Tag: Civil Disobedience

Closing Thought–21Feb18

What is the first rule of fight club?  Surely you have seen this “dude” flick.

In the last couple of years the rise in alt-Right Fight Clubs has been rising.

Anastasia Yankova, a Russian model-turned-mixed martial artist who has appeared in a Nike commercial, was a month away from her professional debut when she took to Instagram to post a cartoon of Adolph Hitler. In the image, Hitler is seated on a window ledge, looking down with weepy-eyes on a dreary, overcast sky. “Matches my mood,” Yankova wrote.

“Aryan sadness?” asked a commenter.

“Only the weather and the restriction of carbohydrates,” she responded with a purple devil emoji later that day, September 2, 2013.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/02/the-terrifying-rise-of-alt-right-fight-clubs/

It seems that white supremacists are more and more learning missed martial arts fighting in preparation for the coming race war…..think about that for a moment…….

A coming war……Karate and boxing against bullets……good possibility they, the alt-Right, needs to re-think their strategy.

With that piece of advise……I take my leave…..chuq

The Iranian Protests

Sad to say that the protests are all  but over…..but they should give fodder for pundits and think tanks for a month or so…..then the media will move on…..

Well the pundit class has a new thing to zero in on….the book, the tell all book, but before that there were the protests in Iran….everyone has an opinion and everyone has  a  reason what made the Iranians resort to these deadly protests.  Most of these theories are wrong!

I have heard not one Western pundit report is what the protesters want from the government…..let me be the first……

What do the Iranian protesters want?

1) A referendum on founding the future regime, as most of the demonstrators called for a republican system similar to the developed countries and the overthrowing of the rule of of the Faqih.

2) Undermining the ideology of the Faqih regime and the liberation of Iranian society from the illusion of leadership of the Shiite world and its incursion into the Islamic world and eliminate the slogan of exporting the revolution.

3) Abolishing the forced veil and endorsing the principle of women’s free choice of appearance and clothing.

4) Freedom of the media, including free access to information, the Internet, social networks and the abolition of censorship.

5) Separating religion from politics and removing religious institutions and estates from politics and handing the administration of state affairs over to a government of technocrats.

6) An independent, just and impartial judiciary that is not subjected to any authority, power or political current.

7) Equal distribution of wealth and development plans to eradicate poverty, unemployment and deprivation.

8) Free, fair and transparent elections under international supervision.

9) Equality between women and men and the rejecting all forms of discrimination, violence and abuse against women in all fields.

Would be nice if someone in the media would have reported on these demands it would have given the protest more exposure…..

Of course the Iranian government will be blaming the CIA for this upheaval…..personally I do not think the “company” is the source of this unrest….yes they are there and working but these protests are generic….

There is as yet no public proof that the US is behind the protests, though the narrative sells well within Iran because of the long history of Iran being subjected to foreign intervention, and the long US history of backing foreign “revolutions.”

Hopefully the Iranians are not waiting for the US to step up with covert support…..the Trump State Department would be the kiss of death for the movement……a do-nothing bunch of losers from the top down.

But because of their lip service the Guard was called out and the usual “foreign agitators” were blamed…..

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said Sunday that the nation and its security forces have ended the wave of unrest linked to anti-government protests that erupted last month, reports the AP. “Iran’s revolutionary people along with tens of thousands of Basij forces, police, and the Intelligence Ministry have broken down the chain (of unrest),” the Guard said on its website, per Reuters. The unrest was “created … by the United States, Britain, the Zionist regime (Israel), Saudi Arabia, the hypocrites (Mujahideen) and monarchists.” Price hikes sparked protests in a number of cities and towns late last month, and at least 21 people were killed in scattered clashes. The protests, which vented anger at high unemployment and official corruption, were the largest seen in Iran since the disputed 2009 presidential election, and some demonstrators called for the overthrow of the government.

Many of the demonstrators protested against the Guard’s massive budget, its costly interventions across the region, and against Ayatollah Ali Khamenei himself. Hundreds have been detained since the protests began. They include around 90 university students, reformist lawmaker Mahmoud Sadeghi was quoted as saying by the semi-official ISNA news agency. Iranian lawmakers held a closed session on Sunday in which senior security officials briefed them on the protests and the conditions of the detainees, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. “It was emphasized that foreign elements, and in particular the United States, played a basic role in forming and manipulating the recent unrest,” IRNA quoted lawmaker Jalal Mirzaei as saying. The United States and Israel have expressed support for the protests, but deny fomenting them.

Keep in mind that Israel needs a strong Iran…..without i they have nothing but the Palestinians to blame for all their problems and the world will be watching…..something Israel does not need.

On a side note:  Former Iranian president has been arrested……

With an estimated 1,000 people arrested over the course of a little over a week in protests in Iran, the most high profile may ultimately be the most surprising, with reports former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been jailed for “incitement.”

Though Ahmadinejad has not really been linked to the protest movement, he made comments during his visit to Bushehr in late December which seemed to express support for them, faulting the leadership for being “detached from the problems and concerns of the people.”

This makes the narrative a lot trickier internationally, as the US has sought to brand the new protests as a continuation of the 2009 protests, which were themselves against Ahmadinejad’s contested reelection.

(antiwar.com)

This also……

Since the outbreak of mass demonstrations and unrest in Iran last week, US media have mostly busied themselves with the question of not if we should “do something,” but what, exactly, that something should be. As usual, it’s simply taken for granted the United States has a divine right to intervene in the affairs of Iran, under the vague blanket of “human rights” and “democracy promotion.” (The rare exception, such as an op-ed by ex-Obama official Philip Gordon—New York Times, 12/30/17—still accepted the premise of regime change: “I, too, want to see the government in Tehran weakened, moderated or even removed.”) With this axiom firmly established in Very Serious foreign policy circles, the next question becomes the nature, degree and scope of the “something” being done.

https://fair.org/home/think-tank-addicted-media-turn-to-regime-change-enthusiasts-for-iran-protest-commentary/

Iran Is Fascinating

Over the New Year holiday the people of Iran started protesting…..now please do not think that it was pro-democracy protests…..it is more about the economy and the way the government is supporting adventurism aboard…the protesters think that money should be spent at home not aboard…..

The riots in early 2000’s ware not the same as the ones these days…these are lead by the working class not the middle class as before…….

In a world that is not short of conflict and crises, attention is now focused on the nationwide protests which have been rattling Iran’s clerical leadership for the past week. The protests have been compared to the last outburst of popular anger in 2009, when mainly middle-class protestors took to the streets of the capital Tehran to challenge the fraudulent victory of the populist candidate, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in the presidential election.

Those demonstrations were crushed with brutal force, which allowed the clerical leadership and its security establishment to pursue a ruinous economic policy at home while expanding the country’s influence abroad, from Iraq to Syria.

https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/iran-s-protests-stem-from-working-class-grievance-over-price-hikes-and-a-lack-of-sanctions-relief-1.692554

The middle class is sitting this protest out…….

Yasaman was too young to join her siblings and parents as they took part in the 2009 unrest that last threatened to disrupt the regime in Iran. Now they’re aghast at her participation in the protests that are currently rattling the country. But that disapproval didn’t stop the 21-year-old as she surveyed the scene in front of the gates of Tehran University on Tuesday afternoon, the sixth day of the demonstrations.

It’s easy to understand why Iranians would oppose their 37-year-old clerical regime, a religious autocracy characterized by corruption, mismanagement, and political and social repression. Lately that list of grievances has included risky and expensive adventures abroad. The Trump administration and some Iranians in the diaspora have wholeheartedly embraced a week of anti-government protests that mostly began in small towns and cities and have since spread across the entire country.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/borzoudaragahi/irans-middle-class-is-sitting-out-the-protests

There as many opinions as there are blogs…..I just want to give my readers as much info as I can for their education…..

Starting Dec. 28, 2017, Iran has witnessed anti-government protests in several cities and towns. The character and the demands of the demonstrations have varied greatly and seem to have already evolved over the course of a few days. From the beginning, Iranian government officials have stated that people have a right to demonstrate, but that acts of sabotage and violence would be dealt with forcefully.

The first few protests focused mainly on economic issues. Demonstrations were peaceful and marched down streets chanting slogans. These initial protests seemed to occur without major incidents. From there, some of the marches become more militant and aggressive, with garbage cans and police cars set ablaze. By the night of Dec. 31, 2017, protests took on the form of armed attacks on government buildings and police stations. By Jan. 3, hundreds had been arrested and 21 people have been killed.

https://www.liberationnews.org/what-to-make-of-irans-demonstrations/

Trump took to Twitter and Tweeted his support for the demonstrators…..I think that is a bad idea….he should say nothing and watch the protests….why?  America’s approval could be the kiss of death for the demonstrators…..any involvement by the US and it will get ugly quick.

President Rouhani seemed to offer a small amount of approval but what else could he do?

Manifold reasons lie behind Iran’s ongoing protests, but the immediate trigger appears to be widespread disgruntlement over the country’s economic performance, especially cuts in President Hassan Rouhani’s new budget. Neither a revolution nor a political movement, the crisis is an explosion of the Iranian people’s pent-up frustrations over economic and political stagnation.

Beyond a struggle between state and society – or a standoff between security forces and political figures on the one hand, and young, working-class, unemployed citizens on the other – the demonstrations are putting on full display the fault lines that also divide Iran’s political establishment.

https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/gulf-and-arabian-peninsula/iran/how-irans-president-rouhani-can-turn-crisis-opportunity

This situation needs to be given a wide berth and let the Iranian people decide when it is time…..unfortunately we have a d/bag in the White House that cannot resist trying to look important and in doing so  may well condemn any possibility of success for the Iranian people.

A New Year, A New World?

I take a couple of days off to be with family and the world changes around me and I was too busy eating to see….

First there is the situation in Iran…..

They may have started small, but the protests engulfing Iran for a fourth day are an “audacious” challenge to four decades of clerical leadership, in the words of Reuters. President Hassan Rouhani sought to calm things Sunday by defending Iranians’ right to protest but condemning any resulting violence. “People are absolutely free to criticize the government and protest, but their protests should be in such a way as to improve the situation in the country and their life,” he said. “Criticism is different from violence and damaging public properties.” Background and developments:

  • What protesters want: To put it succinctly, “regime change,” per the Wall Street Journal. These protests were small and scattered and largely focused on economic issues in September. That changed this week when news of a large protest in Mashhad spread on social media and spontaneous demonstrations broke out elsewhere. Protesters have moved beyond issues such as rampant inflation to vent over larger matters such as political oppression.

At least 12 people have been killed in the ongoing protests in Iran, and armed protesters have tried to take over police stations and military bases, state TV reported Monday. The protests began Thursday in Mashhad over economic issues and have since expanded to several cities, with some protesters chanting against the government and the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the AP reports. Hundreds of people have been arrested. The state TV report said 10 were killed during clashes Sunday night, including six in the western town of Tuyserkan, 185 miles southwest of Tehran. Two demonstrators were killed during a protest in western Iran late Saturday.

“Some armed protesters tried to take over some police stations and military bases but faced serious resistance from security forces,” state TV reported. State TV aired images of burning buildings, as well as an ambulance crew trying to aid a wounded person amid a crowd of shouting people. It also showed a firetruck that appeared to have been attacked and burned. On Sunday, Iran blocked access to Instagram and the popular messaging app Telegram used by activists to organize. President Hassan Rouhani acknowledged the public’s anger over the Islamic Republic’s flagging economy, though he and others warned that the government wouldn’t hesitate to crack down on those it considers lawbreakers. (President Trump has warned that the “world is watching.”)

Maybe Trump should heed his own warning…..the world is watching.

Do not read too much into these protests……but watch the region this could be a signal of something big on the horizon and I am not talking about Iran…..stay tuned for more stuff……..

Face Of Protest

I have written a lot about the situation with Palestine in the past…..with good reason….when I was working in the Middle East I had an associate that was Palestinian, Rafiq, and when I was doing research on the West Bank I was summoned by the Israeli authorities for questioning….I ignored the summons and was told I was to be arrested….Rafiq’s family hide me until I could get away across the border to Jordan.  I owe the family.

I am sure that most Americans are aware of the protest going on in the Occupied Territories simply because Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel…a lame ass move.

There have been many arrests some have been children…like this brave young lady…Ahed al-Tamimi…..

Ahed Tamimi was just 14 when she rose to international prominence through the release of a video and a series of photos capturing her desperate attempts to save her 11-year-old brother, Mohammad, from the grips of an Israeli soldier in 2015.

Many Israelis threatened me on social media after the video was released, demanding that I be detained or even killed,” 16-year-old Ahed told Al Jazeera from her family’s home in the village of Nabi Saleh, where the distinct, red-tiled roofs of illegal Israeli settlement housing dot the adjacent hilltop. “The harassment handcuffed my life. I was scared to even go outside or visit my friends.”

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/07/nabi-saleh-silent-ethnic-cleansing-170702123734851.html

Hers is not a unique story….sadly it is all too familiar….

Junaidi was detained during clashes that erupted in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron on Dec. 7, the day after U.S. President Donald Trump announced the U.S. would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

http://mondoweiss.net/2017/12/palestinian-sentenced-conviction/

His arrest has gone viral……

Then IDF had to go a killed a wheel chair bound Palestinian protester and his death has gone viral…..

One of the men killed was Ibrahim Abu Thuraya, a wheel chair-bound 29-year-old who was a regular presence during Palestinian protests against Israel. Thuraya has spoken to the media regularly in recent years, and claimed he had lost both his legs in a 2008 Israeli missile strike in Gaza.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/israel-troops-shot-dead-wheelchair-214045011.html

The IDF had an investigation and found no one guilty for the shot….(does that sound at all familiar?)….these Palestinians are becoming the face of civil disobedience against Israel….

Closing Thought–21Mar17

“There’s battle lines being drawn
Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind

I think it’s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down

What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side

 We all have seen the massive protests in the last couple of months….of course the “Ignorati” would have us believe that all these protesters are being paid and that they all are violent…..silly but what can you expect from people with shoe size and IQ the same?
Now that the Right has a new puppet master all this protesting will come to an end……right?

A new report from the Department of Homeland Security’s intelligence wing has likened certain types of political protests to “domestic terrorism,” and specifically outlined anger at President Donald Trump’s election as a driving force.

The document, obtained by the Intercept, was prepared by the North Carolina Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAAC) and DHS’s Office of Intelligence & Analysis (I&A) with a particular focus on North Carolina. The document comes as Republicans in at least 18 different states have proposed anti-protest bills that seek to criminalize protesters engaging in property destruction and blocking highways, among other forms of protest.

Source: Homeland Security report likens anti-Trump protests to ‘domestic terrorist violence’

This should come as NO surprise after all the Tweets and lip service the Master has given on this subject that his DHS would label this as “terrorism”….

Source: Anti-Trump Riots are Domestic Terrorism | MediaBent

I was wondering how long it would take for the state GOPs to flex their little brains….when they would start trying to ban ALL protests….did not have to wait too long…….

Georgia has become the latest state to take up legislation seemingly designed to have a chilling effect on First Amendment rights. Georgia’s State Senate passed SB1 earlier this month and the bill is now before the lower house of the state’s General Assembly. It goes further than many of the other so-called ‘anti-protest bills’ introduced in other states, by expanding the legal definition of domestic terrorism and creating a state-level Department of Homeland Security with surveillance and intelligence sharing capabilities.
This from the party that wraps itself in the Constitution every chance that get…..I believe that is a part of that document that says protests are okay…..but that never stopped the GOP from ignoring it when it suits their aims.
 For your musical enjoyment…Buffalo Springfield

Coming Of A Police State?

If you follow the news, and most of the readers of IST do, then you will recall the Ferguson Missouri problems a few years ago…the protests and the reactions……..you will also recall the the police appeared to be a military force confronting the protesters….and this situation has occurred over and over…..the police armed and equipped like a military force…..

Like I said this appears to e the wave of the future……

Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “An injustice anywhere is a threat to just everywhere.” We should all be cognizant of King’s quote. In the 20th and 21rst centuries, U.S. policies around the world, both economically and militarily, have been questionable at best. They started with the Philippines in the beginning of the 20th century up to the Middle East today. These policies, more often incredibly violent, are coming back to haunt us. An example of this includes the U.S. international policy of “Low-Intensity Conflict” (LIC).

Source: The Militarization of U.S. Police Departments

What got me to thinking along this road was something the Trump said when he was addressing the Chicago wave of violence…..not the quotes about immigrants or thugs or anyhting along those lines….what it was was his statement that he would send in the Feds……”If Chicago doesn’t fix the horrible ‘carnage’ going on, 228 shootings in 2017 with 42 killings (up 24% from 2016), I will send in the Feds.”

Send in the Feds?  Would that not be something akin to a police state?

It would appear that some of the folks who were hoping that Donald Trump was actually an isolationist “jobs” president, rather than the authoritarian white nationalist with imperial ambitions he clearly showed himself to be on the stump, are now being forced to face reality. Everything he has done since he was inaugurated proves him to be dead serious about unleashing the military and the police to enact his agenda, and he wants the other branches of government to understand that if they obstruct him he’s going to make sure his rabid followers know who to blame.

Source: Donald Trump’s Coming Police State: We Have a President Who Wants Unlimited Power and Won’t Respect the Rule of Law | Alternet

He may not have meant it in the way it was said….but that kind of talk is disturbing.

God I love it when a plan comes together!

The Hills Are Alive With…Protests

If you have been a smart person and avoided the MSM with a passion then you may not know about all the protests these days.  (That was a joke)

But if you are a person such as myself and the affairs of the nation and world are important then you are well aware of them….especially if you read any bloggers….it has been non-stop bitching and whining every sense the inauguration….and some blogs that is all they have had for about a month now.

My take on this concern is really nothing more than people venting…but some Conservs have a point…..and that point is…where was all this concern and protests when Obama was in office…..I mean after all he deported more people than his predecessors….and yet there was very little protests in the streets…..and now everyone seems to be going batcrap crazy…..

Unz Review, a typical Libertarian slant on the news, has covered this situation……

The election of Donald Trump has sent millions of people pouring out onto the streets to protest a man they think is a racist, misogynist, xenophobic bully who will destroy US democracy in his quest to establish himself as supreme fascist ruler of the country.

Maybe they’re right. Maybe Trump is a fascist who will destroy America. But where were these people when Obama was bombing wedding parties in Kandahar, or training jihadist militants to fight in Syria, or abetting NATO’s destructive onslaught on Libya, or plunging Ukraine into fratricidal warfare, or collecting the phone records of innocent Americans, or deporting hundreds of thousands of undocumented workers, or force-feeding prisoners at Gitmo, or providing bombs and aircraft to the Saudis to continue their genocidal war against Yemen?

Source: Double Standards: Where Were the Liberal Protestors During Obama’s Wars? – The Unz Review

I am not against protests…Hell I spent a few days in jail in the past because of my involvement with protests….but if one is going to protest an issue then it should not be because it is en vogue but rather ….RIGHT….

We Must Put a Stop To This Sh*t!

We are having protests….and as usual the Right is going batcrap crazy with all sorts of conspiracies of why they happening and who is behind it……you see to them the American people would not protests anything without provocation…..amusing as it is….these same dolts were behind the celebration of the Tea Party protests of 2009 and beyond…..to them these people were just taking back the American democracy and the country.

But now it is only malcontents that are protesting…those that do not work and those that do not love their country…..funny thing is I did not see one assault weapon slung over the shoulder of a protester….these newest protesters are impressive in number not in weaponry….

And now with the newest emperor in place there is a move by Repubs to violate the Constitution and ban civil disobedience…..

Women’s March on Washington will kick off what opponents of the incoming administration hope will be a new era of demonstrations against the Republican agenda. But in some states, nonviolent demonstrating may soon carry increased legal risks — including punishing fines and significant prison terms — for people who participate in protests involving civil disobedience. Over the past few weeks, Republican legislators across the country have quietly introduced a number of proposals to criminalize and discourage peaceful protest.

The proposals, which strengthen or supplement existing laws addressing the blocking or obstructing of traffic, come in response to a string of high-profile highway closures and other actions led by Black Lives Matter activists and opponents of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Republicans reasonably expect an invigorated protest movement during the Trump years.

Source: Republican Lawmakers in Five States Propose Bills to Criminalize Peaceful Protest

This is an updated version of above link…..

Source: Lawmakers in Eight States Have Proposed Laws Criminalizing Peaceful Protest

As you can see the number of states participating in this abuse is growing…..

Of course about here one of those mental midgets on the Right will inject something about those protesters that resorted to violence and destruction…..let me say here that none of that is acceptable and they should be dealt with lawfully…..but to ban any and all peaceful protest is a violation of civil rights.

I realize that these midgets think the Constitution only applies to them and their issues….but it just does not work that way…..no amount of lying and bitching will change that……

Can We Expect a Virtual Media Blackout of Protests?

The day of the sheep approaches!

Tomorrow the US gets its 45th president and as usual the inauguration will be a spectacle and a tremendous waste of money and a total ostentatious theater of hedonism …but that is what we Americans do best…piss money away and love our glitz and crap.  Will I observe the farce?  Not on your life I have not done so in 40 years I do not expect to change my streak.

There has been lots of noise about massive demonstrations against the Trump presidency on this day.  That is not really all that original…I can remember back to 2001 and the demonstrations against the Bush2 presidency…..there were some large ones but as usual the MSM covered very little of the demonstrations……Thousands protesting Bush’s inauguration in 2001 received only 10 minutes of coverage on the major networks.

I do not expect more coverage this time around…….

On January 20—16 years ago—thousands of protesters lined the inauguration parade route of the incoming Republican president. “Not my president,” they chanted. But despite the enormity of the rally, it was largely ignored. Instead, pundits marveled over how George W. Bush “filled out the suit” and confirmed authority.

“The inauguration of George W. Bush was certainly a spectacle on Inauguration Day,” marvels Robin Andersen, the director of Peace and Justice studies at Fordham University in the 2001 short documentary Not My President: Voices From the Counter Coup.

Source: Why We Can Expect a Virtual Media Blackout of Protests Against Trump’s Inauguration | Alternet

It will be social media that carries the protests….MSM will give it usual quick reference and then move on to what celebs are kissing the ring of the newly crowned king…..the mindless part of this day will be highlighted…..over and over and……..it is what Americans crave…mindless crap!