Tag: Civil Disobedience

Violence–Blame Democrats

The nation is witnessing the outcry of the people through the numerous protests on our city streets….

We could go into all sorts of sociological theories to point the finger at the culprit….but leave it to Donald the Orange to assign blame…..

Nope not Obama, per se…..not the media (for a change)….not even China…..this time it is the democrats…..

As protests erupted across the US for the fourth consecutive night over the death of George Floyd on Friday evening, President Donald Trump took to Twitter to urge people in Minnesota, where Floyd was killed, to vote out Democrats.

“Time for a change! #2020,” Trump said, retweeting the account @YoungDems4Trump, which listed the party affiliations of several Democratic elected officials in Minnesota.

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-retweets-account-slamming-democrats-as-floyd-protests-erupt-2020-5\

As usual the person that some call “Mr. President” blames everybody handy or the last person he had on that meager mind….

This situation needs a strong leader of the American people and we get a dunce in the corner.

Then there are those weak kneed sycophants of Donald that carry his water for him….spineless ones like Ted Cruz….

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) tried to defend President Donald Trump’s constant rants about “Obamagate.”

It didn’t go well.

Trump has repeatedly railed against former President Barack Obama, claiming “Obamagate” is the “biggest political crime in American history” without offering any details on what that supposed crime is.

When asked by a reporter to explain it earlier this month, Trump simply said, “You know what the crime is.”

On Wednesday, MSNBC analyst and editor of The Recount John Heilemann replied to Trump’s latest “Obamagate” tweet with another request for an explanation. 

That’s when Cruz stepped in it: 

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ted-cruz-trump-obamagate_n_5ecf3d18c5b649a4e52f6e62

This is assassination by innuendo……a classic propaganda trick….to accuse without proof and let the listener fill in the blanks.

Simpletons….being led by a mental midget disguised as the president.

At what point do Americans wake up to this fact?

Personally I feel it is too wide an expansion to be healed…..and the republic’s end is near if something does not change….and I see no chance of that happening……

Since the founding of the United States, politicians and pundits have warned that partisanship is a danger to democracy. George Washington, in his Farewell Address, worried that political parties, or factions, could “allow cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men” to rise to power and subvert democracy. More recently, many political observers are concerned that increasing political polarization on left and right makes compromise impossible, and leads to the destruction of democratic norms and institutions.

A new study, however, suggests that the main threat to our democracy may not be the hardening of political ideology, but rather the hardening of one particular political ideology. Political scientists Steven V. Miller of Clemson and Nicholas T. Davis of Texas A&M have released a working paper titled “White Outgroup Intolerance and Declining Support for American Democracy.” Their study finds a correlation between white American’s intolerance, and support for authoritarian rule. In other words, when intolerant white people fear democracy may benefit marginalized people, they abandon their commitment to democracy.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-effect-new-study-connects-white-american-intolerance-support-authoritarianism-ncna877886

I have said many times that the old Franklin cartoon tells the tale of this country and may be predicting the future….

Unite or Die: Building a New Democratic Alignment - Common Defense ...

Just a thought for a Sunday.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

Riots!

Minneapolis is the latest American city to suffer from the death of a black man at the hands of the police and it has resulted in protests and now riots….and of curse Donald the Orange has done what he does best…..makes the matter worse……

The governor of Minnesota on Thursday activated the National Guard, and 500 soldiers will respond to Minneapolis, which has seen protests every night since Tuesday over the Monday death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, after a white cop kneeled on his neck. Also Thursday, the mayor of Minneapolis declared a state of emergency, KSTP reports. Looting, violence, smashed windows, and fires were widespread, and Fox 9 reports that after the Third Precinct police station started burning, the city warned that if gas lines had been cut the building could explode. CBS Minnesota reports protesters broke in and took over the building late Thursday.

Meanwhile, in Washington, President Trump—who earlier declared justice would be served in Floyd’s death—on Thursday referred to the Minneapolis protesters as “thugs,” the Raw Story reports. “I can’t stand back & watch this happen to a great American City, Minneapolis. A total lack of leadership. Either the very weak Radical Left Mayor, Jacob Frey, get his act together and bring the City under control, or I will send in the National Guard & get the job done right,” Trump tweeted, adding, “These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!”

The presidential words will do NOTHING yo make this situation better or at least calmer……

My thought on the riots.

I am not opposed to civil disobedience….but there is a time for violence……this situation needs the focus to be on the police that murdered this man and not on the riots from the anger.

I understand the anger and the frustration because there will most likely be little to no justice for the death….but the calm protests are overshadowed by the violence…the media needs the riots to make the conversation for them….a calm and peaceful protest is only good for a 30 second spot….while the violence can be analyzed for many many day and many spots.

This system of “justice” needs to be changed….and until we rid the world of Trump in the next election it is just wishful thinking.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

Betrayal Of Port Huron

About here most youngsters are asking just what am I talking about and what the Hell is Port Huron.

First of all this is a post on the coming election and Joe Biden.

As an aging radical from the 60s and 70s I believed in the direction a group, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) laid out in their Port Huron Statement….( and now the perfect time for a little history)….

Learn a bit about the SDS and in turn about the old professor…..http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3337

Now the statement they issued that outlined an agenda…..

The Students for a Democratic Society was a leftist student movement that came out of the early 60s in the midst of the New Left, and had chapters and wide participation throughout America in the 60s, most notably the anti-war and free speech movement. The New Left mainly referred to the student movement that came about in the 1960s that focused on social injustices throughout the United States. They were heavily concerned with the “establishment” of the country and wanted to change the government with (in the very least) a social revolution, though many groups were even more radical. The SDS could be considered the flagship organization of the New Left. They branched off of the Student League for Industrial Democracy or SLID because they believed the organization’s ideologies were too restricting. Hence the SDS was very vague in their principles, so to appeal to a wide group of students with varying ideologies. This can be seen in their most important document, which describes them as an organization and can lead to a better understanding of them as a group, “The Port Huron Statement.”

“The Port Huron Statement” was the manifesto of the Students for the Democratic Society. Tom Hayden, a leader of the original SDS, as well as a student at University of Michigan was the working force behind the document. Tom Hayden along with other founding members came together in Port Huron, Michigan, in the June of 1962 to lay out the ideologies and goals of their new organization, which heavily reflected that of the New Left. The first part of the document brings understanding to their viewpoint of society and American political and military actions, while the second half focuses on how America should “establish greater democracy in America” (46), and tactics their organization could use to help the United States achieve this. To give a clear understanding of the SDS ideology and goals “The Port Huron Statement” is an important document to study as it outlined their beliefs and goals.

https://digilab.libs.uga.edu/exhibits/exhibits/show/civil-rights-digital-history-p/students-for-a-democratic-soci

This is the original draft of the Port Huron Statement…..”A New Agenda For a Generation……https://www.sds-1960s.org/PortHuronStatement-draft.pdf

Please read the statement…..the values then are the values of today…..nothing has changed and that can be blamed on the desertions to mainstream for profit parties….

Yes I was a member and follower of the SDS…..I did not agree with some members turn to violence and I definitely did not agree when the leaders like Tom Hayden, Jerry Rubin made the turn Right and embraced the Democratic Party.

The SDS had a great agenda but lost the chance to implement by the desertions of the leadership to the “enemy”…..

That catches my reader up….and then the SDS old new left (the ones that made that turn) have issued a statement in support of Biden for 2020……

“An Open Letter to the New New Left From the Old New Left,” signed by more than sixty former leaders of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). The aim of the letter is to pressure supporters of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders into voting for Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic Party presidential candidate.

Their letter in the Nation opens by applauding Senator Sanders’ long-anticipated decision to drop out of the presidential race and support Biden. However, the authors write that they are “gravely concerned that some of his supporters, including the leadership of Democratic Socialists of America, refuse to support Biden, whom they see as a representative of Wall Street capital.”

The letter is formally directed to the leadership of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which has officially stated that it will not be endorsing Biden. This is a political maneuver on the DSA’s part, as there are not in fact any principled political differences between it and the writers of the letter, of which we will say more below.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/04/25/sdsb-a25.html

These old leaders may have lost their way….but old radicals like me are still the same person with the same beliefs we held 50 years ago.

And because I have the same values that I held 50 years ago I have NO use for a candidate like Joe Biden….and if you have read the statement then you know why……

I Watch This Blog!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Hong Kong Drama

For months now the people in Hong Kong have been protesting…..some say for democracy others say it is just for the helluva it and then there are those in the government that say it is just provocateurs that are never happy…..

There for awhile I thought that Trump would veto the bill that condemned China for their responses to the protesters and for their disregard of the democratic process…..

I can say now that I am pleasingly happy with the news that Trump has signed the bill….

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed into law legislation that could bring diplomatic action and economic sanctions against Hong Kong, brushing off multiple warnings by China against such a move.

“The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act reaffirms and amends the United States-Hong Kong Policy Act of 1992, specifies United States policy towards Hong Kong and directs assessment of the political developments in Hong Kong,” the White House said in a statement.

“Certain provisions of the act would interfere with the exercise of the president’s constitutional authority to state the foreign policy of the United States.”

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3039673/donald-trump-signs-hong-kong-human-rights-and-democracy-act

The one question that this situation begs…..is what will happen with the negotiations between China and US on trade?

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

Why Is Latin America Exploding?

It is interesting that since 2017 Latin America has become a hot bed of right wing politics and protests….are the two related?

Riots in Venezuela, Chile (again), Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, even Brazil is feeling the pressures. People taking to the streets and the government uses police and military to calm the population.

The Newest outbreak of protests is in the country of Colombia……

Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets in the Colombian capital on Saturday as anti-government protests continued for a third day amid rising fear and violence.

The protests began on Thursday when more than 200,000 people took part in what they called a national strike over a number of grievances, including possible economic reforms by the government of right-wing President Ivan Duque.

While the majority of the protesters continue to demonstrate peacefully, banging kitchenware in the streets in a traditional Latin American protest called a “cacerolazo” [casseroles], some small factions have clashed with security forces in Bogota and country-wide.

Three protesters have died in the unrest so far, while a car bomb in the western region of Cauca killed at least three police and left 10 others wounded on Friday.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/11/fear-grips-colombia-protesters-anti-gov-rallies-turn-violent-191124051954754.html

Latin America has not seen this much violence since the 70s and 80s…..when most of the right wing strongmen lost their hold on the governments….time to throw the slugs out again.

The US has been a friend to the neofascist in Lain America for decades…..some recent history…..

However much they war on the domestic political front, Washington’s Democrats and Republicans are on the same page when it comes to the imperial war on democracy and social justice in Latin America.

In 2009 and 2010 Republicans were in a partisan tizzy over everything Barack Obama and Democratic Party, from health insurance reform to economic stimulus, bank bailouts, auto bailouts, and climate policy. The “Tea Party” rebellion arose, replete with a heavy dose of white herrenvolk racism.

But the Teapublicans offered no complaint when Obama’s Secretary of State Hilary Clinton aided and abetted a right-wing business and military coup that overthrew Honduras’ democratically elected left-populist president Manuel Zelaya in the spring of 2009.  Washington’s two major parties were united in opposition to Zelaya’s alignment of Honduras with Venezuela, Brazil and Bolivia in attacking poverty and inequality and redirecting Latin American regional development away from U.S. control [1]. Democrats and Republicans agreed that the independent and egalitarian Latin American trend needed to be checked.

Washington’s Consensus on Neofascist Coups in Latin America

The US cannot keep its grubby hands off Latin America and in almost every occasion they have claimed some violation of the Monroe Doctrine to justify the interference.

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“Lego ergo Scribo”

Protests Go Global

The world is a light with the sounds of protests…Hong Kong, Lebanon, Iraq, Bolivia, Venezuela, Iran, Chile et al……the entire globe seems to be in protest….that is except here in the good old US of A…….

This country use to lead the world in protests for a wide array of reasons…..women’s rights, civil rights, antiwar, etc…… etc…..but these days we are a bit too lazy to actually care for much to protest….or so it seems……Without a mass movement continually pushing and prodding for real change and holding politicians accountable—for their policies as well as their words—our neoliberal rulers assume that they can safely ignore the concerns and interests of ordinary people.

The waves of protests breaking out in country after country around the world beg the question: Why aren’t Americans rising up in peaceful protest like our neighbors? We live at the very heart of this neoliberal system that is force-feeding the systemic injustice and inequality of 19th century laissez-faire capitalism to the people of the 21st century. So we are subject to many of the same abuses that have fueled mass protest movements in other countries, including high rents, stagnant wages, cradle-to-grave debt, ever-rising economic inequality, privatized healthcare, a shredded social safety net, abysmal public transportation, systemic political corruption and endless war.

We also have a corrupt, racist billionaire as president, who Congress may soon impeach, but where are the masses outside the White House, banging pots and pans to drive Trump out? Why aren’t people crashing the offices of their congresspeople, demanding that they represent the people or resign? If none of these conditions has so far provoked a new American revolution, what will it take to trigger one?

As a long time antiwar activist I cannot believe that after almost 20 years of continuous war and there is NO antiwar movement…..

It is embarrassing to witness just how LAZY the American people have become….that they cannot be bothered to learn about our many wars and decide if they are worth the cost in blood and treasure.

All I can say is “Be the change you are looking for”!

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

A Call To Democracy

Once you got past the lies spread by our president you may heard about the protests going on Hong Kong……

Hong Kong citizens marched for hours Sunday in a massive protest that drew a late-in-the-day apology from the city’s top leader for her handling of legislation that has stoked fears of expanding control from Beijing in this former British colony, the AP reports. Nearly 2 million of the city’s 7 million people turned out, according to estimates by protest organizers. Police said 338,000 were counted on the designated protest route in the “peak period” of the march. A week earlier as many as 1 million people demonstrated to voice their concern over Hong Kong’s relations with mainland China in one of the toughest tests of the territory’s special status since Beijing took control in a 1997 handover. Well after dark, crowds gathered outside the police headquarters and Chief Executive Carrie Lam’s office.

On Saturday Lam suspended her effort to force passage of the bill, which would allow some suspects to be sent for trial in mainland China. The move did not appease Hong Kong residents who see it as one of many steps chipping away at Hong Kong’s freedoms and legal autonomy. In a statement issued late Sunday, Lam noted the demonstrations and said the government “understands that these views have been made out of love and care for Hong Kong,” adding: “The chief executive apologizes to the people of Hong Kong for this and pledges to adopt a most sincere and humble attitude to accept criticisms and make improvements in serving the public,” it said. Not enough, said pro-democracy activists, who demand that the Lam administration retire the proposed amendments and not bring them up again for passage at a later stage.

Now the MSM and its pundits are telling the world about the ruthlessness of the Chinese government…how they are doing they can to dash any hopes of a democracy movement….

How nice!

And yet people trying for their democratic rights elsewhere are ignored by the MSM…..take the state of Israel as an example…..they do all they can to subvert the movements in the West Bank and Gaza

You know I have hard time seeing a group of people with rocks as the aggressor in that situation….rocks against airstrikes, artillery, tanks etc……and the Palestinians are the aggressors…..and that is how lies get started.

Today In 1811

Yep my friends…that time again….your history lesson…..

Ever heard of Ned Ludd?

No?

How about the Luddites?

Luddites are those people that see a scary future in technology and mechanization……

On this day in 1811 Ned Ludd lead a wild protest against mechanization…….

“Luddite” is now a blanket term used to describe people who dislike new technology, but its origins date back to a 19th century labor movement that railed against the economic fallout of the Industrial Revolution. The original Luddites were British weavers and textile workers who objected to the increased use of automated looms and knitting frames. Most were trained artisans who had spent years learning their craft, and they feared that unskilled machine operators were robbing them of their livelihood. When their appeals for government aid and assistance were ignored, a few desperate weavers began breaking into factories and smashing textile machines. They called themselves “Luddites” after Ned Ludd, a young apprentice who was rumored to have wrecked a textile apparatus in the late-18th century. There’s no evidence Ludd actually existed—like Robin Hood, he was said to reside in Sherwood Forest—but he eventually became the mythical leader of the movement. The vandals claimed to be following orders from “General Ludd,” and they even issued manifestoes and threatening letters under his name.

The first major instances of machine breaking took place in 1811 in Nottingham, and the practice soon spread across the English countryside. Sledgehammer-wielding Luddites attacked and burned factories, and in some cases they even exchanged gunfire with company guards and soldiers. The workers hoped their raids would encourage a ban on weaving machines, but the British government instead moved to quash the uprisings by making machine breaking punishable by death. The unrest finally reached its peak in April 1812, when a few Luddites were gunned down during an attack on a mill near Huddersfield. The army rounded up many of the dissidents in the days that followed, and dozens were hanged or transported to Australia. By 1813, the Luddite resistance had all but vanished. It wasn’t until the 20th century that their name re-entered the popular lexicon as a synonym for “technophobe.”

https://www.history.com/news/who-were-the-luddites

More Luddite stuff!

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-the-luddites-really-fought-against-264412/

Of course we are the future and we have to have our own term…..Neo-Luddism…….

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Luddism

Now you know more than you knew yesterday……

Learn Stuff!

Class Dismissed!

Take It To The Streets–Again

Americans know the problems we are having with the government shutdown that has 800,000 people out of work and many many other losing their jobs maybe forever.

I wrote a piece the other day asking Americans ti take it to the streets and do some substantive protests…kinda like the “yellow vests” of France.

https://lobotero.com/2019/01/23/take-it-to-the-streets/
 
After I wrote that a similar post was put up on the website, CounterPunch.org, they are calling for massive protests in the streets of this country…..

Here are seven things you won’t hear much if anything about in the reigning corporate media regarding the ongoing record-setting partial shutdown of the United States federal government:

1: The Longstanding Neoliberal War on “Big Government”:  a proper understanding of the shutdown in relation to the longstanding capitalist project of what the leading corporate-neoliberal champion Grover Norquist called “starving the beast,” with “beast” taken to mean “big government.”  Norquist wanted, he said, “to cut government down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/01/23/time-for-the-u-s-yellow-vests/

I agree it is time for the people to take to the streets and demand a government of the people and not one of corruption, and for the rich only.

This situation illustrates perfectly how badly a strong labor movement is needed……and needed badly!  (redundancy used for effect…trying to head off the grammar police)…..

Celebrate His Non-Violence But Not His Anti-War

Today is MLK Day….we celebrate his activism for those without a voice….he chose the tactics of Gandhi….those of non-violence…..which is a good thing but if we celebrate those tactics why not then also celebrate is antiwar stance?

US jets bombed villages. US soldiers machine-gunned combatants and civilians. The Vietnam War had hit a fever pitch of death when Martin Luther King Jr. stepped onto the podium at Riverside Church on April 4, 1967, and said, “The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government.”

The speech, “A Time to Break the Silence,” cost him. Newspapers damned him. Friends distanced themselves. President Lyndon Johnson, angered by what he thought was betrayal, reportedly called King, “that goddamn n***** preacher.”

King risked isolation to speak hard truths. The US’s endless war had depleted the money needed to end poverty. The war was in support of a corrupt, authoritarian regime that suppressed a peoples’ desire to be free. The US was poisoned by its militarism; it was not the beacon of democracy but its destroyer.

https://truthout.org/articles/the-us-celebrates-kings-nonviolence-but-not-his-antiwar-politics/

King was a pacifist…… a peace-nik back in those days….he abhorred all forms of violence….and we should embrace his antiwar work if we embrace his non-violence tactics……

And yet many disrespect King by ignoring his work to stop war in all its forms.

If have spoken….so I have written……

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