Always appropriate, any day, any time…and besides, they tore down the author’s statue. This is his memorial…
1. As for monuments…the Governor of South Dakota, Kristi Noem, responding to suggestions that Mount Rushmore would soon be on the George Floyd mob’s hit list, said curtly, “Not on my watch.”
It is not so fanciful a notion, since three of the four Presidents on the mountain have had statues toppled, and the fourth, Lincoln, now has his own statue under fire. The Freedmen’s Memorial Monument to Abraham Lincoln in Boston’s Lincoln Park is targeted by an online petition as is its original, the statue that stands in Washington D.C.’s Lincoln Park. The fact that the statue was commissioned and paid for by freed African-Americans appears to have no importance to the statue-topplers whatsoever.
After all, Facts Don’t Matter.
2. If there is a shark. she will jump it. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asserted in an interview Tuesday that Republicans are “trying to get away with murder, actually — the murder of George Floyd.” We must remember this when it is determined that the police involved in Floyd’s death can’t get a fair trial because the second highest ranking elected official in the country declared Floyd to be a murder victim before a trial.
A Democratic-run city (for over a half-a century) with a Democratic mayor and and overwhelmingly Democratic City Council (without a single Republican), in a state with a Democratic Governor, oversaw a police department that has been criticized for its conduct long before Floyd’s death, did nothing to remedy the problem, and now faces the consequences.
By what possible distortion of facts and logic can it be argued that Republicans are “trying to get away with murder”?
Once again, another question must be raised: how could CBS News Radio correspondent Steve Futterman, hearing Pelosi’s accusation, not point this out and still presume to be called a journalist?
3. Bombshell!—if anybody hears or reads about it. Notes from corrupt FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok taken a January 2017 meeting in the Oval Office indicate that then-President Barack Obama and Joe Biden took an active role in the persecution of incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, presumably to undermine the new Trump administration. These photos have appeared online, and the documents have been entered into evidence in court. The notes…
The notes in the court filing regarding the notes :
A translation of the notes:
NSA-D-DAG = [illegible] Other countries
D-DAG: lean forward on [illegible]
VP: “Logan Act”
P: These are unusual times
VP: I’ve been on the intel cmte for ten years and I never
P: Make sure you look at things — have the right people on it
P: Is there anything I shouldn’t be telling transition team?
D: Flynn –> Kislyak calls but appear legit
[illegible] Happy New Year. Yeah right
Interesting: Obama is quoted as saying, “These are unusual times,” and, “Is there anything I shouldn’t be telling the [Trump] transition team?”
Nice. We know what “These are unusual times” means: see Rationalizations 28 and 31. The notes also suggest that meeting attendee Susan Rice’s strange memo to herself saying that Obama had said to go “by the book” was a cover-up.
4. This result was inevitable: In a 2-1 opinion, the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit granted Michael Flynn’s petition for a writ of mandamus ordering Judge Emmet Sullivan to dismiss the case against him. It’s a scathing opinion, and Sullivan earned it. His refusal to allow the Justice Department to drop a case that had been thoroughly tainted (see above) was not just wrong, it was unethical and an abuse of power.
A judge cannot force a prosecutor to try a case, which is one of the points made in the reversal. The decision to bring charges or drop them is solely an executive branch function, and a judge is not constitutionally permitted to countermand that decision without violating the fundamental principle of separation of powers.
5. Now? Do we have enough evidence about these “peaceful protests” now?
From the Madison (Wis) Police blotter: “A 28-year-old man was arrested over the noon hour, outside of The Coopers Tavern, 20 W. Mifflin St., after entering the outdoor seating area of the restaurant and using a bullhorn to make loud statements where diners were seated and eating. He was also holding a baseball bat. Devonere A. Johnson has been tentatively charged with disorderly conduct while armed, resisting arrest, and attempted escape. After Johnson was taken into custody, he broke free from the back of a MPD squad car. He was tackled as he attempted to escape custody.”
In response to this, Miss Forward, the seven-foot statue of a strong and proud woman “standing at the prow of a boat as if to direct Wisconsin into the bright future,” was toppled by a mob. State senator Tim Carpenter, D-Milwaukee was attacked by members of the mob and beaten.
Madison blogger David Blaska wrote,
Tuesday night’s riot (there is no other word for it) was not a protest against racial injustice, it was about creating demolishing civilization; vandalism for its own sake. Mindless mob nihilism….This is not a demonstration, it is an act of civil insurrection.
Again we have anarchy and mob violence in a Democratic Party-run city in a state with a Democratic governor, who said after these incidents:
“We are prepared to activate the Wisconsin National Guard to protect state buildings and infrastructure and are continuing to work with local law enforcement to understand their response to last night’s events and their plan to respond to similar events in the future.”
Wisconsin Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke (R-Kaukauna) tweeted,
“The problem is, you [Evers] have tolerated it. You haven’t acted to protect state property. You say ‘we are prepared to activate the National Guard.’ Pardon me Gov, but what are you waiting for? A state Senator was attacked last night. Does someone need to die before you’ll act?”
My guess, and based on what we have observed in Seattle, the answer to that question is “Yes.”
Do the Democrats really think that they can keep ducking accountability by blaming this on President Trump?
Ethics Alarms 
(1) The fact is that these ‘protests’ are attacks designed to destroy Western Civilization itself to allow the creation of a Communist state. With this in mind, everything done is completely consistent with that goal. Questions: Has Black Lives Matter ever protested the death of someone who wasn’t a criminal? How many people has Black Lives Matter killed in their mission?
(2) This is the only thing the Democrats know how to do. Why is there no news coverage of the dams that burst in Michigan leaving tens of thousands of people homeless? Why? Because the government ordered the dam owners to keep the water at unsafe levels. Why did we have massive coverage of the Flint water crisis that was actually less destructive even though that, as well, was ordered by the government? The answer is that with Flint, there was a Republican governor to blame it on. Starting with the water department, they had to go all the way to the governor to find a Republican, so they blamed him. There isn’t a single Republican to find to blame for the dam failures, so ‘nothing to see here’.
(3) Nixon’s family should demand an apology from the country. Nixon didn’t do anything nearly as bad as this.
(5) Sorry, there have been no ‘peaceful protesters’ since May 29 or 30. After you see every ‘protest’ devolve into a riot with looting and burning, no innocent protesters exist. If you see that ‘George Floyd Protests’ turn into riots and looting for days in a row, you have no illusion that you are going to a ‘peaceful protest’, you are willfully going to a riot. Some of the protests do seem to have been peaceful, but only because of the ovrewhelming firepower of the local citizens who were intent on things not getting out of hand.
Agreed to all of your points. I would add to No. 5, though, that protest organizers are at least tacitly responsible for the riots and the damages caused because they have either shrugged their shoulders (“That’s what you get when justice is denied”) or have wholly failed to disavow and condemn them.
jvb
[I’d like to dedicate this post to Vitaeus-of-short-attention-span. 🙂 ]
(1) The fact is that these ‘protests’ are attacks designed to destroy Western Civilization itself to allow the creation of a Communist state. With this in mind, everything done is completely consistent with that goal.
One of my guiding ideas has to do with *historical trajectory* and gaining a capacity to see and analyze the ‘causal chains’ that have created the circumstances we now live in. This includes how we think and see. Though I agree ‘in spirit’ to this statement about the creation of a communist state, I think it would have to be modified a great deal, but the modification makes some people uncomfortable. The shift we now witness in the American state is that toward ‘the Americanolpolis’ I have mentioned numerous times. (Pierre Krebs came up with the term). The media systems, the systems that communicate ideas about who we are and what we are, definitely Hollywood and its productions, the science of public relations as a tool through which the American population is manipulated, the use of war and war-mechanisms to advance the interests of Americanism, the Globo-Homo Culture that is being created whose tenets and presence is so totally visible in the culture today: all these things can appear on a list about Americanism and the Americanopolis and be examined critically.
Except not so much here on this blog. Now why is that? I try to broach that conversation and in doing so criticize American Conservatism. Instead of localing the *enemy* in some sinister communist figure *over there* I make the suggestion that we need to see — very clearly — the degree to which we bought in to a nexus of ideas and that destructiveness we wish to decry.
We also need to address with more presence of mind the question of ‘whose goal?’ If there is a ‘goal’ it is a goal that can be rationally defined. If there is a goal it is one that major institutions and industrial and economic interests within the country are complicit in. It is not ‘communism’ per se. It is a modification )or perhaps an evolution of) state systems which were developed in the 20th century for the management of the entire production. That is what Americanism is and that is what the Americanopolis refers to.
So, the critical frame-of-mind needed to analyze the present — if one is really interested in a genuine analysis and there is logically some doubt about this when we examine ‘critical postures’ among American Conservatives — has to become quite a bit more willing to be bold. Essentially, and intellectually, it has to un-wed itself and untether itself from the primary tenets of progressive leftism.
And that of course posits demanding and difficult work on the self.
There is another point — an important point I think — that needs at least to be mentioned. I do not fully understand it and so I can’t speak well about it but I think it is this: We are entering a time of global conflict. The term for that is war. Yet this is and will be a war conducted differently than previous wars.
Behind the scenes now, and within the Halls of American Power, there are clear-minded men who have skill in separating them self from weakening ideological constraints. If you are successful within modern systems you are necessarily Machiavellian. You see things in terms of ‘strict power principles’. You do not trick yourself to see things in (strictly) ideological terms.
I do not know how to talk about it because it is something extremely large but the systems that we are in, which base them self in control and (sorry to use this word) domination, seek ways to control perspective through the control of information and opinion (and idea). We see very clearly that this is what the Chinese system is based on, and we clearly distinguish its brutal nature. But we have a harder time distinguishing the fact that within our own governmental system, and within the state apparatuses of the *intelligence community*, we are faced with the same power-nexus.
Every day we clearly witness that *the System* (I do not know what word to use) shows itself interested in controlling ideas and limiting the distribution of ideas which reveal what it is, what it is doing, and where it intends to take things.
But who here on this blog can speak critically about this? Who does?
The advantage of seeing quite literally *everything* attacked is that it pushes one to define what is really of value and what must be preserved. If the conversation is genuinely about the preservation of Western Civilization, and not just a superficial one that never develops teeth nor bite, I can say with absolute certainty that what our present demands of us is a total renovation of the ‘self’ and the clarification of the struggle we are — really — in.
Jonathan Bowden said:
#5 As I just wrote over on Blaska’s site…
5. I await Paulie’s blistering take down of these Madisonian events.
You really want Paulie’s take, OB?
I was up in beautiful, pristine Iron County with not a care in the world but being properly stretched out for my morning run when I read about it this, @Blaska’s blogge as luck would have it; let’s just say I had something to occupy my thoughts during every last inch of those hilly 5 miles/8.06 kms.
My take dovetails with Steve’s: For F*ck’s Sake! These drooling, feral, epically imbecilic morons are going to pull this crap on the wrong guy/gal and immediately gain knowledge and experience that will NEVER darken nor grow dim.
Our Governor and Madison’s mayor, cowering under their desks and shaking like leaves in a dry October wind, are so freakin’ out-of-their-league it’s pathetic!
Lady Forward, (a Grand Dame, she!) wasn’t the only statue defiled, Colonel Hans Christian Heg…a 15th WESconsin Volunteer/Civil War veteran…an immigrant…and a F*CKING Abolitionist, came down too!
In response, Derek: “Just a statue. Not like a four-year-old was put in a cage.”
Derek probably is blissfully unaware of who pioneered that fine program; he’s not alone!
‘Every Normal Man Must Be Tempted, At Times, To Spit On His Hands, Hoist The Black Flag, And Begin Slitting Throats.’ H. L. Mencken
I can resist anything…but temptation!
“I can resist anything…but temptation!” (Oscar Wilde, I know.)
Please tell that was a Rush reference. Oh, please. I dread being the lone Rushinati on this blog. It is a heavy, heavy burden.
jvb
The indefatigable Herr Wilde is one of my favorite Go-Tos for quotes, but I kinda liked this one better when I thought it was by W. C. Fields…
Rush the band?
Rush. The Canadian Triumvirate.
jvb
I was making an observation to some family members and asked them to pardon any semblance to paranoid, unbalanced conspiracy theorizing. I mused that the current situation resembles a sort of artificial creation of resentment in the underclasses, and that the purported “grassroots” movement currently ransacking the country appears to be equally artificial, that the situation might be mistaken for the stoking of discontent followed by the manufacture of a movement through which that discontentment could be channeled toward civil unrest. I then assured my hearers that the French and Bolshevik revolutions were nothing like that. No, it was just a thought experiment. Don’t be concerned!
As an unrelated subject, I’ve found myself distracted by an unshakable interest in counter-revolutionary battle marches:
Something about the thought of this one actually being sung in the 18th Century fills me with gleeful amusement every time.
Incidentally, the traditional name for armies facing off against groups of “community organizers” like we see today tended to be the “White Army”. Now, to modern ears and in a modern context, that could sound racist. I think that might show an extra layer of total disregard for the thoughts and opinions of one’s enemies, though.
As I said. I’m just musing.
On 4,
I’m not sure I agree with the rejection of the reassignment of judge Sullivan, I think that the majority hyper-focused on Sullivan’s in-court utterances and ignored the fact that the fact that they were granting mandamus, which is in and of itself unusual, and in particular the reasons they were granting it were extraordinary.
That said, I think the explanation of not wanting to assign a new judge just to grant the 48e motion might have been cover for the hope that Sullivan actually chokes on having to say the words out loud.
The Court’s discussion about Sullivan appointing an amicus to respond to and challenge the DOJ’s motion to dismiss is pretty brutal. I winced a few times, remembering what Judge Jones did to me yesterday (“So, are you saying that a federal court’s orders are meaningless if the case is dismissed?”) Ouch..
jvb
“We decline to reassign the case to a new judge simply to grant the government’s Rule 48(a) motion to dismiss”
There is certainly enough evidence. Unfortunately you are dealing with purists and ideologues, in other words, bigots.
In the 600s A.D. the Muslims exploded out of the Arabian Peninsula, literally sword in one hand, Koran in the other. Before the revolutionary fire burned out in 732, they would take North Africa, Asia Minor, most of the Levant, Persia, and Iberia. They’d only stop at Iberia and not go for France because Charles Martel and the first knights smashed them at Tours-Poitiers and sent them packing, and they only would not go for more of southeast Europe because Leo III and his fleet burned them to the waterline at Constantinople. About a hundred years after that they’d take Sicily and Calabria, my ancestral homeland, for a while. Life under their rule was either convert to Islam or be relegated forever to a distant second-class citizenship, including deliberately humiliating collection of a tax levied only on those who did not convert, severe limitations on religious freedom, and punishment by execution for a host of offenses, because if you didn’t come around to their way of thinking, you were bad and evil.
In 1230 the Teutonic Order, German military knights who looked essentially like Crusaders except their crosses were black rather than red, advanced east into Prussia and the Baltic states, where paganism was still actively practiced, sword in one hand, Gospel in the other. They’d have gone for Russia too, where Orthodox Christianity was practiced, but they failed miserably at Lake Peipus (the battle on the ice) when they ran into a certain Russian prince named Alexander Nevsky, and never went that route again. Life under their rule was ok if you accepted Christianity. If you backslid and did anything pagan, even something innocuous, the punishment was burning at the stake. Again, if you didn’t come around to their way of thinking, you were a savage sinner, and not to be tolerated. Some might call the initial jihadists forerunners of the Taliban and some might call the Teutonics the Christian Taliban. Neither of them had any use for those who didn’t see and do things their way.
Maybe we don’t even need to go back that far. In revolutionary France Robespierre and Marat sent those they disagreed with to the guillotine for any reason or no reason, before Robespierre himself got the chop and Marat was stabbed in his bath. In Russia after 1917, the Bolsheviks took the same approach to the kulaks, the landowners, the surviving nobles, and anyone at all who resisted the red wave of Communism. In Cambodia in 1976, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge abolished towns, money, religion, and private property and introduced death by bayonet and club for the slightest disagreement.
The American left hasn’t gone quite that far yet, although they are getting there. Perhaps a better parallel would be the early Nazi party in Germany, who fairly freely attacked those who disagreed with their approach, culminating in Kristallnacht, where party thugs destroyed synagogues and Jewish businesses while the emergency services stood down. Until now, most would probably say they would never turn to that approach (the now-dead Lynne Stewart, lawyer for and handmaid to terrorists, was a refreshing exception). We’ve seen otherwise, and, although houses of worship haven’t been targeted yet, I’m sure that isn’t too far down the pike.
If you dare suggest that America’s borders should be other than fully open, you are a xenophobe. If you have the audacity to say that minorities might be responsible for some of their own problems due to destructive behaviors, you are a racist. If you have the temerity to say you are having trouble seeing your way clear to the redefinition of marriage after 3000+ years, then you are a homophobe. If you still honor Columbus, or Jefferson, or Robert E. Lee, or Washington, or anyone not on their approved list of admirables, you are a white supremacist. In the words of Jim Wright of Stonekettle Station, you deserve nothing more than “a kick in your yellow teeth and a punch in the throat.” Most didn’t go so far as to do that…yet, since, up till last month there could still be pretty severe consequences for that (witness the Antifa guy who was sentenced to six years in prison for opening up someone’s head with a metal baton to the point where 24 staples were needed to close it). However, it’s become evident now that not only were influential bloggers on the left openly saying things like that, many on the left were thinking things like that and just waiting to implement them.
If you let it be known that you are not a Democrat, or, God forbid, that you are a Trump supporter (it doesn’t matter whether it’s because you actually like the guy or because you have the quaint idea that the duly elected president should be respected while in office and the way to express disagreement is with your vote), you are the lowest of the low, a pagan, a savage. Friends will cut you off, colleagues will turn on you, and total strangers will glare at you while thinking “he’s evil, and deserves to be beaten up or killed.”
Anonymous “friends” will check donation records and do deep dives into your social media presence, to see if you donated to a conservative cause or posted anything that doesn’t toe the ideological line. If you hold public office, there will be a concerted campaign to force you out immediately. If you are in business, expect a boycott and possible harassment. If you are neither, your employer is going to get a call or an email. Whatever your situation in life, expect it to be made a whole lot tougher. If the other side is feeling generous, they MAY (emphasize may) reach out to you beforehand, tell you what they found, and what they plan to do. They may also tell you what you can do to escape what they plan to do, like issue a public mea culpa, change your vote, stop selling something, sell something they want, or make a generous donation to their cause, and affirmatively toe the line going forward.
Now it gets even better. There’s a very good chance that if you just want to go on about your life and not get involved in this mess you won’t be allowed to. There’s a very good chance that your business or home will be attacked or torched, that you will be beaten, or some group of angry thugs will decide, like in Somalia, that your neighborhood is now their property.
If this sounds like bigotry, or bullying, or shaking someone down, it’s because it is. However, you are wasting your time telling the left that. They will just tell you that hatred of racism or bigotry is not hatred, and bullying of bullies isn’t bullying, and reparations are just payment for past wrongs.
Who are the real bigots? You decide. But don’t take too long, because the leftists who aren’t beating you up or taking over or burning down businesses are the ones in leadership positions in almost every major city and many states. They are not in your corner if you are just an ordinary citizen who has the quaint idea that government’s first duty is to protect the citizens who pay for it in the first place. You see, somehow the idea emerged that government’s role now, in those places, is first to protect the feelings of the aggrieved, not the lives and property of the productive, and to use the lightest possible touch. If you haven’t heard that message loud and clear, then you haven’t been paying attention. As long as there is a mob with a grievance, you are at that mob’s mercy, and so is everything else within their reach.
In 532 Constantinople, then pretty much the last bastion of civilization, was almost destroyed when grievances against the emperor Justinian boiled over into what would become the Nika riots. For five days Justinian just hid out in the palace as the rioters assaulted the Praetorium (the nearest thing to a police headquarters), scattered what authority there was, burned down half of the city (including the first Hagia Sophia and the Baths of Zeuxippas, destroying many art treasures), and prepared to crown their own emperor. This wasn’t a peaceful protest. This wasn’t even about forcing a different course of action. This was a full-on attempt to destroy the existing system. Shamed into action by his steel-willed wife Theodora, who told him royalty was the best burial shroud, he finally sent the generals Belisarius and Mundus with an army to take care of the rioters. In a merciless attack they cut down 30,000 would-be rebels and squelched the revolt. That was about as close in history as we have come to losing civilization completely. Had Justinian not been shamed into finding his courage and taking action, he might well have taken ship and fled, to live out his days in exile or to sink to the bottom of the Mediterranean, while the east joined the west in the Dark Ages.
I could write a lot more about where that might have led, but that’s not my point. My point is that I am seeing a lot of disturbing parallels with what’s going on now: mobs who are no longer about justice but about destruction, rampant fires, destruction for its own sake, destruction of police facilities, and brewing attempts to take down the system and all that came before. The difference is, there appear to be no Justinians to find their courage, say “enough of this” and take decisive action to restore order and deal with whatever grievances in an orderly way. Most of the current leadership is either too afraid to take action or all-in with the mob. I don’t think it’s all going to melt away the day after Biden is elected, and I don’t think he’s up to the task. I wish I had an easy answer, but I haven’t, and I think this problem may well take years to fix.
Great comment Steve!!
Steve wrote: “I could write a lot more about where that might have led, but that’s not my point. My point is that I am seeing a lot of disturbing parallels with what’s going on now: mobs who are no longer about justice but about destruction, rampant fires, destruction for its own sake, destruction of police facilities, and brewing attempts to take down the system and all that came before. The difference is, there appear to be no Justinians to find their courage, say “enough of this” and take decisive action to restore order and deal with whatever grievances in an orderly way. Most of the current leadership is either too afraid to take action or all-in with the mob. I don’t think it’s all going to melt away the day after Biden is elected, and I don’t think he’s up to the task. I wish I had an easy answer, but I haven’t, and I think this problem may well take years to fix.”
My impression reading this interpretive analysis is that it is on the verge of realized understanding, close, but not quite there. Unless of course we are talking of chopping the opposition to pieces! 🙂
There is certainly no *easy fix* because such a fix would involve — must necessarily involve — a thorough renovation of the self: a radical turn against all in us that is complicit. It means a complete revision of the liberal transformation of culture that took place in the Postwar. And that means that those who have embodied *all of that* will have to do work that is now and will be excruciating for them.
In the larger context it also has to be said — at least proposed — that *we* (whoever *we* are) will not win but will lose. Recently there were some quotes from Jeremiah 20. The reference was to:
“When the priest Pashhur son of Immer, the official in charge of the temple of the Lord, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things, he had Jeremiah the prophet beaten and put in the stocks”.
And in response to Pashtur Jeremiah said: “‘I will make you a terror to yourself and to all your friends; with your own eyes you will see them fall by the sword of their enemies. I will give all Judah into the hands of the king of Babylon, who will carry them away to Babylon or put them to the sword. I will deliver all the wealth of this city into the hands of their enemies—all its products, all its valuables and all the treasures of the kings of Judah. They will take it away as plunder and carry it off to Babylon. And you, Pashhur, and all who live in your house will go into exile to Babylon. There you will die and be buried, you and all your friends to whom you have prophesied lies.’”
It is not my purpose to *get all Biblical* since a strictly binary narrative will not and cannot work for our own analysis here. But I do want to say that processes of decay usually have to go to their final points before cultural and civilizational renovation takes place.
What is interesting about the time we live in is that people are seeing in these terms, or trying to apply these *lenses*. They search for hermeneutical tools; tools of interpretation.
If there were a Jeremiah living and *prophesying* today What would be the terms of his critique? Mike Pence . . . or Jonathan Bowden? It is a very complicated question.
The only solution is to form an even bigger mob out of the mob’s targets and strike back a hundredfold.
If they wrong your people, you wrong their people.
It is called revenge.
Revenge is NOT the answer; however, the presence of overwhelming opposing force IS the answer. The goal should be to prevent and stop what’s happening using the law not use the tit-for-tat rationalization and escalate it into a war of revenge.
So why is the law not working?
Michael T Ejercito wrote, “So why is the law not working?”
Other than the fact that some of the protesters are ignoring the law; why do you think the law isn’t working? The law, meaning police and investigators, are finding and prosecuting arsonists, looters, and those that willfully destroy property. Is the law, meaning police, always there to prevent things from happening, as usual, no; the police can only try to prevent when they are actually present.
Revenge is NOT the answer; however, the presence of overwhelming opposing force IS the answer. The goal should be to prevent and stop what’s happening using the law not use the tit-for-tat rationalization and escalate it into a war of revenge.
First, you have no qualification of any sort to make any type of recommendation. Your purpose has been and is now sycophancy. This is essentially the *area* you work in if the truth were to be told. You are one among millions.
I would suggest that because your core tenets are off-the-mark that you cannot now, and will never, accurately see the present in its *real terms*. Why is that Steve?
If “politics are downstream from culture” it is possible that some sort of cultural movement could come to oppose whatever is occuring in our present (which you have no definition for except to label it and them *stupid*) and therefore great numbers could oppose the rampaging mobs. Yet this seems unlikely given the fact that the conflicts arising in our present have a clear relationship to shifting demographics. The original demographic is the most competent and capable — and interested — in maintaining what it built. It is now being assailed. But you can’t see this because you won’t look at it. There can arise no ‘opposing force’ because that assailed demographic cannot rally itself.
And this is not about the ‘rampaging mob’. It is about concentrations of power that use the mob as a tool. In this sense America sold itself out.
And in this sense, for numerous generations, the American populace has been manipulated terribly. But that is off your scope of perception. You cannot see it because your analysis is so terribly shallow.
You say not revenge. Fair enough as far as it goes. But revanche has another sense to it:
Yet we are beginning to deal in terms of understanding that most certainly have to do with profound civil conflicts and potential civil war. This is almost inevitable though no one, and with good reasons, has veered too openly toward the contemplation of that. But history is long and the 21st century is only just beginning.
The question about *who controls the State* is highly relevant. But if there is civil conflict it does not appear to be one that will divide the nation into sections. Therefore it is internal.
I think it is more honest — definitely in your case! — to say ‘I don’t know the answer’. But what you actually do, whether you see it or not, is keep relevant ideas from constellating in the mind of others. It is all that you cannot yourself approach or consider.
I don’t speak for others around here but I’m tired of you randomly “stalking” down my comments for another one of your anti-Steve deflection screeds; so with all due respect Alizia, please let go of this obvious anti-Steve bias you harbor and stop replying to my comments.
That’s the ‘stocking troll’ complaint isn’t it?
You provide a general example of a certain outlook. It is entirely valid for me to speak about this. It is directed to you but it speaks to larger issues.
You can’t start complaining now.
A lesson here for you perhaps — my Yankee friend — is don’t insult a Latina. 🙂
If you grovel a bit more I might take pity. But then I also might not . . .
[PS: I have been meditating at length, Steve, on your wonderful teeth! And then, Lo & Behold, my Aussie friend sent me this. Why had I not seen this before?!? What kept it from me? Now it all begins to make (sort of) sense.]
A friend-of-a-friend’s FB post about Colonel Heg:
” ‘You may be a widow, but you will never be the widow of a coward.’ (bolds/italics mine)
-COL Hans Christian Heg, 15th Wis Vol, in a wartime letter to his wife; killed leading his brigade at Chickamauga, 19 SEP 1863
”It is a sad commentary on historical literacy in Madison when the statue of a man who willingly gave his life to end slavery in these United States is pulled down by “protestors,” beheaded, and cast into a lake.
”I remember passing by the statue of COL Heg many times when we went to the Farmers’ Market, etc., growing up. I would always read the inscription on the statue’s base that said, in part, ‘Born in Norway; Fell at Chickamauga,’ and that the statue was given by Norwegian Americans to the State of Wisconsin. In that inscription was the essence of COL Heg’s service to our nation.
”COL Heg was indeed an immigrant, who came to believe deeply in ‘freedom, equality, and brotherhood,’ and this led him to be an abolitionist and member of the Free Soil Party before the Civil War. When men were needed to preserve the Union in 1861, Heg raised a regiment of Scandinavian (mostly Norwegian) volunteers, which became the 15th Wisconsin Volunteers, and mustered at Camp Randall here in Madison. Their motto was ‘För Gud og Vårt Land!’ (‘For God and Our Country!’), and by the end of the war about 1/3 of these volunteers were dead in the cause of defeating the Confederacy, preserving the Union, and ending the scourge of slavery in our land.
”Now we come full circle to the quote that we started with. 1863 gave us the two bloodiest battles of the Civil War: Gettysburg in July and then Chickamauga in September. By the time of Chickamauga, COL Heg had earned a reputation as a brave and talented volunteer officer who inspired his men in battle. In recognition, he was promoted to command the 3rd Brigade of Davis’ First Division, XX Corps, Army of the Cumberland, of which the 15th WI Vol was a part. It was at the head of his brigade that COL Heg stood for the entire afternoon of 19 SEP, the first day of Chickamauga, in pitched battle against Confederates commanded by Braxton Bragg. At the end of this day, after relentless attacks and counterattacks, COL Heg was mortally wounded, still at the head of his brigade.
”If you have kept reading to the end of this mini-history ramble, you will have some idea now of the absolute absurdity of destroying the statue of COL Heg. It is just that monuments to traitors to these United States be removed, and that the Confederacy be given the damning of history that it deserves. However, it boggles my mind why the statue of an immigrant and abolitionist, who bravely gave his life in the cause of ending slavery and preserving these United States, should be attacked.
”The statue of Forward, which is a replica of the original, was also toppled. That deserves a separate ramble. However, to tear down a statue sculpted by a woman, paid for by Wisconsin women, and which represents the progressive ideal of our state, is insane. This does not represent the spirit of the moment that we are in.”
Because, Paul, once you have convinced those inclined to violence that their violence is justified, you will not be able to stop them. Michael Collins ultimately forced the UK to grant Ireland dominion status by assassinating detectives and members of the British Secret Service (it helped that he had a double agent among the police). However, a lot of those fighting with them weren’t willing to stop at the Irish Free State. They wanted to go all the way to the Republic of Ireland then and there. He was willing to cut a deal that would be incremental, partly to stop the bloodshed generally, partly because Whitehall was about to go to a full-scale invasion, which they could not hope to defeat. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough for his radical colleagues, and he was shot dead soon after, touching off the Irish Civil War, which claimed many more Irish lives than the Anglo-Irish War. This should come as no surprise. Light the fire, and don’t be surprised when it burns you.
As always, appreciate the perspective, Steve.
“Light the fire, and don’t be surprised when it burns you.”
Feet of Clay Madison Lefties are learning that as we speak, much to their chagrin.
It gets worse.
Our laughably-in-over-her-head Mayor is asking that the preliminary appearance before a judge for a POS criminal thug (16 priors, currently charged with disorderly conduct while armed [baseball bat], resisting arrest, and attempted escape) be expedited so, and I quote:
he can be released on bail. I recognize that we need better options to de-escalate situations and offer restorative justice in our community.”
This is the same Mayor that a local blogger (Gregory Humphreys/Deke Rivers, who’s so FAR Left he makes me look like a New Dealer) is demanding to STEP DOWN.
This will not end well.
Here is Strzok’s reply.