"Not a normal time" in Washington

[Stevicus]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/life...m_term=.1e9f5320ee9f&wpisrc=nl_az_most&wpmk=1

I thought this piece from the Washington Post was interesting. (I get daily e-mails from Amazon which has a few complimentary articles available.)

It mainly focuses on protesters and how they're showing up in restaurants, office buildings, and even outside the homes of various officials to protest.

Here we all are. The start of a mad hot American summer in the nation’s capital. A president violating norm after norm. Immigrant children wailing for their mothers. A Supreme Court seat, open like a wound. A midterm election hurtling toward us like an avenging angel, or a killer asteroid. The resistance girding for war, or curdling into hysteria, depending on your view.

Americans are doing things they would not normally do.

“It’s reached a point of desperation,” says campaign strategist Amanda Werner, a D.C. resident. “We’ve been civil and having endless debates, and all we’ve seen is the decimation of everything we care about.”

I tend to think that this is somewhat overstated and hyperbolic to use phrases like "the decimation of everything we care about." It makes one wonder what (if anything) they cared about before Trump came to power.

Two weeks ago, Werner got a text message while on the way to a book club meeting in Dupont Circle: “DHS Secretary Nielsen is having dinner at MXDC. Can you tweet on your account. Get activists here.”

In a moment captured on video that went viral, Werner and a dozen other activists heckled Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen at the posh Mexican restaurant 1,000 feet east of the White House, broadcasting audio of crying immigrant children as other diners tried to focus on their rockfish ceviche.

I'm not sure if these tactics are going to work over the long haul.

“I think now is the time to start seeking them out and invading their spaces,” Werner said of government officials, “so they have to grapple with what they’re doing.”

Jeb Magruder's son commented on these tactics in a radio interview:

On Wednesday, the son of Watergate conspirator Jeb Magruder called in to the WAMU radio show “1A” to talk about how, in the aftermath of the scandal, his family was physically and verbally assaulted at school, restaurants and sporting events.

The public was “led to believe that that was appropriate by their leaders and the political left,” Justin Magruder told listeners. “All it did was harden our positions. It didn’t promote a better discourse. And I hope that people will learn from the mistakes of the past.”

They're also targeting the personal residences of officials:

Inspired by the MXDC confrontation, Jesse Rabinowitz helped organize a small demonstration last week outside the D.C. condo building of Stephen Miller, the Trump adviser behind the hard-line immigration policies. They knew that Miller was in South Carolina with the president. Didn’t matter. Rabinowitz wanted to remind Miller’s neighbors that they’re living next to “a dangerous man,” that they have a “moral obligation” to confront him.

The thing about exercising one's "moral obligation" to confront is that it invariably leads to more confrontations which will likely escalate beyond words.

Ploumpis took some of the activists’ fliers, including a “WANTED” poster that featured a photo of Miller above the words “white nationalist,” and taped them up in her building’s elevators. When they were removed, she taped up more. Then she got a letter from management about condo rules.

Her action “was even more egregious,” the letter said, because it was directed at a fellow resident. Ploumpis dismissed the scolding.

“This,” she says, “is not a normal time.”

Is there ever a normal time? Maybe not. But this one certainly feels abnormal, like a rising fever, or the seconds before a grand-mal seizure. And so the treatment is more extreme. Higher dosages. Adrenaline shots. Defibrillations.

It'll be interesting to see where all this goes.

Activists also paid a visit to Nielsen's house:

“We had been thinking of potential places to escalate.”

Heidi Hess is co-director of CREDO Action, a progressive advocacy group.

“We decided that going to her house was the right thing to do.”

On the morning of June 22, less than a day after they came up with the idea, Hess and a dozen others parked themselves in front of Nielsen’s townhouse in Alexandria. They held up “CHILD SNATCHER” signs printed the night before. “We’re here to wake up your whole neighborhood,” one protester called. Neighbors peeked out their windows, wondering about the commotion.

“Rightfully so, a lot of people’s attention was on the border, on the tents, on the migrant camps,” Hess said. “But the people in control of that agenda, making those decisions, are in Washington, and it was important that they be held accountable where they work and live.”

One of the activists quoted in the article didn't want to give his last name, as he's been receiving threats. I guess that's one of the drawbacks of putting oneself on the line like that. I suppose the right-wing could just as easily adopt the same tactics and start showing up outside people's homes in the middle of the night. This could be a nasty summer leading in to the midterm elections.

 

[Revoltingest]

Were I much hated figure by the left....er, prominent public figure....I'd
announce meetings & events, & then not show up.
That would keep the rabble busy, confused & disappointed.

 

[Revoltingest]

Sorry...I had to.

Spoiler: 4th of july

You're wicked!

 

[Stevicus]

Were I much hated figure by the left....er, prominent public figure....I'd
announce meetings & events, & then not show up.
That would keep the rabble busy, confused & disappointed.

Yeah, although these are incidents where they're showing up outside their homes or at their place of work or in restaurants where they're having lunch. Someone spots them and sends a text out to people, and then they all show up. They seem to have ways of finding people even in private spaces.

 

[Revoltingest]

Yeah, although these are incidents where they're showing up outside their homes or at their place of work or in restaurants where they're having lunch. Someone spots them and sends a text out to people, and then they all show up. They seem to have ways of finding people even in private spaces.

Aye, this is separate thing.
But I have a solution....or rather, a new problem.
Identify individual protestors, & then publish an announcement for each
that they're new hires in Trump's Department Of Decimating Civil Rights.
And of course, provide their home address & phone#.

 

[Phantasman]

If I listened to everything the MSM said and took it to heart, I'd be inclined to go out and walk in front of a bus.

They drive more pessimism today than at any time in history. Some people go out and protest all day, while I went to the park with my son and wife and enjoyed some peace and quiet. Life is what you make it.

 

[Altfish]

Has anyone ever asked themselves why there are no right wing protest? Demanding less taxes, tax breaks for big corporations, less gun laws, etc., etc.

The reason is they can 'buy' influence. The poor people feel disenfranchised and the only way they feel to make there feelings known is to protest. In some cases they go too far.

But what is worse, a few people shouting in a restaurant or the Koch brothers bunging a senator another million dollars?

 

[Stevicus]

Has anyone ever asked themselves why there are no right wing protest? Demanding less taxes, tax breaks for big corporations, less gun laws, etc., etc.

I think the Tea Party had some rather large gatherings, although I haven't heard much about them lately.

 

[pearl]

I suppose the right-wing could just as easily adopt the same tactics and start showing up outside people's homes in the middle of the night.

And protest what? They haven't had it so good since Eisenhower. We reap what we sow. We were warned that the 2016 election would be consequential. Now we see the prediction unfolding.

 

[Stevicus]

Aye, this is separate thing.
But I have a solution....or rather, a new problem.
Identify individual protestors, & then publish an announcement for each
that they're new hires in Trump's Department Of Decimating Civil Rights.
And of course, provide their home address & phone#.

I would imagine some of that is happening already. That's where this sort of thing gets rather dicey.

 

[Stevicus]

And protest what? They haven't had it so good since Eisenhower. We reap what we sow. We were warned that the 2016 election would be consequential. Now we see the prediction unfolding.

They wouldn't be protesting; they'd be retaliating. That's what they do. Nixon kept an enemies list.

I think that the protesters may be facing a choice as to whether they want to cling to petite bourgeois progressivism or if there is a need to become radicalized and further to the hard left.

 

[Twilight Hue]

True colors are coming out now. Going to be an interesting time.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/life...m_term=.1e9f5320ee9f&wpisrc=nl_az_most&wpmk=1

I thought this piece from the Washington Post was interesting. (I get daily e-mails from Amazon which has a few complimentary articles available.)

It mainly focuses on protesters and how they're showing up in restaurants, office buildings, and even outside the homes of various officials to protest.



I tend to think that this is somewhat overstated and hyperbolic to use phrases like "the decimation of everything we care about." It makes one wonder what (if anything) they cared about before Trump came to power.



I'm not sure if these tactics are going to work over the long haul.



Jeb Magruder's son commented on these tactics in a radio interview:



They're also targeting the personal residences of officials:



The thing about exercising one's "moral obligation" to confront is that it invariably leads to more confrontations which will likely escalate beyond words.



It'll be interesting to see where all this goes.

Activists also paid a visit to Nielsen's house:



One of the activists quoted in the article didn't want to give his last name, as he's been receiving threats. I guess that's one of the drawbacks of putting oneself on the line like that. I suppose the right-wing could just as easily adopt the same tactics and start showing up outside people's homes in the middle of the night. This could be a nasty summer leading in to the midterm elections.

So what limitations on the right to petition the government for redress of grievances do you suggest?

 

[sun rise]

I tend to think that this is somewhat overstated and hyperbolic to use phrases like "the decimation of everything we care about." It makes one wonder what (if anything) they cared about before Trump came to power.

Before he came to power, there was an assumption that corruption was bad and should be investigated, honesty was typically the best policy, we should not start trade wars with the entire world, government officials especially the President should not attack parts of the Constitution and so forth. And when elected officials were threatened with murder, the government acted to stop it rather than doing a "nude, nude, wink, wink" support as the current regime is doing. And the blatant racism and attacks on people for their ethnic backgrounds reminds me painfully of what we went to war against

To attack those who demonstrate and ignore the death threats and actual murders is what is driving some over the line. I don't blame them for one second even though I won't join them.

I'm not sure if these tactics are going to work over the long haul.

They're not going to work. I understand the utter frustration and despair with the current flood of evil, but there are much better tactics especially when decent Republicans who have a sense of honor are denouncing what that party has turned into. And in a time when even the Chamber of Commerce is attacking the current regime, it's time for "strange bedfellows" to unite to defeat the current regime. November is coming. That needs to be the total focus.

What is going on was noted by the BBC A US civility crisis: Total political war

Assuming the image bug is still here, the quote from Maxine Waters is "If you come for me, I'm coming for you." To which I say: me too.

Thank God, I hope, that this civil war will be fought in political and social battlefields in spite of the threats and armed attacks from those who want a shooting war.

 

[Revoltingest]

Before he came to power, there was an assumption that corruption was bad and should be investigated, honesty was typically the best policy....

What country do you live in?'
My Americastan has always had leaders who lied, cheated, stole,
& generally treated official offices as their personal recreation area.

 

[Stevicus]

So what limitations on the right to petition the government for redress of grievances do you suggest?

None.

 

[Stevicus]

Before he came to power, there was an assumption that corruption was bad and should be investigated, honesty was typically the best policy,

I'm not entirely convinced of this. I think in the post-Watergate era and in the decades that followed, most people just assumed that corruption was a fact of life and that anyone who believed it should be eliminated were foolishly naive. There was a common view that most or all politicians were as bad as Nixon, it's just that Nixon got caught while most others do not.

We've seen the disparities between rich and poor grow exponentially in recent decades, which is the best evidence of widespread corruption in our society, and it's hardly been addressed or investigated nor even considered "bad" by various factions.

So, in other words, what the heck are you talking about here?

we should not start trade wars with the entire world,

This is absolutely not true. There have been those who were against free trade policies from the start, yet they've been put on the back burner, cavalierly dismissed, ignored, and/or ridiculed for a long time now. (This was for both left and right; Nader and Jerry Brown got similar treatment as Trump is getting now. That's how I know that this whole business is fishy.) Maybe if the powers that be had treated the opponents of free trade more respectfully - or at least bothered to listen to people's grievances rather than dismissing them - it might not have had to come to this.

government officials especially the President should not attack parts of the Constitution and so forth.

Lincoln attacked the Constitution. He said it should be torn up during the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

And when elected officials were threatened with murder, the government acted to stop it rather than doing a "nude, nude, wink, wink" support as the current regime is doing.

What?

And the blatant racism and attacks on people for their ethnic backgrounds reminds me painfully of what we went to war against

I think there's a difference between being politically incorrect and "blatant racism." Some people conflate the two and think they're the same, but nothing could be further from the truth.

To attack those who demonstrate and ignore the death threats and actual murders is what is driving some over the line. I don't blame them for one second even though I won't join them.

Death threats have been coming both sides of the divide.

They're not going to work. I understand the utter frustration and despair with the current flood of evil, but there are much better tactics especially when decent Republicans who have a sense of honor are denouncing what that party has turned into.

You mean Republicans like McCain and Flake, our two senators from AZ? They symbolize everything that has been wrong with the Republican Party and America in general, so if they don't like Trump, that's something worth considering.

And in a time when even the Chamber of Commerce is attacking the current regime, it's time for "strange bedfellows" to unite to defeat the current regime. November is coming. That needs to be the total focus.

Who cares what the Chamber of Commerce has to say? Again, all these people attacking Trump now have been living high on the hog and enjoying every privilege and benefit while all but ignoring the plight of tens of millions of American languishing and barely above water. They never cared about anything before, so why should anyone believe what they say now?

What is going on was noted by the BBC A US civility crisis: Total political war

Assuming the image bug is still here, the quote from Maxine Waters is "If you come for me, I'm coming for you." To which I say: me too.

Thank God, I hope, that this civil war will be fought in political and social battlefields in spite of the threats and armed attacks from those who want a shooting war.

I think people will be coming for each other.

The thing is, if all these wealthy and powerful people (both within America and outside of America) really wanted to prevent the election of Trump (or anyone else of that caliber), they could have done so simply by snapping their fingers and offering better wages, better working conditions, affordable housing, socialized medicine, and a much better standard of living overall. They could do that now, if they really wanted to stop Trump.

I mean, if they're really that desperate to get rid of Trump and sincerely believe that they're seeing the "decimation of everything [they] care about," then shouldn't they be willing to make a few meager sacrifices to win back some lost votes?

If they're not willing to fight, then what else are they prepared to do? What would they be willing to give up in their zealous crusade against Trump?

 

[sun rise]

Lincoln attacked the Constitution. He said it should be torn up during the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

Oh really. I want to see the exact quote where he spoke against the Constitution and especially said it should be "torn up" as you assert.

There's other incorrect statements in your post, but that one struck me as the worst.

Now if you can indeed find a quote where he said what you assert, I'll eat my words on this point.

 

[Stevicus]

Oh really. I want to see the exact quote where he spoke against the Constitution and especially said it should be "torn up" as you assert.

There's other incorrect statements in your post, but that one struck me as the worst.

Now if you can indeed find a quote where he said what you assert, I'll eat my words on this point.

Okay, I checked on this (which you could have easily done if you tried), and it appears he was attacking the Declaration of Independence and the phrase that "all men are created equal":

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln2/1:526?rgn=div1;view=fulltext

Now, sirs, for the purpose of squaring things with this idea of ``don't care if slavery is voted up or voted down,'' for sustaining the Dred Scott decision [A voice---``Hit him again''], for holding that the Declaration of Independence did not mean anything at all, we have Judge Douglas giving his exposition of what the Declaration of Independence means, and we have him saying that the people of America are equal to the people of England. According to his construction, you Germans are not connected with it. Now I ask you in all soberness, if all these things, if indulged in, if ratified, if confirmed and endorsed, if taught to our children, and repeated to them, do not tend to rub out the sentiment of liberty in the country, and to transform this Government into a government of some other form. Those arguments that are made, that the inferior race are to be treated with as much allowance as they are capable of enjoying; that as much is to be done for them as their condition will allow. What are these arguments? They are the arguments that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world. You will find that all the arguments in favor of king-craft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden. That is their argument, and this argument of the Judge is the same old serpent that says you work and I eat, you toil and I will enjoy the fruits of it. Turn in[17] whatever way you will---whether it come from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent, and I hold if that course of argumentation that is made for the purpose of convincing the public mind that we should not care about this, should be granted, it does not stop with the negro. I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle and making exceptions to it where will it stop. If one man says it does not mean a negro, why not[18] another say it does not mean some other man? If that declaration is not the truth, let us get the Statute book, in which we find it and tear it out! Who is so bold as to do it! [Voices---``me'' ``no one,'' &c.] If it is not true let us tear it out! [cries of ``no, no,''] let us stick to it then, [cheers] let us stand firmly by it then. [Applause.]

I may have been thinking of William Lloyd Garrison's attacks on the Constitution, which he called a "covenant with death" and an "agreement with Hell."

Your claim is that (before Trump), it was expected that people should not attack parts of the Constitution, but that's never been true. Parts of the Constitution had to have been attacked in order for it to be changed and amended. I don't agree with the prevailing view that the Constitution should be considered some kind of "holy document" or "sacred text." That doesn't mean that it's bad or anything, and I do respect the Constitution. But it's really just a piece of paper, right? That very same document gives people the right to disagree with it or even attack it if they so wish.

 

[sun rise]

Okay, I checked on this (which you could have easily done if you tried), and it appears he was attacking the Declaration of Independence and the phrase that "all men are created equal":

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln2/1:526?rgn=div1;view=fulltext



I may have been thinking of William Lloyd Garrison's attacks on the Constitution, which he called a "covenant with death" and an "agreement with Hell."

Your claim is that (before Trump), it was expected that people should not attack parts of the Constitution, but that's never been true. Parts of the Constitution had to have been attacked in order for it to be changed and amended. I don't agree with the prevailing view that the Constitution should be considered some kind of "holy document" or "sacred text." That doesn't mean that it's bad or anything, and I do respect the Constitution. But it's really just a piece of paper, right? That very same document gives people the right to disagree with it or even attack it if they so wish.

You misread that speech. It did not say that. For example from that speech

There is something else connected with it. We have besides these men---descended by blood from our ancestors---among us perhaps half our people who are not descendants at all of these men, they are men who have come from Europe---German, Irish, French and Scandinavian---men that have come from Europe themselves, or whose ancestors have come hither and settled here, finding themselves our equals in all things. If they look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none, they cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are part of us, but when they look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that ``We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,'' and then they feel that that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they havePage 500 a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration, (loud and long continued applause) and so they are. That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world. [Applause.]