This Isn't A Way To Defeat Trump
At Counterpunch Professor David Schultz sees a final fracturing of the Democratic party, labor, and civil rights coalition:
George Floyd being killed by a police officer in Minneapolis is not simply about the death of one Black man. His death also killed an historic but uneasy alliance among the Democratic Party, labor unions, and the civil rights movement. The reaction to his death is ending the last vestiges of the historic New Deal coalition that defined progressive politics in American for at least 50 years, ushering in an era where it now appears that the Democratic Party and the civil rights community are at odds with labor and unions.
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What was the last time these posturing millionaires with political power have done something for the working class?
The 'autonomous zone' in Seattle seems to be run by 'Black Lives Matter':
They come from a variety of groups and interests, ranging from Black Lives Matter organizers to labor and neighborhood groups. Most want the police precinct to be turned into a community center and much of the department’s funding to be redirected to health and social services.“What you see out here is people coming together and loving each other,” said Mark Henry Jr. of Black Lives Matter. “I see people coming from different walks of life ... learning from each other.”
The zone was set up after the police left the Capitol Hill precinct.
Police Chief Carmen Best said the decision to leave the Capitol Hill precinct wasn’t hers and she was angry about it.
So who told the police to leave the precinct?
Pepe Escobar suspects that the Democrats are using the 'autonomous zone' as a 'color revolution' method to contrast themselves to Donald Trump:
Capital Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) is supported by the city of Seattle – run by a Democrat – which is supported by the governor of Washington State, also a Democrat.There’s no chance Washington State will use the National Guard to crush CHAZ. And Trump cannot take over Washington State National Guard without the approval of the governor, even though he has tweeted, “Take back your city NOW. If you don’t do it, I will. This is not a game.”
It’s enlightening to observe that “counter-insurgency” can be applied in Afghanistan and the tribal areas; to occupy Iraq; to protect the looting of oil/gas in eastern Syria. But not at home. Even if 58% of Americans would actually support it: for many among them, the Commune may be as bad if not worse than looting.
But then there are those firmly opposed. Among them: the “Butcher of Fallujah” Mad Dog Mattis; color revolution practitioners NED; Nike; JP Morgan; the whole Democratic Party establishment; and virtually the whole U.S. Army establishment.
Escobar points out that 'Black Lives Matter' as an organization has no real political program at least when compared to the movements of the 1960s. It is fed by corporate money and the Ford foundation. The Donate button on its web page goes to Act Blue, a Democrat donation collection service which also works for the Sanders and Biden campaigns.
Do the Democrats believe that they can win the election with such a 'strategy of tension' against a 'law and order' Trump?
If so they are making a huge mistake.
The 'silent majority' that voted for Nixon will also vote for Trump.
Posted by b on June 13, 2020 at 18:01 UTC | Permalink
next page »If anyone gave a damn about blacks they'd be protesting the drug laws that punish crack users or dealers with 18 times as long in prison as Cocaine users or dealers. That is why Police target blacks and not whites, they can get a decent sentence for a black drug user. That is why blacks pull guns on police - they know the risks of getting caught with petty amounts of drugs.
If anyone gave a damn about blacks being killed by Police (or whites or mostly by other blacks) they'd protest for proper gun laws so that blacks and Poice could meet without being terrified.
Actually any congressman who gave a damn about anything but his re-election would be fighting to change drug and gun laws.
The racism is in Congress.
Posted by: Michael Droy | Jun 13 2020 18:20 utc | 2
Yep-
Pepsi/Pepsi Lite
Dim/Repug
Both capitalist, and very narrow.
Posted by: Duncan Idaho | Jun 13 2020 18:22 utc | 3
A useful read from the Escobar article is this old Paul Street article
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/black-panthers-think-black-lives-matter/
Posted by: Blue Dotterel | Jun 13 2020 18:25 utc | 4
As I have noted time and time again, this is a class war and voting for the corporatist parties won't help us defeat the 0.1%. They are winning because they control the narrative.
Fred Hampton speech excerpt from Pepe's article:
"We got to face some facts. That the masses are poor, that the masses belong to what you call the lower class, and when I talk about the masses, I'm talking about the white masses, I'm talking about the black masses, and the brown masses, and the yellow masses, too. We've got to face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire, but we say you put fire out best with water. We say you don't fight racism with racism. We're gonna fight racism with solidarity. We say you don't fight capitalism with no black capitalism; you fight capitalism with socialism."
BLM isn't interested in the masses. You won't see the 1% percent and the pillaging of the US in any of their "manifestos". You won't see any marches with signs saying
"Yemeni Lives Matter"
Nah! Another corporate controlled (and financed) "movement"
Posted by: Blue Dotterel | Jun 13 2020 18:35 utc | 5
I wrote up a brief post this morning about Hakim Bey, the author of TAZ (temporary autonomous zone). Bey, who's real name s Peter Lamborn Wilson, is an alleged anarchist who likes Moorish culture and pedophilia. too bad the rapper Raz took over the CHAZ inspired by TAZ, otherwise this could have been a great opportunity for oppressed pedophiles who just want to share their love of children.
The Democratic establishment is a party of Loud Virtue-signaling and accusing others of what they themselves are often responsible for. Indeed they reflect the tendencies of (bi-partisan) US Foreign Policy of loudly talking about Freedom & Human Rights as an excuse to exercise hegemony and interfere, suppress, sanction, declare war against peoples who have done them no harm but refuse to yield to the Empire
Many, who have been cowered into silence, will see their one chance of free expression at the ballot box however flawed that process is.
Posted by: Ludwig | Jun 13 2020 18:47 utc | 7
I've no idea what % of votes Trump will get in the end, but one thing is obvious, he will get an even higher share of the White vote than he got the last time - and I mean, the global White vote, including the lower classes and the women. The polarization between GOP and Dems, or between Trumpists and progressives, is also paralleled by a polarization between the average White (cis-gendered straight) voter and various minorities (though it's murkier when it comes to Asians and, to a small extent, Hispanics - a Republican candidate who hadn't shat on Latinos for years might do better). There is (and will be a slightly bigger) minority of "woke/progressive/hipster" Whites, but it's an urban one mostly, and it's not going to become a majority of that plurality of US voters.
As others said in a previous thread, as long as the protests don't include a universalist message and as long as social justice doesn't go hand in hand with economic justice, this is only going to alienate a good chunk of the voting base. Whatever progressives and intersectionalists think, the economic divide is, has been and will be the biggest divide between people, and the biggest "privilege" is the financial one, the one the wealthiest experience while the bulk of the people (including progressive upper middle-class, despite its obliviousness) have to slave on shitty job to make ends meet. Any serious leftist movement have to be based on redistribution of wealth and on economic reforms. Any movement that doesn't include this is, basically, class-treason, and only serves the upper 1% in their attempt of safeguarding ultra-liberal capitalism.
Posted by: Clueless Joe | Jun 13 2020 18:49 utc | 8
While the BLM movement has been to some extent co-opted by the Democratic Party and the NGO's, there is another group, the Movement for Black Lives that does have a clear policy platform. Probably neither group actually controls the Seattle Commune of course.
Posted by: Charles | Jun 13 2020 18:55 utc | 9
This is not about DEFEATING Trump... It is about DEFEATING any potential for ordinary people come together and promote the notion of government of people by the people for the people. democrats, can always manage Trump for another 4 years.. The establishment and the billionaire class, can't stand the public/people have a say in their own republic.
Posted by: Rd | Jun 13 2020 18:55 utc | 10
Please spell out what it means that Act Blue also handles donation collection for Biden and Sanders? Not much I think.
As for the problem with Black Lives Matter, it is a very interesting question but not one to resolve by simply following links until you stumble upon a democratic source and then by association deciding it must be a bad thing.
The xkcd site links to this https://www.joincampaignzero.org/
It looks fancy and their agenda looks nice. They're associated with Obama though.
I don't believe such an association is enough to dismiss such an organisation. It does raise the question however to what extent the power of these organisations is constrained, preempted towards areas that don't upset major interests. But it is easy to get paranoid about it.
Posted by: Tuyzentfloot | Jun 13 2020 18:57 utc | 11
Posted by: Ludwig | Jun 13 2020 18:47 utc | 7
"Many, who have been cowered into silence, will see their one chance of free expression at the ballot box however flawed that process is."
And inevitably they will vote for their oppressors.
this has been done before
Posted by: Blue Dotterel | Jun 13 2020 18:57 utc | 12
Lizard #6
Thank you, that was a mighty interesting story. The pedos just keep rising to the top.
Maybe the CHAZ will be declared a green zone just to add to the craziness.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jun 13 2020 19:09 utc | 14
In June 1963, President John F. Kennedy issued Executive Order 11111 which federalized the Alabama National Guard, and frustrated the effort of Gov. George Wallace to employ the Guard to keep up the segregation of Birmingham schools. I believe Trump can still do that; but he showed a preference to use the regular military to inflame the situation to the point of potential tragedy.
It is possibly for the corporate Dems to manipulate the theater aspect of this crisis to simultaneously deaden the prospects for reform, while at the same time handing Trump a way to win in November, on the issue of law & order.
Seattle's Autonomous Zones : ON Topic
It doesn't matter who wins, the Neocons have destroyed my country.
FOX is dying for Trump to send in the military to crush the Rep. of SAZ in order to restore law and order and prevent it from spreading to other cities. It doesn't matter if SAZ is peaceful or not because the country comes first. Does anyone remember what we did to Syria? We were more than happy to fragment and destroy their country.
All the evil we have done and are doing to other countries is coming back to us.
1. Covid19 - a small taste of what it's like to live under U.S. sanctions.
2. Rep. of SAZ + Wash. protests - a small taste of what a color revolution tastes like except we inflicted this on ourselves.
The only thing left is for the Neocons to get us into a war where thousands of U.S. serviceman die in a short period of time. Not hoping for that because the people who should die will still be rich, well fed, and happy. The least deserving of death will suffer the most; especially the civilians we will murder on the other side of the fence.
Posted by: Christian J Chuba | Jun 13 2020 19:10 utc | 16
Much of this CHAZ controversy is a reflection of local Seattle politics. The Capitol Hill district has long nurtured bohemian/alternative viewpoints. Distinct anti-police sentiments date back at least to the 1999 WTO protests, when riot police forced the protesters into Capitol Hill and then tear-gassed and batoned anyone in sight. Fears of an "autonomous zone" are over-hyped, and is certainly serving a "law and order" mindset which works politically for Trump and followers, but it is not a reflection of reality.
The association of pedophilia with Peter L Wilson/Hakim Bey is based on interpretations of his writings, and seem to be inveighed by persons who dislike anarchists and anarchism altogether.
Posted by: jayc | Jun 13 2020 19:11 utc | 17
Posted by: Ian2 | Jun 13 2020 19:01 utc | 13
"Trump will get his second term. No doubts now."
Really man, who cares? Trump or Biden, it is the same corporatist party.
Posted by: Blue Dotterel | Jun 13 2020 19:14 utc | 18
Clueless Joe #8
Yes its the only demend - equal wealth, equal wages.
Maybe Black Lives Matter shold be Rich Lives Matter. The Ford Foundation and the DNC would approve.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jun 13 2020 19:15 utc | 19
b: If so they are making a huge mistake.
Just like the huge mistake the Democrats made with impeachment. And the huge mistake they made with presumptive nominee Joe Biden.
How many huge mistakes do they have to make before it's recognized that they want to re-elect Trump? Because Trump is the Republican Obama: a faux populist and fake "outsider" that is not a threat to the establishment but an agent of the establishment.
!!
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jun 13 2020 19:19 utc | 20
This is looking like another 1960’s type insurrection that will end up the same way: it will be used by the rich and powerful elites (notice how the corporate controlled media has gone on one knee for BLM and has gone outright anti-white?), there will be a back lash that will crush it (right after the election), and its leaders will be either absorbed into the establishment or offed.
America looks like a hybrid of Stephen King, Brave New World, and 1984 and the rich and powerful US elites and intel agencies stroke it and love it. Notice that the US super rich have been raking it in since January 2020? While at the same time Trump is busy making the US a vassal state of Israel and accelerating the roll-out of Cold War v2 which is just fine with US elites that will not change with the election of moron Biden (if the people elect Biden they are electing his VP as Biden will not last long; he is a lot like Yeltsin that was pumped up on mental stimulants and nutriments to perform for short periods until the next treatment).
What a country, what a ship of fools.
Posted by: AriusArmenian | Jun 13 2020 19:27 utc | 22
The Dems are not the answer to any of this. Trump represents the cancer and the Dems represent what caused the cancer. They represent the chemical toxicity that caused the cancer. The answer to cancer isn't what caused the cancer. It's the opposite, in fact.
The American political system is rotten to the core. It cannot be reformed. It must be abolished and replaced and the poison that comprised it must never be allowed to have any form of power and influence again, and if that means transporting them to an island somewhere out of sight and mind for the rest of their days, so be it.
I deplore Trump but I refuse to vote for Biden or any Dem come November. They are not resistance and the fact of the matter is, we are well beyond needing resistance. We need much much more than that at this point. I will abstain from voting because no one is worth my vote and no party is worth my vote. I will not legitimate an illegitimate and corrupt farce.
Posted by: 450.org | Jun 13 2020 19:30 utc | 23
Posted by: AriusArmenian | Jun 13 2020 19:27 utc | 22
"its leaders will be either absorbed into the establishment or offed."
You need to read Pepe's article or the Street article linked above. The leaders were bought off and positioned from the get go. This is a fake movement.
Posted by: Blue Dotterel | Jun 13 2020 19:32 utc | 24
Jackrabbit #20
Yeah, they just keep repeating those mistakes until the golden haired guy wins. I do believe that if Biden looks like winning the DNC will stage a 'Biden meets young cheerleaders' with lots of touchy feelies and sniffing.
That should fix it.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jun 13 2020 19:32 utc | 25
It has been a strategy of Trump to bluster and threaten truly horrible things; and then gauge the pushback, and move to a fallback position. He can still federalize the local National Guard in Washington State or elsewhere, and use that mechanism along with provocateurs as a pretext. Kennedy set the precedent for federalizing the Guard in 1963 to preempt violence in Birmingham. This can be done whether a Governor agrees with it, or not.
The Dem establishment is giving lip service and symbolically "taking a knee" for the BLM movement, as well as the wider revolt against abusive and criminal police behavior. However, at the same time, these sanctimonious gestures are undercut by the policy of the Party and Biden, to disavow calls to defund police. They are united in resisting true political momentum that would reduce the number of police, and augment with social workers a lot of the load that has been put on police.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jun 13 2020 19:32 utc | 25
Not necessarily. Trump as the Republican Obama may be prefereable to lead into the next Democrat Trump in 2024, but Biden will still do the bidding of the corporatocracy as would Trump.
Posted by: Blue Dotterel | Jun 13 2020 19:41 utc | 27
I'm curious about how things work in the Autonomous Zone. Do people actually live in the Zone or do they commute daily from the suburbs? Are there any toilets? Who takes the garbage out? What happens if/when there is a serious crime in the Zone?
Posted by: dh | Jun 13 2020 20:02 utc | 28
I agree in spirit with what Escobar, Schultz say. I also understand that some kind of "silent majority" may reelect Trump (specially in the USA, where vote is by district, not one person one vote).
However, there's a fundamental difference between Nixon's victory and 2020: at the beginning of the 1970s, the USA economy was still at its apex, and there was huge space for maneuver for the American economy.
Remember: Nixon had to resign and he did opened the gates for China's rise. Conservatives tend to forget that fact when deifying him on the altar of the "silent majority".
Another problem for the "silent majority" is the simple fact that it doesn't prevent election fraud: Al Gore won against Bush in 2000 and wasn't elected by pure fraud. The "silent majority" could only watch as Bush swore into the White House.
The "silent majority" thesis also paints an incorrect picture of the true contradictions of capitalism, in the sense that it gives you the illusion there's some kind of idyllic petite-bourgeois/white collar superstructure that gives capitalism as prosperous and safe escape valve. The problem here is that the US economy is in a much worse shape than in 1970 - the room to be cute is quickly disappearing.
If the various groups involved in the Seattle Autonomous Zone can coalesce and advance an intelligent, articulate leader/spokesperson, they will have substantially overcome the problems that plagued Occupy Wall Street -- of course, there must be a strict no-violence policy and a demonstration of workable community projects.
Posted by: chet380 | Jun 13 2020 20:19 utc | 30
B I think your mistaken.
This isn’t contrived by the democrats.
These mass demonstrations are a reaction to yet another case of police brutality. The murder of George Floyd. At the behest of Trump (dog whistle politics)
The same in the run up to his first election. Most cops are Republican racist kkk scum.
Your overlooking the world wide out-rage at George Floyd murder.
https://twitter.com/goorkan10/status/1271857685756067848
Please don’t attempt to belittle and undermine this protest.
This is the same tacktic used to distroy the British.Labour Party. Ditto ———
Syria, Iraq, Venezuela, Iran, and the climate chainge movement.
B are you pro Trump ?
Posted by: Mark2 | Jun 13 2020 20:26 utc | 31
How can you guys see through so many things but still go on about trump and the rep/dem farce??
Blows my mind the number of articles on us politics... about as useful as an in depth discussion of a tv soap
Posted by: Peter | Jun 13 2020 20:31 utc | 32
There is almost nothing that can be done for a government as corrupt as the one in the United States. The Democrats are as nervous about popular occupation of the streets as Republicans are. The evidence would be Obama's Fusion Center operation to decamp the whole Occupy Movement in one coordinated operation.
Bernhard writes: " The 'silent majority' that voted for Nixon will also vote for Trump". The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, the incestuous child of Joe Biden, was driven by a similar public mood.
Bernhard is trying to prepare us for the blow or to warn us. The duplicity of the corporate parties has already been demonstrated. I recently saw a Dem campaign placard online that read, Vote Blue--no matter who. I guess the betrayal is already baked into the pie.
@30 I believe you are suggesting somebody be put in a position of authority? By holding a democratic election presumably. Assuming a leader emerges he/she will have a tough job organizing anarchists into committees.
Posted by: dh | Jun 13 2020 20:34 utc | 34
Hello MOA,
There are a few problems with your post.
1. Black Lives Matter is an organization but there are also independent BLM groups all over the country. They carry the same name but their activities aren't coordinated. Also, any black led protest against police violence is said to be affiliated with BLM whether it is or not.
2. Until this week I followed Pepe Escobar and considered him a credible source. But I have learned that when it comes to U.S. domestic politics and especially black people in this country he doesn't know what he is talking about. The founders of BLM are connected to the democratic party, which caused them to lose credibility with many black people. That organization cannot take credit for the actions across the country. Those demonstrations are a spontaneous expression of outrage which cut across racial lines and expose the many struggles that Americans are living with.
3. There is no color revolution going on here. The silly photo op stunt by the democratic party leadership was the worst kind of pandering, meant to quiet demands so that they will not have to enact any of the changes that protesters are demanding.
4. If you are interested you can see my analysis here in my weekly Black Agenda Report column.
https://blackagendareport.com/freedom-rider-rebellion-confusion-scoundrels-and-kente-cloth
5. If Trump wins it will be because the democrats have once again decided to ignore the needs of their voters in favor and sided with the needs of their billionaire funders. Lest we forget, Joe Biden promised one such group that “Nothing will fundamentally change,” if he is elected.
Posted by: Margaret Kimberley | Jun 13 2020 20:35 utc | 35
@ mark... nah - b is pretty anti usa generally...
@ peter... i tend to agree with you on the usa focus.. some feel the same about talking on covid..
@ jackrabbit.. once again i agree with you too! - it is hard not to see it that way being a cynical type myself..
Posted by: james | Jun 13 2020 20:35 utc | 36
As soon as a movement starts there are people who try to write it down-
I cant stand this defeatism of the bourgeois liberals any longer.
Fight with us or STFU!
It´s because every fight against racism is the prelude of the fight against classism, and who would do the dirty work for all of you professors and journalist and build your chic houses?
Posted by: Mats | Jun 13 2020 20:39 utc | 37
@35 "The silly photo op stunt by the democratic party leadership was the worst kind of pandering, meant to quiet demands so that they will not have to enact any of the changes that protesters are demanding."
The Democratic kneelers with the Kente Cloth scarves are obviously trying to have it two, or more, ways. They want to show how deeply they care about the protester's demands but only if it doesn't lead to total chaos. It's all about votes.
Posted by: dh | Jun 13 2020 20:48 utc | 38
James @ 36 yes I hope so, thanks !
Mats @ 36 reality and truth hurts some times, but needs to be said none the less !
https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1271873218672881664
This ain’t about the us, this isb globel geo-politics !!
Posted by: Mark2 | Jun 13 2020 20:49 utc | 39
@ 35
re: . . . ignore the needs of their voters in favor and sided with the needs of their billionaire funders
Nice to see Black Agenda Report tuning in. Looking back, they told us months prior to the 2008 election to forget hope and change, Obama would only be a tool of the DNC.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Jun 13 2020 20:49 utc | 40
In the US the silent majority doesn't vote at all.
And in recent years that majority has been growing as more and more people are purged from the electoral rolls and voting becomes more difficult: polling stations are closed down and the number of election workers reduced, voting machines are out of service and there is an increasing belief that they are pre-programmed to ensure an acceptable result. The past two presidential primary campaigns have made it crystal clear that the Democrats have not the slightest commitment to fair elections and regard themselves as being above the law. The Republicans are just as bad.
On the other hand this is not a normal election year. The capitalist system is in public disgrace: its evil and idiotic nature is incontrovertible. The purpose of the electoral system is to clothe the nakedness of class rule. It depends, for its success, on two things which are conspicuously absent: the first is mass participation-if the number of those voting falls much further the system loses credibility, especially when calls for reform are loud and unheeded. They are always unheeded and the signs are that they are likely to be louder this year than they have been for decades.
The second thing is that neither of the candidates is at all credible. Trump and Biden may be two of the most dishonest, untrustworthy and arrogant politicians we have seen. By comparison the appalling Nixon looks really good.
It doesn't matter whether Trump beats Biden or vice versa.
And the number of Americans who believe otherwise is in constant decline. If they call an election but nobody comes the entire facade collapses. And the political questions that Washington cannot deal with will have to be dealt with elsewhere-in the streets, in the marketplace, in the factories and offices. And they will be.
Posted by: bevin | Jun 13 2020 20:53 utc | 41
@41 If they were smart they would field a candidate who appeals to the Cynical Majority.
Posted by: dh | Jun 13 2020 21:07 utc | 42
Nixon barely won the electoral college in 1968.
Biden is a much bigger dead albatross for the Democrats than a corporate funded black lives matter "movement".
Trump has done nothing for the US economy, if you don't work on Wall Street and/or in real estate. He's a fraud, and many swing state voters see that.
Posted by: Jay | Jun 13 2020 21:11 utc | 43
This much bigger than two party politics ! That dose’nt Exsist enymore, If it ever did.
Being good at scheming and yet hopeless at predicting outcomes, the present pycopaths from both party’s failed to understand. If you distroy true democracy people will take to the streets.
https://twitter.com/joshuapotash/status/1271621888201154562
This protest is not the same old same old. This is war and trump started it.
Did’nt enyone here see the troops ?
Buckle up it’s about to get rough.
Posted by: Mark2 | Jun 13 2020 21:12 utc | 44
You give the Democratic Party too much credit. And the Schulz piece is clap trap. Trying to draw a line between police unions and organized labor in general is dishonest. For one, police unions almost never support other unions, even public employee unions like teachers. And while most unions are aimed at improving wages, benefits and working conditions, police unions are mostly focused on cops never being punished. The democrats worry for elections should be whether the people in the streets think the Dems will actually do anything or if they should just do it themselves. And until the den party of the clintons, Biden, Pelosi et al is supplanted by a younger generation, it won’t.
Posted by: Lex | Jun 13 2020 21:22 utc | 45
And until the den party of the clintons, Biden, Pelosi et al is supplanted by a younger generation, it won’t.
That younger generation, when and if it comes to power, will be just as toxic as the current Dem configuration. It's being poisoned as we speak.
The Dems aren't the answer and the Republicans certainly aren't. The entire political establishment and process is rotten to the core. The termite-ridden house must be raised and replaced.
Posted by: 450.org | Jun 13 2020 21:28 utc | 46
There is a counter-insurgence operation ongoing to demonize and hijack the original genuine leaderless protests sparked by the murdering of Floyd in borad day-light by a gang of policemen.
In this, the US is an expert, having mastered its expertise through the past Cold War through its Gladio operations.
If you followed the videos linked by the people and independent journalists through social media,there were lots of young, and not so, white and black people of various ways of life demonstrating against policial violence and race hatred instigated to unknown heights in decades by the current occupant of the WH.
After the first peaceful protests, riots started, riots which we witnessed being started by police plants and infiltrators, and then followed by usual neighborhood gangs who always fish in chaos.
The counter-insurgence operation starte just after first days of protests, as the authorities saw this was not a passing phenomena, but merely the drop which filled the glass of US citizenry stamina to cop with Trump´s presidency´s ravage of the country.
After some days of riots, some figures, impersonating BLM or Black Panters started appearing heading the demonstrations which, by their modeling look, suggested all the way an intent on hijacking the protests for the political benefit of the Democratic Party, that is the US stablishment. The obvious fake support to the protests by Democrat politicians who have never done anything for equality and to put an end to policial violence, only comes in benefit of Trump, whose election was in danger after his disastrous management of the Covid-19 pandemic in the US left his polls acceptance in thel owest marks. The only way to save Trump´s reelection was to push the people´s rage to the limit,by the public summary execution of Floyd, to then push chaos and violence, by the riots started by the police and infiltrators, so that Trump can appear, since the Democrats appear supporting the protests, as the only one who could bring "law and order" again, the only way he could win the election after having proved inept for anything else, except applying fascist methods needed to counter with the awareness by the people which will take place around September on that they have been robbed of anything thye had left, this time at armed hand.
US "Antifa" movement, is probably to the real international antifascist movement as the Democratic Party is to the real international left, a fake built by TPTB to deprestigiate, demonize and disband the left and genuine protests by justified causes.
"Antifa" allied with the YPG kurds supported by the US in the Syrian war against the legitimate government of Syria.
No antifascist will ally ever with an Imperialist fascist nation like the US is today anywhere by whatever reason....As a proof, you could find real antifascists fighting along the Donbass people which was in the way of being exterminated by the fascist junta unleashed on them by the US through "color revolution" so called Maidan...
With this, I do not want to say there could not be genuine antifascist people who, by ignorance or naivety join "Antifa" in the US. With this may happen as with the NGOs, of which many of us have fallen victims out of lack of information and naivety proper of our youth days.
Posted by: H.Schmatz | Jun 13 2020 21:29 utc | 47
The fly in the ointment of BLM is its guilt-encrusted core. Witness the picture of those establishment politicians "taking a knee" while draping themselves in a scarf from Africa. It drips with hypocrisy.
That whole guilt shtick is nothing more than a road to ruin. Just look at the state of Christendom today.
Posted by: Hal Duell | Jun 13 2020 21:33 utc | 48
The fly in the ointment of BLM is its guilt-encrusted core. Witness the picture of those establishment politicians "taking a knee" while draping themselves in a scarf from Africa. It drips with hypocrisy.
That whole guilt shtick is nothing more than a road to ruin. Just look at the state of Christendom today.
Posted by: Hal Duell | Jun 13 2020 21:33 utc | 49
The fly in the ointment of BLM is its guilt-encrusted core. Witness the picture of those establishment politicians "taking a knee" while draping themselves in a scarf from Africa. It drips with hypocrisy.
That whole guilt shtick is nothing more than a road to ruin. Just look at the state of Christendom today.
Posted by: Hal Duell | Jun 13 2020 21:33 utc | 50
I’m proud to say, my home city Bristol U.K. removing the statue of Edward Colston, was mentioned at George Floyds funeral eulogy by the reverend Al Sharpton. That right there is endorsement enough for the protests.
I predict they’ll rue the day they murdered George Floyed.
And this is how we do it in Bristol.
https://twitter.com/bristolbestof/status/1269914619595894784
It’s not a black problem it’s a white problem !!
Posted by: Mark2 | Jun 13 2020 21:34 utc | 51
Could someone tell me what BLM is? At their website, twitter account, Instagram, local chapter it looks like pure corporatespeak. Language of cubicle rats. Have always assumed it was all about white people and making white people feel good while relieving them of some coin. Yet everyone seems to speak about them as if there was some there there. When speaker X and speaker Y say “BLM” it is never clear to me they are talking about same thing.
Posted by: oldhippie | Jun 13 2020 21:36 utc | 52
The seccesionist process currently under experiment in the US will then be exported to other places in the world.
The disintegration of huge countries into tiny regions and city-states is a project of the elites in the way to the medievalization of the world and ending nation states to better control them.
Notice how "warlords" of the most heinous pelage have, allegedly, taken over CHAZ...This could be true or false, but the aim anyway is to get people accepting or going accustomed to this idea of mafia/criminal gangs lords taking over "independiced" parts of countries and regions...
It is the same tactic as what took place in Syria and Iraq with ISIS and the Kurds of Barzani.
Remember how ISIS took over certain parts of Alepo and named it "Baba Amr Caliphate"...
Warlords and criminal gangs have always allied with fascist governments everywhere, never with the left, communists and antifascist resistance...This is why there is no way that real antifascist forces are allied with criminal in Seattle under the alibi of getting rid of the government...
Posted by: H.Schmatz | Jun 13 2020 21:40 utc | 53
Blue Dotterel #27
Yes that's possibly the play: the dems get their Trump clone elected 2024.
If I squeeze my brain really hard I can see Steve Bannon getting all the DNC support he needs in 2024. He will promise no wars so Tulsi will stay out of the contest and solemnly promise to consider medicare for all so Bernie can stay snug in front of his Vermont fireplace.
All of that means that the repugnants will run someone really ugly and incompetent. Hard to consider anyone could be worse than Trump - but then Hillary...
On the other hand I maintain that this could unravel in strange ways - beyond even the wild imaginings of Hunter S Thompson.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jun 13 2020 21:43 utc | 54
It's "Because, my boy, if you show your real misery, nobody will believe it"..Brecht was right again..The
bourgeoisie mentality just can't accept revolutionary behaviours.And even if the protest is (obviously)polluted by the two-headed snake it is true and righteous.
Posted by: LuBa | Jun 13 2020 21:43 utc | 55
Hmmn Obama? I am for neither Obama's Biden nor Trump!
I might even write-in Pepe Escobar, if he's an American or Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping. I'm tired of Russia, Russia, Russia and China, China, China....
Posted by: JC | Jun 13 2020 21:44 utc | 56
The problem is that Biden is not much of a candidate. If you have a choice between Biden and Trump, who is the least worst choice? In that case definitely Trump.
However there is a certain movement in Europe, which could have spread to the US by November, of admiration for those who are capable of of a quiet efficient administration of the corona virus crisis. In Germany, Merkel, in France, not Macron, but the PM, Edouard Philippe. Well-organised confidence has done a lot to reduce the effects of the virus. Can Biden present himself like that? He would be wise to do so.
Posted by: Laguerre | Jun 13 2020 21:53 utc | 57
Margaret Kimberley #35
There is the possibility of advancement but also of reaction. The system knows how to defend itself and how to appeal to the public. This moment requires great vigilance. The people in movement can bring about great changes. But the kente cloth wearing rascals will not disappear anytime soon.
Thank you - mighty well said and thank you for that link to your statement in Black Agenda Report and those words above. The agents of the 1% are mighty organised and great vigilance is indeed necessary. May you and all supporters succeed in making meaningful change.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jun 13 2020 22:01 utc | 58
Mark2 @51: "...it’s a white problem !!"
Trump thanks you for recruiting voters for him.
It is strange, but the white middle class neolib lackeys actually believe that kind of rhetoric will somehow help their "side" win in November. Did they learn nothing from the Dims defeat in 2016, or from Labor's defeat last year?
Posted by: William Gruff | Jun 13 2020 22:02 utc | 59
@ 52 oldhippie... what is blm? it is like asking about a lot of other groups- movements and etc.... black panther party? what was that? different things to different people... republicans and dem party? same deal... it is almost what ever one wants to say it is... all of it meant to jerk off the general public.. same deal antifa and on and on it goes... the devil is in the details and it will be put in their by whatever propagandists want to put in their.. witness the stigmatizing of whatever group someone wants to stigmatize?? notice a pattern here??? propaganda reigns supreme in the land of the unfree, unbrave, undemocratic and - well hopefully you get it.. it will be whatever those with the greatest power and leverage in a society say it is until people realize they are being bamboozled 24-7...
Posted by: james | Jun 13 2020 22:09 utc | 60
I really love reading about who the next US president will be. Such a grand horse(shit) race. Who is ahead? Who is bee-hind? Percentages, percentages. Polls, polls. Oh, will they ever — fill in the blank here? And, then, she said, he said.
You’re just pissed that it’s NOT YOU whom S(elects) the next president. As if it ever was.
Get over the presidential elections. It’s a running jobs program. Everybody gets paid.
The talking heads on the TV, get paid. Photographers, get paid. The bus drivers, get paid. The carpenters setting up the podiums, get paid. The electricians, get paid. The political consultants, get paid. See where I’m going with this?
People really have a wrong idea about democracy. I won’t be the one to define it for them.
Posted by: Sakineh Bagoom | Jun 13 2020 22:16 utc | 61
What is the military, which is already in theater, going to do? Will they neutralize the actual cause of the problem, thus stabilizing the situation and making a transition possible through relatively peaceful means? Or, are they going to attempt a crackdown on the population, attempt an armed occupation and start a civil war?
@ Copeland | Jun 13 2020 19:40 utc | 26
". . . these sanctimonious gestures are undercut by the policy of the [Democratic] Party and Biden, to disavow calls to defund police. They are united in resisting true political momentum that would reduce the number of police, and augment with social workers a lot of the load that has been put on police."
One of the wisest individuals I ever met in my life – a solid lefty and a brilliant political operative named Arthur Forcier – maintained that no one should be allowed to become a police officer until after first earning a four-year liberal arts degree, and then spending two more years employed as a social worker, before being allowed to wear a badge.
Now, more than 50 years later, I still believe that Art was right on the money.
Posted by: AntiSpin | Jun 13 2020 22:22 utc | 63
Or, will they do nothing at all, and take their chances with whatever is left in whatever regional commands they happen to have control of (domestically, and/or globally)?
The Party of Biden has learned nothing from the ignominious defeat of 2016. It has rejected all of the political necessities that could make reform possible. The Party will feel compelled to keep the unfiltered Biden under wraps and out of sight as much as possible. His stage-managed appearances will help suppress his off-the-cuff remarks.
He loses his place while reading written remarks, loses place in time, loses situational awareness when he is tired. His minders put a little wireless cord in his ear so he doesn't go off script.
At any moment, in public, Biden will break from gentle, amiable patter, and become the angry visage of his former self, shouting and shaking his fist as he once did in the Senate,--when he raised such a cry for the monster Crime Bill of 1994.
Re: Margaret Kimberley | Jun 13 2020 20:35 utc | 35
I have been reading Ms. Kimberley's articles elsewhere for years, and can state unequivocally that she is a superb analyst and reporter, and I am very pleased to see her work posted here at MOA.
I'm certain that others will feel the same way after seeing a few more of her comments.
Posted by: AntiSpin | Jun 13 2020 22:30 utc | 66
"Could someone tell me what BLM is?"
BLM is a pack of useful idiots doing the service of the super-rich, setting the proles against each other while our overloads sip champagne from the safety of their walled estates and mansions.
BLM is not spontaneous. It has been created and managed by the corporate press. They take a single bad thing, and play it 24/7 and scream and holler that this proves that the nebulous evil spirit of RACISM is to blame and it has nothing to do with our industrial base being outsourced, or rents being unaffordable, or medical care being unaffordable, or education being unaffordable, or people being forced into a lifetime of debt servitude and no longer able to get out from under via bankruptcy, and trillions spent on pointless foreign wars, and tens of trillions in subsidies and bailouts for the super rich - no, don't talk about that, anyone mentions those things and clearly it's because they are RACIST and infected with white privilege and they could easily lose their jobs... Indeed, the extreme top-down pressure in business and academia
reminds me a lot of the "cultural revolution" in Mao's China. Whip up the peasants into an ideological frenzy fighting imaginary enemies to distract them from how the government was responsible for a massive famine...
If there would be video footage of a black man killing a white man, would CNN play it over and over and start harping about how white lives matter? Of course not, that's just a single event, and in a country of 340 million you can always fond one bad thing that breaks whichever way you choose....
Occupy Wall Street was a spontaneous protest - and look how easily the elites cancelled them out. Harass them, arrest them, deprive them of any media coverage, corral them in 'free speech zones' out of view of the public... and today they are gone as if they had never been. BLM has been created and is maintained by deliberate elite policy.
Posted by: TG | Jun 13 2020 22:30 utc | 67
William Gruff @ 59
I completely understand your point of view. But unless you can come up with an alternative salution, well we are where we are. Some times the victem has to fight back, yes ? What’s the alternative ? (Not rhetorical )
Your statement may be right. an un-intend consequence.
But add up the big US picture ———
US invasion or regime chainge in numerous country’s.
Financial domination world wide by US.
US created bio-warfare corona virus.
Brutality to its own people by the thugs they call ‘law inforcement’
We’re all the victem of this, yes ?
White America public have to stop the problems white America created.
Or America will die. And the rest of us will say good ridence !
America has become an inhuman cess pit.
But Gruff I love your comments, not @ 59 that hurt, you must of known it would.
Posted by: Mark2 | Jun 13 2020 22:40 utc | 68
Posted by: Mark2 | Jun 13 2020 21:34 utc | 51
Hi Mark2 greeting from an America and a former British colonial subject,
You shouldn't be proud. Looking backs your ancestor did lot and lot of evils deeds.... Granted you are not responsible for what your ancestors did, but your government Boris continues the evils colonial deeds. Your homed city Bristol tasks still incompletely.
I'm waiting for you and folks to pull down Cecil Rhodes and force Chris Patten to resigned from Oxford University. . Especially Chris sticking his nose into another sovereign States for the freaking yanks (Trump and Pompeo) . "Liberate Hong Kong Revolution of Our Times Five Demands Not One Less Never Forget in unity In solidarity..."
Look Marks. China is a sovereign State no longer under the Anglo-Saxon colonial rule or 5Eyes. Hong was taken from a corrupted Qing dynasty forced upon two unequal treaties. Your ancestors forced opium grown in India and Afghan to the Chinese people.... Further I would like to see China, Force Cathay Pacific and HKSBC including Jardine and many legacies companies of the Opium Wars that influences the current foreign policies in China basically to reunite all Chinese territories including Taiwan.
Very sorrie get the fuck out of China... PLEASE, Please?
Posted by: JC | Jun 13 2020 22:42 utc | 69
Posted by: JC | Jun 13 2020 22:42 utc | 69
Correction HKSBC , HSBC
Posted by: JC | Jun 13 2020 22:46 utc | 70
The fact, real or false, that criminal gangs are reported as taking over the "autonomous zones", is a de facto retaking of power by the police, acting as discouraging for the genuine protesters.
As you would recall from The Godfather, based on real events in the 40s in the US, mafias and policial/judicial forces are always intertwined in de facto, or in the way , fascist states.
In conveniently censured footage of "The Godfather I", Michael Corleone needs to ask who those people are who are coming holding the banner of the Italian Communist Party and chanting Bandiera Rossa....he, simply, had never met antifascist people...the least in Italian South...Sicily...the kind he probably was used to met was the kind of Trump and Kushner...
https://twitter.com/JeSuisEspe_/status/1263901143559737344
During the worst time of the pandemic in Italy, and as the lockdown was being extended, some looting started taking place in the South by people who argued not having with which to feed their families...at that point, the mafia tried to take over those municipalities...
Posted by: H.Schmatz | Jun 13 2020 22:57 utc | 71
JC @ 69
Hi JC yes I agree with all you say there !
I do what I can ! We do what we can ! I hope you’v noticed ?
Speak the truth and shame the devil.
Don’t let them devide and rule.
Don’t let them silence us by statements such as what we do helps Trump ! Good greath !!
Warm regards to you JC you’v got heart and soul,
Posted by: Mark2 | Jun 13 2020 23:00 utc | 72
Posted by: lizard | Jun 13 2020 18:43 utc | 6 I wrote up a brief post this morning about Hakim Bey, the author of TAZ (temporary autonomous zone).
I read TAZ back in the day. Interesting stuff. I think he based it on William S. Burroughs, who wrote some speculative stuff in one of his novels as to what might have happened had the "pirate countries" formed by pirates had gained ground and figured out how to avoid being destroyed by regular country military.
There might also be an influence from some of the early hackers and crypto enthusiasts. Also likely a Situationist influence. And of course, the usual Paris Commune history.
And possibly some of the "New Country" stuff various libertarians have tried over the years (all of which have failed.) A guy named Erwin S. Strauss wrote a book on the subject. He also published The Connection which I used to write for back in the Seventies.
The operative word is "temporary". Any attempt to grab a piece of territory from a real state - even one the size of Tonga, which was tried IIRC - is doomed to failure. So whatever is going on by BLM, they have some official support. Otherwise they'd all be dead or in jail.
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Jun 13 2020 23:21 utc | 73
Thank you James @ 60 and TG @67. That was about what I thought. The continuous chorus ascribing reality to this phantasm is deafening. In top post b speaks of BLM as real. Living in a liberal enclave I am personally being pressured to lend support to BLM in both concrete and spiritual terms.
I know a fair amount about the Black Panther Party having lived through their heyday. BPP certainly had a lot more extras on the set, real programs, real events. It was a much better script than any project currently underway.
Didn’t save links but any who have been following along with the riots/demonstrations are likely to have seen video of the young man in Seattle who looks into a trashed police car, reaches in through the window, grabs an AR-15 and brandishes it aloft for about 2 seconds. And is then relieved of the weapon by what looks to be plainclothes Special Forces. Who of course was nearby just in case. Then there were the three Chicago police down on the pavement, surrounded by a mob and scared for their lives. A middle-aged schoolmarmish woman appears, spreads her arms and proclaims No Violence. Because of course there would be a schoolmarm at this sort of demo. On her spread arm signal five plainclothes demonstrators leap into action and form a tight cordon around the downed officers. Just spontaneously.
It is all a script.
Posted by: oldhippie | Jun 13 2020 23:26 utc | 74
One election factor to watch is vote-by-mail, or "absentee ballots" favored by many states. Trump has railed against them, but even some Repub senators in swing states like them, and they will could be a major factor in voter "turn-out" especially for older citizens who might shun voting-line virus exposure.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Jun 13 2020 23:26 utc | 75
Posted by: AriusArmenian | Jun 13 2020 19:27 utc | 22 America looks like a hybrid of Stephen King, Brave New World, and 1984
I prefer the sci-fi "cyberpunk" description:
1) Hackers everywhere: Check.
2) Corporate armies: Check.
3) Street Gangs and Riots: Check.
4) Government Weaker Than Corporations: Check (if not militarily - yet).
5) AI: Check (if not really on the same level as the novels.)
6) Cyborg Assassins: Not *yet*. But look at some of the DARPA initiatives... Regular assassins: Check.
Watch this "deep dive" game play video for the long-awaited Cyberpunk 2077 video game. Tell me that, aside from the cyborgs, we're not already living in something similar - and by 2077 we might actually have the cyborgs, too.
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Jun 13 2020 23:33 utc | 76
Posted by: dh | Jun 13 2020 20:34 utc | 34 @30 I believe you are suggesting somebody be put in a position of authority? By holding a democratic election presumably. Assuming a leader emerges he/she will have a tough job organizing anarchists into committees.
This is always the problem for any anarchist movement:
1) While anarchists can have "leaders", they can't afford to have "rulers." The difference is subtle and generates arguments and push back against anyone suspected of crossing the line. Human nature, again.
2) Anarchists can have committees. The problem is that committee decision making is slow and in times of conflict slow is fatal. It has been done more or less successfully in the 1968 Paris uprising.
3) But then as also demonstrated in the 1968 Paris events, if your "leaders" have their agenda wrong, or can be suborned with moderate offers by the opposition, the whole thing collapses.
4) An autonomous zone can be organized and run provided people have a clear idea of how such things can be done, they have the resources available, and the participants can be convinced to tackle the jobs that need doing. But a problem in a modern city is that most of the relevant services are centrally controlled by the opposing government and can be cut off at any time. Things like water, sewage, garbage collection, etc. have to be worked around, and this is sub-optimum.
OTOH, taking over one building, if you have support from people in power, is not that hard. But it's likely to end up being just a temporary showpiece. Of course, being one building, it can be sacrificed by TPTB in exchange for getting what they want out of the incident.
The real risk for TPTB is that the sentiment gets caught up by others and spreads. But as the 1968 events show, even that can be compromised if there isn't enough real power and intent to move against TPTB. In 1968, the French government, while not militarily at risk, was supposedly at real risk of falling. But it didn't.
This isn't nearly that significant and isn't likely to be.
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Jun 13 2020 23:47 utc | 77
I do not know if Pepe had seen Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan's tweet before he wrote the piece:
Make us all safe. Go back to your bunker. #BlackLivesMatter— Mayor Jenny Durkan @MayorJenny, June 11, 2020
This was a response to Trumps tweet:
Radical Left Governor @JayInslee and the Mayor of Seattle are being taunted and played at a level that our great Country has never seen before. Take back your city NOW. If you don’t do it, I will. This is not a game. These ugly Anarchists must be stooped IMMEDIATELY. MOVE FAST!
Trump's original tweet was deleted because of a typo and replaced by a spell checked one.
I wrote this comment on Pepe's Facebook post on CHAZ three days ago, before seeing Durkan's tweet. The last I had seen was the CHAZ protestors occupying Seattle Town Hall and demanding Durkan's resignation. Looks like she received the message.
TRUMP CANNOT SEND IN THE ARMYTherefore I guess CHAZ will outlast Trump.
- CHAZ is tacitly supported by the city of Seattle.
- The city of Seattle is tacitly supported by the state of Washington.
- The state of Washington will not use the National Guard to crush the rebellion.
- Trump cannot take over Washington State National Guard without the approval of the Governor. Ultimately this is a state issue outside the jurisdiction of the federal government.
- Trump cannot send in the army. The generals have already vetoed it and would refuse to follow any direct order.
- Trump will be voted out in 5 months. Or that is at least what everyone believes. He is a lame duck with no power.
The one point I want to add to the analysis is that it does not matter if Trump is re-elected or not. The revolution is progressing because everyone believes he will be gone. It is now OK to burn police cars without facing concequences.
Posted by: Petri Krohn | Jun 14 2020 0:03 utc | 78
@77 Well as you probably gathered I am quite cynical about protest movements. Believe it or not I was quite idealistic in my younger days. I actually had first hand experience of Abby Hoffman and Jerry Rubin......I watched them rise and fall. I was also involved in a commune for a while and I know how difficult it is for free spirits to work together without some sort of authority
I have good memories of the period and no regrets. But reality....in the form of marriage, children, mortgages took it's inevitable toll.
Posted by: dh | Jun 14 2020 0:15 utc | 79
Relative to the "cyberpunk" theme, here's another game play trailer for the "Watch Dogs Legion" video game. It's set in a near-future London and illustrates a computer-coordinated resistance movement of individuals against a corporate police force. This is the sort of "resistance movement" I would favor - although the number of its members who get whacked in the trailer shows that it's no picnic.
Found a Web site with an interesting short overview of "What is Cyberpunk?" The description as "high tech, low life" sums it up.
And the statement: "Cyberpunk is now" is the answer as to when it arrives.
A more serious discussion of the influence of an artistic genre on reality is provided in this Guardian piece: Neon and corporate dystopias: why does cyberpunk refuse to move on?
Why is it that cyberpunk still looks like it did in the 80s? Perhaps there has been no need for it to change: it continues to resonate with us because the world it depicts is the one we live in. The genre was formed as a response to a world where corporate power was proliferating and expanding across the globe, inequality was growing, and AI, computers, and other new forms of technology offered both the promise of liberation and the potential for new and dangerous forms of domination.“Cyberpunk offers a vision of a post-national, globalised society where those who know how to manipulate information will come out on top, a vision of the world very recognisable to us today,” says Dr Anna McFarlane, a cyberpunk scholar at the University of Glasgow.
“The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed.” – William Gibson
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Jun 14 2020 0:15 utc | 80
I do hope trump will win again , no one divide and destroy america as good as trump administration.
i do hope the white supremacist go on victory rally celebrating the trump landslide and carry confederate flags with them , so the whole america know the confederate president they help elect.
i do hope theres no reform on police accountability and brutality so when another black male got murdered it will create a massive fire with far more destructive result to US.
trump is doing all right for someone who ruin american in very short years..
the last president of USA
Posted by: milomilo | Jun 14 2020 0:44 utc | 81
Welcome back don bacon , your voice sorely needed in this place , now filled with trolls and neocons..
Posted by: milomilo | Jun 14 2020 0:45 utc | 82
Posted by: milomilo | Jun 14 2020 0:44 utc | 81 the last president of USA
Possibly. Also possibly right before he becomes the first explicit "Dictator" of the USA.
There are a lot of fiction about the US becoming a dictatorship, precisely because people understand that it's quite possible. And once under a dictatorship, historically it's not that easy to get out from under short of a major war with an opposing country. Which in these days means nuclear war - which means half a billion or more people dead.
We need to be careful what we wish for.
Of course, that doesn't mean we have to go along with whatever happens. But any "resistance" had better be smart and *not* interested in "self-sacrifice."
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Jun 14 2020 0:55 utc | 83
. . .quotes from Edward Abbey, noted US writer on anarchy, claimed to be a registered anarchist:
>No man is wise enough to be another man's master. Each man's as good as the next -- if not a damn sight better.
>I know my own nation best. That's why I despise it the most. And I know and love my own people, too, the swine. I'm a patriot. A dangerous man.
>Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.
>A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.
...from A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
Posted by: Don Bacon | Jun 14 2020 0:58 utc | 84
i think the world watch the rotten american insides..
the supposedly best prepared nation in the world revealed as the worst prepared handling the plaque
brutal police actions toward protesters showed the hypocrisy of US protest if any nation go harsh on protesters.. (this is why the narrative clowns got busy pushing the america supported of human right nonsense)
looming economic and financial disaster in US , and the expected dollar demise as reserve currency , nations all over the world will seek alternatives otherwise they sink with dollar.. Japan is a lost cause considering they are tied to dollar for good or bad..
china with russian support will be the economic superpower in the future , thats why US attacked china like rabid dog.. The brutal US action toward nations in the world will push thrm toward china’s economic bloc and remove US from the equation..
the returning dollar to US Soil will destroy it , making wiemar debacle seem like easter egg hunt event..
Posted by: milomilo | Jun 14 2020 1:07 utc | 85
@82
Thanks, mm, I like to deal more in facts than with opinions, and more in results than in personalities (Trump). . . .on facts, my guru Henry David Thoreau, Walden:
"Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and tradition, and delusion, and appearance, that alluvion which covers the globe, through Paris and London, through New York and Boston and Concord, through church and state, through poetry and philosophy and religion, til we come to hard bottom and rocks in place, which we call reality, and say, This is, and no mistake. . "
Posted by: Don Bacon | Jun 14 2020 1:08 utc | 86
@86 Of course Thoreau never married and he had no children so he missed out on that aspect of reality. I see him as being quite a stern parent if he had. Maybe the home-schooler type..
Posted by: dh | Jun 14 2020 1:17 utc | 87
Posted by: Mark2 | Jun 13 2020 23:00 utc | 72
Thanks you.
Gain my deepest respect.... I dun hate white, black, brown nor promote hated. "Granted you are not responsible for what your ancestors did". We should and must tread everyone equally and with respect, granted again respects are earned and not force upon.
Wish I'm able to say more, for my safety and well being choose words carefully. Sometimes say more than I should. Sincerely wish China close down HSBC, Cathay Pacific and Jardine plus more, these companies are products of colonialism and were never HK companies. Continue profiting from Hongkies and China.
Boris makes me angry siding Trump to destroy a respected company - Huawei. Boris failed to understand HK is British last treasure troves and should respect China's sovereignty. Should China shut down HSBC, Cathay Pacific and Jardine jobs’ losses in UK, HK and China is staggering. Do "Jardine HK" searches the implication. Wiped out British vast remaining fortune far exceed what she lost in Northern and Southern Rhodesia or today Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa.
Look Mark2. Still, have loved ones across many seas... Edinburgh, JKT, Singapore, Finland, Malaysia, USA, Australia, HK, China. My parent was refugees resulted from foreign occupations and raging civil war. My grandfather fought in the Chinese revolution. I said many time if I'm young again would return to my ancestral home, Huanggang, Hubei. Not interested in my early western indoctrinations....
Bless you thanks again please removed Chris Patten from Oxford, he's is a racist and damn fucking shit stirrer.
Posted by: JC | Jun 14 2020 1:22 utc | 88
Posted by: milomilo | Jun 14 2020 0:44 utc | 81
"I do hope trump will win again , no one divide and destroy america as good as trump administration."
Holy shit! for a second my blood pressure hit past the chart. that freaking Trump?"
You are absolutely correct Trump will win again..... During 2016 election folks in MoA were taking about pitchforks... Now it about time we get ready for the pitchforks. If and when the day comes I'll pick the juiciest and outstanding ones in my city from both parties. Me neutral dun choose sides..
Posted by: JC | Jun 14 2020 1:53 utc | 89
Posted by: JC | Jun 14 2020 1:22 utc | 88
My sincere hope is the sinking economic ship called the UK would do all of us ethnic Chinese all around the world a favor and take in as much brainwashed HK traitor trash as it possibly could. Contrary to what the naive Anglos may believe, we won't be missing them one bit.
Posted by: JW | Jun 14 2020 2:16 utc | 90
Posted by: JW | Jun 14 2020 2:16 utc | 90
Bless you brother. Thanks
Posted by: JC | Jun 14 2020 2:49 utc | 91
Just because the media in its continual search for easy definitions sticks labels on everything, generalising & simplifying complex situations about complicated human beings with a variety of motivations down to a simple easy to comprehend driver, it doesn't mean that any real thinking human should do the same.
Trying to reduce the protests against the Floyd murder to a 'race war' or conversely a 'class war' only serves to obscure the reality that tens of thousands of people have stepped out in the middle of a pandemic for tens of thousands of differing reasons.
Even among some african american protesters who quite reasonably see Mr Floyd's death as a public lynching, it will have been a combination of economic & racial oppression which has caused them to decide they're not gonna take anymore.
And as has been discussed endlessly, some of the whitefellas who joined the protest are no less racist & condescending towards black amerikans than the whitefellas on the other side.
Thr dimocrats don't want to acknowledge any of this, they had penciled out a campaign where Herr Trump & his incompetent corruption was going to be the focii of their public utterances. African amerikan pols were gonna go along with that by silently accepting Biden's lies about being some sort of civil rights 'leader' at the time he was in fact cosying up to the disgusting dixiecrats.
WTF would african american pols agree to such an obvious deception? Because for decades the dimocrat party has been the only feasible route for a black political leader in amerika.
The dims selected and corrupted generations of black leadership to make sure that even when an african american Harvard professor was arrested by campus police and then prez Barak Oblamblam called the cops 'stupid' instead of what they were, racist pigs, the bulk of the protest was from white rethugs upset the president had called any bent copper stupid.
Black civil rights leaders mostly remained silent about Oblamblam's copout.
I know from what happened albeit on a much smaller scale in Aotearoa, that a minority focussed political movement can only succeed if it separates from the much larger neolib movement that it was forced to connect with in order to gain a profile.
Before Tangata Whenua political parties grew so tired of the meaninglessly patronising bulldust about indigenous issues which the Clark Labour government were perpetuating in the noughties, going on to form the the Māori & Mana political parties, Māori concerns were buried under partisan politics.
The neo-lib Labour Party would use Maori issues whilst in opposition in much the same way as the Dims in amerika do, highlighting the horror stories and offering cliches about compromise but then once in power doing SFA apart from half-arsed tokenism telling Tangata Whenua that "we cannot move too fast lest we upset the Pakeha (whitefellas), lose power and that will be much worse.
To a certain extent that was true, because by putting all their eggs in the neolib basket, Māori leaders had made themselves an easy target for conservative National party politicians.
However those rightist politicians tended to overestimate the level of antipathy conservative voters felt towards Tangata Whenua.
When one extreme economic rationalist Natz leader campaigned on the basis of "Māori getting too much from the reinvigorated Treaty of Waitangi process", he went down like a cup of cold sick with kiwi voters. I dunno how racist he actually was, even though today he is still regarded as the gold standard in white supremacy with Aotearoa, I suspect he was just following a road-map for victory laid out by some really stupid advisors. The bloke who had been boss of the reserve bank or some-such wanted to show the voters that there was more to him than just being an extreme economic conservative, I reckon.
Of course his advisors displayed their ignorance, not understanding that rule number one of being a white supremacist is the need to be able to deny you are a racist.
When the prick started mouthing racist policies, rather than just hinting at them most of the racists jumped ship.
Anyway back to Māori pols finally leaving labour, the final straw was when PM Helen Clark (A disgusting careerist who failed in her attempt to play the fem card during the last 'election' for UN secretary general) set up her own minister with the media, trying to make this Māori minister appear to be cowardly fleeing some faux confrontation Clark had set up, that was the last straw, nearly all the Māori members of parliament left the neolib Labour Party & set up their own political movements, the neolib Māori Party and the actual left Mana Party.
Labour got creamed in the 2010 election when zionist (well wannabe cos he never did get the backing from his own party to do what he wanted, Aotearoa does mucho trade with the ME) John Key won government.
However and this is the bit that amerika's african american pols should really take heed of; this Natz government was the first conservative government which didn't put the boot in to Tangata Whenua. Oh there were still a few racists from rural constituencies where Māori tended to vote in seats allocated for Maori, so that the rednecks were generally unopposed, but government policy was much less racially divisive than previous Natz governments had been.
Why? Because the Natz needed support for policies that they believed would appeal to the neolib Māori Party, some of whom who eventually joined the government.
If african amerikan leaders were to take the plunge and it is a big plunge considering that so many of them have invested so much in the dimocrats for so long, then they could, particularly in Congress where most of their power already resides, play the role of kingmaker.
That is under the current gerrymander of districts, it is most likely that it would be the african american congress people who held the balance of power.
By not being tied to any one of the two amerikan empire parties, African americans would finally be in a position of ensuring that the era of meangless compromise finished as well as the ability of the white supremacists to drive the rethug policy.
In the end 99% of both dim & rethug pols are amoral selfish careerists, as soon as it became evident that a mob of blacks had the power to determine whether or not their own particular pork barreling boondoggles got passed by congress a huge chunk of the nasty shit from above which perpetuates whitefella supremacy, would end.
Of course it wouldn't just be in politics, there was quite a feud within the media in Aotearoa about which way various media outlets shifted -would they stay with Labour or support Māori policies? Māori won a considerable number of those and that in turn slowed the perpetuation of racial stereotyping.
IMO, if african american leaders did split from the dims, the odds of a racist turd such as agent orange ever getting nominated let alone winning a prez beauty contest would be severely curtailed.
In addition leaving the dims to stand naked, exposing their hypocrisy would allow a true class focussed political movement to get going. As long as both half lefties & african amerikans follow the dims, nothing good can happen and fascism will continue to feature in amerikan politics.
Posted by: A User | Jun 14 2020 2:55 utc | 92
re: Robert | Jun 14 2020 3:21 utc | 93
who spewed "What about all the black cops?" a classic racist argument which deliberately ignores institutional racism in its weak arsed effort to hold blackfellas responsible for a whitefella problem.
White supremacy is 100% a whitefellas issue, only whitefellas can fix it as they are the ones propagating it. I'm not gonna say any more because the robert troll is forever attempting to derail sensible discussion with his facile & worn out cliches.
Posted by: A User | Jun 14 2020 3:57 utc | 94
Pelosi and company donning the Ghanaian/African kente scarves is such a shameless stunt. These establishment politicians are only good at virtue signalling, with no real action behind it.
Posted by: occupatio | Jun 14 2020 4:15 utc | 95
#35
There is a grownup in the room.
Regards, to b's hypothesis, I would state that anything is possible. Of course the Dems are trying to hijack things. Politicians ALWAYS are in the rear! Look over all major social gains and you'll find that it was The People who were responsible, not the politicians. Yes, some of the "leaders" and power brokers out there will look to profit but that's what they do. No matter which side of the coin hits there's going to be people making money off of any outcome. Pretty certain that weight will be applied. Was it the CAUSE of a thing? No, it's the opportunism. Be sure to not confuse the two.
Posted by: Seer | Jun 14 2020 4:21 utc | 96
Who wants to defeat president Trump? The FBI, CIA & co, to get Sleepy Joe, and an equally pliable vice leader like HRC, Warren or Harris. Not Gabbard!!
By messing up US politics the FBI, CIA & co have weakened the US enough to get China strong: they should start learning Chinese en masse as they will feel right at home with Xi Jinping's technocratic, autocratic and imperialistic mix.
The Lower Manhattan swamp (FED, Wall street) will be pleased; making giant profits of "US-China" stocks with their US passports - but low tax payments - and their jets ready on the runways to abort the mi$$ion at any moment.
Posted by: Antonym | Jun 14 2020 5:12 utc | 97
For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.(Audre Lorde)
Need to stop playing by the dominant groups rules. The knowledge is already there in American society on how to do this. - just have to use it.
People complaining Trump is gonna win or its the same thing with democratic candidates need to start thinking about how they can affect change in a real way since it will not happen if you play at it within the status quo's defined area of acceptable engagement. Time for some asymmetrical thinking,learning and action that can be shared.
Lorde was/is a wise woman.
Posted by: Androgog | Jun 14 2020 5:40 utc | 98
Posted by: Androgog | Jun 14 2020 5:40 utc | 98 Time for some asymmetrical thinking,learning and action that can be shared.
How far out of the box do you want to go?
Like the guy in "Mad Max" said: "Speed is just a question of money. How fast do you want to go?"
The outstanding characteristic of most people throughout the ages has been their desire to have their thinking and acting done for them and they have always been willing to let some ruling group take on this chore as long as it did not grind their faces too much into the shit. They may have revolted against
bad masters, but only to put good masters in their place. They have never revolted against masters as such. Nor is there any cogent reason to expect them to do so. - Sidney Parker, anarchist.
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Jun 14 2020 6:48 utc | 99
Whatever happened to the Boeing 737 Max?
What will happen to Airbus?
The Oil Companies, for the first time since the 1940’s, are not paying dividends. Will the car industry survive?
Is the future ‘green industries’, IT, and Dutch-style intensive agriculture? (Tiny Holland is the second-highest (in value) exporter of agricultural products in the world).
Here in England the EXTRAORDINARY REALITY is not Identity Politics pro- and antifa mass demonstrations, what Dominic Cummings tells Boris Johnson to do or not do, or whether the Premier League is going to restart, it is that 70% of British families - on being told by the Prime Minister, the entire London-based mass media, and every educational ‘expert’ to return their children to school in the midst of a pandemic - flat refused to do so.
After 100 years of decline the family is suddenly back - biggly back! People have discovered its the social unit which sees you through - helps you out, backs you up, keeps you staggering on. It is something to be valued - for all its faults.
And above the family is the surrounding community, which is majorly organizing itself with people talking to each other and shopping for each other, keeping an eye on the old and the weak and the vulnerable, setting up spontaneous community snd cooperative self-help groups, learning to trust each other once again. (And its all great fun!)
The communities doing it most (and best) are the poorest communities with a long tradition of solidarity.
We are transforming from a top-down to a bottom-up society.
And not before time.
Posted by: johnf | Jun 14 2020 7:27 utc | 100
The comments to this entry are closed.
thanks b.... okay.. the democrat party continues to shoot themselves in the foot and don't give a rats ass for the american people - other then with appearances...
the repub party is no different.. they are just making different jackasses of themselves with the lead jackass at the moment - trump.. the whole usa is in disarray and i will be happy to see it morph into something better.. it ain't gonna happen with this one party system i like to call the war party.. they are 2 branches of the same fucked up system that serves corporations and the 1% and they could give a dam about ordinary people.. they are both their to screw ordinary people... it ain't much different in canada or the rest of the world either.. lets cut with this joke about democracy.. but yes for the moment - the dem party is fucked..
Posted by: james | Jun 13 2020 18:12 utc | 1