, they’ll just be practice targets for the FBI, and the smarter elements of LLE.
Hugh
Trump is a POS. He has lied to his own supporters probably even more than the rest of us. They still luv him. I ascribe it to Trump being a symbol for them, and symbols don’t have to have any relationship to the reality they represent. So it doesn’t matter that Trump is a life long crook who has preyed on and shat on those who are now his followers, –for them or him. He remains the symbol of white anger over losing control over “their” political system.
different clue
@Jason,
The narrative worked well enough to elect Obama twice. Does the narrative no longer work?
I hope you are correct. The test of that will be if Harris never ever becomes President. If the narrative still works well enough to get her elected President, then the narrative still works.
Jack
Parler was primarily funded by Rebekah Mercer. The Mercer family is behind Breitbart, Steve Bannon, et al. The Mercer family’s primary mission in life – like Saban, the late Adelson, and scores of other wealthy Jewish families – is Israel and the ongoing Zionist project.
Interesting to see Aaron Mostofsky, son of Shlomo Mostofsky, a recently appointed judge and major figure in the Brooklyn Orthodox Jewish community, at the rally.
Jack
“rally” meaning the event at the Capitol, whatever one wants to refer to it as. I won’t use coup or insurrection. How about Capitol Theater?
different clue
@someofparts,
I get a news magazine ( once a paper) called Acres USA. I remember once reading in it many years ago an article listing all the ways that Congress could help farmers survive through one of farming’s periodic engineered-liquidation cycles. ” They could help , but they won’t. Okay, so now what?”
The problems facing Discardistan, and the people who live there, brought that article back to mind. Sure, the Clintobidenite Obamacrat scum should help, but they won’t. Okay, so now what?
KT Chong
Showed up in my news phone app this morning: (EX-)Republicans are mass DE-registering from the Republican Party.
Like, a few hundreds a day in a lot of districts for the past few days.
Unfortunately I didn’t grab the web link and can’t find the news article again.
js
Why should I believe there was no plan? Because it failed, yea that doesn’t prove there was no plan, just that it failed. Was every goofball there part of some plan, unlikely, but how is that relevant? They clearly had some planning, they knew the floor plans, shared the floor plans even at the event.
Joan
I agree that Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Disability, Unemployment and Food Stamps could keep things stable for a while (though some of those are state programs, not federal, right?). Especially if these programs are expanded to include more people. I always found it strange when I listened to old right-wingers speak because such people also rely on their Social Security checks, yet they vote for people that want to cut it. But now both sides want to cut lifelines, since word going around is that Biden wants the Grand Bargain.
In the next four years I think the soft rebellion will be people engaging in the gray market via cash and bartering.
Hugh
I agree with Stormcrow. I had a conversation with someone earlier today on this. Operational security is important. A lot of white right wing groups haven’t had to focus on this because even though most terrorism in the US comes from the right wing, law enforcement doesn’t focus on them. It also depends on what your strategic goals are: disruption, terror, holding territory, etc. These can determine what kind of command structure you have. If you control land, you can have a more regular hierarchy. The less control you have, the more different levels of the command structure have to be unknown to each other. That way if one level is taken out or compromised, the separated levels can reconnect. On the other hand, if the object is terror or disruption, going in a lone wolf direction may be the thing. There encouraging radicalism and distributing information on targets, explosives, planning and carrying out attacks are important. Of course, who looks at this kind of stuff is also what the FBI is interested in. But from the organization’s point of view, lone wolves are write-offs.
I would point out too that unattached young and middle aged white males are perfect for these organizations. If you have a family and children to go home to (at least in the US) , you are much less likely to risk all that to wind up dead or in prison for decades.
Ché Pasa
:Because it failed….:::
Did it? The people being rounded up and arrested (and mostly released on their own recognizance) are the Clowns and Internet No-Accounts. Tall people. Flag-twirlers. Mean phrase wearers. In other words, not — at all — the likely ringleaders, the unseen, unrecognized, untraceable…
There was more to the Dustup than might have met the eye. Our anti-terrorist specialists are barely, barely skimming the pond.
Hugh
Ché Pasa, it’s still early days. There’s been a lot of silence from department heads in part because of Trump in part Jan. 6 was a total FU. But there is a lot of pressure from Congressional leaders who do not like being targets. So I expect after the security situation of the Inauguration is dealt with, the ties of more organizations to the Jan. 6 events will be investigated. We are already seeing law enforcement and Congressional links to them surfacing.
Thomas Golladay
There won’t be an insurgency, except Qanon morons who need to be rounded up if plotting with intent to carry out attacks.
No, what will happen is the Republican Populist Wing primaries out the Establishment RINOs, neocons, and corporcrats out of office, builds block chain, open sourced, resilient media organizations that are not deplatformable and breaks them away from corporate money.
They will sweep state and local elections, recall Gavin Newsom and prevent him from replacing Senator Harris’ seat, impeach and remove Federalist Society Judges and ruin them if they don’t boot them at the ballot box. Regain Congress in 22 and repudiate and defeat Biden in 2024 and inflict damnatio memorae on him, Harris, and every Federal Judge and Governor and Secretaries of State who helped steal this election and break the Corporations’ power for good.
Big Tech is already dying as it is as Twitter and Facebook lost 51 billion dollars in value as the Right and Moderates who were keeping them afloat with their money, now go to Gab, Rumble, etc which are not deplatformable.
The Working Class Republican Party is returning while the Left is imploding into impotence that will never go anywhere.
Willy
They say the west was won after the women arrived.
These days, for a revolution to be successful, at least ones employing doughy-bodied gun-toting nutjobs, the women have to be convinced that their children are at risk from bad guys. But who can the new bad guys possibly be? We’ve gone through muslims, gays, liberals, mexicans, socialists, voting machines and democrats already. Yet the children remain relatively safe. Plus I think the critical mass of brainwashables may have been reached. No more mushy-brained suckers to be conned. Anybody with any ideas about who the next possibly enemy de jour diversion could possibly be? Or where tomorrows suckers will come from?
Our best attempt at a Dear Leader has spoken, then went into hiding. Not very inspiring.
Disjointed communications on the dark web doesn’t a surprise revolution make. Not anymore.
Duly designated national representatives of all stripes are now getting theirs whenever they’re seen in public. They’re learning it’s a stressful game now, and likely dangerous, if something doesn’t change. The PTB are gonna have to come up with something better to retain their status. If it isn’t actual governance by and for the people, then it’ll probably be better security systems for themselves. We’ll have to respond accordingly.
nihil obstet
Joan, some of the programs are state programs in that the states have more or less flexibility in setting policy and administer the programs. But most of the money is federal (highways are paid for with 90% fed and 10% state). The federal government can (and should) run deficits. State governments cannot. A balkanized U.S. would look financially like the EU, where residents depend on their national government for government spending. Where would the states get the money for the benefits now provided by the federal government?
Willy
Thomas, these days God’ll need to physically show up for the working class Republicans to even have a chance. Their duly voted representatives have never represented their interests. And most of their spiritual leaders are scamvangelists and/or getting caught with pool boys.
different clue
Barak Obama was born in 1961. Part of the Baby Boom generation?
The Baby Boom was artificially decided to be people born between 1944 and 1964. From 44 to 64 is itself an entire generation of time. Some people realized that the “Baby Boom” age range as defined was analytically useless and worthless. That older Boomers and younger “boomers” were two different generations. Some of those people have tried to come up with a their-own name for the people MIS-classified as “baby boom”.
They have come up with the name “generation jones”. Here is the little wiki-blurb about that.
“The term was first coined by the cultural commentator Jonathan Pontell, who identified the cohort as those born from 1954 to 1965 in the U.S. who came of age during the oil crisis, stagflation, and the Carter presidency, rather than during the 1960s, but slightly before Gen X. Unlike Boomers, most of Generation Jones did not grow up with World War II veterans as fathers, and for them there was no compulsory military service and no defining political cause, as opposition to United States “…
And being born in 61, Obama is almost too young to even be part of generation jones. He is certainly NO boomer. By using false definitions, one can ever-so-exquisitely mis-classify Obama as being a boomer.
Such clever mis-classification and mis-assignment is just the sort of cleverness one would expect from someone who claimed the Cambodians caused and invited their own bombing during the Nixon period and who has never bothered to explain what he meant by that when he was asked.
Hugh
Thomas’ hallucinations are always entertaining to read. You can almost see the sky full of lightning and a voice coming out of all the rumbling, “I am the Lord, thy Trump.” He cast the unbelievers into the outer darkness, and lo, it was funny.
metamars
Michael Moore is reporting that there are 2,300 capitol police, but only 500 were on duty on the 6th. Furthermore
Gee whiz, it’s too bad that Pelosi and McConnell weren’t told about these feelings by other members of Congress, or their staff members. They might have demanded that security be increased to at least a typical Wednesday level, instead of decreased to a Saturday level.
I have a hypothesis. Just like we’ve seen security forces go for coffee breaks at the most inopportune time, resulting in a completely avoidable shooting of Babbitt, perhaps the ubiquitous Congress critters and their staff persons that had such misgivings about security failed to communicate same to McConnell and Pelosi, because they had been seduced by the heavenly aroma of Capitol Hill coffee, and intoxicated by the sheer sensual delight of Capitol Hill donuts. So much so, that they’d forget all about their security concerns during coffee breaks, which would have been optimal to informally share such concerns with McConnell/Pelosi.
You may not understand this level of donut intoxication, but I bet Homer Simpson would.
different clue
It looks clearer and clearer that various levels of police and etc. were stood down and de-staffed on purpose by superiors hoping to create the lack-of-security opportunity for certain Special Operators to carry out major assassinations and kidnappings under cover of the MAGA mob.
Also it seems clear that there is extensive and widespread penetration of various police departments by various kinds of United White Right race-genocidists and White Powerists. All the various levels of policing and governmental force-application should be given a very slow and careful and thorough de-nazification cleanout. Trying that might lead to lots of little mini-civil wars and micro-civil wars where-ever police denazification is attempted.
For his part, Biden will obstruct any such effort as best as he can because it wouldn’t feel like “healing” and “unity”.
different clue
A type of insurgency that Ian Welsh has not addressed in the narrowest sense is the natural-resource-exploitation-resistance regional insurgency. An article just posted on Naked Capitalism refocuses the mind on this possibility.
An article about Colorado River basin levels falling down and down and down . . .
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/01/drought-stricken-colorado-river-basin-could-see-additional-20-drop-in-water-flow-by-2050.html
Money/wealth/population accumulation in the dry West keeps going up as fast as water levels keep going down. Eventually the dry West will try using the power of Federal Government to steal mass quantities of water from beyond the dry West. One obvious idea often floated is to pipe all the Great Lakes water to the dry West.
Any serious attempt to do that could spark off a water-preservation insurgency throughout Great Lakestan to physically destroy any infrastructure built to steal Greate Lakestani water from Great Lakestan. If the West and its FedGov were determined to steal all the water regardless, would they force Great Lakestan into an openly secessionist rebellion? And if so, and if the Great Lakestan Liberation Front water defenders turned to Canada for military assistance and/or training and/or supply, would certain forces within Canada render that assistance if it could be surreptitious enough or plausibly deniable at the Ottowa level enough?
NR
Hugh, Thomas can’t even keep his own bullshit straight. Just a day or two ago he was saying “America is going to erupt in civil war!!!!!” and now it’s “Republican fascists are going to win everything in the next elections and purge all their enemies!!!!!” I’m starting to think he may be mentally ill.
metamars
It looks clearer and clearer that various levels of police and etc. were stood down and de-staffed on purpose by superiors hoping to create the lack-of-security opportunity for
certain Special Operators to carry out major assassinations and kidnappings under cover of the MAGA mob.a false flag.There, fixed that for you.
Can’t be sure of the Deep State players, and probably will never have anything close to total transparency. Also, why assume assassinations were the goal, when the relatively tiny body count (which may or may not include Babbitt) included no Congress critters? The debate on objections to electoral slates was delayed, and truncated, and Trump has been demonized. Isn’t that enough success, at least on some big players’ gamecard? Oh, say, like Twitter and Facebook, which have been suppressing conservatives for years, now? Aren’t the positions of both Pelosi and McConnell enhanced, wrt MAGA (= national populist) political forces?
Well, we can’t answer the question of “isn’t this enough of a win?” with great confidence, because of the fact that we don’t know many details. But even given what we do know, we can observe dramatic effects, and big winners. Trump isn’t one of them. Neither is MAGA.
George Webb speculated that the (apparent) Special Op guys with orange hats wore them during one phase of their operation so that snipers wouldn’t hit them. Now, we also know that Trump was supposed to march down to the Capitol (at least that’s what he said). The Trump haters just ASSUME that Trump never intended to, taking his limo to the White House, instead.
None of the Trump haters seem interested in raising the question of whether Secret Service diverted Trump, as the situation at the Capitol wasn’t stable, with reports of pipe bombs somewhere in Washington.
Of course, this is the sort of question that our cracker jack media should be asking the White House. But, you know, if they did, and the answer was “we had credible information about an assassination plot against the President”, the Trump haters would have that much less material to work with.
I frankly am suspicious of Trump in this affair, though not in the same way as the Trump haters. How could Trump have not known that Capitol security was anemic? And you don’t really even need any intel that a MAGA group would be penetrated by riotous antifa types, it’s such a no-brainer. It’s also an easy guess, though less of a surety, that Deep State special op types would also penetrate, to do false flag type stuff (oh, say, like a staged ‘assassination’ of a Babbitt). Since Trump is conferring with Flynn, who headed DIA, the crowd should have been thoroughly penetrated with white hat special ops that would have intervened, on top of a sufficient police presence.
So, why wasn’t it?
I don’t know, and don’t pretend to know. But I have the unsettling feeling that we’re being treated to an elaborate Kabuki, and Trump may well be a conscious actor in the play.
different clue
I am not a Trump hater. I am a Trump despiser. Its not the same thing.
The Washington events as a false flag? A set and baited trap? Maybe so. Though I continue to think it was a serious attempt on the part of the Special Type men in black within the mob. Maybe they too were lured into the baited trap. If so, they were among the baited, not the baiters.
And if all that is true, someone took a serious chance on getting Pence and some others assassinated merely to get the trap sprung. Or did the setters of the trap decide that a VP and some Reps were simply expendable?
metamars
More trickery. Stephen McIntyre @ClimateAudit retweeted about the guy in a funny hat who was “right beside Ashli Babbitt when she was killed”
https://twitter.com/ClimateAudit/status/1349126030511005698
This retweet is of a series of tweets:
1) A play on 4 acts : Act I : Infiltration : watch as a “crazy” guy appears from behind the secure part of the Capitol from behind police lines : Inserted
2) Act II: Action : Fargo Hat over Maga hat Pirelli top, previously crazy man gets given a Kevlar helmet to bash in windows .. (videographer also gets to the front by telling people he has a knife
3) Act III: Exfiltration: Ashli Babbitt shot: our Fargo pirelli Hat guy talks to and and gets permission to walk past the arriving police :: gets behind their tactical line into their tactically cleared space ..
4) Act IV: Change Disguise: The Fargo hat Pirelli guy having been allowed to safe space landing behind 6/7heavily armed police manages to change his gear and pack it in a bag .. behind police who aren’t looking on there six . (And leather coat lady notices)
================
Meanwhile:
@JackPosobiec
·
2h
BREAKING: Trump receiving brief on rioter John Sullivan
VietnamVet
First of all, January 6th was an insurrection. President Trump and his Trumpeters were dupes used by trained men in crisp uniforms on the edge in twos and threes that shell-shock the Democrats into full authoritarianism. Along with the pandemic, the storming of the Capitol shows that the US government is unable to protect itself or its people.
Unrest will spread and grow. Parts of rangeland west are almost no go territory. “The Bundys go free in Nevada.” Half-century ago, the war in Vietnam was riven with ethnic and class divisions. A true comment on the movie “Platoon” was “We spent more time fighting each other than the enemy”. The thirty year anniversary of the start of the Forever Wars is two days away. The working middle class is decimated by de-industrialization and the endless wars. Donald Trump won more votes from communities with high military casualties.
The Biden Democrats are pro-war globalists. They will try to restore the Empire and will fail. It has taken the lockdowns and the pandemic depression to shake things apart. Corporate propaganda no longer works. Secession, no man’s lands and ethnic conflict with perceived foreigners are inevitable unless democracy is restored. I just don’t see Joe Biden/Kamala Harris promoting ending corporate funding of elections or counting paper ballots in public that are first steps to restoring government by and for the people. If there is no repudiation of neoliberalism, there will be two failed Presidencies in a row.
Willy
There’s been a fair amount of controversy over whether the Simpsons predicted the Q shaman and possibly even the riots. The producer of the show has repeatedly called this a hoax, that they never did an episode with anything resembling a Q shaman character. While this seems suspicious, there’s more.
Jake Angeli’s character appears a bit too much like a typical rabid NFL game fan for comfort. And now I’ve been notified that the bison is the official mascot of North Dakota State University, a current covid hotspot. Not only was Angeli not wearing a mask, but the talk is that Carson Wentz is looking to get out of Philly, a mere 135 miles from DC. Joe Biden also said he won’t be taking the Amtrak from Delaware for security reasons. His favorite NFL team is the Patriots. Just recently, coach Belichick declined the Medal of Freedom award to be given by Trump, after white NFL players took a knee.
By now the conspiracy should be obvious. Belichick is making a play for Wentz with the help of Biden, and the DC riots were the perfect smokescreen, with the aid of white members of BLM/antifa.
metamars
Another tweet about something I’ve been wondering about, but still haven’t observed in video. From a @ClimateAudit thread:
Willy
Just because Babbitt was a Chargers fan doesn’t mean she wasn’t concerned about the shenanigans involving the Patriots football team.
different clue
@VietnamVet,
If effective functional democracy is to be restored, it may have to be in some most likely, most fixable particular states or substate regions first. If a power-effective majority of people in a jurisdiction can re-democratize that jurisdiction’s own level of self-governance; they may be able to make that jurisdiction or jurisdictions a source of inspiration or assistance to other jurisdictions with a heavily-majority self-governance re-seekers.
I suspect the US is too big and too heavily occupied by the current Deep Regime behind the elective facade to reconquer it all at once.
different clue
@VietnamVet,
Another problem is that there are tens of millions of Americans who are prepared to die for their country ( really truly they would), but will NEVer EVer wear a mask for their country. Or turn their thermostat down to 65 degrees for their country. Or pay “more” for something from NOmart or NOmazon rather than pay “less” for it at WalMart or Amazon, in order to keep NOmart and NOmazon from going extinct.
Hugh
So are the 197 Republican House members who voted against impeachment Trumpers or Deep State trying to throw us off the scent? Is Willy right and does Trump really support the Patriots or not? Because I thought Trump’s game was golf and of course screwing up anything he’s around. But if Trump is just a screw up, and been one all his life, then we wouldn’t need antifa and the Deep State to explain his screwed up insurrection or Republican cowardice, and what would be the fun in that?
different clue
Here is a little video from “public freakout”. It is a satirical praise video about good things Trump has done for America while in office.
https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/kxm0hw/in_the_spirit_of_unity_we_should_focus_on_the/
Joan
@nihil obstet,
Thanks for your response. It’s scary to think that so many Americans rely upon programs administered and mostly paid for by the federal government. It’s putting way too much power in the hands of the swamp, yet there’s plenty of corrupt states too, so I’m not sure moving such things from the fed gov to the states would be the answer (and again, like you asked, where would the money come from?).
nihil obstet
@Joan
What’s scary is that we don’t even think about the government as us banded together for the society we want.
Corruption is why we want universal programs rather than means tested or merit tested programs. The tests will always require a few thousand pages to describe, placing power in the hands of gatekeepers and offering loopholes and privileges to the well connected. See Obamacare. Dealing with a gatekeeper is inherently humiliating (“Are you really worthy of this benefit you need? Are you needy or just greedy?”), and contributes to the anger at the government that is them rather than a government that is us.
In some circumstances, local is better. In others, it most assuredly is not. There’s a reason right-wingers claim to support states’ rights while supporting as well the preemption doctrine on regulation of commerce.
Astrid
Means testing is also a massive jobs program for the PMC. And we wonder why everyone else despises us.
metamars
Max Blumenthal
@MaxBlumenthal
· Jan 13
John Sullivan was at the forefront of pro-Trump violence in the Capitol, egging it on as he filmed.
Now he’s Exhibit A in right-wing claims that Antifa instigated the riot.
I investigate his disturbing history of sabotaging BLM while posing as a leader. https://thegrayzone.com/2021/01/12/chaos-agent-right-wing-us-capitol-riot-black-lives-matter/
(emphasis mine)
So, he sabotages BLM, and helps sabotage MAGA, also? Not very consistent, is he? Then again, he does look a little nutty.
someofparts
more about Sullivan, with footage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAFx8OyCX1g
also this
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/01/15/consent-manufacturing-for-patriot-act-ii-continues/
“In a new article for Washington Monthly titled “It’s Time for a Domestic Terrorism Law“, Bill Scher argues against left-wing critics of the coming laws … He opens with the acknowledgement that “Joe Biden’s transition team was already working on a domestic terrorism law before the insurrection,” and then he just keeps on writing as though that’s not weird or suspicious in any way.”
oh, and this stunning piece about Q-anon – it is run by gamers who are using real people as players where the game is a trail of breadcrumbs leading nowhere
https://medium.com/curiouserinstitute/a-game-designers-analysis-of-qanon-580972548be5