Wednesday, June 3, 2020

Minnesota Burning

I've seen this before. I remember when Martin Luther King was murdered. I remember my father telling us the cleaning woman in his office took him aside and said Mr. Brewster? You'd best go home early, and lock the door. There were fires. There was broken glass. There were cars overturned. In Arlington, Virginia, in the 'Sixties, white people thought they could count on The Coloreds to stay put--in their neighborhood of Hall's Hill, in janitorial positions. Until that day.

There've been so many other times. L.A., over Rodney King. Cincinnati. Ferguson. Baltimore. And on. And on. Nothing changes. It's hard to understand why everything's not on fire all the time. There's been restraint, I tell you.

So when I watched a car being overturned and set on fire in Minneapolis, it was familiar. But there's something different going on now.

Because one thing has been clear for a few years. There are people who want a race war in America. Or any other civil war. And I don't mean the dime-a-dozen racist assholes. They're just pieces. They can be swept off the board at any time and replaced just as fast. It's the rooks and the bishops running this show. They want us to fall apart, to kill each other.

I just don't know why.

I don't even know who they all are. Certainly Russians. They'll jam a wedge into any crack they can find. Vaccination. Guns. Race, for sure. They don't take a side. They take all the sides. It's easy to see why someone like Putin wants our fabric shredded.

The President of the United States wants civil war, too, though, and that's harder to fathom. Perhaps the explanation is simpler than it ought to be. He's an insecure ignoramus with no love for anybody, even his base, but rage lifts him up, fills his sails, tents his shorts. He doesn't respect any American citizen, and black and brown citizens are merely at the bottom of his basket of expendables. He, and the daughter he finds most doable, are the only people he almost cares about. This whole damn thing gives him a little chubby.

But he's also got an entire party behind him. With their own calculations.

Somehow or other, someone is calculating that when America falls apart for good, they'll get all the money. All the rest of the money. I'm not sure how, but I am sure. Are you seeing all those memes about the "right" and "wrong" way to protest? The photos of those nasty people setting fires, the looting? They're designed to be spread far and wide by earnest progressives and bigots alike. To make sure nobody misses the violence, to assure people that their assumptions about the dreaded Other were correct all along. There are people behind those creations. And those people don't give a damn about black lives. Or poor white lives, either. They want war. They want the spoils.

But they're not stopping with inflammatory posts on the social media. They're willing to invest living bodies. They've got mercenaries on the payroll, ready to step in at any time, whenever the tinder they've spread around gets lit. Mercenaries to begin the smashing, to spark the protests, to ensure the violence.

Naomi Klein, in her extraordinary book Shock Doctrine, explained how the plutocrats have been poised to exploit any shocking disaster, from hurricane to tsunami to terrorist event, to further their own rapacious ends; they have playbooks on hand and players ready to muster. They privatized the education system during the chaos of Katrina, they privatized the beaches and evicted the native fishermen after the tsunami in Indonesia. And if a disaster does not occur naturally, they'll engineer one: invade an irrelevant country after 9/11, when people were too shocked to mount an objection, and reap billions in profits. Stage a coup in Argentina and take over all the publicly owned utilities and companies. They've got playbooks, they've got players.

And that is how they can insert agents provocateurs into the protests in Minnesota. Just like that. They have them all ready to go. To incite, to divide, to conquer. Don't fall for it.

29 comments:

  1. I think that it's not just the money; it's power. When a populace is scared enough, they will accede to giving their rights and power away. Pandemic? Race riots? Oh, we can't possibly hold an election. Too dangerous. Oh, and we can't have universal mail-in ballots either: they are subject to fraud. They have all the answers, because, as you say, they're the ones with the playbook. Mark my words, Trump is just looking for a way to become "president for life." Let's hope that there are some checks and balances in place so that this cannot occur.

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    1. I think, with him, there's also an element of the baby splatting his hand in the strained peas to watch it fly.

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    2. There’s pandemic?! Where?!

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    3. That has been my view, too. 45 will never peacefully leave office. Somehow, race war will lead to martial law will lead to cancelling the election and then all future ones. Plus, he is raising an army -- that is what he is calling it. I'm scared.

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  2. You are right that we have seen this before, but not with so much obvious exploitation. 80% of those arrested for looting, etc., in Minneapolis were white supremacists. Curious to see how they exploit hurricane season because they will find a way.

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    1. I only just read, last night, about "accelerationists."

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  3. We the unwilling, led by the unqualified to kill the unfortunate, die for the ungrateful." – Unknown

    The quote doesn't exactly fit current circumstances, but it leapt to mind in my reading previous comments.

    My finger points at me, not them. I didn't work hard enough to cool firebrand emotions - to help reduce mob mentality.

    I am encouraged by the shows of courage by the true objectors to senseless deaths of people of color at the hands of our paid minions.

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    1. I'm very encouraged. This thing isn't blowing over. People are standing up day after day, even with the pandemic.

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  4. I really hope people have woken up to the horror of all of this--and ACT. VOTE. FIGHT.

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    1. There are way more of us than there are of them. Remarkable thing is, although this is about our original sin, there are demonstrations all over the world right now.

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  5. And for more on what everybody can do than simply just "not falling for it", check out Obama's article from two days ago:
    https://medium.com/@BarackObama/how-to-make-this-moment-the-turning-point-for-real-change-9fa209806067
    It's harder work, but it's the only way to actually effect change. If people are serious about wanting to help, it requires we do this, not just in the USA but everywhere.

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  6. It's amazing how many ARE falling for it tho', which is deeply disturbing.

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    1. Yes, that 40% or so approval rating confounds me.

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    2. Me too. I hope it's just because the smarter folks don't participate in polls.

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  7. When Trump phoned Putin Monday morning early, before stirring the fires, I wonder if it was to congratulate him on declaring himself President in Perpetuity For All Practical Purposes, or to get permission to call out the poor Military Police from Bragg, or to ask him to read aloud to him the chapter in the playbook on How To Make It Worse. Jared had filched his large print, no big words copy.

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    1. I would really love to know what goes on in those phone calls and meetings.

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    2. Wait for Putin to announce that he is annexing the USA and installing Trump as governor of the territory.

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  8. I don't know what to say to this, or how to say it. It rings true. I know there are people behind people, pulling the strings as if manipulating puppets and I so desperately wish all those strings could be cut. So much is wrong, so much is damaged, so many lives lost and all for money and power, neither of which will do "them" any good when they are on their deathbeds.

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    1. Enough of us together can snap those strings. This whole project of theirs has been going on for forty years.

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  9. DJT is himself agent provocateur extraordinaire

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  10. Welcome to the "White House - Reality version". Did anyone who did not vote for the raging orange Narcissist expect a better outcome? As a Canuckian living in Oregon, I've been amazed to see someone that even Canadians recognized as 'everything wrong with America'- back in the 80s! - rise to power. It's like a bad joke on the USA. First a movie star (Regan), then a reality star (tRump)... the mind boggles. Let's hope that the current race war takes its lead from #MeToo... a non-violent and successful campaign rooting out abuse. Excuse me, I need to check the lock on my teen's chain around a radiator, before they run off to join this circus, though it's good to see the youngsters shake off their legendary ennui and become politically activated for a good cause... some silver lining?

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    1. Boy, I'd be torn. I'd want those kids out there marching, but then I'd have to slam a diving bell over them for a month and slide dinner in underneath.

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    2. tRump indeed - otherwise known as the Destructor-in-Chief. Many are now woke up to his deliberate crushing of all life - a big baby running amok amongst the toys, ALL toys.

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    3. I hear that... mine is too naive to risk their neck, though. I keep telling them to use their mighty pen. I'll remove the 'padlock' when we head back to Canada June 30. Bye bye, sorry to leave you all behind.

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    4. Somebody needs to keep watch over the safe house!

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  11. I just read this, Murr. So true.

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