Day: May 3, 2024

The Battle Of Athens

HUH?

The recent protests made me think of my glory days as an antiwar protester….it also made me think of some protests from the past….protests that are long forgotten but serve their purpose.

The Battle of Athens?

Could this be some random Greek saga or Is this some WW2 battle of note? Or is it some diatribe about Sherman crushing through Georgia?

That’s right a little history for this day…..this piece is about the actions of veterans from WW2.

In the post-war summer of 1946, the small town of Athens, Tennessee became the epicenter of an event that went down in history as the Battle of Athens. This wasn’t merely a physical confrontation, but a fight against entrenched corruption, and it was a battle that symbolized the broader struggle against tyranny and injustice in post-war America.

The protagonists of this historic grandstand were none other than returning World War II veterans, who, after fighting overseas, found themselves facing a new kind of enemy on home soil. The corruption in Athens had been brewing for over a decade under Sheriff Paul Cantrell and his associates, who’d manipulated the political landscape. These veterans, witnessing the disintegration of democracy and fairness in their town, decided the time had come to take action.

Their training, coupled with a deep-seated belief in justice, prepared them for the confrontation that unfolded.

The end of World War II brought a wave of relief and hope to millions, with service members returning home to rebuild their lives in peace. However, for the veterans of Athens, this was far from reality. They returned to find their town under the control of Paul Cantrell’s corrupt regime, characterized by rampant intimidation, voter suppression and a blatant disregard for the law. The local government had become a machinery of corruption, operating with impunity and stifling the voices of citizens.

These returning heroes, already seasoned by the horrors of war, were now confronted with a new battle, one threatening the very principles they’d fought to uphold. Unwilling to stand idly by, they were resolved to challenge the status quo, setting the stage for what became a historic uprising against corruption.

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/featured/battle-of-athens.html

And then there was more veterans that stepped up especially those from World War One….Remember the Bonus Army?….

Of course not!

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/macarthur-bonus-march-may-july-1932/

This is how you do things when injustice is rampant…..not like today when you sit on social media and piss and moan until the next celeb does something that impresses you or until you see the problem and try to understand (ha ha ha)

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Those Damn ‘Outside Agitators’!

First of all….who are these outside agitators?

Of all the hundreds of arrests how many were outside agitators?

Name some.

Or is it manure spread as fact?

That is the big term being batted around over the protests on college campuses…the accusation is that ‘agitators’ are running the show…I am not saying that other protesters are not involved….but I hear terms like ‘they do not look like a college student’….what does a college student look like?

Basically this is a concerted plan to divert attention away from what Israel is doing to make the grievances of the students is not legitimate.

In these instances, and others, authorities have not offered many specifics about who the “outside agitators” are, how significant their numbers are or how they differentiated outsiders from university-affiliated protesters.

Large-scale social movements can certainly be vulnerable to groups who seek to capitalize on the chaos for their own ends, said Aldon Morris, a professor emeritus of sociology and African American studies at Northwestern University. But time and again, authorities have leveled the broad accusation of “outside agitators” to undermine or stifle protests.

“The notion here is that student protests aren’t really legitimate because the claim is they are being taken over by outside agitators who are violent, anti-government, anti-democracy and so forth,” Morris told CNN.

The use of the term is nuanced. This time around, city officials, university administrators and supporters of the student protesters have allcited “outside agitators” as people who are trying to hijack the protests for their own means. But whether the person using the phrase is trying to quell the protests or defend them,it’s not always clear who these “outside agitators” are, and whether they can be classed as such in the first place.

“It seems to me that the ‘outside agitator’ claim is one to shift the focus away from the grievances of the students and their protest,” Morris said.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/27/us/campus-protests-palestine-outside-agitator-cec/index.html

College students have a long history of protests…..as far back as 1960 college students have been protesting what they see as problems in this country.

USA TODAY revisited four monumental campus protests to explain how college protests have become a staple of American life and often influence the outcomes of political strife. Here’s a look at how previous campus protests unfolded — and whether they were successful in their causes.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2024/04/28/us-has-long-history-of-college-protests-what-happened-in-the-past/73431111007/

History shows that students have a more moral compass than most of the ‘adults’ in this country…..are they wrong?

History proves my point…..

Recent protests have not yet reached the scale of the major student protests of the late 1960s against the Vietnam War or the 1980s against South African apartheid. But on campus, they may be “the largest student movement so far” of the 21st century, said Robert Cohen, a professor of social studies and history at New York University who has studied student activism. In recent decades, there were mass protests against the Iraq War, as part of the Occupy Wall Street movement, and after the killing of George Floyd, but they were primarily happening off campus.

Just like the protesters who came before them, the students who are now being arrested, and in some cases suspended, for setting up encampments on their campuses in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza have been demonized by politicians. At Columbia University, some protesters were removed and arrested by police after taking over the same building that antiwar protesters once occupied in 1968. The university has said that students who participated may be expelled.

Read More 

No they are not….they, protesters, see a problem and they bring light to the darkness of government and the media.

Just another attempt to cover Israel’s ass it seems.

Just who the Hell are these ‘outside agitators’?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”