…you don’t want his rallies interrupted?
I know there are those who think Trump is no fascist, just a nativist blowhard. Fine.
But many really do think he is a fascist. Those same people are saying, “Don’t interrupt his rallies”?
Now you understand. Now you understand all the people asking, “Why didn’t anyone stop the fascists?”
This is why.
The conditions for fascism have been created by our masters. They impoverished a huge chunk of Americans. White working class males had their wages peak in 1968. They gutted the social safety net. They sold their jobs overseas (don’t even pretend otherwise, it was deliberate policy).
I warned and warned that these people would eventually explode. I said, explicitly: “Last time America got FDR, but you may not be so lucky this time.”
The conditions for this are rising throughout the western world. See LaPen in France, the rise of the far right in England, and so on.
Trump may or may not be a fascist. But he is using the conditions that allow for the rise of either the “radical” right or left.
This is the result of deliberate government and elite policy.
This era is ending. We are moving in a pre-war and pre-revolutionary world, as I have repeatedly stated.
(Meanwhile, in Germany, AfD, the right wing nationalist, anti-immigrant party has had its best electoral result yet. Numbers are still low and not at crisis-levels, but…)
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cc
Cruz is even scarier than Trump. I don’t see anyone trying to interrupt Cruz’s rallies. So what’s the strategy here? Defeat Trump and install someone even worse?
It seems to me we’re entered a Sulla-like regime where “moderate” and “extreme” have ceased to have any meaning at all beyond “insider” and “outsider”. The “moderates” are every bit as extreme in their policies and tactics as the “extremists”, or even moreso.
Bill Hicks
Historically, the fascist movements in Italy and Germany were considerably more disciplined that what we are seeing from Trump. But on the flip side, he does seem to be awakening the fascist beast in America by tapping into the very resentments you are describing. What’s amazing is just how completely clueless the political class has been in not recognizing Trump’s campaign for what it really is. He may lose this election, but the movement he has started isn’t going away.
Duncan Kinder
The big difference between Trump and the Fascists is that during the early and mid-20th century the nation state was at its peak whereas now it is in decline.
That does not mean that things will therefore be pretty Rwanda was not fascist; nor was it pretty.
But a sober respnse would require not another FDR ( who was an excellent fellow for his time) but rather someone who recognizes that we are moving into a post-nationstate era.
bruce wilder
There’s something wrong with people, who think that acting as a provocateur of violence at a Trump rally makes any political sense, strategically or tactically.
Historic fascism, as it arose in broken polities after WWI, amidst the remnants of hereditary aristocracy and authoritarian religion and in the shadow of the experience of mass mobilization, had a character completely at odds with our political experience.
I don’t think we know what the Trump phenomenon is or will become, but I think staging violent protests or even deliberately provoking violence, may shape that phenomenon’s development and not in a good way.
The angry people volunteering to provoke violence — or to commit violence; let’s not pretend that rushing the stage isn’t violent — are as potentially dangerous to the polity as Trump supporters. No one should be encouraging political violence of this kind.
Hugh
Bill, I agree about the discipline. I think Hitler, like Trump is now, was just pissing around when he participated in the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich in 1923. After that, he organized and got and enforced discipline. Hannah Arendt explored his political and ideological machinations in her Origins of Totalitarianism. Her conclusion was that Hitler’s rise to power was systematic and well planned.
Where I disagree is that Trump, if he fades, will leave a movement behind him. I think what will be left is the discontent. Movements need organization and discipline or they fall apart and disappear. Look at what happened with Occupy. It blindsided the powers that be and put thousands in the streets, but it simply didn’t have the organization or discipline or message that could be used to contest the status quo and change it. The powers that be waited until people got tired of it, and then they dismantled it. I see the same problem with Sanders. Before Michigan when things weren’t going so well, some of his top staff started talking in the same terms that at least they had started a movement. No they hadn’t. No they haven’t. Movements take a lot of time, energy, and commitment. They need a lot of organization, discipline, and sacrifice. They need to keep building and moving forward. A movement that doesn’t is a deadman walking. Sanders like Trump is surfing on waves of discontent, but neither is building on them.
S Brennan
Let me see if I’ve got this straight, if you “think” somebody is a fascist, or if you are told by corporate media outlets 24/7 that they “think” somebody is a fascist, you have the right to organize a group of fascist thugs to prevent the person from speaking and to terrorize his audience.
But if have irrefutable evidence that somebody “IS” a fascists thug we should clap louder.
Trump isn’t much different from Huey Long or Teddy Roosevelt no matter what you are told by corporate media outlets 24/7/365. The idea that Trump is Hitler/Mussolini/Stalin/Satan…whatever…is the fantasy stuff of wankers. The bad stuff in American History has always been accomplished by those who hide their evil.
cc
This subthread on NC is relevant:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/03/links-31316.html#comment-2563475
shargash
People did disrupt Hitler’s rallies. Germany in the late 20s and early 30s had running street battles between the fascists and the communists. The continual violence actually strengthened the Nazis, as people wanted a strong hand to restore order.
This is the first time since the Trump phenomenon that I’ve actually begun to worry.
Jeff Wegerson
That some of the crowd in Chicago was chanting “Bernie, Berrnie” and now that Trump is blaming Sanders for sending protesters to his rallies and further threatening to send his supporters to disrupt Sander’s rallies is some of the best free media Sanders could get at this juncture.
African-American support for Sanders will grow with every public attack by the over-saturated Trump media presence. And every attack on Sanders cements the impression that he is a threat to Trump.
This is not 1972 where Nixon was working for a second term. And neither is it 1964 where Johnson was both second terming for Kennedy as well as collecting a sympathy vote.
Now if Sanders were to repeat often that his “supporters must NOT disrupt Trump” the necessity of the mind to form the positive concept before the negative can be constructed, would increase the chance of his supporters going to “express their legitimate first amendment rights” at Trump events at the same time as maintaining moral high-ground.
Ultragreen
Neoliberal economic policies and neoconservative foreign policies have helped to impoverish the working and middle-class in America under both Republican and Democratic administrations. In addition to these policies, there is the decline of conservative white majority of rule in America, as various minorities and recent immigrants become increasingly visible and influential. The result is a white right-wing backlash that supports Donald Trump, even though some of Trump’s policies (e.g., his attacks against free trade), would actually weaken the inclination of his base to lash out at perceived outsiders.
The new authoritarianism of the right is the result of forces, just described, that are independent of Donald Trump, therefore it is likely to persist even if Donald Trump is defeated in the general election.
If Hillary Clinton is elected, this will make the new authoritarianism of the right even worse because of her support for neoliberal economic policies and neoconservative foreign policy. Under her presidency, the decline of the working and middle classes will continue. Meanwhile, minorities and immigrants will continue to increase relative to the white population and they will become increasingly visible and powerful. This will be perceived as a threat to the conservative white majority, causing further conflicts.
It remains to be seen if a coalition of minority groups and white liberals will be able to keep the new authoritarianism of the right contained until demographic changes make it a permanent rump movement.
sumiDreamer
ALL the candidates refuse to tackle the core problem: PLUTOCRACY, rule by money.
The Bernie&Co (the bandwagon) tactic is to a soft sell; lots of smoke and mirrors refusing to call out the problems that leaves the US and the world to undo. The klusterfuck is deep and it wide.
Hillary serviced the plutocrats so well, she has managed to join the club – a kindergarten exercise to prove it on the internet. Bernie says he is “her friend” and will endorse her! Not exactly grasping the nettle.
Trump is a plutocrat, but surprising has few of the normal oligarchs behind him probably becuz of his obnoxious Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
Cruz is their toy boy; the hideous Cruz a mouthpiece of the dysfunctional ideology of what’s kept them in place.
Plutocrats don’t really care about the method and tactics that get employed to keep them in power; soft sell is preferable, of course. They care that their wealth (property, art, yachts, private clubs and schools, art) stay in their grasping hands, that’s all. Fascism only seems to appear when one particular group seems to be headed for redistribution among their various sects. They don’t have a Hive Mind, rather, they can be quite pragmatic.
I don’t hear Bernie scream loud and long to get an appropriate justice on the SCOTUS to over turn Citizens United and Buckley — or to pursue recusal in CONgress to make it illegal to stop the undue influence of money. I don’t see him fighting the superdelegate system and the rotten boroughs system of electing delegates. We are in a golden moment when much of the damage the plutocrats have “achieved” can be overturned. But I am not optimistic we can move to the necessary new slogans beyond “We are the 99%” and “Bernie! Bernie!”
Bernie! Bernie! is code for we are suffering, down here in the 99%. The Trumpster bandwagon also hurts, but they’re ready to LASH OUT, proper targets or no. Being led by a plutocrat who endorses their RAGE is to their liking. Less responsibility, less intellectual strain.
People are being sold out good and proper.
Jill
I believe there are several mistakes in how we are thinking about mainstream candidates. (I am angry that we almost never get to hear about the Green party. We should consider why that black out is in place).
First while it is true that white men have lost jobs and income, they are not the only people effected by the elite’s economic policy. Women of any color and black and Hispanic men are suffering as much (and often more) as white men. Yet Hillary Clinton has the support of many black men, many Hispanic men and women of every color. Interestingly, her followers are not described as “angry”. Yet, shouldn’t they be angry?
Bernie Sanders is running on a platform of income inequality. Because the left feels sympathetic to this message, his supporters, who are also angry about trade agreements and falling wages, are not called “angry”. But shouldn’t they also be angry? Instead, only Trump supporters are called “angry”.
IMO, anyone paying attention and who cares about the well being of others ought to be angry and proudly so. “Anger is the political expression of love”.
What I see is that this righteous anger is being manipulated by the elites, not just in Trump’s followers but in those who mindlessly support Clinton and Sanders. Each group of people has every right to be angry. But that anger is being cleverly used to separate the population by teaching each group to feel ever so superior to the other.
There should be massive protests at each of the major candidate’s rallies. Not violent protest, but real, informed, strong and powerful opposition to being pitted against our fellow citizens and to the injustice which not one of these candidates will actually address.
Dan Lynch
As Bruce Wilder mentioned, disrupting Trump protests does not make sense as a strategy.
.
Except …. ask the usual question: CUI BONO? Who benefits from getting people all stirred up that Trump is supposedly a fascist?
.
Answer: the Democratic party. All D’s have left to campaign on is “we may suck, but be very afraid of Republicans.”
.
While it is unlikely that the anti-Trump protests will hurt Trump’s campaign and may even help him (free publicity), CUI BONO if Trump is forced out of the race?
.
Answer: Hillary. Hillary could beat Trump or Rubio, but perhaps not Trump.
.
Finally, which organization is organizing and recruiting for these anti-Trump protests? MoveOn, a Democratic PAC. And while a membership vote forced MoveOn to endorse Bernie, you can be sure that MoveOn will support Hillary after Bernie drops out. Bernie is merely a useful sheepdog to keep the base from straying.
.
As for fascism, it seems to mean whatever people want it to mean. These protesters don’t seem to care when Obama or Hillary do fascist things. The protests are not about fascism, they’re about energizing the Democratic base.
Dan Lynch
Personally, I have no desire to disrupt the campaign rallies of candidates I don’t like. It will not change anyone’s mind. But more importantly, it violates the golden rule. Would you like it if someone disrupted your guy’s rally? Of course not. So don’t disrupt theirs.
It’s fair game to protest an elected official for their actions in office, especially when they are war criminals as many of our elected officials are. But Trump is not an elected official and he hasn’t killed anyone.
Mary McCurnin
he hasn’t killed anyone.
YET
The Tragically Flip
S Brennan:
“you have the right to organize a group of fascist thugs to prevent the person from speaking and to terrorize his audience.”
Nothing like this has happened. Some protesters showed up to disrupt his speech and probably get thrown out peacefully by police. Some fights broke out after Trump cancelled the event and who knows what arguments occurred as pissed off Trump fans confronted protesters. Trump’s audience was not “terrorized” as the pictures show clearly.
But Trump is promising a police state, ethnic cleansing (via his deportation policy), torture, forcing a poor country to build a giant wall at America’s behest, an explicitly racist border control policy and a bunch of other illiberal things. Acting like this is just another campaign is absurd.
Billikin
Trump may or may not be a fascist. But he knows how to inflame the hatred and violence of his authoritarian followers. shargash is right. Violently evoking the hatred and violence of Trump’s followers is counterproductive. It only strengthens their fascism. Just as our invasions of the Middle East have strengthened terrorism.
S Brennan
I support both Trump & Sanders in their respective primaries, I think both are anti-neocon & anti-neoliberal. I don’t think Trump is Hitler and I don’t think Sanders is Stalin…but then I study history and find these comparisons idiotic. Both are in the mold of Gilded Age populists/progressives, see Teddy Roosevelt and Huey Long.
If they run against each other citizens will have a chance to express their outrage for the last 35 years of mistreatment peacefully…or as JFK said; “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable”
More likely, Hillary [a certifiable war criminal] will steal the nomination and Trump will meet his end in DBA and Hillary will win by default…to the polite applause of “liberals”, Wall Street Welfare Queens and the puppeteers that run the whole show.
Bill Hicks
It just occurred to me that Sanders and Trump supporters brawling at Trump rallies is somewhat akin to the communists and Nazis brawling on the streets of Berlin circa 1930-32. Sadly, they all have more in common with each other than they do with anyone in Washington these days. If they would only realize it.
Ultragreen
Bill Hicks: “It just occurred to me that Sanders and Trump supporters brawling at Trump rallies is somewhat akin to the communists and Nazis brawling on the streets of Berlin circa 1930-32.”
Apparently more people should have joined the communists in these brawls. Instead, they stood at the sidelines, feeling smug, while letting the Nazis seize control of Germany.
Rob Conrad
Bruce Wilder: the Chicago protest was NOT violent. I was there, I saw it both inside and outside the hall with my own lying eyes. Were feelings hot, were some harsh words said, was a punch or three thrown? Yes. But 99.8% of the even twas nonviolent. It … just … was. Please do not spread the false narrative that Chicago was a violent affair. It was remarkably, inspiringly, thrillingly nonviolent — given the high levels of passion on the part of both the protesters and the Trump supporters. Trump was a coward for not showing up, and while people were wanded by security on the way in, nobody checked for eventbrite passes — anybody was admitted. It’s very, very easy to surmise that Trump had no intention of coming, but just wanted to load up the coliseum with his supporters and lots of protesters, and hope that a riot resulted. Well, you k now what? A riot didn’t result. Those few moments of shoving, that punch of a white punk who trash talked the black guy who then clocked him — those will be on repeat loop on your TV screen. Reality was different. I know — I was there. Were you?
S Brennan
Rob Conrad;
Like many who show up here in election years and then disappear forever, you are very certain of your facts. Where have you posting comments under “Rob Conrad” for say…the last eight years?
Some Guy
Duncan makes a critical point up top about the different point in the trajectory of civilization we are at now, but in response to this:
“But a sober respnse would require not another FDR ( who was an excellent fellow for his time) but rather someone who recognizes that we are moving into a post-nationstate era.”
My thought is, what IS a sober response to the current situation? I don’t see one, and that is the scary part.
John Poynton
This sort of panicky analysis is what triggers pre-emptive strikes in the first place. Trump will only become a fascist when he suspends the democratic process. There is, so far at least, no evidence I am aware of that he will. Nor is there any evidence of a move to the far right in France or England. Marine Le Pen is well to the left of her father, and UKIP is a broad church that unites all sorts behind a common objective to get the UK out of the EU.
V. Arnold
Interesting article at Zero Hedge;
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-03-12/nassim-taleb-sums-americas-election-17-black-swan-words
“People are not voting for Trump (or Sanders). People are just voting, finally, to destroy the establishment.”
If only that were true; is it? I have no idea; I’ve been out of touch with the U.S. for 13 years and counting. Hell, if one re-“lies” on the CCM; then that one knows nothing…
anonymous coward
If Trump is a fascist then you will be giving him the greatest gift you could by attempting to get in his face and disrupt his meetings. Fascists and dictators thrive on polarized tension in society. They try to create it themselves, and when given it gratis by extremists of an equal degree of assholishness but opposed valency, they never fail to make the most of it. Why do they love to evoke this kind of response? Because they know it will chase the vast majority of the citizenry, the people in the confused, self-professed apolitical middle rightwards, over to them, for the security that only Big Daddy can provide. Keep it up Libtards, and you’ll get the “schlonging” you’ve secretly been longing for.
Billikin
Dan Lynch: ” CUI BONO? Who benefits from getting people all stirred up that Trump is supposedly a fascist?
.
“Answer: the Democratic party.”
Second answer: Donald Trump. Trump thrives on controversy and anger. He will benefit from those who are energized in his defense.
Bill H
V. Arnold makes a good point in asking if people are really “voting to destroy the establishment.” Reality is we don’t know why people are voting as they are. Don’t get in my face about exit polls, either, because they don’t ask that question. They tell us things like “32% of people who favor a right to abortion voted for…” but that don’t tell us the central reason for any person’s vote.
Jill
V. Arnold,
I think many supporters of Trump and Sanders are sincere in their wish to: “… destroy the establishment”. The problem lies in the amount of propaganda US voters, whether on the left or right have been subjected to. It is nearly impossible to get actual information from US media sites. As I am on the left, I get to hear a lot of propaganda aimed at leftists. I will relay but one instance from NPR. This story was on the closing of Gitmo. We got to hear “both” sides of the debate. On one side was the former commandant who told us he had seen everyone’s file there and they were all really bad guys. They deserved to be there and it needed to be out of the US because these guys were dangerous. On the other side the commentator argued that detainees should be moved to a maximum security prison in the US because having Gitmo open in Cuba was a recruiting rally for terrorists.
Now, here is an actual left wing analysis of Gitmo, one you will not hear on NPR or most other reputed sources of lefty info: The detention of detainees is unlawful. People imprisoned at Gitmo have been and currently are being tortured. Detainees should either be given a civilian trial or immediately released with compensation for their suffering. Any person engaged in ordering, tolerating, legally justifying or actively inflicting torture on any detainee should be arrested and tried. That’s a side we don’t get to hear in Amerika.
Trump and Sanders cannot mean what they say, they cannot be prepared to implement their “revolutionary” agenda and simultaneously claim they will stand behind the chosen candidate of their party. They would be and will be betraying everything they say they will do in that one action.
I don’t know how to get around all the mind numbing propaganda going out on every feed. If we can get around this, we may have a chance. Otherwise, even though people’s desire for change is real, it will only result in more of the same and much worse.
V. Arnold
Jill
March 14, 2016
You make a good point. Change cannot come from within the system and that’s a fact.
“The people” have once again bought the hopey/changey B.S..
It’s a very bad omen; it means “the people” are incapable of grasping the reality of their situation.
If they did, they might know what to do, but even then, I’m not sure…
Jill
V. Arnold,
Do you see a way to break through the propaganda? I try really hard to understand the lies I’m being told but I’m sure I don’t catch all of it by any means. Propaganda is pervasive, even down to very small audiences. I actually saw Obama propaganda in a magazine on knitting! I just happened to pick up the thing at the doctors and I couldn’t believe what I was reading.
Propaganda is everywhere. Lack of information is pervasive. How do we break out of this situation? Do yo have any thoughts on that?
different clue
Jill,
I am not V. Arnold but I would say read Colonel Lang’s Sic Semper Tyrannis slowly and carefully and you will get some non-propaganda about some subjects.
V. Arnold
Jill
March 14, 2016
Break through the propaganda?
Easy; just step away from it. Get rid of your T.V. and stop reading and listening to all CCM (corporate controlled media). As I told a student of mine (when asked how to fix the educational system); you can’t fix the system; fix yourself.
There is reams of information “out there”; just take the time to find it. I guarantee it’s not in your TV.; you have to stop participating and step out of the system. Most Usainians are trapped in a room with many doors; and not one of them is locked; but they refuse to open the doors…
That’s the best I have to offer.
Mandos
Oddly enough, for once I have to concur with what seems to be the prevailing sentiment here. Trump-ish phenomena survive and grow on the sense of chaos and powerlessness. Trump’s popularity, like that of other proto-fascist and fascist movements, is the emotional backlash of people who think that the problem that the world won’t leave them to have what they think they always should have had. Direct disruption of Trump’s rallies presents an enemy against whom to direct their inchoate anger.
Jill
different clue, I will look into this.
V. Arnold,
What bothers me about your posts is the contempt of others which I feel from them. I may be reading that into them incorrectly. If so, I apologize.
If beating propaganda and finding real information was easy, lots of people would do it. At least in my experience, finding and reading original documents from wikileaks, for example, takes a lot of time. Contrary to what we are told about the greatness of the American economy, many people are working 2 or 3 jobs and trying to take care of their families. They are exhausted. Exhausting isn’t a bug of this economy, it’s a feature.
Poor education in critical thinking skills is a feature as well. I have talked with many people at top universities and they can’t think their way out of a paper bag! These are people who had every advantage in the educational system, yet, when Harold Koh claimed that Obama had the right to kill anyone anywhere in the world on his say so, only 5 people in a very large room didn’t give him a standing ovation. That’s from our so called “best and brightest”.
I think getting rid of the TV and FB as well is an excellent choice! But people need a loving community of friends or a natural inclination towards being a curmudgeon to do so. We need to create a community of help, caring and love so that people won’t be drawn to TV and FB as poor substitutes for human community.
This is a truly complex situation without easy answers. It cannot be solved with an attitude of contempt towards others unless that contempt is actually earned (by people who are politicians, bankers, and other corporate elites). I understand your frustration because I also feel it. But put yourself in the shoes of people who don’t have time to do research, wouldn’t know where to look if they had the time, would need to learn critical thinking skills even though they had the “best” educations money can buy, etc.
V. Arnold
Jill
March 15, 2016
I would suggest, strongly, a self critique of your reply. The lack of critical thinking skills is front and center in your request.
A loving community would be an optimum situation; but can only result after the hard work has been done.
You are faced with crisis; how you respond to that is the critical choice you will make.
Fail in this realization and your loving community will never be realized.
When you fully understand the present; then the future path will be revealed.
Short of that you’ll just flounder in the morass of the present insanity.
I sense you haven’t fully understood what is actually happening in the U.S..
All the best
V
V. Arnold
@ Jill
Addendum; If beating propaganda and finding real information was easy, lots of people would do it.
That is pure bollocks. People are stupid and lazy. In 2003 all the information was available; Iraq had no WMD’s of any kind; but the invasion happened anyway!
Why? Because the U.S. was captured by the CCM and laziness. Go along to get along; pure and simple.
And by the way; my contempt is hard earned by the FACTS!
If you continue with this nonsense; this conversation is over!!!!
S Brennan
V. Arnold;
I was one of millions of protesters who took to the street, I wrote letters to the editors, I wrote my congressperson & senators.
Nothing of the marches was seen on the corporate media outlets, my letters were rewritten by WaPo editors to have the opposite meaning, meaningless replies to my letters congressperson & senators.
Except for blogs; who were; even at that time being co-opted, Josh Marshal turned in some of the most subtle nuanced pablum for war ever written, sounding more like a planner for a Girl Scout outing than the bloody sectarian war we were to ignite. Kevin Drum took the “liberals don’t want to look like gullible pussies line”. EZ-rah Klien saw his path to MSM littered with US soldiers bodies and took a very circuitous route, so as not to be too close to such “ruffians”, but wound up right where Rumsfield needed him…
We swim in a sea of propaganda. Unless you were taught the tools to ferret out the truth, you’ll be bamboozled. The editors of Izvestia and Pravda allowed more latitude than today’s reporters. And yes, I read the English version, then available in certain public libraries.
S Brennan
And one thing I forgot to add in defense of Jill’s argument:
I worked hard labor jobs and multiple jobs from ’73 to ’84 with a brief intermission as a tradesman in ’79 & part of ’80 before Volker raised the rates to stop the building that the baby-bust’rs demand had created. Then it was multiple odd jobs with night school at city college and finally US Army for University funds. I started every week of university 25 hours behind behind my fellow students due to my daily work and one weekend a month duties to get Guard pay.
Yes, I managed to pay attention, but only because major media outlets still operated under the FDR fair doctrine. But just as often, I’d sit down to watch a news program with a beer beside me only to wake and find the beer still there and my alarm clock ringing telling me to get ready for work.
You have no idea how exhausting day long physical work can be until you do it year after year with no end in sight.
Jill
S. Brennan,
Thank you for writing about the real experience of most working people in the US. Further, looking for work is extraordinarily exhausting as is trying one’s best to survive working off the books on “welfare”.
I was interested to learn that your letters to the editor were manipulated beyond recognition. That happened to me, my husband and several other people I know where I used to live. It just started happening in the past 5 years. It’s really creepy.
Also, when I protested in the streets about various issues I think there were snipers. I was never certain of that but I do believe I saw them. I know for certain that the parking garages nearby had all kinds of different govt. agencies on their license plates. Since there was absolutely no violence nor even a threat of violence by the protesters I was stunned by the many “law” enforcement agencies at work during these relatively small protests.
This govt. knows how to rid itself of protesters. Ferguson was an egregious example of a completely militarized array against US citizens engaged in protest. Homan Square in Chicago is also instructive. In that case protesters have been tortured, disappeared and one was murdered.
Therefore the government seems to have covered all its bases-propaganda, and if that fails, brute force up to and including torture and murder.
V. Arnold
S Brennan
March 15, 2016
I worked as a commercial fisherman in the north Pacific and 30+ years as a heavy machinist; just what are you going to teach me about working hard?
Ah, the arrogance of the proletariat…
S Brennan
V. Arnold;
Both are high paying jobs,
Machinists make more than engineers…easily, fisherman make more money still, particularly during the salad days you enjoyed…and while the work can be constant, there’s a shit load of time off. One my best buddies still works the boats he’s pulling 140g’s working six months a year…your pathetic example shows how insipidly out of touch you are with the reality of most working class Americans. Your an idiot for trying to pass that shit off.
V. Arnold
S Brennan
March 15, 2016
You are factually as wrong as two left shoes. Your ignorance is glaring and you do not know what you’re talking about.
End of conversation…
S Brennan
Dude;
Don’t give me that bullshit, I lived in Seattle, working as a machinists at Boeing your work was less strenuous than a pediatricians, or school teachers. I worked a crab boat for a season, it was hard, but nothing compared to digging ditches and pretty minimal when the pots were soaking…and the pay…shit it was absolutely phenomenal, worst part was listening to whiners, [like yourself], you just can’t get away from idiots on a boat. Go try your con on somebody else.
gfd
At least on the issue of the Iraq war I have to come down on the side of V. Arnold.
The time-vampire society we have now didn’t exist then, and while the American media were lying out the wazoo, foreign media were just a few mouse clicks away for anyone with the inclination to look. The American public was wealthier, better educated, and had better access to a wider variety of information sources than any other major polity in all of modern history.
People in the other 1st world nations had the same access to the same sources of information that Americans did, and for the most part managed to see what was really going on. At the time it seemed to that most Americans could see it too, but were willing to go along with Bush’s scam out of tribalism.
gfd
Pff. “At the time it seemed to me that…”
Joseph Hertzlinger
You cannot use the Ring. Its nature is evil and it consumes those who would wield it.