No Kings Day

[KaraBulut]

I hear you and I hear how angry you are. Violence is not the answer unless we are willing to completely ditch the current form of government, as in the American Revolution. It will only be used against us.

Kumbaya was effective in that it brought large groups of people together, made the news, and kept everything peaceful. And it was a reminder of what we were fighting for... a group meditation and centering of sorts.

I've mentioned a book about the "radical leftist Democrats" in the 1960-1970s - "Witness to the Revolution: Radicals, Resisters, Vets, Hippies, and the Year America Lost Its Mind and Found Its Soul (2016)" by Clara Bingham. It's a book that makes you appreciate what a load of horseshit the MAGA crowd is shoveling when they refer to the modern Democratic party as Communists, Radicals and Socialists.

That period during the 1960s and 1970s was a worldwide leftist movement that included Americans but in America it had two very distinct branches: a neo-Christian peace/human rights movement and an activist libertarian socialist movement. What we're seeing today in America is more aligned with the neo-Christian peace movement which is why there hasn't been bombings, assassinations, mass murders and rioting. MAGA Republicans would love to wish-into-being the more radical protest movements that existed on the left 60 years ago but so far, the violence and radicalization has been mostly on the right.

But with AI destroying jobs, the wealth gap expanding, foreign wars looming and voting rights once again being denied, they may awaken that radical leftist beast of their fantasies... but not this weekend.

 

[Riverrick]

I hear you, too.

Violence was required to stop the Vietnam War, yet the government did not change forms.

Violence was required to end slavery, yet it did not change our government's basic form.

Violence was required to get women the right to vote, else their movement was dismissed as just a silly notion, and it was for decades before it was finally effectual.

The passive folks must believe that the reformers will not be placated, and will be a bigger problem than the villains. Currently, they don't fear us --- at all.

Violence should not be the first choice, or even the second, but when other civil means have failed, and they have, it should be used to wake the sleeping, and we are surrounded by complacent bourgeoisie, who don't give a damn as long as their huge SUV has gas, their kids are spoiled, and they have their beer and 90" TV to watch NFL on in the den.

Think Dune, not Thoreau.

The civil rights movement of the 60's chose non-violence because they were in the minority, literally less than 20% of the country. If we, the majoirty of the population, cannot effect reform though the legitimate means of change, then we don't have to worry about being obliterated. They don't have enough power to lock us all up, kill us all, etc. And if we don't wrest power back now, before they finish consolidating theirs, we will be too late.

Speak. Strike. Redress.

Only because I feel like arguing today....

I don't know what violence you are referring to that ended the Vietnam War unless you mean Kent State and protesters weren't responsible for it.
As far as slavery goes, I think the South would not agree with you. Their basic form of government ended. If the North had lost, then our basic form of government would have ended. It was the risk we were taking.
As for women voting, I wasn't there but I don't recall widespread violence.

I, myself, often think that a massive disruptive protest is in order. But we haven't exhausted the legal means of dealing with this situation yet. And hopefully the midterms will give us more leverage in that regard.

 

[NotHardUp1]

Only because I feel like arguing today....

You're just doing it to make me feel better.

I don't know what violence you are referring to . . .

University of Wisconsin-Madison Protest (October 1967)

Pentagon Riot (October 1967)

1968 Democratic National Convention (August 1968)

Kent State Shootings (May 4, 1970)

Hard Hat Riot (May 8, 1970)

May 1970 Student Strikes

Their basic form of government ended.

Dominance in our government is not form, but power. We still had a Constitution, a Congress, a president, and the federal court system. Who was allowed to participate in power-sharing changed, but they participated in essentially the same form.

That is the desired goal now: to overthrow the oligarchs who have wrested power from the citizenry, enabled years ago by the Supreme Court declaring that corporations are people and that hidden money can flow in unchecked in our elections. We now have the most effete Congress ever, and their feebleness was bought and paid for by the oligarchs.

As for women voting, I wasn't there but I don't recall widespread violence.

I'm not advocating for Sherman marching to the sea. I'm saying we need some trigger points. And to be clear, yes, Trump & Vance & Homan and the goons will use it to overreach, which will help the cause, not hurt it. The Bull Connor atrocities, the hateful violence at Central High and in Boston's bussing, and the assassination of Malcom X, Martin Luther King, and the Freedom Riders, all ate away at the support for the status quo. It ripped away the mask of normalcy and exposed the barbarianism.

I'm not bloodthirsty. I'm just calling it now, not out of pride or vanity, but out of soberness. We need to steel our resolve. It will be needed over the next years.

But we haven't exhausted the legal means of dealing with this situation yet.

We face a unique problem in modern America. In the past, when the government has grown onerous, it was controlled when laws were passed or courts ruled. Today, we have a government that is proud of contradicting courts, of bragging that it is above checks and balances. We have a Congress that is complicit with the subversion of the Constitution, and a majority party that is proud of not creating laws by consensus.

I predict the midterms, even if they flip one or both houses, will see a continuation of illegal acts by the executive branch that will continue and worsen.

The more wrong I am, the happier I will be.