Lesser evil voting results in evil, not good.

 

I am amused at the people who call themselves "progressives" being hopeful that Joe Biden will in some way show that he is sympathetic to their cause.

Dream on, progressives, you are the unwanted relative at the "family" gathering. The "Democrats" put up with you because they want your votes. But they prefer money. The more money you can cough up, the more they suck up to you. 

It doesn't matter that Bernie Sanders can run a campaign on small donations because the "Democratic" Party isn't. They prefer the large donors who are the people who propped up the formerly dead campaigns of Creepy Joe and Horrible Harris. 

The "Democrats" preyed on your being suckers that they were in some way "better" than the Evil Orange One. Yet they ran candidates that were just as bad, if not worse. The tame media didn't allow for any scrutiny into the chosen ones, or you would have had a harder time voting for them than you did Clinton-Kane in 2016.

If you didn't Demexit.

The "Democrats" didn't bother hiding their disdain for the progressives this go round.  "Progressives" for whatever reason voted for Biden despite his being a male Hillary Clinton with a public and private position on the issues. And his private position is that he will stay the course which resulted in Trump.

I've moved on from the "Democratic" Party because I know that they do not have the motivation to actually do anything. Actually, neither of the duopoply parties will do much of anything other than make the US a plutocracy that rewards the likes of Bezos, Zuckerberg, Gates, et al. There is a reason the tech companies supported Biden-Harris, and it's not because they are benevolent.

It's time for a change and one of those changes is to vote for a party that actually represents you.

Biden and Guns

OK, the main reason I didn't expect Biden to "win" the election was that he needed to win a few states which are pro-gun. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense for those people to get on the Biden Bandwagon if Biden is going to tighten gun laws. Not to mention telling a UAW member to basically fuck off because "no one needs an AR-14".

Biden has a long history on the gun issue, which is contradictory to say the least. It went from being pro-gun and being involved with the Firearms Owners Protection Act (FOPA) to now saying he wants to get tight on regulating "AR-14s". Personally, I think Sanders would have been a safer bet to address this issue than Biden: especially since Bernie is from Vermont.

On the other hand, Bernie is a commie. And the Establishment Dems don't like him.

Biden's campaign was:

increasingly worried about the polling in Pennsylvania and fear that his previous, slim lead could be slipping away at the eleventh hour. But this doesn’t sound like a move that would help him much, if at all, on that score. The vast majority of Biden’s support in the Keystone State is going to come from Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. But the latter city is currently overrun by mobs and is going up in flames. Philly is one of the places where the demand for guns is off the charts in a Democratic stronghold and people can’t even get applications for permits, to say nothing of laying their hands on a legal firearm. Something tells me that even his base there doesn’t want to hear any gun control claptrap at the moment.

OK, I would like to believe that Creepy Joe and Horrible Harris will turn out to be a disappointment, but he has managed to surprise me by winning an election.

Despite the odds.

On the other hand, there is a lot of red in places like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina which might hold their nose and vote for the next Trump if Creepy Joe and Horrible Harris make good on their promise to ban guns.

And I am truly surprised that combination was able to pull off a win to begin with: especially with gun control on the agenda. 

But gun control is something which is talked about but rarely acted upon: especially by opportunistic politicians.

Not sure how to title this post about the presidential election results

I guess I should have known that the wrong conclusions would be made however the election turned out. I've already pointed out that the right/centre of the "Democratic" party is blaming the left for the poor results. No one is addressing that not having any real policy set out other than "orange man bad" might not be a good way to win votes.

While Fox News and Sky News Australia may try to paint Biden and Harris as extreme lefties: they are anything but. The Green New Deal, Fracking, Medicare for All and all those "lefty" ideas probably won't see the light of day, or will be transformed into something unrecognisable. FAIR's Counterspin pointed out:

After a historic election turnout, driven by mobilizations like Black Lives Matter, that signaled the longed-for end of the Trump presidency, it's sad to see corporate Democrats leap to blame the left, including activists, for denying the party a landslide—and call for immediate, compensatory overtures to the right. Sad, but not surprising, as that's been the practice of elite Democrats and their media abettors for decades.

    When Michael Dukakis chose Sen. Lloyd Bentsen as his running mate, he turned his back not just on Jesse Jackson, but on two decades of Democratic Party thinking. He sent an unmistakable message to the activist constituencies of the Democratic Party that the days of litmus-test liberalism are over.

That's the Washington Post's David Broder in 1988.

You could say everything old is new again, but corporate media's allegiance to an ever-drifting "center" gets more dangerous by the day.

Fair.org's Counterspin

In other words, AOC and Black Lives Matter can pretend all they want that there will be a leftward shift in the party. But the Dems will throw them under the bus as soon as they get their vote in favour of the big donors. "Creepy Joe" Biden and Hillary Clinton weren't chosen as front runners well in advance because they were popular or strong candidates. They were chosen because they brought the big money.

There were a whole lot of other black women out there who would have been a much better choice than Horrible Harris. Horrible Harris was the choice of the big donors in Silicon Valley. Black Lives Matter should have burned the country down the moment they knew Harris's record as a prosecutor if they had any real power. My guess is that Black Lives Matter will be forgotten until 2022, or maybe relegated to the dust bin because of the things that were said and unsaid in the Abigail Spanberger leaked phone call.

It was Groucho, not Karl, if the BLM person was a Marxist organiser. I was pretty certain that the "peaceful protests" were going to result in a Trump win, but the only thing those really generated was a run on "assault rifles" and "ammunition". Still, "Defund the Police" was enough to get some "Democrats" into squeaker situations. But was that actually the reason that people like Spanberger and Madeline Dean found themselves in tight races?

Nevermind, the "Democrats" have a long history of being anti-progressive and no matter of polling data that some of the ideas floated by the "socialists" were popular will change that opinion of the right/centre wing. The left needs to move on since the "Democrats" talk "big tent", but the reality is that one needs to follow the party line. Whatever the fuck that happens to be.

AOC, Black Lives Matter, and the rest of the vindictive branch of the "Democratic" party need to be careful. They go against the people with the power and they find they are the ones to be purged.

If they don't realise that they should exit the party to one more favourable to their ideals.

Voting Green Party, or Third Party, is not a waste

As the "Democrats" fall apart over whether they should pay attention to the Progressive wing, I have to point out that one of the many reasons I voted Green:

It tells the duopoly that we aren't part of their party.

The "Democrats" are currently feuding over whether progressivism is where they should be heading. Not whether the "Orange Man Bad" strategy actually works. The "Democrats" holding their centrist/Republican Lite position was my big fear for this election. How they react to it remains to be seen.

But it seems that turning on the progressive wing is once again the strategy: even though that is not a wining strategy. Not to mention it meant fielding two of the weakest candidates ever. And they will continue doing that because they know that like progressives will come crawling back like whipped dogs.

Lesser evil voting still nets an evil.

Voting your beliefs doesn't.

The squad, and other deluded progressives, may wake up to reality, but I don't have too much hope. 2016 and 2020 were the two elections where lesser evil voting really had no place. There was a choice of Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber if one chose a duopoly candidate.

I'm not happy because either of them was elected president.

Antrim County Controversy

 I have to question election results when they go against what I see in reality.

Pennsylvania is one, but Antrim County, MI also had me wondering. Andtrim County is about as red as a place can get. yet the election results were showing that it had gone for Joe Biden. That had me really wondering.

But what made this seem even stranger is that a little while later, the results from Antrim County went blank on the results map.

Definitely something strange:

Antrim County Clerk Sheryl Guy, a Republican who ran unopposed and won a third four-year term Tuesday in the strongly GOP county, said results on electronic tapes and a computer card were accurate but it appeared that some of the results were somehow scrambled after the cards were transported in sealed bags from township precincts to county offices and downloaded onto a computer.

In 2016, Trump won Antrim County with about 62% of the vote, compared with about 33% for Democrat Hillary Clinton. Trump beat Clinton by about 4,000 votes.

Wednesday morning, Antrim results showed Democrat Joe Biden leading Trump by slightly more than 3,000 votes, with 98% of precincts reporting.

Officials had not checked the results before posting them, but later asked: "How could Democrats take over this county?" Guy said Wednesday.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

Source: https://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/11/04/michigan-antrim-county-election-results-trump-biden-blue/6162541002/

Joe Biden may beat William Henry Harrison for shortest term EVER!

Maybe figuaratively, if not literally. William Henry Harrison died after a month in office. Biden has many options for a short term, but the main one is that the honeymoon is over now that the election is.

For what it's worth, Alexandra Occasio-Cortez is flexing what little muscle she has in the party. She was super at first, but her importance waned quickly as is the fate of any real progressive. The "Democratic" Party has a long history of destroying true progressives. She can threaten that she will destroy the "Democratic" Party, but it will chew her up and spit her out putting her back as a waitress earning what paltry minimum wage exists.

Hey, AOC, Bernie couldn't do it. What the fuck makes you think you can do it? You should #Demexit as soon as possible and help the Greens grow. Because your home is not in the Democratic Party.

Next, the long held criticism of Biden will come out. The best of which is that the Impeachment may be redone. Except this time it will be about the REAL criminal in that farce: Joe Biden. The info on Hunter Biden has come out, which was something any REAL inquiry would have done.

And then there is Dementia Joe's health. Other than the obvious mental decline, it seems he's not a healthy man. I'm amazed all the excitement hasn't killed him off to begin with.

The "Democrats" playing on people's wishful thinking instead of offering real solutions will show that the "bad orange man" wasn't the source of recent problems. the "Democrats" 2016 strategy of having the Orange meanie be the straw man candidate to counter their failure to offer any real agenda was doomed from the start.

Alas, the squad helped push them along in a continued free fall.

It's PRESIDENT BIDEN! What a 'relief' for the whole world!

 OK, I am going to use First Dog on the Moon's title since it pretty much sums up how I feel about this event. Trump winning would be pretty much in their face that the "Orange man bad" strategy was a failure. Dementia Joe being president with Horrible Harris as a fall back seems like it will be a relief.

Until it finally hits people that this wasn't really a win.

Dementia Joe pretty much made it clear to the big donors that nothing would change. So any hope of progress is pretty much a pipe dream. Getting Kamala Harris as a "black woman" was pretty much like Bulworth in the black church in South Central.

Virtue signalling is the name of the game from the "Democratic" Party which has a long history of fucking over progressives and people. Bulworth is the state of the "Democratic" party. 

Trump winning might have hit home the message the "Democratic" Party needs to learn, but now we have what 2016 would have been had the Electoral College not been in the way. Dementia Joe is going to have to deal with an opposition controlled legislature which is good and bad.

Bad in that nothing will get done that people were hoping to get from a "Democratic" president. But it's "good" for the "Democratic" party in that they can play how awful those republicans happen to be. Not that their candidates happened to get slaughtered and the expected "blue wave" didn't happen.

This neglects that nothing was really promised. And what WAS promised was pretty much nebulous. Let's toss in that neither Dementia Joe or Horrible Harris took any of the scrutiny that they should have. 

It's truly amazing that a public official whose record of 45+ years wasn't really looked into. I mean people used to tell me that Bernie's vote for the PLCAA was a disqualifier.

Biden not only voted for FOPA: he fucking drafted the thing! 

I know full well that Dementia Joe will talk about strict gun laws and an Australian Style gun buyback, but he's the last person on the planet who could pull it off! Especially if he doesn't have a cooperative legislature.

Which takes us to rejoining the Paris Accord on Climate Change.  Sure, he could get the US back in, but the he U.S. also would need to submit a specific pledge to reduce emissions, known as a Nationally Determined Contribution. That's the fun bit: getting the US to change its lifestyle to cut down on Greenhouse Gas emmissions. 

And Covid-19? The Dems really think that can fight it without some form of national healthcare, universal basic income, with a little bit of surveillance tossed in for contact checking?

The "Democratic" party thinks it can knock the "socialist" and "socialists" in their ranks, but what is it going to do to make sure it can actually make good on the nebulous promises it made?

They can't blame the Russians, or anybody else, for their mistakes now. 

Biden Remorse

I seriously have a hard time accepting that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris could win an election, but it seems we live in an age of miracles. 

 

Or is it because any criticism of Biden was not allowed. Glenn Greenwald quit the Intercept due to a blackout on the coverage of Hunter Biden's influence peddling. Likewise, Axios commented that "Joe Biden is the luckiest, least scrutinized frontrunner."

A deeply flawed candidate whose campaign was considered dead, until "Super Thursday" has suddenly become the likely president of the United States.

Even more amazing when you consider that the States that put him past 270 Electoral College votes were pretty much "pro-Second Amendment".  Not to mention how Nevada was hit hard by the Covid-19 lockdowns.

Unless there is the hope that Second Amendment sanctuaries in MOFN will see a rise in population due to Biden's making "AR-14s" and similar weapons NFA items. Seriously, I have a problem accepting that anyone in their right mind in some of these places actually voted for Biden.

And while I believe that there should be an Australian style gun buyback coupled with strong gun laws: the likelihood of that happening anytime soon seems far more impossible than a 78 year old, senile, has been politician miraculously winning an election.

Even if he does it by the skin of his teeth.

I'm not sure if there was election fraud involved, or if enough people hated Donald Trump to vote for someone who is as bad as Trump, but "nicer". Unless you happen to be a UAW member who gets into an argument with Biden about gun control.

I mean, Biden is someone who actually tells you to vote for someone else!

I took that advice and voted Green Party.

I knew what I was getting into. But I think a lot of people had no fucking idea what they were doing.

And they will regret it pretty soon.

Something stinks

There are five states which have to report final results as of now: AZ, GA, NC, NV, and PA. What stinks is that Arizona has been called with 88% of the votes counted. Likewise, Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman said that the Second (Allegheny) and Third (Montgomery) largest counties have come up with final results. Luzerne county is supposedly near in their final result. The red counties aren't giving final results yet.

The problem with Pennsylvania is that there are a lot of "Second Amendment" types. In fact, all of these states have a lot of "gun nuts". Why the fuck would those people vote for Biden who has made it clear that he would ban "AR-14s" with hi-cap magazines?

Nevada was supposed to have been announced at noon eastern time. Then it went to one. Yet Nevada supposedly has 24% of its votes yet to be counted.

These states are close in the possible outcomes. But something stinks.

OK, I am still going with a Trump win.

There are only a few states which haven't been called yet and here is a diagram of the State, Votes Left to Count, Current Margin, and Current leader from the Guardian. At this point Trump is the leader in most of these states.

Which takes us to what the current state of the electoral votes would be with the race being 272 to 268 with Biden winning.

Of course,Trump could flip Nevada or Michigan. There are also a few more absentee ballots out there which could help Trump get a close repeat of 2016 by winning AZ, MI, NV, and WI. I think that would be a stretch, but Trump winning MI and NV is a definite possibility.

The Guardian has a mail in ballot tracker which is useful to see how many registered voters there are and how many of those ballots have come back. It's also interesting to see since some of these races may turn out differently from the way they are currently being characterised.

I'm already seeing different results between the BBC and the Guardian coverage as to the margins of victory.

But we know this is going to be a close and contested election.

Joe Biden fracks up his chances to be president

 Joe Biden said I shouldn’t vote for him if I wanted to ban fracking.

The problem with Joe is that he is WORSE than Hillary Clinton for switching positions. Climate Change, Fracking, and the "Green New Deal" are a case in point.

His position switching make him untrustworthy.

Let's add on top of that the allegations of accepting bribes from foreign countries, which he denies. Despite the "laptop from hell" confirming any suspicions about this matter.

Joe's record is out there and it's not good. He's not "progressive" by any standard unless you are Fox News. And the same goes for Harris. They were both candidates whose campaigns tanked.

As Steve Bannon pointed out, Bernie Sanders would have been the nominee if this primary process was on the up and up.

Don't blame the Russians when Biden loses, unless the Russians run the DNC.

Can Trump really win again in 2020?

 Yes, I am still of the opinion that Trump will win again in 2020 and that any other outcome is wishful thinking.

Trump supporters are (1) still fairly solidly behind him, (2) not very vocal in their support, and (3) going to be more inclined toward him that a Biden-Harris ticket. Let's toss in that most voters have pretty much already decided who they will vote for and will not switch.

Biden supporters are the case in point. Trump derangement syndrome has literally set in. How to tell if you have it: would you be vaccinated if Donald Trump announced there was a vaccine for corona virus? 

Remember that any approved vaccine would have to pass FDA regs.

Biden is unscrutinised and even when scrutinised things like #metoo and "Believe all women" goes down the shitcan when it's Tara Reade. And never mind all the videos out there. Same goes for the allegations of bribery from Ukraine and China.

"But Trump..."

On the other hand, can the allegations that Trump "mishandled" the pandemic lockdown play that well with voters who are having to actually deal with the lockdowns? I have the luxury of their being an inconvenience, but this is a hardship for a lot of people.

The proper course of action would indeed be things like medicare for all, universal basic income, job security, and other "socialist" programmes. Toss in contact tracing and a lot of other things which people in the US would balk at.

Despite what Fox and Sky News Australia say, Biden is in no way willing to do the necessary steps to truly handle Covid-19. I would also guess that Harris wouldn't either. It seems to be one of the qualfications for being a Democratic nominee that you have a public and private position. Biden has made it clear that nothing will change if he is elected, but there will be lots of committees and investigations. 

I'm not sure how persuasive Biden and Harris are to the people who will really decide the election: the actual undecided voters. On the other hand, both Biden's and Harris's campaigns were considered dead until the "super Thursday" miracle. Then what was previously left for dead was declared the hope for the US.

The prognoses are still not good, but we can't criticise the chosen ones or we are somehow "helping Trump win".

Wouldn't running a couple of the shittiest candidates imaginable (even shittier than Hillary Clinton) count as "helping Trump win". "Trump bad" only works with the sufferers of Trump Derangement Syndrome and not uncommitted voters.

Or voters who want to hear real policies and agendas instead of what one would expect someone who has been in the US legislature to spew out.

Given the possible outcomes. 

1. Trump wins and the Dems really sit back and do some serious self-examination. Although, deep in my heart I know the Dems will blame everyone and everything except for the fact they chose to run an unpopular candidate.
2. Biden wins and the self-satisfied "Democrats" feel vindicated in shoving shit candidates down the people's throats. The ultimate outcome is that something far worse than Trump becomes president.

A Trump win is the better choice since real reform can only come from having to make compromises and changes to the system. The "lesser evil" system is how we got into this mess. Case in point, the Presidential Debates, which at one time were run by a non-partisan body, the league of women voters, but are now run by the "Commission on Presidential Debates", a partisan body.

 The two party system sure as fuck isn't how we will get out of the current mess in US poltics. And it would have made a lot more sense to work on electoral reform the past four years than chase imaginary Russians.

I voted Third Party and I don't regret it.

Sorry, Rachel Maddow, but getting the Green Party off the ballot by the "Democratic" Party won't stop people from voting Green there. I wrote in Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker. My ballot has been received and will be counted in some way or another.

I am not as enthusiastic about the Green Party presidency as I was in 2016 when Jill Stein ran. My support has been behind Lisa Savage, who is running as an independent in Maine. My hope is that State's use of Ranked Choice Voting will result in a Green Party victory. I won't get into the mechanics of that system, but that is what a truly "Democratic" Party would have supported.

The past four years would have been better spent on looking at what went wrong in 2016 and fixing those problems instead of wasting time on imaginary Russian Interference and ignoring Ukrainian bribery of the Biden family. Election reform makes far more sense, but we can't make US politics unprofitable.

That's the only reason US elections drag on interminably: MONEY.

I don't have Trump derangement syndrome which makes it easy for me to see that Biden and Harris are just as bad, if not much worse, than Trump and Pence (unlike this person who is sadly stuck in the duopoly mindset). I want a party which comes offers what Bernie Sanders did and am under no illusion that Party is not the "Democratic" one.

It ain't called the "Green New Deal" for nothing and you won't get it from any other party than the Greens. Biden made it quite clear in the first debate that he will not cater to the left wing of the Party.

The problem is that Sanders WAS popular. That has been neglected in all the analyses of 2016 and his 2020 run.

Bottom line. There needs to be new players in the US political game. There also needs to be a serious reform of the electoral system: ranked choice voting, get rid of the big money/cut the cost of campaigning, putting the debates back in the hands of the League of Women Voters, etc.

And if they give you ruled paper, write between the line.

Why I believe Biden will lose.

 I am not swayed by polls and am still firm in the belief I stated back in June that Trump will get another four years. Time has added new reasons to the ones I mentioned in that post. The Democrats should have trashed any hope on Biden after the failed attempt to impeach Trump.

I am very familiar with Ukraine and the criminals in that case were the Bidens who saw the cess pit of corruption that is Ukraine as their pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  But Biden and the Democrats have put their hopes in the fact that Trump derangement syndrome will blind people to how

BAD Biden happens to be.

Toss in that the press  has pretty much laid off any serious questioning of Biden. He was pretty much given a hand by Chris Wallace during the "debate". Axios pointed out that Biden "is the luckiest, least scrutinized frontrunner" in that the press is basically ignoring his glaringly obvious problems. 

Biden must be grateful to Covid-19 for allowing him to hide from the press so that he doesn't have to walk down the street roped off from the crowd the way Hillary Clinton was. The media's obsession with Trump coupled with his ability  to dominate the news has allowed Biden to purposely and persistently minimize public appearances and tough questions.Biden has yet to be pinned down on a variety of important issues, which is a good thing since he switches positions on issues even more than Hillary did.

As Scott Jennings said in USA today:

Biden changes his stripes more than a chameleon in a Skittles factory. And he’s doing it again by claiming the mantle of unity in this election. Today’s Biden is a made-for-media candidacy untested by interactions with his base.

Fox News is wrong. Biden and Harris are not socialists and do not appeal to the left/progressive wing, unless it's the meaningless virtue signalling version. I'm not sure if Biden appeals to the Republicans who don't like Trump either since Biden presents a nebulous position on pretty much every topic.

Another thing which will effect this election are the silent Trump supporters. I'm not sure if the silence is due to fear, or a lack of media attention to anyone who supports Trump.

Anyway, I already voted and it wasn't for either Trump or Biden. I doubt that Rachel Maddow will bother with trying to get a third party voter on her show, but I gave up on her once she began to push Hillary Clinton and then went on to push that Russia was responsible for Trump's win.

The DNC needs to have a purge if the Russians were responsible for their failures in 2016 and 2020.

Maybe the Dumbocrats will take a serious analysis of what went wrong if I am correct, but I am not hopeful. I know they will continue to blame everyone and everything except themselves.

Have some fun predicting who will win the election here. I think Trump since most of these states are "pro-gun" or effected by the riots.

Today is not "Victory in the Pacific"

That's because Japanese holdouts(残留日本兵), who were soldiers and sailors that continued to fight after the surrender of Japan in August 1945. Japanese holdouts either doubted the veracity of the formal surrender, rejected demobilization for ideological reasons, or were simply not aware because communications had been cut off by Allied advances. 

Using the logic of Juneteenth, the Second World War in the Pacific could have continued well into the 1990s. Although the last confirmed surrender was Private Teruo Nakamura, a Taiwanese-born soldier who was discovered by the Indonesian Air Force on Morotai, and surrendered to a search patrol on December 18, 1974. Nakamura, who couldn't speak Japanese or Chinese. He  was discovered 29 years, 3 months, and 16 days after the Japanese Instrument of Surrender was signed.

Likewise, it can be shown that slavery still exists, which knocks another premise of Juneteenth: that it was the end of slavery. Any luck it will go back to being the virtue signalling non-entity is was before this year.
 

But, please feel free to have your picnic and parade. Juneteenth is a quaint reminder of the horrors of war.

Some people get cut off from world events.

Mention "nationalism" if you want to start me on a rant.

I am posting this in response to something I just watched called "What It Mean To Be Pro-European?" The person who made it is working under this mistaken belief that European nations are somehow homogeneous.

This Alsatian/German-Belgian/Polish-Ukrainian/British/Balkan/etcetera person calls bullshit.

This animation sucks because is only shows the Northern shore of the Med. European culture has been tied to Asia and Africa since prehistory.

And let's not forget that Europeans have been at each other's throats for millennia, but I can't prove that since that also gets into prehistory. And some groups find themselves living with other groups. And fighting over which alphabet to use, or which religion to follow.

And that's even within Christianity.

Let's not forget that Europe is a stone's throw from Africa in the West (at Gibraltar) and connected to Asia/Middle East in the East. Islam has had an influence on European culture. Especially Spanish culture. After all, Europe is separated from Africa by the Mediterranean.

The Celts, Romans, and Vikings all spread out and went native while we're at it.

Italy and Germany only date to the mid-19th Century. But some European countries are more recent than that. After all, Yugoslavia had a bad break up. They don't call it "Balkanisation" for nothin' (can't forget I have Balkan in me as well).

I call myself "European" since that is the best way to describe myself since my ancestors came from countries which no longer exist, or were swallowed up by other countries. Also, accepting the diversity of cultures, some of which I can't relate to, requires me to take on a blanket term.

And, unless I want to be really provincial in the true sense of the term, I have to describe myself using a blanket term. People from the United States describe themselves in a blanket term as well since they call themselves "Americans" or US citizens, not citizens of the state they are from.

Brexit has shown that "European" isn't a national descriptor, but a blanket term for people living in the European continent: no matter what their ethnicity. Likewise, the same applies to US citizens.

Juneteenth. or social media mind control WTF!

 

I thought I did a post about Juneteenth being relatively unknown until recently. Google Trends analysis of searches on "Juneteenth" only show a massive interest starting from the end of THIS May to around the 23rd of June.  There was minimal interest in this "holiday" prior to that date.

You weren't crazy if you were wondering why you had never heard of it before this year,

And you were among a very small group of people if you DID know about this prior to this year.

While the media tried to make this sound like something which had been around for a long time, the reality is that the Juneteenth this was steamrollered over us. Wired points it out in their Why Juneteenth Went Viral. Wired's piece tends toward this being something contemplative, but I do question the interest in Juneteenth, as opposed to Odunde, as being virtue signalling.

It's no coincidence that the movement to celebrate Juneteenth came during the Black Lives Matter riots (sorry, but more than one city was trashed and these were counterproductive as fuck. So, fuck you, I'll call them as I see them). It's more of the meaningless virtue signalling to try and calm the rioters.

But it was a small group of people who made this a thing as Protocol's How a Group of Creatives made Juneteenth 'spread like wildfire'. Yeah, "creatives" as in advertising types. Not just any advertising types, but ones connected to the social media industry.

I am trying to break from the surveillance economy,. Not only do they keep tabs on you, but they try and influence your opinion.

I cried"bullshit" about Russiagate.

I'm crying "bullshit" about the virtue signalling relating to Black Lives Matter. Nothing significant will come from the past few months. If anything, those events will make matters worse. I know they increased gun sales.

I am already certain that Trump will be reelected. Even if he isn't, the Democratic candidate isn't onside.

So, what was the point of it all?

I prefer substance to Bullshit, but the bullshit is piling up like the trash on the streets of Philadelphia and NYC.

America's Gun

There isn't a consensus on what exactly that firearm would be. I've learned more than I have ever cared to know about the AR-15 in the past month or so. The AR15 definitely qualifies since it was designed by an American, Eugene Stoner. Enough of them are out there in the US that any chance of an "assault rifle ban" would be really difficult. And that's even with a buyback.

I feel the same way I do about the AR15 that I do about Margaret Thatcher: I don't like either of them, but I respect what they are in relation to their respective country's culture. The AR15 is probably more symbolic toward US culture than Margaret Thatcher will ever be to Britain's.

It is a symbol of militarism since it was designed over 60 years ago for the US military, with variants  used by military forces worldwide. Part of its attraction is that it is the civilian version of the US military's weapon. And its deadliness is one of its attractive features. It is proven in combat and mass shootings.

The AR15 platform allows for it to be built in a myriad of different ways. It is also fairly easy to build with various kits being sold; from complete upper and lower receiver assemblies to the parts for making a ghost gun. Although, ghost gun means a firearm made "80%" lower receiver and parts. It is the AR15's ability to be built by anyone which should cause people to pause.

I personally would not want to invest the time and effort into making an actual ghost gun. Complete stripped lower receivers are also available, which is the lower receiver block without the parts. That allows someone to create their custom gun. It's easy to customise a completed lower receiver as well. Just look up a video on how to do that mod to your gun.

And there are the AR15 pistols as well, which I am mentioning since there is the debate as to how often these weapons are used in crime:

Mass shootings involving rifles like the AR-15 can produce dozens of victims at one time, and combined with extensive media coverage of these events, many people have been led to believe that such rifles pose a significant threat to public safety.
However, such shootings are extremely rare, and a look at the FBI data informs us that homicide with these types of rifles represents an extremely small fraction of overall homicide violence. Banning or confiscating such firearms from the civilian population would likely produce little to no reduction in violent crime rates in America.

Given the amount of variations on the AR15, there are a fair amount of pistol versions. One manufacturer lists barrel lengths from 8 inches to 20 inches for their upper receiver assembly. An interesting riff on all this since Orlando, Florida, authorities revised their initial description of one of the weapons used in the June 2016 attack at Pulse nightclub. After initially describing it as an “AR-15-type assault rifle,” police said it was a different type of firearm, the Sig Sauer MCX.

One the the variants of the MCX is the Rattler SBR (short barrelled rifle)[1]. While SBRs are NFA weapons, it's pretty easy to bang one up using the AR15 platform. I would also toss in that semi-auto pistols that accept high capacity magazines are banned in some places. Additionally, a submachinegun is a machinegun that fires pistol calibre ammunition. That means that submachineguns are basically pistols that can have a very high rate of fire.

But the main reason I would say that the AR15 is America's gun is that it will probably never be regulated despite the carnage it is capable of causing. Despite the deadly shooting in Las Vegas to the 20 toddlers killed at Sandy Hook, these weapons are more than freely available to anyone who wants one. You can buy an 80% receiver with no background check to build whatever version of an AR15 you want.

That means that anyone who is adept with metalworking tools, or just adept with tools if it's a polymer 80, can crank out a weapon intended for the battlefield.

That should cause you to pause and think no matter what your opinion of these weapons happens to be.

[1] Short barrelled rifles are another topic which I am not going to get into.

The Ultimate Slam Dunk argument against reparations

I am not a fan of reparations. And I have had enough "black history" to know that the "four hundred years of slavery" is sheer bullshit. Let's start with 1619 as being the beginning date and end with "Juneteenth" in 1865, even though those slaves had been legally free since the Emancipation Declaration in 1863. That's 246 years.

And 155 years ago. And no one is that old.

The years after emancipation saw blacks move from the South in the Great Migration. Blacks had businesses and did well. And some blacks moved west. Some of them even joined the US military.

Which is where this is going to.

Ever hear of the Buffalo Soldiers?

Several African-American regiments were raised during the Civil War as part of the Union Army (including the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry and the many United States Colored Troops Regiments), the "Buffalo Soldiers" were established by Congress as the first peacetime all-black regiments in the regular U.S. Army. Buffalo Soldiers originally were members of the 10th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army, formed on September 21, 1866, at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

The Buffalo Soldiers were a fairly significant part of the post-Civil War US Army. Buffalo Soldiers comprised 12% of the U.S. Army infantry force and 20% of the cavalry force during the time of the Indian Wars f(1866 to 1891).

And one that engaged in the ethnic cleansing of the first nations during the "Indian Wars".

Now, if you are going to call me racist because of one cop in a place I have never been, then I have to tell you that you are guilty of the ethnic cleansing of the US Native American from their land. You also engaged in the Imperialist Spanish American War and Pancho Villa's rebellion.

If I am guilty, then you are guilty.

So, get in line because you ain't getting your payout until the Native Americans get their more than well deserved reparations. Native American women are disappearing while you are chanting "Black Lives Matter". Their sacred water is being polluted. Yet no one is bending a knee for the Native Americans.

Missouri has a "stand your ground law" (Or Cingeworthy, but understandable Part II)

In Missouri, you also have a right to protect yourself if you’re in imminent threat of deadly harm if you have a legal right to be in a location. Missouri allows you to defend yourself with the use of deadly force if you’re under imminent threat of deadly force, without a duty to retreat in public. Even more so if you are at your home.

Now, wouldn't a mob of defiant and destructive trespassers on their property count as a threat of  deadly harm given that Patricia and Mark McCloskey were at their home in a gated community and that gate had been destroyed?

Missouri's has a Castle Doctrine law and these guns were lawfully possessed.  The law states, in subsection 3,  that deadly force cannot be used unless “[s]uch force is used against a person who unlawfully enters, remains after unlawfully entering, or attempts to unlawfully enter private property that is owned or leased by an individual.” However, no lethal force was used here. It was threatened.

Last I checked: trespassing was a crime in most jurisdictions. That means the protesters are shit out of luck the moment they crossed the gate and violated the country code (sarcasm).

It sounds pretty cut and dried that the McCloskeys have a defence there. While Missouri's law may be an affirmative defence, the McCloskeys were in their home. They were also facing off a mob. I would add that a person who is deemed to be the aggressor in a confrontation that turns deadly is not eligible to raise a “stand your ground” defence.

I'm not a fan of these laws. I would also add that Black Lives Matter should have placed their efforts in trying to repeal these laws.

On the other hand, it would have been ironic had Stand Your Ground been used to protect someone who had shot defiant Black Lives Matter protesters. But that is lost on the people who are virtue signalling in these protests.

Cringworthy, but understandable

Article 12 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen states:.

The security of the rights of man and of the citizen requires public military forces. These forces are, therefore, established for the good of all and not for the personal advantage of those to whom they shall be intrusted.

What that means in regard to any civilised and functional society is that the government has an obligation to provide public order through a force created for that purpose: e.g., the police. That is not a privilege, Lisa Bender, it is a right. It is also the obligation of ANY governmental body. The inability to provide for public order is one of the definitions of a failed state.

A friend's picture of her view of Dilworth Plaza.

People have been arming themselves in order to provide for the lack of public security currently given by the state. Not only are firearms being snapped up, but so are tear gas grenades! The people who don't understand this phenomenon are blissfully away from where the destruction happens: not across the street from it.

I am not surprised to see Patricia and Mark McCloskey defending their St. Louis home. Yes, it may be expensive (although a house like that would be infinitely more expensive on the coasts), but the cost isn't the issue. It is their home; whether it is a humble shack or a palatial mansion.

I would add that they may have appeared cringeworthy, but they were acting in defence of their home. There are less drastic methods of mob control: for example tear gas grenades are available in some jurisdictions. People have already begun to arm themselves in self-defence because of the lack of a public force to provide order, or that force is being overworked.

Violent protests are counterproductive if one wishes to see a change in how that force is used. While people may not come out and say they support the police, they know that force is a necessity for public order. I would also add that getting rid of the public force will mean that there will ultimately be a private substitute.

Patricia and Mark McCloskey were the first, but they are far from the last. People shouldn't be laughing since this is serious.

Tyranny, or failed state?

I'm taking part of one of my posts and posting it here since Minneapolis City Council president Lisa Bender told CNN something along the lines of expecting help from the police "comes from a place of privilege."

No, Lisa, it doesn't come from a place of privilege at all.

And your statement comes from sheer ignorance since you have just shown that the Minneapolis city government is a failed state.

A failed state is a political body that has disintegrated to a point where basic conditions and responsibilities of a sovereign government no longer function properly (see also fragile state and state collapse). A state can also fail if the government loses its legitimacy even if it is performing its functions properly. For a stable state it is necessary for the government to enjoy both effectiveness and legitimacy. Likewise, when a nation weakens and its standard of living declines, it introduces the possibility of total governmental collapse. The Fund for Peace characterizes a failed state as having the following characteristics:

• Loss of control of its territory, or of the monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force therein
• Erosion of legitimate authority to make collective decisions
• Inability to provide public services
• Inability to interact with other states as a full member of the international community

Common characteristics of a failing state include a central government so weak or ineffective that it has an inability to raise taxes or other support, and has little practical control over much of its territory and hence there is a non-provision of public services. When this happens, widespread corruption and criminality, the intervention of state and non-state actors, the appearance of refugees and the involuntary movement of populations, sharp economic decline, and foreign military intervention can occur.

Bad move, Lisa, you shouldn't say things like that if you want to keep your job! You are saying that you have a failed state.

And that is in no way a privilege.

Anyway, one thing the riots demonstrated was that there was another possibility for why a someone would need an assault rifle, which is the exact opposite of “tyrannical government”.  That is when your country has become a failed state.

Failure to keep public order, or intentionally dismantling the the organisations which keep public order are exactly that. And it's a shit time to start saying things like defund, dismantle, or abolish the police after a riot has destroyed your city.

Anyway, not only have US cities been trashed, but the sales of assault rifles have gone through the roof. People who you normally wouldn't consider owning one are out trying to buy one.

Rudyard Kipling said something about keeping your head when others are losing theirs being a sign of leadership. The past few weeks were a time for cool heads, not virtue signalling.

Especially if the signalling sends the wrong messages.

Why I think Donald Trump will get another four years!

I remember driving through Western Pennsylvania a few days after the 2016 election. It was obvious why Trump won then. The Dems didn't bother to reassess what happened and are now set to fuck up even worse than in 2016.

First off, running Joe Biden who was a train wreck to begin with, but continues to show WHY he is correct when he tells people to vote for the other guy. Biden lost the election when he told the UAW Worker in Detroit he didn't need an assault rifle among other things, but it gets us to.

The Riots, while the Dems would like to pin everything on Trump. The "Trump is Bad" strategy was a loser in 2016: it's even worse in 2020. Toss in the riots happened in Democratically controlled areas for the most part. Nixon won as the law and order candidate in 1968. Trump will win because the Dems are the party of disorganisation.

The fall out from the riots. Loads of people bought guns. Assault rifles vanished from the marketplace both brick and mortar as well as internet. Gun control, firearms regulation, gun violence prevention, or whatever you want to call it is going to be a dead letter for some time as armed bands troop around left and right: literally.

Let's add in the talk of defunding or disbanding the police, which is one of the worst imaginable cases of branding an idea that anyone could have come up with at this time. Armed groups from all sides of the political spectrum are walking the streets: what could go wrong here? Police reorganisation might have made more sense.

But it doesn't matter since Biden has made it clear that he's not on board.
Let's not forget the Covid-19 thing, which was another disaster. It was something that pointed out the need to "medicare for all", universal basic income, or just good leadership.

In fact, the past few months have been an advertisement for why the Democrats are on the wrong track and running the wrong candidate. But I am not expecting much change. Especially when the candidate who is running is one who really isn't going to change a thing.

Casey Jones is driving the train full speed ahead high on cocaine, And there might even be speed involved.

A militarised police is nothing new...outside the United States

The term "Gendarme" may connote the quaint French Policeman like the one in this picture.

Not really, the French Gendarmerie Nationale is one of France's two national police forces. Unlike the Police Nationale, the Gendarmerie Nationale is a branch of the French Armed Forces placed under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Interior with additional duties to the Ministry of Defense.

To try and analogise this to US law enfocement, the Police Nationale would be something like a combination of large city police forces and the FBI. The Gendarmerie would be more like the State Police forces, patrolling the smaller cities, towns, and countryside. But unlike the State Police forces there are two different branches: the Departmentale and the Mobile. The Departmental being like the state police forces.

The mobile being an internal army, quite literally. main responsibilities are:

• crowd and riot control 
• general security in support of the Departmental Gendarmerie 
• military and defense missions missions that require large amounts of personnel (e.g., counter-terrorism patrols)

Nearly 20% of the Mobile Gendarmerie squadrons are permanently deployed on a rotational basis in the French overseas territories. Other units deploy occasionally abroad alongside French troops engaged in military operations (called external operations or OPEX).

Let's toss in the the Gendarmerie Nationale also has the Groupe d'intervention de la Gendarmerie nationale (GIGN), an elite law enforcement and special operations unit numbering about 400 personnel. Its missions include counter-terrorism, hostage rescue, surveillance of national threats, protection of government officials and targeting of organized crime. GIGN is one of the world's top Special Forces groups, which is something that would make people who get upset about armed police to go apoplectic and die.

And the Gendarmerie Nationale's history goes back to the Maréchaussée of the middle ages. Maréchaussée, or Marshalcy.  During the middle ages there were two Grand Officers of the Kingdom of France with police responsibilities: The Marshal of France and the Constable of France. The military policing responsibilities of the Marshal of France were delegated to the Marshal's provost, whose force was known as the Marshalcy because its authority ultimately derived from the Marshal. The Marshalcy dates back to the Hundred Years War, and some historians trace it back to the early twelfth century. Another organisation, the Constabulary (French: Connétablie), was under the command of the Constable of France. The constabulary was regularised as a military body in 1337.

Gendarme means Man at Arms. So the Gendarmes were the "men at arms" of the Middle Ages. The term was more specific than just men who had weapons, but were government officials.

Also, France's Gendarmerie has been highly influential on other national police forces, mostly in civil law and former French Colonies.

Armed gunman? Call in the social worker!

Seriously! What the fuck is with people? Do they think that some "community based solution will work in this type of situation?

The Police and Military are necessary whether people like it or not.

I may accept that "Assault Rifles"are necessary, but

don't think that has totally changed my opinion on firearms regulation.

if anything I still believe that there should be strict laws to prevent these weapons from falling into the wrong hands. Do you really want Antifa or the Black Lives matters crew to have their hands on guns?

On the other hand, the moment that shit like "violence is justified" and "defund the police" get mentioned then it's time that people are allowed to defend themselves. Minneapolis just voted to defund the police: other cities may follow that insane path.

And the assault rifle has been proven in the battlefield, the music concert, the school house, the night club, etc.

Let the "gun violence prevention advocates" ponder that one as people stock up on firearms. I know that the minimum bad effect of all this is that guns will be a worse problem than before. The GVP crowd should have been calling to stop the violence instead of condoning it.

There are ways to address out of control cops in the system, but the fact is that the incidents which led to this were not non-violent and the plaintiffs would have lost. But that is no reason to defund the police.

I almost bought an AR

I guess the H&K MR556 or SIG516 are AR-15 variants.

So, number one deterrent was price. The SIG is the less expensive of the two, but still in the four figure range. We are talking a price of US$ 1400+. Ouch. Toss in that I am leaning toward the H&K compared to the Sig.

And that's the price if you can find one.

Assault Rifles and guns in general are a hot commodity these days. For good reason given the chaos of the past week. Some people have seen it on TV. Other people have lived it.

And people want to protect themselves. And what better way than with a weapon that was designed for the battlefield and proven in mass shootings across the country. Las Vegas was a good advertisement. The chaos of the past week are the perfect advertisement for a weapon like this.

I may not like it, but it is hard to say that people shouldn't be able to own these weapons when the cities are under siege. That makes me different from a lot of people on the left, but I am also much more pragmatic than a lot of people on the left.

Those are the ones who are moaning about the militarisation of the police, like this article in the Guardian. But it misses something that this post is pointing out. Civilians can buy the 5.56 Assault Rifle with no problem. Shouldn't the cops be as well armed as the civilians if they are going to keep the peace?

Toss in there is a movement to defund the police:

Defunding, said activist Jeralynn Blueford, is the logical response from leaders in this moment of unprecedented unrest. “If police had been serious about reform and policy change, then guess what? People would not be this angry.”

What The Fuck? Serious What the Fuck?

We have seen chaos and looting in US cities over the past week. Gun stores have lines that wrap around the block as people scramble to buy weapons to defend their homes.

While I support keeping guns out of the hands of people like criminals and the looters, it is thoroughly insane to prevent the law abiding to their safety. And for the most part I am sceptical of firearms for home defence, I can get why some people would want them.

It's the image in this Tommy Gun ad from the days when they were freely available.  The ability to protect your home against marauding bands of evil doers.

And the do gooders (I can't really say the left since there are some of us who get what needs to be done) who would defund the police and try to make assault rifles illegal. The argument that "no one needs one of these in a civilian world" rings hollow these days.

The chaos of the past week ISN'T the civilian world and toleration of those who are destroying US cities is wrong. It's turning the "silence is consent" argument back at them. Even worse, it's not silence, but outright appeasement.

Black Lives Matters lost any relevance the moment the fires and violence broke out. They could have salvaged their effort if they stood down and denounced the violence. But allowing violence on either side is wrong.

I don't really like that I have to accept that assault rifles are an undeniable fact of US life, but there needs to be some feeling of safety and security until people stand down: especially the rioters and looters. Violence isn't the answer. Especially if you are not the body authorised by law to keep the peace. Breaking the law really isn't the answer.

There are options other than violence and chaos, however, there is a misguided belief that is what is necessary. That is costing the Black Lives Matters its legitimacy even amongst the people it claims to represent.

Because the people buying guns aren't just white.

If it's tourist season: does that mean we can shoot them?

I find the above bumper sticker amusing since I have lived in a lot of places which are dependent on tourism (tourist traps?). Nothing like inviting in a bunch of people from California to see your house and say "we don't have anything that old,"

Or watching people come and gawk at the place you buy your groceries. Although, I do have to admit to doing some "supermarket tourism". it is fun to see what  is on sale.

I've jokingly thought, "should I go to where these people live and act the way they do?"

But the reason I am saying this is that some people have distance from where the rioting is taking place and don't understand the scope of the looting and destruction. In particular, the destruction of people's homes or potential homes. the destruction of where people live.

While the people who are missing the scope of the destruction might dismiss the fire in the Starbucks at Philadelphia's Dilworth Plaza since it was just a building. There were cylinders of compressed gas which could have gone off. Not to mention the Starbucks was across from an apartment building.

There was another fire at 17th and Walnut in Philadelphia that lasted through the night. This was an apartment building which again might be dismissed because of the location. One the other hand, fire claimed an 189 affordable housing unit in Minneapolis.

How would the people who are neglecting the scope of the violence react if it were their home and nieghbourhoods being destroyed.

Let's not forget that some of the destruction has moved from what I would consider "strategic areas" which might make sense, if this could make sense, to the deprived areas that the people who claim that "black lives matter" also claim they want to help.

Raiding a supermarket in a deprived area only ensures that it will remain a food desert. Likewise the economic destruction will cripple any recovery made from the riots of the 60s.

Are these well meaning fools causing the Detroitification of US cities? While the do-gooders claim to care about black welfare, they will instead condemn poor city dwellers to an underclass existence.

The problem is that the peaceful protests should have ended the moment the destruction began. The fact that people are having this discussion shows that the destruction changed the dialogue for the worse. Economic power also brings political power.

The movement could have continued in a constructive manner, but it has now been overwhelmed by other concerns.

Reality versus gun rights

It's really fun watching people defend the rioters and looters in the current situation. I'm going to use Pennsylvania law, but there is Title 18, Article F, Chapter 55: Riot, Disorderly Conduct and Related Offenses, which means that the destruction and looting caused by the rioters is illegal.

No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

Trashing stores and stealing the contents is not a political act, but a criminal one.

Let's add in that not only is it a criminal act, but it is actual violence. As I said to one person being able to understand the rioters would also mean that you understand why people are protesting the Covid-19 lockdowns with guns. As they say, they may not agree with the method, but they understand the frustration.

Actually, I find the armed protesters less of a threat than I do an out of control mob who are actually engaged in violent acts. Arson is a major cause of loss of life and injury in commercial properties. Strangely, the people who somehow find that the rioting and looting are justified have an issue with people exercising their right to self-defence.

Rioting, looting, arson, and the other illegal acts mentioned in Title 18, the crimes code, and specifically Title 18, Article F, Chapter 55, are just that crimes and illegal. On the other hand someone does have the right to self-defence if they have a reasonable belief that are in danger of death or serious bodily injury. Which happens to be a very real threat if you are in the sights of rioters.

One person said, "couldn't you get out of their way, or leave town?" Is that a fair question if you get the lockdown order and AREN'T allowed to leave? Someone in that situation is pretty much stuck.

Which gets to the gun rights type's question: "shouldn't the person be allowed to defend themselves?" To which "Fuck, yeah!" seems to be the most sensible answer. And if the best weapon happens to be something semi-auto that can accept a large capacity magazine: then they should indeed be allowed to have such a weapon.

Which is why I titled this the way I did.

The person who somehow feels that the violence is "justified" or "understandable" should also be able to accept that people have a right to protect themselves. And the right which is lawful is the one of self-protection.

Not rioting.

Or as Donald Trump said: “when the looting starts, the shooting starts."

While I don't like Trump or the underlying events which led to the protests, the movement to violence has changed the game to a no win situation. And the people who are going to be the big losers are the ones the protests were supposed to help.

Likewise, I have made it clear that I don't support "gun rights" or believe it to be a real thing, but if people are going to condone violence, then they need to accept that the cycle of violence will continue.

And isn't ending the violence what the protests were trying to do?

 You can condemn the violence, yet still support the underlying cause. If anything, it makes far more sense to condemn the violence instead of allowing the cycle of violence to keep rolling on.

Who was the President of the US on the 13th of July 2013?

Wasn't it Barack Obama?

The post originally asked about the 9th of August 2014 is the date when Michael Brown was fatally shot by 28-year-old white Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in the city of Ferguson, Missouri. That was the event that led to the "Black Lives Matter" movement. BLM was actually started on 13 July 2013.

Still, Barack Obama was president. And he had been president for 7 years when the Michael Brown incident happened: not George W. Bush or Donald Trump.

It seems there was the usual rioting following that incident. Let's toss in that it seems that like school shootings, the usual drill is: black youth is harmed by police, riots occur, then fuck all happens, only to repeat.

There were also riots in Baltimore after the 2015 shooting of Freddie Gray. Again: black youth is harmed by police, riots occur, then fuck all happens, only to repeat.

My point is that rioting has been used as a tool even during what should have been a racially positive period. But have the results been ever really been positive? Why would I need to be asking all this if there had been positive results.

If anything, the rioting and violence have led to a continuation of the problem. If not making the situation much worse.

I need to add in for good measure that black leaders endorsed Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden during the 2016 and 2020 primaries. Both Clinton and Biden have a horrid record on race relations.

A riot may be the language of the unheard, but temper tantrums also don't get a positive response.

These consequences were actually foretold by some in the Civil Rights Movement, including the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. It is common on social media to see people quoting King’s statement that a riot is a “language of the unheard.” But in the same remarks from which this popular quote is drawn, King also stated that “riots are socially destructive and self-defeating.”

In February 1968, nine months before Richard Nixon’s election, King warned that increased rioting would lead to a “right-wing takeover.” He pointed to segregationist George Wallace’s presidential bid, saying, “Every time a riot develops, it helps George Wallace.”

“They’ll throw us into concentration camps,” he told supporters of the Poor People’s Campaign. “The Wallaces and [followers of the John Birch Society] will take over. The sick people and the fascists will be strengthened. They’ll cordon off the ghetto, and issue passes for us to get in and out. We cannot stand two more summers like last summer without leading inevitably to a rightwing takeover and a fascist state that will destroy the soul of the nation.”

it's time for a new tactic since the old one hasn't worked in 50 odd years. And King was correct about how things would turn out if rioting is the tactic of choice.

There are going to be a lot of people buying guns. Maybe even voting Trump.

I get the outrage at what happened to George Floyd, but I also happen to be from Detroit and have lived in Large metropolitan areas on the East Coast.

Get where I am coming from? Or do you think that White Flight is just because people don't like blacks?

While Detroit's becoming the lost city was mostly due to economic reasons, its riotous past didn't help matters. Likewise, visit Newark or Baltimore if you want to get that this isn't "whitesplainin'", but fucking common sense.

I mean you shouldn't need me saying this stuff if you were in anyway aware what has been going on for a while now.

If your rage has led to to believe that rioting is somehow justified, or in anyway a brilliant idea, then you need to get it through your thick skull that white people are going to tool up to protect themselves too. They point to the Italians in  Baltimore's Little Italy and the Korean shopkeepers in LA who protected their businesses with guns during the riots. Toss in that the whippl also don't decide that the US urban lifestyle isn't attractive as they thought and head for the burbs.

And where are you left? In a dead city.

Banks were a target of the rioting, which is also dumb since who the fuck are you expecting to invest in your neighbourhood to help it revive? Not to mention people are afraid of coming to your business. Or starting a business if it is going to be destroyed.

The exact mechanisms through which the riots affected economic activity over a long period of time are difficult to identify, but a large number of potentially reinforcing channels exist. Property risk might seem higher in central city neighborhoods than before the riots, causing insurance premiums to rise; taxes for income redistribution or more police and fire protection might increase, and municipal bonds may be more difficult to place; retail outlets might close; businesses and employment opportunities might relocate; middle and higher income households might move away; burned out buildings might be an eyesore; and so on. These damaging aspects of riots, the authors find, apparently outweighed outside assistance directed toward the riot areas in the wake of the disturbances.

Source: https://www.nber.org/digest/sep04/w10243.html

What gets me here are the people on the "left" who are somehow justifying this shit. Some them also support Biden, but do you think these riots are going to change Biden from being the Dem nominee. Especially after black "leaders" have endorsed him. Biden and Trump are pretty much the same on the race issue, if you also haven't figured that one out.

You may be your own worst enemy here.

Sometimes the cycle of violence needs to stop with you. After all, it's not called a cycle of violence for nothing. A cycle is "any complete round or series of occurrences that repeats or is repeated". The law of self-defence states that one use the MINIMUM amount of force necessary to stop the threat. Destroying a city is excessive.

Not to mention that violence just isn't productive in the long run. Which is where the question of violent instigators comes in. This would be a super way to make sure that the "Law and Order" Crowd win the election and wouldn't be anything new according to Teaching Tolerance.

Yet for many decades, the instigators and participants in race riots were usually white, not black, and the purpose of the rioting was to assert white domination rather than to express black anger and frustration. During Reconstruction and for a while thereafter, race riots often occurred during elections, as white mobs sought to intimidate the newly enfranchised black voters and to regain power from politicians who would give Blacks an equal opportunity in post–Civil War society. Riots in Memphis, Tenn.; New Orleans, La.; Charleston, S.C.; and Eufaula, Ala., led to dozens of African-American deaths.

 The bottom line is who will really end up benefiting from the violence of the last few days? It's already changed the dialogue from police brutality to senseless violence of the rioters.

This isn't whitesplainin' since I would think that any truly "woke" black person would already have sussed this (and if they haven't they ain't really woke, but fast asleep). And there isn't a whole lot I can do but try and connect the dots for you.

Because there won't be any progress unless black leaders can take control of the situation. And that means weeding out the violent instigators: especially if they are white. It also means renouncing violence and those who advocate it. I would also add setting straight the people who somehow find the mayhem of the past few days justified.

I am of the opinion that Martin Luther King, Jr., Sam Cooke, Malcolm X, and Fred Hampton were killed because they knew what I am saying. That the issue isn't race, but unifying the underclass. They also figured out that violence wasn't the answer, but a major part of the problem.

And what needs to be done are things this white boy can't do for you: especially if you are going to think in terms of race: not unity.