End of the Beginning?

Of course it's hard to know at any given time what's coming. One can read their beads and assess the signs and portents all the live long day and then something unexpected happens. You're in a different reality, one that perhaps was always there, the way multiple universes are said to interpenetrate one another, but it wasn't something we had to pay attention to. Until now.

The reaction to Stephen Miller's round of performances on the Sunday Gabfests has been rippling through the political class, the media, the permanent government and among some of the Rabble. With few exceptions, the judgment is that he was way, way over the line. And something must be done, and done quickly.

Miller took the place of Kellyanne Conway on the shows -- apparently because her credibility was in the crapper and since she'd been working so hard at it, she needed a break. We'd been hearing about Miller for some time, as he is reputed to have written some of the more incendiary statements and speeches of the regime and its titular ruler. He along with Bannon have long been considered the ideological masters in the White House. Miller, it is said, was one of the writers of the Muslim Ban (that isn't) now wending its way through the judiciary.

So the White House sends Miller out to do the Shows, and "OMG."

I saw part of his performance on Meet the Press, and it was shocking. He came across as Joseph Goebbels' bastard Jewish grandson, railing and ranting, ordering and demanding, lying and daring Chuck Todd -- or anyone else -- to do anything about it. Pugnacious doesn't begin to cover it.  This was a pure, over the top, Nazi performance project, something designed -- I thought -- to put the Fear into all of Trump's opponents, be they judges, media celebrities, or the pink pussy-hat wearing "Resistance."

Message: "This stops now."

Now while his performances were obviously being done for effect, I'm not sure he got the effect he wanted. When the initial shock wore off the Nazi allusions -- while still strong -- faded and some of us recognized that it was more on the lines of the Israeli Spokesperson (especially under the Likud regime) than straight out Nazi. Meaning that this is a contemporary model for regime spokesmouths, not the historic one from the Time of Unpleasantness in the 20th Century. This way of communicating regime demands and commands goes on all the time around the world. It's just not been typical American practice. So it's shocking -- and rightly so -- to see it on the Sunday Shows, unvarnished, unbridled, and very much in your face.

The reaction was mostly swift and quite negative. Not simply because he was lying; we're so used to that from the White House, it's almost normal. No, it was the whole package. If that's the way the White House wants to present itself, then by golly, it's game on.

A number of thinkers and pundits and commentators have been sounding the alarms. "This is an Emergency!" they say. If something isn't done, and done quickly, about Trump and his band of mountebanks and thieves, liars and con artists, Christian Dominionists and Apocalyptic believers, white supremacists, Fascists, and worse, the United States is on a path toward becoming a failed state in its own right and instigating global destruction on an unparalleled scale simply because it can.

Trump's core believers call these warnings "hysterics." I'm old enough to have lived through a number of these transformative presidencies, and I've never seen anything quite like this. The lies and the chaos are one thing. What's worse is the overt contempt for other interests and points of view, and the easy sadistic glee in scapegoating the vulnerable and punishing opponents. This cannot be allowed to stand.

But we can't look to the courts to save us. It's not going to happen. The courts can stall some of the worst of what's in store, but they can't stop it. Should the justices get too uppity, the regime can go full on Andrew Jackson and ignore any ruling it doesn't like. After all, the courts have no independent enforcement power.

No, the system under which we've been governed up till now can't handle something like this. It will shatter to pieces. Some would say that's a good thing in and of itself, and so we should just let it shatter. The system is decadent and corrupt and unreformable. It has to crash and burn for something better to emerge.

The Resistance, so far, is basically critiquing and naysaying. A positive alternative is still in formation.

Up till now, the Resistance has been a somewhat formless potential movement away from the chaos. Potential. It hasn't turned into a movement yet, though some of its critics call it one. It's lacking a catalyst to turn it into a movement.

But that could come at any minute.

Indeed, Stephen Miller's performance on the shows seems to be catalyzing something in the media particularly.

The demonstrations continue in the streets and at selected congressmembers' town halls and offices.

So far as I can recall, there have never been so many sustained nationwide opposition actions, and they are having an effect. That isn't to say they'll succeed. But they are being noticed, which is something that deliberately didn't happen with the demonstrations against the Iraq Invasion.

There have been a few counter demonstrations, but so far, they are very small and have had no effect at all.

Perception management is an important element in these situations, and in this case, there is a perception that opposition to Trump and his cronies is widespread, deep-rooted, active and determined.

The demonstrations immediately after the election were large and widespread, so large in fact that a whole sub-industry sprang up on line to discount them as "Clintonite" rejectionism, involving too few people to matter. Well, that was wrong. In fact those who were in the streets at the time reported that "Clintonites" were a minority among the crowds, as they have remained ever since.

No, the Resistance is something else again, and the Democratic Party and the Clintons are at best minor players. Often enough they are completely irrelevant to the interests and actions of those who are taking to the streets.

There was a brief moment of hysterics on the part of Trump supporters when Alex Jones (I think it was) said that the post election demonstrations were an attempt to incite a "Soros funded Color Revolution." Why that should inspire near-panic among the Trumpists, I'm not sure, but at the time, such a judgment was premature. There was no Color Revolution, not even a hint of it. There was a largely spontaneous rejection of the election outcome. Given the fact that Hillary had so many more votes than Trump -- by an as yet unknown margin at the time -- it was natural for people to vent their outrage. Yet again the Electoral College would override the vote of the people.

However, by the time of the Women's March, the day after the inauguration, many of the elements of a Color Revolution had come together. With or without Soros funding.

The color is pink; the hand-sign is a fist, the right arm held straight across the chest at heart level. Large scale mass demonstrations can be assembled at a moment's notice, and they can and do interfere with routine. They're covered in the media. When tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of demonstrators can be assembled quickly and can disrupt the implementation of some of the regime's diktats -- and do it over and over again -- it's kind of hard to ignore.

I said a week or so ago that the wheels had come off this shitwagon, and indeed that seems to be the case, as the White House is bunkered down and Trump himself prefers the Mar-a-Lago Winter Palace in Florida or the Trump Tower HQ in New York. At least in those places, his Divinity is unchallenged.

The White House has been flailing for weeks. The court battle over the travel ban diktat is symptomatic not dispositive. Flynn's resignation, the constant dissembling, the leaks,  the fights over cabinet picks, the utter chaos all contribute to the perception that the White House is a madhouse where no one really knows what's going on, and except for certain issues, Trump doesn't care. He's looking out for his own wealth and well-being; bugger the rest.

So my question is, "Will this regime be brought down?" The Magic 8 Ball says "Most Definitely!" I take that as a yes since my own Predict-O-Meter has long been on the fritz.

OK, let's say it happens. Who will do it? The people in the streets cannot do it on their own. They can, however, make it impossible for him (or his goons) to govern, and we're close to that point now.

"Ungovernable" has become one of the protest memes, and I'm promoting "Disobey." These are ideas and actions with powerful potentials. The roundups of immigrants haven't quite catalyzed the kind of response necessary -- ie: human shields in every case -- but as more and more efforts to crack down on the designated Others get under way, I think we'll see more direct action to stop it. Disobedience will become the rule rather than the exception. Becoming defiant and ungovernable will be the new normal.

On the other hand, the tipping point may have been reached with the resignation of General Flynn from the NSC. There is gossip that the matter actually involves Trump and Pence in a conspiracy of silence about their Russian dealings. (I've never put much store in the whole Russian Thing, but apparently it matters deeply within the governing clique.) If as may be the case, then entire Trump regime is involved in something that can be construed as compromising the sovereignty of the United States -- that's what this is beginning to look like -- then the consequences  can be, must be, severe. Though not likely, it could even involve treason.

Impeachment is an option, but I think it would take too long and much mischief would be possible in the meantime.

It looks more and more like a coup will be deemed "necessary." My suspicion is that the next time Trump goes to Florida, a select team will place him under house arrest. Meanwhile, in DC other teams will isolate Pence and the White House staff. A general, could be even Mattis, but Petraeus is more likely, will take charge (much as Al Haig tried to do when Reagan was shot.) He will be interim leader.

What happens then is anybody's guess, but if the present regime is deposed, we can be sure there will be dancing in the streets.

I give it till the end of the month.

On Opposing the Trump Regime

This is getting interesting as various elements and branches of the sitting government go rogue on the President Known As Shit-Gibbon. Apparently a state legislator has used the term on the Twitter Machine, so I guess it's official now. My my. How quickly things have devolved.

I've been paying attention to the permanent and sitting government's response to the chaos and lies of the Trump regime. It matters. They will set the tone for the coming overthrow. I have little to no doubt now that the overthrow will come and it will be greeted with cheers and dancing, and things won't necessarily get better for we the Rabble. I had pegged the end of this regime by the end of the month. May be. We'll see. At the rate things have been moving, however, somewhat more slowly than I figured, the end of the Trump regime may not come until the first of May. But that's just hedging. I don't know, and my ability to predict the future isn't so hot.

The court situation is mirrored in the congress where radical Republicans are eager to emplace a raft of punishment laws that comfort the comfortable and further impoverish or suppress everyone else. They can't help themselves. It's an identity thing with them.

It appears the Trump regime has got a different and far more apocalyptic agenda which will have to be opposed by the congressional Republicans or their own punishment agenda won't be possible. What to do, what to do?

I think Trump is foreshadowing an apocalyptic outcome vis a vis the "travel ban." It was a deliberate provocation, but it's backfired so badly that the Plan B is to engineer some kind of "terror attack" or even falsely declare one has happened (a la the "Bowling Green Massacre" or the "Atlanta Terror Attack"). I don't think these are accidental stumbles. I think they are deliberate and cynical "preparation" for what's to come.

One of the key factors of tyrannical rule is that the rulers dissemble and lie all the time, and they don't care whether you believe them or not. It doesn't matter. All that matters is that enough doubt is generated about what's true and what isn't that the opposition exhausts itself trying to figure it out.

It appears the permanent government has had just about enough of this bullshit and is about to put the hammer down.

Refusing to reinstate the Muslim ban is the opening salvo. But Trump also lost a court challenge to his diktat regarding the fiduciary rule.

Of course these are not final-final rulings, but they are signs that the courts will not be intimidated by this regime.

The opposition in the streets is still plentiful but rather formless. There is a strong sense that the People must "do something" in these grave times, and they are doing something, but because there are so many outrages piling up, what is done lacks focus. On the other hand, calling for opposition to too many specific items is probably counterproductive at this point. A simple NO! will do for the time being.

No!

So simple. So right.

There's been a call for a general strike, something that is all but unknown in the US though it's fairly common in Europe and elsewhere. One of the ways it's been chacterized is "A Day Without Women." 

If it happens, it will be a Day Without a Whole Lot of Things. Old line Socialists are saying, Feh, but that's what they do, and nobody should listen to them any way.

Apparently congressional reps have been taking a whole lot of heat from constituents who are demanding and loud and really, really scary to these nincompoops. Oh well, make your bed, better lie in it.

In all this, where are the Dems?

Oh they're out there trying to wrangle the Resistance, but I don't see them succeeding. Not now at any rate. They may yearn for a Bourbon Restoration, but if it happens, it won't work out well for them. They've been chastised, but I don't know that they have been chastened. Their best bet is to maintain a low profile and be quiet. We'll see.

We'll see.

Making It Impossible for the Ruling Clique to Govern

Things are still so fluid, there's no way to tell how the unraveling will occur. But there will be an unraveling, no doubt about it. And many innocents will suffer.

That much is clear.

One of the keys to a successful rising is making it impossible for the ruling clique to govern. This was the key to bringing down the various targets of Color Revolutions, and indeed what led to the collapse of the regimes brought down during the Arab Spring and particularly the Ukraine not so very long ago.

It isn't that hard to do.

But note, efforts along those lines were tried in this country with the occupation of the Wisconsin state capitol in the winter of 2011 followed by the Occupy Movement in the fall of the same year. They received a lot of press and widespread admiration but they failed to bring on the Revolution, and in Wisconsin, the occupiers failed utterly in their goal of preserving, protecting and defending the gains made by their progressive political ancestors, gains being threatened by Scott Walker and the ascendant Rs.

The Wisconsin debacle should have been a lesson, but I'm not sure it was, as the failures mounted after the Capitol occupation was abandoned. It was as if the opponents of Walker and the Rs kept pushing the same nonfunctional button and expecting it to somehow work. It didn't. The wires had been pulled. But the Ds didn't notice. Or were they counseled not to notice?

The trick of  making it impossible to govern requires understanding how government works and knowing where the vulnerable pressure points are.

It seems that regime opponents rarely do, at least not when they start out. Resistance is typically inchoate at first, but then it coalesces around an "idea."

In Wisconsin, the "idea" was to Preserve the Status Quo. Oops. To me, that is a recipe for disaster in a revolutionary era. The status quo is fine for those who benefited from it, but under the circumstances, many were and are not benefiting from it, and that's why so many wanted it overthrown or undone. That's why the Rs were able to fully capture the political and governmental apparatus of a formerly Progressive state.

Enough Wisconsinites had had enough of "progressivism" to throw it all out and essentially revert to prior brawling, corrupt, and vile government practice. The Status Quo just would not do any more.

I tried pointing this out to some Wisconsinites who were absolutely convinced that Walker and his cronies and the Rs in the Lege would be brought down this time because reasons. I said no, it was becoming more and more unlikely that any political action would bring these people down, simply because there were enough Wisconsinites satisfied enough with the New Politics and Governance that they weren't about to change it, particularly not to go back to the status quo ante.  No, get over it, it's not going to happen. If you really want change, you have to go forward from where you are. You can't go back to where you used to be.

It seems axiomatic, but for whatever reason, the Ds and the progressives in Wisconsin never seemed to understand that simple premise. In politics, you can't go back.

That's one reason I had such high initial hopes for Occupy. They were focused on what was wrong in the present ("Shit's fucked up and bullshit!") and setting out on a path to fix it. Well, it didn't work out quite that way.

Part of the failure was operational. Much of the effort was focused on creating a model for a New Society based largely on Anarchist principles. Well... that can only go so far, and any resulting society will by nature be small-scale. In most cases, the Occupations themselves were too large and diverse to be run on an Anarchist model, though the effort to do so was maintained as long as possible. The models in Europe worked well enough, didn't they? Well, no, if you were paying attention, you saw them coming apart, and you saw them easily dispersed by the authorities and prevented from re-forming.

The operational model was a failure, though the ideas were right, and they continue to be vibrant all these years later because most of the forward looking ideas have yet to be addressed.

What were those ideas? I'll get to it in time -- or try to. This is not really about Occupy so much as it's about the current Resistance (which includes some of those ideas, just as it includes Black Lives Matter idea and many other elements of Resistance efforts.)

The current Resistance is still inchoate -- and probably will be for some months to come -- but it is coalescing around a few Big Ideas, including defending the rights of women, minorities and immigrants. There's a bit too much defense of the status quo, unfortunately. That can change. I hope it will.

The status quo wasn't working for far too many Americans. That's why we're in the political and economic mess we're in. Millions upon millions of Americans were forced into poverty during the Economic Crisis -- which has never ended for most of them. That impoverishment was due to policies, none of which have been rescinded. Most of them are due to get worse during the Trump regime.

I have yet to see a Resistance idea that addresses that fundamental problem. When I do, I'll cheer.

Mass imprisonment of (mostly) black and brown men was a feature of the status quo. That's slated to get worse, potentially much worse, under the Trump regime. What is the Resistance idea to address it? I don't know.

Rule by an out of touch elite was a feature of the status quo. That's not getting any better under a Trump regime -- which is nothing but a kleptocracy headed by the kleptocrat in chief. What is the Resistance idea regarding the kleptocratic elite who rule us? I have no idea.

And so it goes. These are among the ideas that can form the foundation for making it impossible for the ruling clique to govern, and that's a necessary factor in a successful Resistance.

The Dems are almost useless in this struggle, for they are the Party of the Status Quo -- whatever that may be. But they can be (maybe) useful within the ruling clique as a poker, shiv, etc. Otherwise, they should be ignored -- or defeated, right along with the Trumpists.

We need something better.

It's a long row to hoe, but it's more necessary than ever.



Despite all, the Hippies were right.

Water Protectors On Duty

By now everyone's heard that Trump has "restarted" the Keystone XL Pipeline and the Dakota Access Pipeline "shut down" by Obama. I use the scare quotes because what's actually happened is a little less declarative than the Narrative would have it.

Obama didn't actually shut down the pipelines, he deferred final decisions on them to a later time, when he was out of office. Trump has not restarted them, he has picked up the ball where Obama left it, and is considering whether to run with it.

I split hairs like this because what is actually going on in this chaotic situation often varies quite a bit from the Narratives put out by the White House and countered by the media. There are lies and lies and more lies, in a blizzard of falsehood -- coming from all sides -- and it's almost impossible for the Rabble to sort out fact from fiction under the circumstances.

Chaos is the key, and keeping things as chaotic and unpredictable as possible appears to be the way Trump intends to rule until he is deposed.

But he's not the only one who can play that game.

Not by a long shot.

Meanwhile up in frozen North Dakota, the Water Protectors were planning to decamp from Sacred Stone and Oceti Sacowin, packing up and moving away from the Standing Rock reservation and setting up camp again at other reservations by invitation. This was to be a voluntary evacuation, but it was in line with the SRS Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault's repeated requests (orders?) that the Water Protector camps be vacated "for the safety" of the campers. Or something.

His position was that while the Environmental Impact Statement ordered by Obama was being prepared, protection/provocation by Water Protectors was counter productive. The less conflict at the site during the process, the better in his view. There have been recent incidents of violence (by police) against Water Protectors at the Backwater Bridge, a continuous flashpoint at Standing Rock. Archambault said he wanted the bridge reopened,, and that couldn't happen so long as incidents of violence kept happening there.

So he issued another request/order that the Water Protectors leave, and he and the tribal council essentially seized the millions of dollars raised for the Water Protectors and declared it tribal funds to use as the tribal council determined. I don't know what happened to the warehouse full of supplies sent to the camps, but last I heard, the tribe was refusing to release them to the camps.

As a point of reference, there have been widespread Water Protector actions primarily against pipelines all over the country since things calmed a bit at Standing Rock. This is the kind of activism that takes on a life of its own, and by spreading out so much -- rather than being concentrated in one spot -- the Water Protectors are ensuring their survival come what may.

It's not unlike the way Occupy dispersed after the coordinated violent crack down against it in 2011 and 2012. While I haven't got around to updating my Occupy links -- many are dead now -- I am quite aware that Occupy is still around and is still active, though for the most part they keep a low profile. As one of the Occupy mottos says, "You can't kill an idea."


That's pretty much where things stood on Monday. On Tuesday everything changed when Trump signed his pipelines memorandum. Keystone XL and Dakota Access were suddenly placed on the track for eventual approval, regardless it seemed of anything else.

The evacuation of the camps at Standing Rock halted and a call went out for Water Protectors to return -- so long as they were physically able to do so and could be self-sufficient once there.

The call did not go out from Archambault, it was issued by Chad IronEyes, one of the Standing Rock Sioux activists who has stayed on top of the evolving situation there and who has occupied the space between the Tribal Chairman and Council and the Water Protectors.

I haven't checked the activist notices today yet, but after Trump's action, there were demonstrations by Water Protectors and their allies in many cities throughout the country. As the Water Protectors reassemble in North Dakota, the state is preparing to force the issue and prohibit protest in so far as they can by law. They've even come up with some kind of law that legalizes running down protesters who block roads -- as long as it's an "accident."

Yes, well. We've already seen that happen during the actions last year. Sport, dontchaknow.

And there have been violent incidents at the Bridge in which numerous Water Protectors and allies have been injured by rubber bullets, water cannon, and other weapons wielded by the police. They've even set up a missile launcher apparently to shoot down drones flown by Water Protectors in order to document what's going on.

Please understand, this is all a dry run for the eventual suppression of any and all popular revolts and uprisings that might come to pass in the future.

The Indians at Standing Rock know this; many of their allies do too. But the general public remains oblivious.

I've pointed out in other fora that serious protest action in the United States has historically been met with serious and deadly force. Kent State is a well known example, but there were many others in those days and previously. Massacres of Indians, of course, were routine in the 19th Century, but strikers, protesters, and other activists who were perceived as threats by The Powers That Be were frequently subjected to use of deadly force by private guards as well as the National Guard and police, occasionally by the Regular Army.

People who understand this history of suppression of dissent know that the Water Protectors, as some of the most successful activists in recent times, are at severe risk of injury or death at the hands of the authorities, no matter where they are, but particularly so in North Dakota. I don't know how many have been injured so far, but hundreds were injured during the action on November 20-21 when water cannon were first turned on the activists at the Bridge.

This is deadly serious.

I've pointed out that the Water Protectors have been showing the way to effective resistance under the current circumstances. They are rebels, yes, but they are not in the mold of past resistance efforts. They are a step beyond them. First, they are grounded in Native American spirituality, something a lot of Anglos like to play with, but something few of them understand or can relate to. It's a different way of looking at the relationship between the Spirits and the People. It's a much more powerful thing than most Anglos can imagine, and it's part of the reason why so many of the Water Protectors can endure the suppression and the violence unleashed against them by the authorities. It's a reason why the Water Protectors understand they might lose from time to time, and they understand the Dakota Access Pipeline might be completed no matter what they do, but that in the end, they will be vindicated and victorious.

They  have endured so much so far, and the struggle is re-engaged, not only at Standing Rock but all over the country now.

It is part of the emerging struggle against the forces of wealth and power so perfectly expressed through the elevation of Trump and his cronies to run the government of these United States.

Water Protectors have led the way. They are the vanguard.

Where the struggle goes from here, we'll have to wait and see -- unless, of course, we are involved in actions to change the situation for the better.

Yesterday was Terrific -- Himself's First Full Day on the Throne Was A Disaster of Epic Proportions

Game on, eh?

I watched bits and pieces of the Women's March in DC on C-Span's livestream yesterday -- as it wasn't being covered live on any of the local broadcast stations. Odd I thought, but there you are. There were a lot of people there, obviously, but it was impossible to tell from the camera angle how many. Then I found a long-shot from the Washington Monument, and it was clear the crowd was huge, but still hard to tell how huge. Bigger, obviously, than the inaugural, but the people were arranged differently, facing away from the Capitol rather than towards it, and many, many more were in the streets beside the Mall than was the case during the inauguration.

A lot of people, yes, and they were certainly in a good mood, enjoying most of the speakers and entertainers -- it was certainly an energetic line up -- and even more important, enjoying one another's company. This was like a community get-together on a massive scale. They couldn't march -- there were too many people, and they'd already filled up a good deal of the march route -- so they had a rally instead, and it was good.

While the local stations didn't cover it live, they also didn't cover Trump's rambling, incoherent and self-referential remarks at the CIA live, and they didn't cover Sean Spicer's little tirade at the White House press corps live either.

So I'm still doing catch up on what was going on yesterday, the first full day in office for the new boss. Or whatever he is.

Not sure at this point just how "in charge" he is. But we'll know soon enough.

The masses of people in the streets yesterday, in DC and all over the country, was astonishing. In my condition, I can't do these things any more, and it kind of drives me nuts. I don't want to be sitting at home with oxygen tanks and tubes and doG knows what-all, remembering to take my meds and trying to remember which ones I forgot this time, yadda yadda. But that's the reality I live with, and it means no more marching in protest or hanging out much with various opponents of the status quo...

I have to get news as it comes and I can find it, and the news is often shaped and shaded for a particular purpose in support of a particular agenda. Treading carefully and critically is necessary.

As I cruised around the Internet for news on the marches, my astonishment at the outpouring of community feeling, good fellowship and determined opposition to Trump and all his cronies and minions all over the country and the world only grew. I had no idea -- I don't think anybody did -- that the Women's Marches would be so well-attended. 

750,000 in Los Angeles??? Is that even conceivable? Estimates now range to 650,000 in DC. 100,000 in Denver. 120,000 in Seattle. 10,000 or 20,000 in Albuquerque --- Albuquerque!!  20,000 in Sacramento. 100,000 in Boston. 400,000 to 500,000 in NYC.

And it goes on and on and on, In many places, the largest demonstrations ever seen. Unprecedented. And everywhere, consistent reports of good feeling, community, and determined opposition to Trump and all his bullshit.

I've noted some of the critics of yesterday's demonstrations have taken the tack that the women were incoherent, had no specific goals or items they were protesting, their rage was impotent, their presence in the streets irrelevant. Yadda yadda, the usual anti-protest garbage.

But here's the deal, during this nascent popular uprising -- that's what it is -- the White House and the would be God-Emperor were trying to take control of the narrative, to dominate the coverage, and to make all this Female Business go away.

As I say, neither their efforts nor the marches themselves were covered live on my teevee, and I didn't see that much of what was going on elsewhere when I checked the Internet. But when I did see things...

Trump went to the CIA and yapped for too long about himself, whined about the coverage of the inauguration and denounced the "lies" about attendance. What? WTF, dude. Get over it. Put on your big boy pants and suck it up. Nope. Not him. Whine, whine, whine, whine. Nonstop. That's his style. It's an identity thing. But showing it off at the CIA headquarters may not have been wise. Or maybe it was just what they needed to see to convince them -- if they had any doubt -- that this man cannot be allowed to be "in charge" of anything but a pedal car.

The infantile nature he displayed at the CIA would have been shocking if we hadn't seen it many times before. What was new was his open display of childish tantrum throwing at the headquarters of one of the agencies he's been insulting and denigrating. Yet his audience seemed to love it.

That gave me the sense that the ruling clique's factional contest is more complicated than I thought. These were supposed to be rank-and-file CIA workers in attendance at the Trump appearance yesterday. I don't know if they were or not. But if they were, their reaction was a sign that the agency is split -- as is most of the permanent government -- over whether Mr. Trump is to be obeyed or thwarted. That may be the reason he has not been thwarted... yet. Perhaps it's why there has been no intervention of consequence, despite the many opportunities presented.

If there is such a split in the agencies, then it's likely the split runs throughout the permanent government, and a resolution may not be possible. I will keep that in mind as things devolve.

Later in the day, Sean Spicer, the Presidential Spokesmouth, made remarks at the White House regarding the issues brought up at the CIA by the President. The important issues. Ie: crowd size at the inauguration vs the Women's March, and whether or not a bust of Martin Luther King, Jr. was removed from the Oval Office as reported in Time magazine.

He yelled, he threatened, he blustered, he read from a prepared text and stumbled all over his words. He took no questions. The press corps was dumbfounded.

Spicer lied on behalf of his boss. He declared war on the media. Again.

OK then.

What to do about it?

The problem here is that the Media -- as in the big ticket propaganda organs -- has a shitty reputation in part because it is so unreliable and so focused on info-tainment. Many of us simply ignore it or pick and choose very carefully what to watch and listen to and critically assess what to believe.

We won't have cable teevee in our house, in part to make sure that cable "news" never darkens our viewscreens.

To the extent we watch any news on the teevee, it's mostly Amy Goodman -- who I frequently criticize -- and PBS NewsHour, which I also criticize. Network news is rarely seen or heard here.

So when Spicer or Trump criticize the media, they will get little argument from me -- except when they demand, as Spicer did, and Trump has often done, that the media report the lies of the regime as Truth.

The correct answer is No.

But that's hard for the media to do. The threat is that if they don't fall in line, they will be shut out of access, and Trump will go around them, which I guess gives them major heartburn.

So what do they do? They don't know. Not yet. Some are standing up to the abuse, but others are yielding in order to maintain their access to the King. It's a mish-mash.

In the meantime, what these mooks in office are saying is... crazy. Not just crazy but dangerous. Divisive. Destructive.

Personally, I'd rather not see it reported as anything but lies, division, and danger.

But that's not up to me.

Meanwhile I'd like to see the spirit of resistance that was shown in the marches and rallies yesterday be sustained, and I'm not sure at this point it will be (of course, since I can't be there, I don't know what's going on internally.) The massive attendance is probably not repeatable, but it doesn't need to be. What's needed is sustained and focused opposition, and that's very hard to accomplish in this society.

Stranger things have happened. Stay tuned.

Resistance Art -- The Art of Resistance (or "Why don't you put a feather on it?")

Yesterday, I spent a good deal of time at the Museum of Contemporary Native Art in Santa Fe, a project/program of the Institute of Native American Arts -- where Ms Ché is now a student.

The whole place has a fresh-new feel and the art on exhibit is much edgier than that of the recent past or even longer ago (I can't recall offhand when I first visited the museum, but it's been years and years). Candice Hopkins is the new curator, and I'm sure it is her vision more than any other that has guided the re-vision of the exhibits at MoCNA, and that vision is one of continual resistance by Native people and particularly Native artists against the impositions of stereotypes and expectations.

Consequently, there is much resistance art on view. I wish I could illustrate this post with images from the exhibitions, but as a rule, MoCNA does not post many pictures of what's on exhibit, indeed, sometimes there are none at all.

What is "resistance art?" I supposed it depends to a certain extent on one's own perceptions of resistance. In order to arrive at a realistic definition, we may ask: "What or whom is being resisted, by what or by whom, and to what object -- if there is one?"

Many artistic forms and expressions can fall into the resistance category, even when the artist is not consciously trying to create resistance art. Among the most commonly recognized forms of resistance art is the poster highlighting a particular issue, rebellion or campaign. One of my all time favorites is "Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge" (El Lissitsky, 1919), propaganda art produced to help inspire the struggle against the White Russians in the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution.

Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge (El Lissisky, USSR, 1919)

The poster, while intended as a populist statement regarding the civil war then under way in the nascent Soviet Union, is in fact constructivist fine art, one of the strongest examples of the genre. Very often, posters and other forms of resistance art are both populist statements and fine art simultaneously. There's no real dividing line between them. There is no way I know of to separate the fine artist from the populist rabble rouser and propagandist. When the cause is strong or just, the works emerge almost spontaneously from many sources, including the studios of fine artists.

In the case of the exhibits at the Museum of Contemporary Native Art, many of the pieces of resistance art are the works of honors students at IAIA or of alumnae of the Institute. Some of it is straightforward and in-your-face, some is subtly subversive. The point of much of it is the rejection of stereotypes of what "Indian art" is supposed to be as well as challenging expectations of who qualifies as an "Indian artist."  These seem to be constant themes within the fairly small Indian arts community, especially in Santa Fe and New Mexico in general where Indian art and artists have a very prominent position and role in the highly competitive art market.

On the other hand, much of the resistance art on exhibit at MoCNA deals with specific issues in the ongoing Native struggles for dignity and justice in the context of constant predation and expropriation by the dominant culture, whether it's war, poverty, abuse, abandonment, dispossession or what have you.

Indian artists fight stereotypes, and they also fight for what's right.

David Bradley, for example, has produced an enormous body of resistance (fine) art that mocks and disparages, indeed insults, the "Disneyfication" of Santa Fe in particular, the Southwest in general, as it molds and shapes everything to attract and please the tourists who flock to the region every spring and summer -- and the poseurs who settle in for the long term. Bradley currently has a major exhibit at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe. Resistance art that he did early on, collages of various "Indian" ideas and struggles, are on display at the MoCNA.

And example of one of his statements of resistance is his Land o' Fakes Museum Currency:

Virgil Ortiz has been creating subversive images of his re-visioning of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 -- translated into contemporary iconography -- for years. His vision is encompassing. He uses every bit of his talent, skill, connections and imagination to create what is becoming an enormous body of resistance art that focuses almost entirely on the most successful Indian resistance action in North American history.

Why would he do this? Isn't it just "style," "fashion," or "entertainment?"

I say no, not at all. Virgil uses the elements of the high-style and fashion world he once served in the Donna Karan studio in order to highlight something that's often forgotten about Indian history -- the Pueblo Revolt -- and to send a clear message to his high and mighty clients that it can come again.

In effect, he becomes a translator, an interpreter of the Revolt, both for the benefit of young Indians who might not otherwise find the events of so long ago interesting or relevant, and for the education of a clientele that instinctively believes they are the Masters of the Universe.

Virgil left New York and the high-fashion industry he'd been eagerly accepted into in order to return to Cochiti Pueblo where he was from -- something that was in and of itself an act of resistance and rebellion -- where he develops his re-vision and the themes of revolt and rebellion based on what happened to chastise and drive the Spanish out of New Mexico in 1680. An aspect of that re-vision was the Venutian Soldiers concept of 2012, which was -- I think -- the first gallery exhibit we attended after moving to New Mexico in 2012.

Venutian Soldiers c. 2012, Virgil Ortiz

Now wait. Surely this is not resistance art, it's some kind of wild-ass fashion statement, right? Actually, it's both. The "soldiers" depicted are the soldiers of a Pueblo Revolt of 2180, futuristic images of what may be to come based on what went before.

Virgil now has a major exhibit at the Denver Art Museum. 

Through similar images -- in ceramics, leather and fabric, paint, video and film, and whatever other materials and means Virgil decides to use -- a picture emerges of his vision that ought to give some of his expensive clients pause. I'm not sure it does because I still see some of them parading around Santa Fe in the Virgil Ortiz creations, many of which are the figurative equivalent of daggers and arrows to the hearts of those who wear them. It's all highly subversive but in a way that -- perhaps -- his targets can't understand at all, any more than the Spanish were able to comprehend what Po'pay and the other Pueblo rebels were up to in advance of the Revolt itself. They thought they knew... but they were wrong...

At the IAIA Scholarship Dinner Virgil and Rose B(ean) Simpson, presented a collaborative performance piece that took these resistance concepts several steps further, but I'm convinced most of those who saw it had no idea what they were seeing. To them, perhaps, it was something charming, even cute. But to others, it was as strong a statement of resistance to the status quo as had ever been presented in that context.

At the Museum of Contemporary Native Art, Rose and Virgil have extended their collaborative efforts with an installation of even more elements of the re-visioning and translation of the Pueblo Revolt theme. There are manikins wearing costumes Virgil created for his characters and also, importantly, ceramic "masks" for each of eight named characters in the  story of the Revolt (c. 2180). I put masks in quotes because they are more like three-dimensional head-shots rather than face coverings, though they are called masks in the exhibit. To me they are quite disturbing -- which is, I think, what they are supposed to be -- because they do not depict humans. They are from another realm altogether, and I'm not at all sure they are benign.... they wouldn't be, would they, if they were representations of the forces of a future Revolt.

But then, most of what's in the Redness exhibit is disturbing. Deliberately so. Resistance art? Absolutely.

Carmen Selam is a young artist whose work I was able to purchase at last year's IAIA open house. The piece I bought was a print called "Indian Red":

"Indian Red", Carmen Selam, 2014

I was immediately attracted to it because it is a piece of resistance art that comments on the mis-appropriation of "Indian-ness" for commerce and (Anglo) 'beauty.' Carmen has written very well about it on her website:

Throughout my indigenous life, I have lived with elements of racism over the duration of my existence. The misappropriated usage of Native American imagery can be seen as a metaphorical modern day scalping. There was once a time when gathering pigment for the earth was a long and arduous task. This pigment, carefully selected was used to make paint that we used in ceremony and on the war field. We gathered the elements from the earth that my ancestors were buried. It was honorable to wear paint, eagle feathers, amongst other things. However, these days, it is not the same. The scapegoat for blunt racism is often disguised by the cloak of one word: honor. Often times we are dishonored in the name of honor by non-natives appropriating our sacred motifs and regalia as Halloween costumes, sports logos, and corporate emblems. My piece Indian Red is a reflection of the idea that the pigment and color of our skin is seen as a commodity by the red-lipped, twenty-something, non-native hipsters, who don the plastic war bonnet and faux war-paint.

Resistance art? Of course. What else could it be?

There are many other Native artists whose work is on exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts and elsewhere in galleries and museums around the country and particularly the Southwest, much of it resistance art -- but some of it not.

There's a joke that goes around in the Indian arts community: "Oh, yer stuff ain't sellin'? Why don't you put a feather on it? That's what they like to see, you know?"

Yep.

That's what they like to see. They don't -- usually -- want their Indian stuff to bite, if you know what I mean. But what I've been seeing more and more of, encouragingly, is Indian resistance art flourishing in galleries and museums, where some of the wealthy and powerful might see it. Whether they understand it or not is another question. But it really doesn't matter.

What matters is that artists are once again rebelling and resisting the pressure to conform to stereotypes and expectations. Artist rebellions typically presage popular rebellion, and I think we're getting closer every day.

On Violence -- a Mother's Day Perspective (on the Baltimore Uprising and Other Matters)

By now, everyone's seen this video of a mother beating up her teenage son during the initial phases of the Baltimore Uprising (#BaltimoreUprising):



She's been hailed a heroine by many for her violent attack on her son. She's said she didn't want him to wind up like Freddie Gray  -- dead -- and he's expressed contrition for his actions that day in the midst of the Uprising.

I was watching a livestream during this phase of the confrontations between police and the crowd of teenagers by Mondawmin Mall, but I didn't see this incident. There was so much going on in any case, that I probably would have missed it even if the livestreamer had captured it. He was a little way down the road, behind the iron fence, and was concentrating on the people running from or confronting the police at the time. He was also holding his phone in portrait mode, so the view was very narrow.

What I also didn't see was this was ground level video of some of the confrontation between the high school students who were essentially trapped once the police yanked them off the buses that would take them home and confined them tho the Mondawmin area:

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While flipping through news sources after the Freddie Gray funeral -- which I saw parts of on livestream as well -- I briefly saw an overhead view of police in confrontation with a crowd, but I didn't know what was going on until later, and when I saw a more complete video of the incident, it appeared that 1) police were throwing rocks at demonstrators (they were); 2) demonstrators were pelting the police line with rocks and forcing them back (they were).

Context, however, was totally lacking, and the rest of the coverage I saw of the "riots" focused on the vandalism, arson and looting that took place, not on the confrontations between police and rioters that took place in the afternoon following the end of the school day at Frederick Douglass High School adjacent to Mondawmin Mall.

Ever since, almost all the coverage -- including the BET gab-fests in the post below (sorry for the auto-start; I've tried to make it go away, and it won't, so I'll replace the embed video with a link to the page...) -- focus on "violence" as 1) property damage; 2) the acts of the police which lead to the deaths of so many, day in and day out; 3) sometimes -- but rarely -- the "violence inherent in the system" (h/t Monty Python) of capitalist exploitation.

The incident we witness from ground level in the raw video above is almost never mentioned in reports and analysis of the "riots" these days and if video of it is shown, it is the overhead shots, generally without comment, or if there is comment, it will focus on the injuries police sustained in the confrontation, not on what the incident actually showed about the Uprising.

I think it is too shocking to the sensibilities of the Powers That Be, for what happened was this:

The police either made up or freaked out over a social media post that suggested the students at Frederick Douglass were going to live out "The Purge" idea of "a day without law" following the funeral of Freddie Gray. The students got out of school at their regular time (3:00p -- sounds late to me, but that's what the most reliable reports say) and went to the Mall transportation hub to take the subway or catch a bus to go home. They were met with hundreds of riot police who forced them to get off the buses and closed the metro station. Some went to the Mall, but many dispersed through the neighborhood only to be further confronted by aggressive riot police.

And the students fought back. They were being harassed, taunted and violently confronted by ranks of riot police for no other reason but that the police could do so. The students responded with rocks and bottles thrown at the police line, and for the next hour or two, the students and police contended for territory in the Mondawmin neighborhoods. For the most part, the police retreated, and except for a few tear gas and smoke grenades, they did not fire on the students.

Looking back on some of the videos from the scene now, especially the raw video from ground level embedded above, I get the distinct impression that what happened was almost like a "live fire" training exercise for police to see how a crowd would react to an arbitrary police action in an urban area and to find out whether or not it could be controlled by the presence of riot police alone. That's what it looked like to me. It didn't go well.

The students and the residents participating in the resistance lost their fear of police that day in Baltimore, and that's critical for understanding what happened later. The looting and vandalism and arson happened later, and though the focus has been on those relatively random and relatively  isolated actions, there were targeted actions that were much more important (IMHO).

Dozens of police vehicles were trashed or burned, for example. As police vehicles sped through the Penn North area, they were pelted with rocks, bottles, paint and other objects. Some were parked along the streets and were attacked and burned by the crowds. This was targeted rage against police, not the kind of "mob violence" and looting that was being focused on by the media. The people were no longer afraid, and they vented their anger on the appropriate targets. The police. The police, for their part, largely withdrew until they obtained the protection of the National Guard the following day.

This needs to be clear: the people of Baltimore (at least in that area) rose up and said "No more." They literally forced the police out until such time as they returned with the protection of troops.

That was the most important aspect of the first day of the Baltimore Uprising, and it is barely recognized by most observers. It's been sent down the Memory Hole, but much of the evidence is still retrievable through videos like the one above.

There were other incidents, such as confrontations between drunken white baseball fans and largely but not exclusively black protesters outside Camden Yards -- which ultimately resulted in the cancellation of games and the absurd sight of a game played in an empty stadium.

These confrontations involved a lot of physical interaction and fighting between the drunken white folks and the angry black (and brown and white) protesters that led to a lot of mayhem outside Orioles Park. Some of it is seen in this video -- it's quite long, and I'm not embedding it. The Camden Yards footage is around 15 minutes in.

Again, it's clear the demonstrators had lost their fear, not only of police but of drunken white folks, too. This is important.

What I've seen while reviewing some of the video captures of the Baltimore "riots" reminds me a lot of incidents in the West Bank during which unarmed Palestinians confront heavily armed Israeli police and troops, and many of the urban disturbances in Ukraine during the prelude to and aftermath of the overthrow of Yanukovych. There are many other examples one could cite -- uprisings in Greece and other parts of the European "periphery", for example -- that follow a distinctive pattern, essentially a vocabulary, of incitement and repression, over and over and over again, sometimes leading to overthrows or revolution, but often leading nowhere at all -- except to more of the same. In other words, the struggle between arbitrary authority and resisting populations becomes routinized, almost institutionalized, but with little or no discernible effect or outcome.

Despite numerous protests against police violence around the country in the past year or so in city after city, the Baltimore Uprising is the first time I'm aware of that civilians responded to police provocation and violence with targeted violence of their own, albeit there have been some incidents of targeted vandalism of police facilities in other cities (Albuquerque among others) during the protests against violent policing and murder.

The results in Baltimore were predictable: the curfew and National Guard presence specifically designed to protect the police and civic institutions, not so much to protect  the citizens or their property. Given some of the confrontations during the curfew, it would almost be funny, except for the fact that people are still being treated violently and outrageously by police all over the country, and far, far too many are being killed day in and day out.

However, I think we are seeing a distinctive change in the way civilians respond to police provocation and violence.

The Baltimore Uprising represents something new in the ongoing struggle against violent policing.

It can lead to positive change or it can lead to disaster, or it can lead nowhere at all.

It all depends, methinks, on calculations made behind the scenes by the PTB. How much mayhem are they willing to endure and engage in in order to perpetuate systematized injustice? What is the benefit to them for doing so?

And how much more injustice are the people willing to endure?

I've suggested that we are past the "tipping point" with regard to police violence. The previous situation is not sustainable, but simply because we've gone past the tipping point, it doesn't mean the resolution will necessarily be positive.

The economy went over a cliff after all. The dire and destructive results are all around us. Simply because a crisis reaches a climax is no guarantee of positive outcomes.

In fact, what happens is that populations tend to adjust to the new reality, no matter how bad it is. The tipping point of violent policing may have been passed, and already dire situation may get worse.  We don't know, and we can't necessarily direct the outcome.

Hailing the mom who beat up her son in Baltimore that day, though, may be the harbinger of what is to come.

Just saying...

Demands and Propaganda

Ferguson Action Demands — aqui
New York Justice League Demands — aqui
#BlackLivesMatter National Demands– aqui
Occupy the Police St. Louis Demands — aqui
Propaganda — 2015 Year of Resistance 

I’m sure there are more lists of demands and much more propaganda, but I’m holding on to these lists and the image of stopped traffic on (I believe it is) I-80 outside Berkeley CA for posterity.

We’ll see how much gets done.

The thing is, of course, that Power concedes nothing without a demand, and Power will concede only insofar as it must to shut the loudmouths and troublemakers up.

Power will use every trick in the book to neutralize troublemakers and loudmouths who won’t shut up.

This movement is in for the long haul — it’s been going for months already, and there’s no sign of backing down or shutting shop. It has become more and more integral to oppressed communities, and by being creatively disruptive it’s caused a lot of people to wake up and recognize that there is a problem with police violence — and maybe somebody should do something about it.

Resistance is Futile?

Americans and the world have experienced an interesting Post Labor Day ride so far; there's no telling where this careening handbasket is headed, but Chaos seems to be the principal objective of our diminishing set of High and Mighty.

Chaos. Fear, uncertainty and doubt. And futility.

Don't forget futility.

For years I've tried to ponder on the subject of what Our Betters could possibly be thinking while they go about making a titanic mess of local and global affairs and fight one another for pre-eminence and wealth.

What could they be thinking? Can there actually be thought behind these endlessly appalling and chaotic developments we are witnessing day in and day out? It hardly seems possible.

They clearly want us to believe that any action we might take in opposition to their madness is futile, utterly futile. We can do nothing about what they're doing -- except submit, willingly or unwillingly, it doesn't matter.

We can complain all we like, but it doesn't matter. They will do what they will without regard to what we may or may not think about it.

As long as we don't do anything to interfere with their comfort and convenience, why should they care what we think about anything?

For the past several months the growing movement against police violence and murder has been protesting and demonstrating in many cities around the country, demanding police accountability and an end to police murder. The James Boyd killing in Albuquerque in March started a series of protests and demonstrations that have spread across the country, to New York and St. Louis in particular after the killings of Eric Garner and Mike Brown, but there have been so many others. Hundreds and hundreds killed by police since Boyd was killed, more than 200 since Mike Brown was killed in August.

Are we supposed to think that our protest is futile? Are we supposed to believe that the police have been given free rein to hunt and kill at will? Are we supposed to believe that police owe the public no accountability for their actions, they are only accountable to... to whom? Or to what?

Are we supposed to believe that poor people, homeless people, mentally ill people, people of color and young people are always fair game for police, and that old people, defiant people, and anyone carrying or "reaching for" what might-could be a gun will at any arbitrary moment subject to summary execution?

And are we supposed to accept this state of affairs, submit compliantly, uncomplainingly?

Is that right?

Is that how it is?

Cosmetics and public relations seem to be the response of those in authority to the protests of the people against police violence, and when they don't work, there has been a quick reversion to threats, intimidation, and more violence. At no point during the continuing series of protests and demonstrations against police violence and murder have those in authority made any concession to the demands of the protesters. For the most part, those protests and protesters have been ignored by those who can actually do something about the problem. To the extent they have been acknowledged, the acknowledgement has been cosmetic or brutal.

In other words, nothing substantive has taken place to correct the problems of police abuse, misconduct, mayhem and murder. The killing goes on and on and on, a steady tattoo of three or four victims a day, day in and day out, world without end, amen.

How many are brutalized and crippled, who knows? How many are living with PTSD and psychological trauma because of police brutality and misconduct is anybody's guess but it must be in the many tens of thousands.

The police refuse to accept any responsibility for their misconduct and bloodlust, and to an extent I can understand. They are doing what is expected of them by their superiors and by their elected and appointed employers. What the public thinks about it is of little or no concern to them. They reject out of hand any accountability to the public -- apart from routine cosmetic statements which seem to have been produced en masse by PR departments.

So what are we to do? The protests continue to be ignored or put down or and in many cases the "issue" is individualized and shunted off to agencies, departments, grand juries, and district attorneys to "investigate" -- which typically means endless delay -- and then do nothing except exonerate the officer(s) involved. As long as procedures are followed, how could there possibly be a problem?

The public will just have to learn its lesson.

Oh, now and then a few officers, the lowest ranking, may have to retire early or fall on their swords to mollify the public, but nothing is done to alter the policies and protocols that lead to so much carnage. Not "nothing." No, what tends to be done is to "professionalize" the policies to make them even more certainly lethal more often. In other words, what tends to be done is to make things worse. The various domestic wars on crime ensure that the policies and protocols that lead to the carnage and killing remain in place.

The public barely knows what's really going on let alone how to undo the nightmare. A simple count of the dead is one thing. To understand why is something else again.

As long as that is the case, the futility of resistance is assured, no?

Perhaps.

We never really know in advance what kind of action will move the powers that be to reform. We must try and try again until we have found a way to do it.

Meanwhile, the imposition of Chaos continues unabated.

Vids

This is the video that supposedly got Anna News (newsfront /2 /3 /4 at UStream) banned from YouTube.



And this is the Global Research video -- still up at YouTube -- that examines the deliberate propaganda campaign under way by "Western" governments and media against Russia and the Ukrainian resistance to the Kiev coup-regime.

How the Fascists (Continue to) Win

This is the longest version I've so far seen of the military action in Mariupol, Ukraine on May 9, Victory Day, during which a number of residents were killed and wounded as troops-behaving-badly fired on outraged crowds -- "terrorists" all.

Other versions keep cropping up. And reports from elsewhere in the restive south and east of Ukraine tell very similar stories of gunfire and bloodshed by the so-called military of the so-called Kiev government.  Also, there have been extensive reports of shellings, bombardments and fire-bombings of numerous sites in the region under contention, leading to unconfirmed reports of hundreds dead and wounded.

Ultimately, it doesn't take a lot of killing to enforce control. Not that the so-called military of the so-called Kiev government has so far been able to accomplish that aim...

Note that in the video, there is no telling what the military objective of the so-called troops might be. They are simply rampaging on a holiday, and the crowd -- which is quite large and quite brave -- will have none of it. They taunt and denounce the so-called troops lustily. While I don't understand the language well enough to follow a conversation, I understand some of what they are saying:

Fa-schis-ti!

Nyet-nyet terrorista!

And so on. These people are angry that their celebration has been interrupted by some kind of violent chaos brought on by the so-called military of the so-called Kiev government, and they are remarkably fearless in letting the so-called troops know how they feel.

While they initially keep their distance from the so-called troops, first one woman and then another,  arms out and hands up, decide to break ranks from the crowd and approach the "troops" shouting denunciations along the way. Once these brave and indomitable women fearlessly push forward, men in the crowd do likewise and continue taunting and denouncing while the so-called "troops" attempt to establish a perimeter.  To what object, who knows.

Eventually, members of the crowd confront the so-called troops from very close range. Military vehicles are dashing about. One of the men who'd been taunting the so-called troops is shot, though the shooting itself isn't shown in this video, just the aftermath as he is crumpling into the street. Another video shows the shooting and the aftermath, as other members of the crowd attempt to tend his wounds. He was shot in the chest.

Other men are arguing with and taunting the so-called troops, and more are shot, first one man in casual clothes on the plaza across the street from the man who was first shot, then a man in a suit who crumples on the plaza while holding on to someone else, then another in front of a kiosk (that shooting isn't seen in this video).

The videographer gets closer and closer to the so-called troops, and as he does he sees a man in the crowd with a gun pointed toward the so-called troops, apparently firing, and he sees someone with what looks like a Molotov cocktail, and I distinctly hear the videographer say, "Provocateurs?" or the Russian equivalent of it.

Kiev-coup supporters have made much of the fact that there was someone with a gun in the crowd and that someone had what looked like a Molotov cocktail in the crowd as justification for calling the crowd "terrorists" and for shooting and killing people in the crowd.

Indeed, the so-called troops continue to fire into the crowd, and one man -- alleged to be the one with the gun, though I don't think it is him -- is seen after he is shot in the head in front of the coffee tent, blood gushing from his wound; another is shot in the leg beside the tent.

The so-called troops retreat while continuing to fire as the crowd advances, taunting and denouncing and tending to the wounded.

The utter fearlessness of the Mariupol residents in the face of gunfire from the so-called military of the Kiev coup-regime is remarkable, something I doubt we'd see under similar conditions in this country.

So far, at any rate, we haven't seen this sort of situation in the United States, where there is an actual military operation in the midst of a civilian population, but it could happen despite posse comitatus and other provisions against it.

If it did happen in this country, the military would win almost instantly. It's not at all clear that will be the upshot of the so-called operations being conducted in the south and east of Ukraine, in part because enough of the people are putting up enough of a largely unarmed resistance, and enough of the alleged military are reluctant or refuse to fire on civilians.

So the coup-regime and its sponsors have brought in militias and mercenaries to do their dirty work, or so they say. Young and bloodthirsty men are -- they say -- being recruited from among the soccer ultras, and most especially the Right Sektor (ie: Nazi) and Svoboda (ie: Fascist) partisans to go to the East and South and make mayhem, death, and destruction happen. Mercenaries are said to be coming from all sort of conflict regions to apply their special wet-work talents to controlling and eliminating resistance to the Kiev coup-regime in Ukraine.

According to reports they are cowards, but that doesn't prevent them from causing chaos and destruction, and that's what any good Fascist would want to see in order for their power to manifest and ultimately to succeed. What they do is make it impossible for stability and a status quo to be established unless it is under the authority and control of the coup-regime and its forces. By this means, a relative handful of killers and destroyers are able to overcome and control large and often resistant populations.

The tactics are right out of the Nazi playbook of yore. By preventing any routine or stability from occurring except as they will it under their own authority and control, resistance eventually dissipates. By committing essentially random acts of violence, killing and wounding more or less randomly, and by destroying property both randomly and using targeted destruction against designated "enemies" they are able to assert their power over a largely unarmed population that by and large is unwilling or unable to use the same tactics against them.

This is how they win despite their unpopularity and widespread resistance to them. These are the tactics that were used in Iraq and Afghanistan by the so-called coalition which attempted to conquer them, and whose legacy is still apparent despite withdrawal.

One thing that keeps being overlooked or forgotten is that much of Europe was ruled by Fascist and quasi-Fascist governments at the outbreak of World War II. It was not, by any means, a contest between "liberty" and its opposite despite how the war in Europe was being marketed. The Axis was Fascist, and so were nearly all the Allies -- with the notable exception of the Soviet Union, which initially was being destroyed and rent asunder by the Nazis.

What we see in Ukraine and elsewhere is a remarkable resurgence in Fascist and even Nazi fortunes as one after another formerly social democratic government succumbs to the power and authority of essentially Fascist interests, and those which resist integration into the System -- even if they are Fascist themselves -- are relentlessly destroyed.

I'd like to think that the Fascists will be defeated by the Resistance, but it really doesn't work that way, never has. Recall, the Fascist Franco won the Spanish Civil War, in part by being the most ruthless bastard and the last man standing. His Fascist regime endured for the rest of his life, as did many (MANY) similar Fascist regimes all over the world, though especially concentrated in Latin America.

Spain is essentially back in Fascist hands, as is much of Europe. Ukraine is following the same pattern.

The USA has its own version thereof.

Resistance does not thwart Fascism.

The question is, what does...?

"From Relief to Resistance..." From The Rockaways and Beyond

 

Something's happening here...

The situation for the victims of The Storm continues to be dismal as winter makes its way into the the vast stretches of despair and destruction along the Eastern Seaboard, particularly in the hard hit coastal areas of New York and New Jersey, where simple official neglect has left the People without electricity, heat, running water, food, clothing, livelihoods or the means and materials to repair their dwellings and businesses... hm, sounds somewhat like the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina.

What is happening here?

Interestingly "Bloomberg" is blamed for the continuing catastrophe on Staten Island and the Long Island shore, as well as the mess still afflicting parts of Lower Manhattan. It's his fault, not anyone else's, that there is still no coordinated relief effort from his office, his lofty perch, his corner of Paradise. He drops in for occasional inspection tours and then drops out again in order to go in front of the cameras and once again to counsel "patience" and "resilience" and all the rest of it that he has been counseling from day one.

There is still no coordinated relief effort... Electricity is still not on, water is still not flowing, temporary housing is still not being provided, food and clothing are still hard to find or impossible to get through reliance on official resources... People are suffering.

What's happened?

It really wasn't that long ago that public disasters like this were met with coordinated disaster efforts that focused on the public necessities (rescue, food, clothing, shelter, etc.) first, then coordinated infrastructure rebuilding, then restoration of what could be restored, reconstruction of what couldn't. Some semblance of "normal life" was intentionally put back in place almost immediately; the point being to enable survivors of whatever disaster it was to get into a re-building frame of mind as quickly as possible, and to see to it that the rebuilding took place.

Now it seems like none of that even enters the pretty little heads of the Ruling Class, as their first objective seems to be to make it as difficult or impossible for the People to even stay in the affected area, and to provide nothing in terms of "relief" -- so that they will go away on their own. Just leave. Get gone. And don't come back.

Occupy Sandy stepped into the void left by official neglect, and has been providing food and clothing, as well as the means and materials for clearing and rebuilding from almost the moment The Storm moved on.  They've provided generators for power, volunteers for clean up, meeting hubs, coordinated supply efforts, and on and on, while "Bloomberg" and his ever vigilant staff have harassed and threatened them at every turn.

"You can't do this." "It's not your place." "Go away!" "It's not safe!"

Yes, well.

Their answer is "Mutual Aid, Not Charity."

The difference is enormous, and the difference they are making in people's lives is striking.

It's not so much that they are providing for the material well-being of the multitudes of suffering humanity -- though they are -- as it is that they are providing uplift for the spirits of the People, hope, and they are showing how to meet both the challenge of The Storm and the official neglect that left the People so bereft.

They are transforming their efforts from relief to resistance.

Something that happened after Katrina as well, though resistance had something of a different character in those days. The Bush Regime is all but forgotten (except for its precipitation of numerous disasters and its inability to fathom them let alone handle them) and it was Katrina and its aftermath that led to the de-legitimazation of the Bushevik Era. Once de-legitimized by events and bitter experience, they could not recover in the eyes of the People. And now, it's as if they never were...

Such is apparently going to be the fate of "Bloomberg." Of course he can purchase any future he wants out of petty cash, but apart from that, his neglectful response to The Storm is going to be remembered as the precipitating cause of his de-legitimazation. The response of the Occupy Sandy volunteers, on the other hand, will live on as examples of how the People themselves can aid one another.

And so it goes...

The following essay at Waging Nonviolence pretty much sums it up:

The Best Response to Disaster: Go On The Offensive

Illegitimi non carborundum -- as it were.

The Greek Resistance

We are all Greece. We are all Haiti. We are all Gaza.

The Health of Occupy

The backdrop for this afternoon's teach in on the sidewalk at UNM in Albuquerque where the police had pushed the (Un)Occupy participants so as not to sully the campus with their taint.

While I've been in New Mexico this trip, I've been writing a lot about Occupy while trying to catch up on the some of the Occupy events in this area (I plan to attend at least some of today's [Un]Occupy activities in Albuquerque) and checking in with some of the Occupys I've been following.

Wednesday's post included some comments on the events at last Saturday's OWS GA in New York during which there were apparently two assaults by participants on other participants. It was disturbing to read, though I have read and witnessed on livestream any number of incidents of high tension and drama associated with the NYCGA, as well as been embroiled in some of them at the local Occupy. It's just the way things go, especially when the effort is as open as Occupy has always been, and Crazy-makers are everywhere. The wonder really is that there have been so few incidents of that kind. The drama and the emotion is frequently encountered, but inner-Occupy assaults are really very rare.

But I watched the Wednesday night live stream of the NYCGA, and it was as if nothing untoward had happened at the previous GA. This is one of the strengths of the Occupy Movement. It is so resilient that pretty much no matter what happens -- whether it is a police assault or an internal assault -- the Movement continues on, typically stronger than before.

I attended an Occupy teach-in at UNM this afternoon, arriving shortly after the campus police had pushed the Occupiers out of the park that they had been using since the morning and onto the sidewalk. There was a phalanx of police guarding the hill from the taint of Occupy. When I arrived, most of the activists had left on a march to the UNM president's house to protest the police action. When they returned, the teach in got under way. Still on the sidewalk though.

The presenters were Dana Millen and Mark Rudd; Eleanor Chavez, state legislator for District 13 of Albuquerque was also in attendance and spoke.

I wasn't familiar with Dana Millen, but she's done some very interesting research on the topic of what impels people to participate in movements, what keeps them involved and how they interact with others in movements; one of her unanswered questions was how important those interactions and relationships were in maintaining participation in movements, and how they affected people's decisions not to continue participation. She touched on issues of social justice and righteous anger as motivations for participation, and such issues as frustration and burnout for limiting or ending participation. I wasn't taking notes, so I don't remember everything she said she'd learned, but after the teach in, she said she would make her research available to me via email -- if it works.

The research she's been doing on movement building is, in my view, important for understanding how and why Occupy -- for example -- grew so quickly and why so many of the early participants no are no longer involved, either to the extent they once were, or involved at all. What her research indicated was that participants' involvement and lack of involvement was a deeply personal matter, not necessarily driven by events connected with the movement. This suggested to me that the whole 'violence vs nonviolence' debate within Occupy is something of a distraction from learning what is really motivating people to be involved or not be involved at any given time.

I took a break, for example, from day-to-day involvement in Occupy in part because I was nearing burnout, and in part because I thought I had done pretty much all I could on behalf of the local Occupy and it was up to those mostly younger than me to carry on. And they did.

But then what of Movement Building if I and people like me stand aside or step back from the day-to-day? It looks like the Movement has shrunk -- and to see the few dozen assembled in Albuquerque today or the hundred or so assembled for the New York City GA on Wednesday is testament to the shrinkage in Occupy participation.

The shrinkage is attributed to "violence" in the Movement by many of those participating in the 'violence vs nonviolence' debate. And yet I tend to doubt that is really the case, given the fact that violence as such is really very rare in the context of the enormity of the Movement in the United States, let alone around the world. More likely reasons for less participation now than previously are the issues mentioned in Millen's research: burnout, frustration at apparent lack of progress, personal reasons -- life and work, for example -- and interpersonal relationship issues, such as developing enmity toward one or more of the other Occupiers.

But in the next segment of the teach in, Mark Rudd spoke about his experiences in radical movements back in the day (SDS, Weather Underground, etc) and how he believed that engaging in violence literally destroyed them. Of course the kind of violence that took place in those days was bombing and sabotage in pursuit of the overthrow of the US Government. And from his matured (or perhaps "reconstructed") perspective, any kind of violence at all, including wearing bandanas and hostile speech toward the police would kill the Occupy Movement. He said he'd heard something on the radio from Oakland that mentioned 'diversity of tactics' which he understood was code for 'violence' and he urged -- came close to demanding -- that Occupy renounce it in no uncertain terms. No property destruction, no sassing the cops, no bandanas or black clothing, nothing the police can point to to justify their crack-downs on Occupy. I half expected him to say "No Occupy!" but he didn't go quite that far.

He has his reasons for his point of view. As he said, because of the way the law was in those days, the charges against him were dropped at trial, and basically he was able to skate on some very serious crimes. And he pointed out correctly that if he were engaged in those things now, he would likely be held in custody indefinitely as a terrorist.

He claimed the violence he engaged in during his radical era essentially "killed" the anti-Vietnam War Movement that until the outbreak of the kind of violence he had engaged in had been very popular and growing. I think a very strong case can be made to the contrary, but in the context of Occupy, that argument is essentially moot because no one (that I know of or have ever heard) has seriously proposed any sort of armed insurrection (which Mark Rudd and others were engaged in back in the day) in connection with Occupy. At all. Under any circumstances. Not as part of "diversity of tactics," and not as part of anything whatsoever to do with Occupy.

As I've said many times, Occupy is by nature and by definition a Nonviolent Resistance Campaign. (pdf) The few incidents of broken windows and thrown objects cannot and do not change that fact. And I assert that once that fact is internalized, most or all of the sturm und drang over broken windows in Oakland last November vanishes.

But we aren't there yet.

Today, Mark Rudd's absolutist pacifism was astutely challenged by a young-ish Arab man and a not quite so young woman dressed all in black -- including gloves and hat -- as well as by a number of the other participants in the teach in, including yours truly. Basically, he was saying that anything -- any action, any statement, and mode of dress or behavior -- that can be interpreted as a challenge to authority is seen by the police and by the public as "violent," and engaging in any sort of "violence" -- as perceived by the police and the public -- has the effect of destroying the Movement; therefore, do not engage in any sort of action or behavior or wear any clothing or speak of anything that the police and the public might consider to be "violent." Ever. Don't do it. No Black Bloc, no talk of Diversity of Tactics, no verbal confrontations with police or other authority, certainly no bricks through windows, no bottles thrown at the cops or anyone else. If your goal is to "change the system", the strategy in this country must be absolutely nonviolent, in every conceivable way, otherwise the police will have justification to crack down and the public will have an excuse to deny their support and participation.

Rudd was challenged on a philosophical level in that his absolutism doesn't allow for or take into account any alternatives, and is fundamentally immoral, given, for example, the situation in Syria. Rudd's absolute pacifism would essentially require that the rebels in Syria accept their slaughter without fighting back in any way. Or, contrariwise, that they not rebel at all. The excuse when this matter is brought up is always the same: this isn't Syria, and therefore what the rebels are doing in Syria isn't germane to Occupy or any other movement in this country. True enough, but as I and others point out, repeatedly, but seemingly to concrete walls of passive indifference, there is no hint of engaging in armed insurrection anywhere within the Occupy Movement, there is no discussion of it, and there is no such action. No, this is not Syria; there isn't an armed insurrection, nor is the government using fully lethal ammunition against Occupiers.

From a strategic and tactical point of view, Americans involved with Occupy are not adopting nor are they even thinking about adopting a Syrian type of insurrection; what the Government is thinking, who knows? But the point is that absolutist pacifism has no moral standing in the face of a Government that is engaged in the systematic slaughter of the People.

Rudd was challenged on his belief that any form of confrontation with police or authority, or anything they might perceive as a challenge is perforce "violence," based on how police and the public see these things. Thus bandanas are "violent." Self defense is "violent." Wearing black is "violent." Talking about Diversity of Tactics is "violent." And so on. This was a much greater tightening down of the definition of "violence" than I'd encountered in the many arguments I've had about this topic heretofore. Basically, Rudd was saying don't do or say or wear anything that might trigger a violent response by the police or authority -- or you will "kill" the Movement. As was repeatedly pointed out, authority needs no trigger or excuse from the dress or actions or statements from those involved in Movements to react violently. They do it no matter what the Movement does or says or wears. The fact is that the existence of a Movement of any kind that isn't authorized by the State is sufficient to trigger a violent response from Authority. There is no level of Movement Saintliness that can thwart the violent response -- that is to say, if the Movement isn't just going to evaporate and go home to watch teevee. Movements that include more militant components -- that don't have to engage in armed insurrection to be effective -- actually work better than purist nonviolent movements.

The discussion continued at length, and I think very productively as both Rudd and his challengers made their points firmly and clearly. But there was another layer to this whole debate that has to do with where we are. This is Indian country. New Mexico has the second highest percentage of Native American population in the country (Alaska is first). There is no dealing with these topics without also recognizing and dealing with Native American experience with 500 years of colonial oppression and occupation. (Which is why Albuquerque's Occupy is called (Un)Occupy 'Burque and its motto is "Decolonize New Mexico.")

And at the end of the discussion, a Native American woman spoke up, somewhat harshly, too.

She took the discussion from the intellectual and abstract wrangle over whether wearing a bandana over one's face was "violent" into the realm of real violence that her people had known for centuries and she had known personally all her life. Wearing a bandana is not "violent" in any rational sense of the word. The very idea that it would be discussed in this manner reeks of White Privilege. She said, "Don't blame the Movement for the violence." Don't blame the People for fighting back.

Put the focus on violence where it belongs. She wasn't particularly nice about it, either. I videoed some of what she had to say, but the video is not very good and I didn't capture the reaction, but it was basically stunned silence on Mark Rudd's part, followed by an attempt to turn the discussion back to where he wanted it. "Does violence build the Movement?" At that point, she just told him to stop. "Can you?" she asked as she might ask a child. He went on with his point, and she said, "I guess not."

After a pause, she said that if Rudd or anybody else really wanted to do Movement Building, they'd follow the example of the Civil Rights Movement (I thought this was brilliant) and recruit from among the least of us, from among the dispossessed, the marginalized, the poorest, the most oppressed, the disabled, the demonized, and they would become the Movement's guiding lights. Women of color and their children, for example, know much better what the real situation is for those who suffer in this country, and they know something of what to do about it. It's past time for the white men who think they know so much better than anyone else to step back, because there are others who know better than they do. And some of them were right there, right now.

On that note, the teach in concluded. It was remarkable in every way. What happened, and the people who were involved are products of this place, and it could not be duplicated elsewhere. Part of the health and the nearly boundless strength of Occupy is that every Occupy is specific to its place and draws on the breadth and depth of the People(s) of that particular place for its wisdom and flexibility and energy.

What happens here in New Mexico is not going to be what happens everywhere; it can't be.

But the insights gained here, through its People(s) can have profound impact everywhere.

It was a remarkable afternoon.

Remember who you are. Remember where you are.