by Ramin Mazaheri for the Saker Blog
The US has recently been trying to become a modern, humane society – and this is one of the many great hard-won and predictable consequences from electing a corporate fascist like Trump – but the results are chaos.
The US cannot protest
Look at these tiny, piddling protests, rarely over 1,000 people. Millions of Iranians can march in silence, unity and respect; China has 3-500 protests a day; today at least 20,000 people in Paris protested against police brutality but no US city has even come close to that figure. Why is that?
Answer: There are no unions, no political parties, no NGOs, no churches who dare to join these protests to flesh it out and give it structure, leadership, a soul, determination, solidarity, history, etc.
Indeed, what on earth is the point of listening to US clergy, who limit their political activism to putting down Trump? They won’t get involved, they won’t get dirty, they won’t put themselves at risk – at best they might go pick up the rubble the day after. Similarly, France’s clergy is only on the streets when it’s about nonsense like gay marriage.
Unions and political parties showing up en masse with banners and flags to question the political status quo, which they game expertly and support to the hilt? In the US you probably have to go back to 1913 to find that.
The US and the West (especially Emmanuel Macron) talk so much about civil society and NGOs, precisely because they are almost always explicitly apolitical, and in America would never join any protest which had the remotest chance of violence. Are you really banking on the Shriners or the YMCA, LOL?
The US cannot protest because it just devolves to violence
What’s crystal clear is that the US police cannot handle what is going on, and that is really the most significant long-term development here. When a society cannot provide safety, it is not much of a society at all. (May I note here that Cuban journalists said I was the first non-Cuban journalist they ever personally saw who reported about the total physical security Cubans enjoy at all times.)
US cops are not used to anybody resisting, and because they don’t have overwhelming numerical superiority they are just standing around agape; people see this and that is why they are brazenly looting in broad daylight. When cops do actually try to earn their good pay, their early retirement, their incredible guaranteed pensions, their drooling adulation from the Mainstream Media – it is against peaceful protesters and not apolitical looters.
Contrarily, France has a dedicated squad of riot police who are terribly brutal, but in the US their police are not trained to handle protests at all because: why waste time – the US cannot protest. Again, US cops are showing just how cowardly they are, and this has huge long-term cultural implications in a country which has so many guns and soon even more willingness to use them.
The US is sending in piddling amounts of National Guard like it’s 1968 – you know, back when the army was actually drawn from all sections of society – and assuming that will solve everything. A big LOL to those who think a dentist or teacher with zero combat experience is going to go hand-to-hand with looters. The US doesn’t have an army since 9/11 – it has mercenaries and 18-year olds. Incredibly, calling out the National Guard is the “ace in the hole” US governors are relying on. Again, a big LOL to this hugely, hugely outdated Boomer notion.
The cops are scared, the Marines can’t be used, the National Guard may or may not show up: this is why the only defense against looters is now in neighbourhood committees.
Ohhhhhhhhhhh… so now the Basij isn’t looking so terrible, huh? Huh?
Or a Cuban Committee for the Defense of the Revolution. Or a Chinese Communist Party. Or ANYTHING which was a pre-existing grassroots organisation of concerned citizens who have the organisation to quickly defend their neighbourhood and stores from people who are not protesters but looters.
The difference between the Basij and these thrown together US neighbourhood watch gangs is that in Iran an Azeri neighbourhood is not laying in wait for an unknown Assyrian, Kurd or Turkman to cross to their side of the street – there is unity and 20th-century politics. In the US tonight Whites and Latinos are likely pouncing on an African-American first and asking questions later – that is the extent of American political knowledge and ideology: identity politics, racial politics and “you and me against the world, babyeeee!”
Just like in France during every protest, of course: all the resources are being sent to defend the downtown and the rich areas – this is why those areas are so very, very rarely touched.
Americans are being reminded that politics is on the ground and defending your rights, community and nation – the Basij say: “You really would be wise to not invade Iran, you know.…”
The US cannot give good unemployment
Half the county is making better income by being unemployed than they ever did at their abusive job with wages which have been depressed for four decades. The US 1% made an enormous tactical error during the corona hysteria by giving nearly $1,000 per week in unemployment benefits because this admitted the fact that the money IS there – my God is it there, America is such a rich country – but it is being hoarded by the 1%.
Huge, huge anger is only going to build as this realisation grows firmer, and it will firm even if the US MSM continues to totally ignore this issue.
But you have people who – thank God! – are finally getting a living income without working like a dog, and thus they have the time and latitude to get political: they can afford to protest. People in France can afford to protest; and thus they realise they can’t afford to NOT protest. See how it’s a vicious cycle (from a 1%er’s view)?
So count on people – especially the student/youth class, whom nostalgic Boomer Westerners so foolishly assume will do all the heavy lifting to carry their society to the promised land – to take these decent wages as a license to protest until at least August 1.
After that, when the dole goes back to $400 and the 40 million lost jobs don’t come back by half but bills remain the same – expect more protests!
The US cannot grow a conscience
The first article I wrote about corona was: Capitalist-imperialist West stays home over corona – they grew a conscience?
It’s like when some people meditate for the first time: they finally take an honest look inward and they are overwhelmed with guilt and shame over what jerks they were for so long. The US is a system which is proudly, brazenly, defiantly, dog-eat-dog, yet the Great Lockdown was based around an idea of humanely protecting the vulnerable. Moral awakening can be a very violent process, internally – the US 1% shouldn’t have given their debt-slaves this time to reflect.
The US is such a hyper-militarised culture that demanding an hyper-policed Great Lockdown despite having none of the collective unity, grassroots structures and pre-existing mechanisms of redistribution which socialist-inspired countries like Iran, China and others have (to repeat an idea I have boringly used at least 40 times in the past few months), naturally created enormous pent-up aggression. The US system is based around aggression, competition and instability – lock that up and deny an outlet – the dog will bite, because he has been chained for so long.
What was the US 1% thinking? That if everyone was ordered to stay at home to protect Grandma, that other classes wouldn’t get uppity and start to think that maybe they deserved some protection too? Spell it out with me: h-y-s-t-e-r-i-a. But like electing Trump: sometimes you gotta go backwards to go forward.
The US cannot end these rebellions anytime soon, much less permanently solve them
The West, despite their arrogance, is not strong enough to do whatever China does, and politics is not science but morality – the US cannot all of a sudden go from 1865 to 1949 (or in Iran’s case, 1979). This dog will chase its tail until at least the November election, and the rest of the world can truly be glad that the dog is not biting them for the time being.
It is not about race nor police brutality – but this old idea is so familiar and comfortable, which is why the MSM pushes it so hard: this is something entirely new. How can anybody look at the US and think that 2020 isn’t going to be a year of total chaos for them?
Which is why it’s so funny to hear the solution proffered by so many “woke” Americans during these rebellions: get out and vote.
Hahahahahahahaha, if you think telling “Joe Biden will save us” is a good answer to a protester, to a looter, to the half of the nation which is totally politically apathetic, to the quarter of the nation which is now unemployed, to the other quarter which is fed up with lousy wages, zero stability, skyrocketed costs to health care, tuition, rent, etc., then you are part of the reason why people are letting the US burn – because you foolishly believe in the Western liberal democratic aristocratic/bourgeois system.
The US system has no answer for what is going on, and this list was far from extensive.
Trump is not Huey Long but a hardcore corporate fascist, and he was so necessary to vote into office because he pulled the sheet off the American system.
How’s it look where you are?
*********************************
Corona contrarianism? How about some corona common sense? Here is my list of articles published regarding the corona crisis.
Capitalist-imperialist West stays home over corona – they grew a conscience? – March 22, 2020
Corona meds in every pot & a People’s QE: the Trumpian populism they hoped for? – March 23, 2020
A day’s diary from a US CEO during the Corona crisis (satire) March 23, 2020
MSNBC: Chicago price gouging up 9,000% & the sports-journalization of US media – March 25, 2020
Tough times need vanguard parties – are ‘social media users’ the West’s? – March 26, 2020
If Germany rejects Corona bonds they must quit the Eurozone – March 30, 2020
Landlord class: Waive or donate rent-profits now or fear the Cultural Revolution – March 31, 2020
Corona repeating 9/11 & Y2K hysterias? Both saw huge economic overreactions – April 1, 2020
(A Soviet?) Superman: Red Son – the new socialist film to watch on lockdown – April 2, 2020
Corona rewrites capitalist bust-chronology & proves: It’s the nation-state, stupid – April 3, 2020
Condensing the data leaves no doubt: Fear corona-economy more than the virus – April 5, 2020
‘We’re Going Wrong’: The West’s middling, middle-class corona response – April 10, 2020
Why does the UK have an ‘army’ of volunteers but the US has a shortage? – April 12, 2020
No buybacks allowed or dared? Then wave goodbye to Western stock market gains – April 13, 2020
Pity post-corona Millennials… if they don’t openly push socialism – April 14, 2020
No, the dollar will only strengthen post-corona, as usual: it’s a crisis, after all – April 16, 2020
Same 2008 QE playbook, but the Eurozone will kick off Western chaos not the US – April 18, 2020
We’re giving up our civil liberties. Fine, but to which type of state? – April 20,
2020
Coronavirus – Macron’s savior. A ‘united Europe’ – France’s murderer – April 22, 2020
The same 12-year itch: Will banks loan down QE money this time? – April 26,
2020
The end of globalisation won’t be televised, despite the hopes of the Western 99% (2/2) – April 27, 2020
What would it take for proponents to say: ‘The Great Lockdown was wrong’? – April 28, 2020
ZeroHedge, a response to Mr. Littlejohn & the future of dollar dominance – April 30, 2020
Given Western history, is it the ‘Great Segregation’ and not the ‘Great Lockdown’? – May 2, 2020
The Western 1% colluded to start WWI – is the Great Lockdown also a conspiracy? – May 4, 2020
May 17: The date the Great Lockdown must end or Everything Bubble 2 pops – May 6, 2020
Reading Piketty: Does corona delay the Greens’ fake-leftist, sure-to-fail victory? – May 8, 2020
Picturing the media campaign needed to get the US back to work – May 11, 2020
Scarce jobs + revenue desperation = sure Western stagflation post-corona – May 13, 2020
France’s nurses march – are they now deplorable Michiganders to fake-leftists? – May 15, 2020
Why haven’t we called it ‘QE 5’ yet? And why we must call it ‘QE 2.1’ instead – May 16, 2020
‘Take your stinking paws off me, you damned, dirty public servant!’ That’s Orwell? – May 17, 2021
The Great Lockdown: The political apex of US single Moms & Western matriarchy? May 21, 2021
I was wrong on corona – by not pushing for a US Cultural Revolution immediately – May 25, 2021
August 1: when the unemployment runs out and a new era of US labor battles begin – May 28, 2021
Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. He is the author of the books ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’ and the NEW ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’.
Great post once again, Ramin! The cognitive dissonance here in the land from which the term sprang and which it seems was expressly coined for is about to “get real.” Gonna be a really interesting election season this year, for sure. Might be the first time we see a pol’s head actually explode on live TV without a ballistic assist.
With 40m + people with alot of extra time on their hands and nothing else to lose, I think karma will be coming to the USA like a brick through a window. The empire has no clothes and its about time we all looked and laughed at the spectacle. I hope the dollar collapses too to knock out the imperial tax system (vie exporting inflation) so that these bums have to trade fairly with the rest of the world – goods for goods, services for services.
I think the dollar collapse will be the precipitating event for the breakup. It’s the only remaining glue holding the current state of affairs together.
Mr. Mazaheri: these protests are not political: This is street theatre aided and abetted by Twitter, social media and the demon-rat media.. The Black communities are being destroyed by racist white radicals in combination with Black nihilists claiming to be anti racists. After all, Black people just love to destroy their own community unlike other people—isn’t that the acme of racism? Or to be fair to represent the ultra leftists– the Black radicals say-“-let’s make people so totally miserable that they have no recourse but to rebel ( under our exalted leadership, of course)”
This is a coup by one section of the ruling class to create violence, chaos and a climate where there is no personal security so that people will accept a techno-surveillance state . So??? All Lives Matter is a radical,
socialist slogan. and, may I add , there was a gun rights demonstration in Virginia in which a crowd of over 30,000 gun owners ;;;black, white and Asians gathered armed to the teeth peacefully. This happened 4 months ago before all the latest false flags started happening.
Coincidence?
But Terranam, just a thought – is this not exactly what Ramin is saying – that it is not political but he goes further, because it cannot be political – because the political structures to make it political does not exist? So, a real coup cannot be in existence (excepting in the ‘Mr Global’ sphere in my mind). Just picking up your point here, no, hard debate or any of those things – no ‘winner takes all’ :-).
“US cops are not used to anybody resisting, and because they don’t have overwhelming numerical superiority they are just standing around agape; people see this and that is why they are brazenly looting in broad daylight.”
Sorry, Ramin, but that is a total misreading of the situation in many US cities. Most big city cops are now trained (by Israel) to do exactly what they did in Minneapolis. Then, when called to account for their actions and are facing legitimate protests, they employ agents provocateurs to escalate the situation…
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/minneapolis-protest-riot-umbrella-man-george-floyd-a9539741.html
They are certainly not standing around agape. Rather, they are part of a huge subversive right-wing conspiracy that wants the over-throw of constitutional government and law in the USA. As protests and riots roar across America, Trump appeals to his evangelical base by holding up a Bible and “puts on the armor of God” to set in motion their dominionist fantasies of a coming theocracy. At the very least, it looks like he will succeed in rallying his base to win re-election in November. As usual, the Dems are totally clueless about this.
Should I refer you to tons of footage of cops watching looters loot and doing nothing?
All 100% of cops are not in on a conspiracy nor are community-haters – many are just getting punked out for all to see by looters, Mazaheri is right.
Agreed. I think it’s still too early to tell for sure which way the wind blows. What we do seem to have now, for the time being at least, is utter chaos. Time will tell – hopefully – who’s behind all this and what their agenda is. Although, I should add, with the globalists, it’s win-win either way. Simple chaos is as good as any other outcome if the goal is just to keep the plebes occupied and not focused on their current and rapidly approaching horrendous economic plight.
I never said that 100% of cops are involved in this conspiracy or are “community haters”. The evidence is overwhelming, though, that many are. Who allowed pallets of bricks to be placed in strategic locations to be used by paid agitators and anarchists in more than one city? Who allowed a semi filled with gasoline to drive into a crowd of demonstrators in Minneapolis? Who is the Umbrella Man in the video? Why does all of this look like it was planned and coordinated by higher-ups in government?
Ramin is always a good read with a good mixture of common sense and home truths, nicely interspaced with his spritely sense of humour. Now when Ramin hints that the lockdowns were to protect granny, I have to take into account, that this is likely being said with tongue firmly in cheek. Anyway, I share the view that the lockdowns are the result of the natural reluctance of politicians being abruptly overturned by messages from above. If the hasty lockdowns were not about the health of grannies, then it might not be too unreasonable to wonder whether they were simply just another step along the road of a much bigger agenda. I won’t bother with my own ideas, though I’m quite sure that eugenicist, depopulationist and Vaccinator General Mr Bill Gates could tell us all we need to know. Some might though, think he has already done that.
I agree with everything you said except, “… the rest of the world can truly be glad that the dog is not biting them for the time being.”
Americans will reelect Trump because we need to believe in the strongman. The Neocons in the U.S. have figured out how to play on Trump’s narcissism to unleash his most aggressive tendencies. True, they can’t get a hot war out of him but a vicious and cruel starvation campaign is underway and will continue against, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, Yemen, and Lebanon regardless of the carnage.
A hot war might yet emerge from that but the needless aggression of these countries, attacking their infrastructure and ability to buy basic civilian goods and commodities will continue to a degree we have never seen before.
“and the rest of the world can truly be glad that the dog is not biting them for the time being.”
Amen !
I think that people have missed what I think is the huge story. That is the burned church photo-op with Trump “protected” by hundreds of military personnel.
Doesn’t anybody remember the famous burning of the Reichstag in 1939? Of course the Nazis did it, then blamed it on communists and found a homeless drunk, convicted him and be-headed him.
This act allowed them to pass draconian laws and before you knew it you had a hardline dictatorship and the invasion of Poland and the rest is bloody history.
This was Trump’s Reichstag moment and I bet he had it done so they could move to martial law as Barr is drawing up the plans now and Congress is along for the ride.
It may be no coincidence that Little Susie Rice blamed it all on the Russians with Nato conducting war games on the front porch of Russia and tensions rising in the Black Sea.
I gotta get back to the home now but this makes sense if you think about it. And then again maybe not.
That theory makes sense, although the shameless Dems would be signing their political death warrant if they went along with it. We shall soon see. This story continues to explode in new directions every day now. Hard to tell who’s psyop-ing whom at this point.
This one may very well (and rightly) be considered the ‘lite version’,
But, it is still pretty good, though all illustration(s) of the American Regime’s crimes against Life and Humanity may not ever be able to be fully illustrated…
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/06/03/nineteen-facts-about-american-policing-that-will-blow-your-mind/
Please read.
For anyone who thinks that there is somewhere to go, or some way (or where) to get away,…
There is not.
There is nowhere to go.
We must stand, if we wish to live.
I have been hearing for 60 (yes, sixty) years, “if only we had a good president”.
Nobody has been able to organize anything as complicated as as a sunday school picnic since The Panthers and The American Indian Movement were taken down.
Americans have more guns than people; they have way more people than know how to effectively use them.
Even the cops don’t know how to form a line and use the weapons with which they are loaded down.
Americans will never do anything more revolutionary than chariot races, football hooligans, and trashing Moms and Pops. As soon as you get two or more of them together, they start slandering each other who is too gay or too het, too nazi or too commie, too tRump or too Hellary, too radical or too timid, white racist or black racist, godless or evangelical, conspiratorial or blind, … … Just read the comments above.
We were taught that the “British” and their inheritors have for centuries excelled at “Balance of Powers”. That’s a euphemism for “lets you and him fight”.
If we had a good president, we wouldn’t have to learn how to play nice together.
Man, you have nailed it like nobody else. ” Even cops do not know…. “. It’s like a cat catching a mouse does not know how to kill it, so only plays with it, despite its paws and sharp teeth. Where there is no will, conscience, what is at stake, the game is given away. One can feel pity for Whites loosing their freedom,country and lives.
“One can feel pity for Whites loosing their freedom,country and lives.”
can you say more about that? do you mean the rest have lost it already?
This doesn’t make sense – it is poor black neighborhoods which are burning, not white ones.
“US cops are not used to anybody resisting, and because they don’t have overwhelming numerical superiority they are just standing around agape; people see this and that is why they are brazenly looting in broad daylight. When cops do actually try to earn their good pay, their early retirement, their incredible guaranteed pensions, their drooling adulation from the Mainstream Media – it is against peaceful protesters and not apolitical looters.”
So, to state your understanding and analysis another way, you believe (or want other to believe) that the American cops you “see” standing around on TV are a group of individuals who have decided to show up to stand together in a line, and that each individual has the authority to decide when and how to act in response to the behavior of the rioters. Each officer individually has decided, in these cases, not to take action due to individual cowardice and/or incompetence.
Further, the looters themselves somehow collectively “know” the police are cowards who will not act merely because they are outnumbered, and so, collectively, they break windows, light fires, throw dangerous objects, and steal whatever they can get their hands on. About sum it up?
Yours is not the analysis of one who has the knowledge or experience to properly explain what (he thinks) he is seeing. Your substantial experience as an adoring observer in Cuba and France clearly does not sufficiently equip you to analyze accurately the dynamics of the events currently unfolding (again) in the US.
The individual officers themselves do not make command decisions to act or not; those decisions are ultimately made by mayors or city managers and the politically appointed police chiefs under their control.
A better analysis might at least ask the question, “Who are THOSE people, the actual decision makers, whose faces we do not see? How did they get into these positions and why? What social forces motivate them (or paralyze them into inaction)?
Four police officers are now charged criminally in the death of George Floyd; their actions and inactions were in part recorded and are played repeatedly on all us media channels. Can you think of any other “social” or psychological forces that may come into play here?
Ah! But no! Perhaps there are answers, after all, that you don’t want interfering with your narrative.
Playing up the “all protesters good (as long as they are useful for the socialist cause), all police bad (after all they are the arm of the class enemy) is a lazy way of avoiding the required deeper analysis. Easy though, since the lazy consumers of your product love the flavor of it.
All elements of any society, Mr M, must be offered a path to constructive participation for change. Even the Cuban revolutionaries avoided torturing or killing front line government soldiers when captured? Why? To avoid alienating those whom they knew would have to be recruited to their cause. This area alone is ripe for in-depth analysis.
Oh yes I know there are some sycophants here who will rally to your defense so no need for you to bother with a response.
Some will condescend to say “oh this was not his purpose, to analyze American socio-political dynamics, or how those factors impact American policing;” or “oh you are missing the true intellectual heights of his amazing analysis, poor man;” or perhaps “this was only a small incidental part of his point in writing the article; it’s not of importance.”
Yet, indeed these kinds of claims are critical to a writer in building the foundation (of truth and accuracy) for his primary thesis. When the individual elements are wrong or misrepresented, everything else is tainted and legitimately called into question.
Yet, you pretend to provide a high-level analysis of events in the US when you clearly do not understand (or choose to avoid) the fundamentals.
Good, humble suggestion Mr M: we should stick to what we know. It is (sometimes painfully) obvious when we don’t.
Hi Zukov,
Of course I disagree with most everything you said and could prove my case, but that would take too long during these busy times. I would like to point out this large mistake of yours:
“So, to state your understanding and analysis another way, you believe (or want other to believe) that the American cops you “see” standing around on TV are a group of individuals who have decided to show up to stand together in a line, and that each individual has the authority to decide when and how to act in response to the behavior of the rioters. Each officer individually has decided, in these cases, not to take action due to individual cowardice and/or incompetence.
Further, the looters themselves somehow collectively “know” the police are cowards who will not act merely because they are outnumbered, and so, collectively, they break windows, light fires, throw dangerous objects, and steal whatever they can get their hands on. About sum it up?”
Not at all.
You seem to have the misapprehension that I think a million US cops are all given the latitude to be one million sheriffs and that there is no chain of command? I don’t know why you would fail to realise that I implicitly contended that at both an individual level AND at the command level US cops were too paralysed to take the required actions against looters? Maybe you drew this facile conclusion because you were hunting for ammunition for criticism? Critique all you want, but that was a poor complaint.
Furthermore, I find it quite a mistake that you seem to believe that looters were not emboldened by the cowardly inaction/inability of cops to stop violence in poor areas? That seems so absurd – that street realities are not easily apprehended and relayed – that I must be misunderstanding your writing….
“Look at these tiny, piddling protests, rarely over 1,000 people.”
You miss the significance of what this means for America. Big marches had become ritualized spectacles, with the key element being organizing bus ride logistics. This time around, what was stunning was the speed with which the protests spread. It hit cities that were not known for protesting at all. The symbiosis between the “peaceful” demonstrators was straight out of MLK/Malcolm X. The shock to the system was substantial, not because they were so huge in absolute terms, but because for most of the country, they weren’t supposed to happen at all.
The fragility within the Belly of the Beast was exposed. The vulnerability was exposed. We have a long, long way to go.
I think Ramin is either being overly pessimistic in this article – or he is not fully aware of the dynamics of the US – or both. The uprising within a week already has had major impacts – much more so than the big demonstrations of the past. This is demonstrable by the kinds of statements coming from those who continue to have a tenacious hold on power – these kinds of statements may have often come from non-profit enterprises in the past – but not from those holding power. And certainly not in the numbers that we are seeing. The upping of the charges and bringing further charges against the other three “bystander” cops – is also a direct result of the intensity of these protests. It was one thing that Los Angeles called out the military back during the Rodney King affair … but no way can the military be called out throughout the country – the National Guards sure … but as has been pointed out – these are often workers who receive a few weeks of training a year – not really the military. In California, up till now they were working in food banks – filling grocery bags. IF the military is indeed called out – there will be an immediate danger of them disobeying orders – and if they do a massacre it will further inflame the situation – literally. The US functions and its capitalist system is kept in place through low level and highly localized violence often invisible. Not through large scale violence in just about all major cities – and in many more cities that have not seen protests at this scale and intensity. That Trump and his companions thought they need to call out the military is a big deal – and is reflective of how these protests have shaken things up. Having said that… I think Pepe Escobar’s article is more on point – when he points out that these protests do not have a political and leadership structure. That may or may not emerge… we’ll see… it is still early in the game, and the road is long… but rest assured that whatever leadership there is they are very much in tune with these questions. And that the usual useless black leadership have not delivered.
Lack of leadership is an interesting aspect. In early 1970 there was some upheaval at my local University, over Kent State, and some student-related issues. I was at the Student Center, literally sitting behind a bush, watching the angry people mulling around, when an acquaintance came by and talked w/me. He had been a student @ the University in Mexico D.F., during the huge disturbances there in 1968. His comment to me: Look to who become the leaders. Similarly, I talked w/my Wife’s Uncle, who was from Uruguay, where there was unrest and eventually a military dictatorship. His comment: I was throwing stones, he was becoming President.
Whatever is truly going on in USA, it does not appear to have been co-opted; no John Kerrys, no Jerry Browns, no Al Sharptons. Not yet, at least.
The Black Panthers, as mentioned above, were very strategic, disciplined, and well armed. They scared the hell out of the politicians, yet they harmed no one. We have Head Start programs to feed school kids because of the Panthers. They were systematically assassinated.
“In the US tonight Whites and Latinos are likely pouncing on an African-American first and asking questions later – ”
This was very prescient and is now widely reported. Huge black/Latino race issues now loom in urban America because of these protests, and all because cops refused to stop the crimes.
Thanks for the article. You ask at the end “How’s it look where you are?”
I am in New Zealand. The general awe and worship of our Dear Leader for Averting A Crisis Such As The World Has Never Known (aka ‘coronaphobia’) is not shared by myself and, thankfully, many others I have spoken to. As soon as we came out of our ‘Level Four Lockdown’, meaning we were allowed to see other people outside our ‘household bubble’ (cue cringe at the babyish, hokey terminology) and stray up to fifteen minutes’ drive from our homes, fellow pedestrians and shoppers began ignoring the ‘social distancing’ rules. With the exception of when queuing. This suggests a lack of belief in the narrative but also shows the down-to-earth practical attitude of many folk in this country. Perhaps tinged with the blase of the coronaphobic that there are not many cases here.
Another thing of note is that the government has opportunistically pushed through lots of new laws, amny without following due process. They range from the absurd to the sinister. From criminalizing smoking in a car with children to unilaterally removing access to the plant Artemisia from anyone other than a doctor writing a prescription (practically unheard of here). They’ve also changed language to seemingly allow themselves the right to have you removed from your home and medicated at their whim. They are dropping casual comments that ‘va((ination is likely to be a determining factor in future international travel’. As if a jab actually exists. As if they haven’t been trying to develop a coronavirus since SARS in 2004/5 which continually has devastating results on the animal subjects. As if even people who love getting jabbed are going to flock for something that has been rushed. That’s lot of assumptions and I could go on…
Practically, I have seen the green shoots of mistrust in public institutions sprouting encouragingly in everyday folk. This I foresee and hope will lead to enhanced community networking and relocalising of both our attention and our industry. The more shrill the MSM becomes, the more ‘our leaders’ flip flop and move the goalposts, the more folk will look to themselves and their community for sane approaches. And ignore the talking heads until they hopefully scratch their collective heads and wander off to do something that’s actually useful.
In the interim we have a wrecked economy (international tourism is HUGE here, especially from USA and China) to navigate and gardens to tend. Seed companies across the country sold out as we were going into Autumn. Bring on the home grown veg!
Bless you all wherever you may be and I am in solidarity with you as a fellow human living in these times of chaos and recalibration.
PS my favourite meme lately: ‘I can’t believe it’s riot season already; I’ve still got my COVI-19 decorations up…’