MAGA Riots, Woke Riots, impeachment, and hypocracy

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"All BLM protestors are muggers and looters" is just as dangerous and devisive as "All Trump supporters are planning a coup" and both are equally false.

This is a technique as old as time - ignore genuine (or possibly heartfelt but mistaken) peaceful protest by associating anyone and everyone involved in the protesting with the most extreme examples of negative behaviour you can find, even if that was limited to a handful of people in a 100,000 strong march. And then write the whole thing off as criminal activity by unhinged weirdos. It saves politicians from actually having to acknowledge there are problems, which would mean doing something about them, which is difficult.

Allegations of insider 'plant' activity are nothing new either. If I remember rightly wasn't some of the BLM vandalism later found to be one or two white neo-Nazi activists unilaterally (as far as we know) trying to start a race war? The same is now being said about the armed Trump protest, it was all engineered by BLM or Antifa. Though I've not seen any actual evidence yet.

The big difference here is in the justification. Trump has failed time and time again to provide any evidence to the Courts of wrong-doing in the electoral process. That hasn't stopped him lying about it over and over again, to stir people up, knowing eventually someone would take the sort of direct, illegal action he clearly couldn't. Teflon management.

In comparison it isn't hard to find cold, hard evidence of institutional racism in the United States. Floyd was a dubious character but he didn't deserve the treatment he got, and he became a figurehead for a much wider (and largely spontaneous and disorganised) outpouring of discontent.

Threatening and abusive behaviour, arson, vandalism, looting etc. etc. don't do anybody any favours. Yes those behaviours should be condemned, no matter who it was doing the misbehaving. But I think there's a particular level of disgust aimed at those willing to go to such extremes for NO PROVEN REASON AT ALL.

We've all seen Hollywood movies. Shooting bad guys to build a better world for everyone else is sometimes justifiable. Certainly a lot easier to justify than shooting families because you're a bad guy and consider it fun. So the context matters. The scariest characters of all in thrillers and horror movies are those that are completely mindless - they're monstrous precisely because they don't HAVE any logic, empathy or reason left.

Until some concrete evidence emerges that Trump is actually speaking the truth, we have to assume (based on the complete lack of evidence so far) that he isn't. Which means he's either knowingly lying or so detached from reality he now believes his own gibberish. People appear to be willing to die to support something that might be complete fantasy. That's a seriously disturbing level of fanatical indoctrination to anyone who isn't fanatical and hasn't been indoctrinated. Like, I can understand dying for a tangible cause, but dying for something that's just rumour, wild speculation and hysterics? That's properly bizarre.

The complete lack or irony awareness is also a warning sign, to me. If Trump is really a man of the people, fighting for the poor against the ruling elite (who are suddenly all Democrats, when did that happen?), how come his fanbase seems to be entirely middle aged, white men? The very people the system already benefits the most. Not many black women with Pride flags, were there? And yet no-one sees the obvious mismatch between words and actions.

Trump's finacial policies have been all about making the rich, richer. But that is being hidden by a smokescreen of blaming everyone else for the resulting lack of money for the middle classes (in particular) and the poor. We've already taken 7 cookies from the box of 10, but watch out! The Democrats want to take one cookie in taxes to give to a homeless man. HOW DARE THEY!! I find that kind of argument deranged enough to be quite unsettling. There's no logic or reasoning with some people and that makes them scary. Plenty of people with mad ideas in all places, backgrounds and walks of life of course, but at present Trump seems to be attracting the worst of them like moths to a flame. Literally playing with fire. And it shows a horrifying lack of morals, if Trump is happy to sacrifice people he's wound up with falsehoods he's made up, just to pander to his own ego. We're well into despot territory there.

Is that scarier than lots of people campaigning to end systematic racism, thereby making life significantly better for 15% of the population at the very least and in the long run more like 40%? That's a much more reassuring movement when it comes to human nature, decency, ethics and basic neighbourliness. But it threatens the profit margins of big business and the power games of the old boy network, so the establishment (of which Trump is a part) is busy claiming it threatens every US citizen. While at the same time also denying that anything needs to be changed anyway. And the Democrats haven't really done anything to address the issue either. How odd.

I think the key difference between BLM riots and the capitol incident lies in whether the perpetrators had the sympathy/support of people in power.

It was generally recognised during the BLM protests that most were intended to be peaceful but were hijacked by a few extreme elements. I haven't seen anyone defending violence during the BLM riots, though one person here has queried whether violent rioting actually occurred.

The Capitol violence was similarly perpetrated by a few extremists. However, with the Capitol violence, some seem unwilling to call out their behaviour as wrong, and prefer to deflect back to BLM riots, seemingly as a way of saying "our guys are no worse than yours".

This is not an equivalent case. Most supporters of the BLM movement have no sympathies with those who became violent during those protests. I can't see anyone here justifying the violence which occurred during the BLM protests as OK, everyone who agrees it occurs is denouncing it, even those who agree with the aims of the BLM movement. It's hardly reasonable to paint the whole of the democratic side of politics or liberals or BLM supporters as supporters of violence because of the actions of those few.

In contrast, it was quite clear that the perps in the Capitol last week had the support of Trump, and were treated sympathetically by some of the Capitol security. And even now there seems to be a reluctance among some in republican side of politics to denounce their actions as wrong.

If we all agree that violent protest (in whatever cause) is wrong, it is hypocritical to try to deflect the outcry over the Capitol incident by reference to BLM and others. Both were wrong - the BLM violence doesn't make the Capitol incident any less wrong! Even of there was more violence during BLM than at the Capitol, how is this a justification of what happened? And if anyone thinks the violence in either situation was justified, not only is your argument politically biased, but you need to take a good hard look at your values imo.

Both Trump and Biden are getting impeached. Trump is too blunt to be president and Biden is too dumb to be president. We need an intelligent leader who has the polished social skills of an American leader.

On a side note - really good discussion (1:28:12 length) - Eric Weinstein on Glenn Beck's program.

It's really good. Meaning, Eric's bailed up his economic 'how we got here and why' story (1945 to present) and is telling it to Glenn Beck, and really his audience, in as concise a manner as to convey it clearly and accurately for anyone who hasn't heard it - and in a lot of ways it's really similar to Mark Blyth's story on the situation.

The reason I bring it up in this thread - Eric's talking about both 'wokeistan' and 'magastan', how they came about, how each fuels the opposite, how political parties played into this cynically, and it's part of why I really find the surface muppet show way less interesting than what's going on in the deeper dynamics - which is where we really have to look for the source of the problem.