The Fire Next Time: DC Edition

 Been trying to think of a way to address what happened in DC yesterday. I'm not paid to be first or frequent so I can afford to sit and think. Thinking is in short supply these days. Everybody has an itchy trigger finger ready to say the most outrageous thing that gets the likes, shares and approval of social and family circles. Fortunately I have long advanced past that stage of immaturity.

First and foremost The Ghost has been against political violence from the jump. 

2016:

Dear Move On.Org: Please Fuck Off

There is free speech and there is treason and sedition. What we saw last week was the latter. In America, no candidate for office should be so threatened. Persons should be able to see and hear this candidate without fear of life, limb or property. Instead of MoveOn sending a message to it's membership condemning the behavior we saw. MoveOn asked for money for it's security systems.

Fuck Move On.

And fuck Clinton and Sanders. And Cruz and Kaisich. The DNC, the RNC and each and every representative that failed to stand up and speak forcefully against the behavior we saw last week. The condemnation of the behavior shown last week should have been across party lines, ideological lines and any other lines that American citizens have drawn for themselves. Violence and intimidation to enforce a political desire is and should be unacceptable. Period. That is the entire point of the right to vote and the entire point of freedom of peaceable assembly and petition of government. If the so called "leadership" cannot stand up for constitutional principles which is what "we are supposed to be". Then I get to call them traitors.

 I didn't spare political candidate, party or media company. How many of these outlets and persons have consistently been against political violence regardless of who does it?

The True Left Being Exposed

What? What? There are now "no go" places for American citizens seeking highest office?

When the hell did this happen?

Maybe these nitwits forgot that not too long ago in America there was a thing called the Civil Rights movement. The purpose of said movement was do break down the barriers of full rights of citizens for those who were being denied those rights. Before that, there were placed black people couldn't go, sit or eat. There were places where black people had to make sure they left before the sun went down. Where people who were aligned with organizations like the NAACP had to fear for their lives because people who thought like they did and advocated ideas they advocated for were unwelcome and could be lynched. We fought to end that shit and here is Chris Matthews suggesting that in 2016 America persons shouldn't go to certain places because the populations there may be violent towards them. This is coming from The Left.

 Again, I stand against political violence. But here we have Chris Matthews explaining it away.

Political Violence America

A person in the comments section asked what the shirt said as if that was of any excuse or valid explanation for the political violence meted out to the 62 year old man.

Once again we will find our sitting president absent in condemning the rising political violence that has marked this election. I have seen cases where signs supporting Trump have gone from lawns to windows because of property destruction that followed the placement of yard signs. This is unacceptable. It is unacceptable that both major political parties will not make a forceful public statement condemning the violence and for the federal government to fail to fully prosecute those individuals and groups who are engaging in domestic terrorism.

No US citizen should face violence, be it physical or economic for choosing to support or not support any candidate for office. Political thuggery is a deadly disease to any democratic system. Where citizens cannot feel secure to exercise their rights, society falls.

 That was the third post in 4 months of 2016 where I highlighted and condemned the growing political violence from every and any quarter. How many people tweeting and facebooking about DC had been doing that?

How many corporations were doing that? How many of these banks that suddenly found their mouths were doing that?

Not. A. One.

 

2017

This Is War

You need to understand. This is the first US election in my lifetime where violence occurred before and after an election. This is the first election in my lifetime that representatives of government, up to the sitting president (that would be Obama in this reference) did NOTHING to stop or punish this clearly politically motivated violence. We have celebrities among other lefty types openly calling for assasination[sic] of a sitting president. We have a celebrity calling for a military coup. We have officers of the court being openly partial. We have those charged with upholding the law directing their subordinates to not uphold the law.

When these people were walking around doing political violence and openly declaring WAR and that they would be "ungovernable" where were the calls to "shoot them now"?

Where were the calls for the insurrection act? Where were the calls to impeach members of congress who supported these people? Where was the calls of sedition and treason?

No. These people, who again, called openly for war had legal defense funds and pro-bono lawyers paid for by members of congress and celebrities. The same people who are now breathlessly talking about the 25th Amendment and how there was an attempted coup.

 

Where were these people in 2017?

 

America Is Broken

 The government response to Va, from Trump and Sessions on down has let the left know that it is open season to commit violence against those whom they disagree with. America has just become a much more dangerous place to live. If you are to the right of Antifa and they can tell you can have your financial life and "limb life" in danger. On the other side, if you're not white and you are out and about and some neo nazi or white nationalist or just some right of center person who feels threatened, realizes he has no non-violent means of being heard and having his legitimate issues addressed (which doesn't mean all his issues are legitimate) decides on venting his anger decides he's gonna take it out on the next non-white person he sees, well you're fucked.

There I point out how Antifa has been allowed to wander around critique free and without government intervention. Yet today, law enforcement and political figures are competing with each other to see who can 'get the domestic terrorist" the quickest. Rules for these folks and different rules for those folks.

Equal Protection or Second Class Citizenship?

Why is all this happening? It would be easy to blame Democrats or "The Left" but Holder is not in the Justice Dept and Obama is not president. The blame lies squarely on Trump and Sessions. I'm going to focus on Sessions here. Since the campaign we have seen unprecedented levels of political violence mostly by leftist groups. We have seen a level of lawlessness, where governors and mayors have openly violated immigration law or stated their intent (which is what is needed for criminal prosecution) to violate immigration law. Various govt. officials have brazenly told police under their watch to allow persons designated "nazis" to be beaten and to have their constitutional rights violated. All of this has happened with mice level peeps from Sessions. This is unacceptable. Where there is a lack of law, lawlessness escalates. Paypal etc. have done what they have done because the persons responsible for setting the tone have failed to do so. Even a failed attempt at prosecution is better than no prosecution at all.

 

You'll note I put the blame squarely on the Trump administration here. Again, I have been consistently against political violence and have called for enforcement of law regardless. Where were those mainstream voices doing the same?  Nowhere.

Lastly I'm going to jump to 2019:

Of Jussie and Andy

Antifa is a domestic (actually international) terrorist organization. It claims self-defense against those it labels Neo-Nazis. However; it regards anyone to their right (including moderates) as Neo-Nazis, hence anyone who disagrees with them is in danger of receiving the same treatment. 

This post is important because in it I highlight the mainstream media narratives:

That's right. When Antifa was beating up people these outlets among others made it a point to say that the violence wasn't terrorism. NOOOOOOOO. It's self defense. The people opposed to Antifa's "Self-Defense" well they are 'Far right extremists" who no doubt get what they deserve.

These same outlets are now telling us that what happened in DC is sedition, treason and terrorism. 

Rules for these people and rules for those people.

Lastly, remember the CHAZ, later renamed CHOP? The CHAZ was a declared "autonomous" state carved out of the state of Portland. The leadership declared it a zone where US law didn't apply and forbade US agents permission to enter.  at least 3 people were shot in this "autonomous zone"

What was the response to all of that? Various political leaders didn't want the national guard and even went so far as to compare the national guard to Nazi military. They were allowed to operate this "autonomous zone" for weeks with nary a peep from any of the mainstream media or political class about insurrection, sedition, treason or "shoot them all". No on called for the governor of Washington to be removed from office even though he CLEARLY supported a seditious and treasonous movement.

If you weren't condemning that treason and sedition and calling out political violence before yesterday you can have a whole cathedral full of seats.

 

The protestors had every right to go to DC. They had the right to go into the capital building. Under the law citizens have the right to PEACABLY assemble and petition their government. The property destruction was completely out of order. Anyone who was assaulted by the crowd was out of order and should be prosecuted. In other words I have the same opinion about their actions as I have had for any mass action that turns violent: I condemn the violence AND support the right of peaceful assembly. 

I'm old enough to remember when people "storming" a capital was "what democracy looks like"

Yeah, teacher's union protest in Wisconsin, 2011.

Sedition? Treason? Domestic terrorism? 

Here's The Nation on that:

The next day the Joint Finance Committee of the legislature held a hearing on Act 10. The TAA and other union protesters had planned a “people’s filibuster” of the bill, lining up hundreds of people to speak against it and extending the comment period all day and all night. The repeal of collective bargaining rights, they argued, had nothing to do with “repairing” holes in the budget; freezing their wages was one thing, and even increasing the amounts they had to contribute to their pensions and health insurance could at least be vaguely connected to a need for funds, but getting rid of their right to negotiate for a raise higher than the cost of living when the economy improved was very different and had little to do with the current budget problems. People were incensed. “We had people stuffed in the overflow room of the Capitol, people in line, and the unions were agitating outside,” Hanna said. As the comments stretched on into the evening, the protesters created the Defend Wisconsin Twitter account to send out updates. At the beginning of the day, Hanna said, they’d been told that testimony would continue until everyone had been heard, but sometime after midnight the legislators cut off the speakers, announcing they’d heard enough.

“We decided we were just going to stay,” Hanna said. She and her colleagues sent out messages via Twitter and Facebook, calling for people to join them at the Capitol and to bring sleeping bags. The TAA members invited their students, and they camped out in the Capitol rotunda. At 5:00 a.m., Hanna looked at the person next to her and said, “I guess this is happening!”

 

A "People's Fillibuster" eh?

Look. I'm not against what they did  in Wisconsin. And had the protestors in DC not destroyed property and entered offices, I wouldn't have anything negative to say about them either. But the idea that the people, whatever their political stripes have no right to protest on the grounds or IN THE BUILDING is flat out wrong.

Here's the nitty and the gritty. Trump won, by a sliver, because many millions of people didn't like what they saw going on. Although Trump lost this time (discussion in an upcoming post), MORE people voted for him this time than last time. There is MORE dissatisfaction out there. After a year of watching left violence go un-condemned and unpunished; after watching the governments destroy their livelihoods with various "Public health"  rules that only appear to apply to those in the disfavored classes, are you surprised that this happened? I'm not. I've been warning about it for YEARS.

Maybe people will wake up now.

Doubt it.