Friday, August 14, 2020

"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action."


I've cited that quotation from Ian Fleming in the past, and I'll do so in future whenever necessary, because it's as true today as it ever was.  We can apply it at present to the parlous state of our nation - particularly our larger cities.  When we see almost all America's big cities dissolving into crime, violence, rioting and anarchy, we can be sure it's not an accident, and isn't merely a social upheaval.  It's planned.  It's deliberate.  It's enemy action - and we, the law-abiding citizens of this country, are the target.

I'm grateful to Andrew, an Australian correspondent, for pointing out this string of tweets from "Mike" on Twitter.  I've edited it for layout, and removed one F-bomb.

I've been exchanging messages with friends about what what's happening in our cities: NY, Philadelphia and LA especially. A lot of disturbing things are not making the news. Even Republicans aren't drawing attention to it. Here's a message from a friend about life in NY today:

"Here's my neighborhood, Mike: An elderly man, enjoying dinner w/his wife at an outdoor restaurant, punched in the face. A woman waiting for the subway to come stabbed in the back. An older neighbor pausing to catch his breath told to pay two dollars in protection money or get the **** off that particular street corner. This is just the ten block radius from where I live in the last six days."

Other friends from NY talk about shattered business districts, drugstores with locked shelves, and hundreds of homeless people and parolees, including sex offenders, being moved into hotels on the Upper West Side adjacent to schools and playgrounds, which are filled with needles again like in the 1970s.

Friends in Philadelphia report large homeless encampments in the city center and being robbed at gunpoint.

Friends in LA talk about squatters taking over empty homes in professional class neighborhoods whose residents fantasize about emigrating to Canada.

Friends in all three cities have seen police officers refuse to get out of their cars while large-scale lawbreaking takes place in front of them. That’s in addition to the obvious mayhem being perpetrated on a nightly basis in Portland, Seattle and Chicago. Estimates are that up to one million people have already fled New York City — meaning nearly everyone who has the means to leave has left.

Minneapolis is a smoldering ruin that has sustained untold damage to its immigrant neighborhoods. This is not what I am reading. This is what I am hearing from people directly.

Make no mistake about it: America is now in the middle of a 70s style urban crisis whose root is a well-founded fear of violent crime and social collapse in the midst of a pandemic. The destructive spiral that has been unleashed by leftwing play-acting at revolution and pursuit of stupid fantasies of abolishing the police is destroying our greatest cities.

As urban residents vote with their feet, we are being left with empty urban shells with no tax base and no meaningful employment. The fact that the business of Washington DC is the Federal government and the national media is now centered here is blinding our society to what’s actually happening in other big cities across the country.

What’s happening is this: Thirty years of very meaningful social and economic progress in our cities — which has hugely benefited minorities — is being undone by a toxic coalition of professional ideologues and “organizers,” rich kids in Che t-shirts, well-coiffed Mayors, and a National Democratic Party that pretends that the ongoing destruction of minority owned businesses and the social and economic infrastructure that is a primary engine for raising African American and immigrant families into the middle class is somehow about “civil rights” or “racial inequality.”

It is not.

It is about a war on the American middle class being waged from above and below by people whose response to the values and the struggles of average American families is hostility and contempt — and who imagine that the threat of further violence is a crowbar they can use to get Donald Trump out of the White House. Sacrificing America’s cities on the altar of their political cause may seem bizarre, because that’s where so many of their voters live — but it’s not. Who else are urban liberals going to vote for?

Suburbanites can’t help but see the destruction of the cities as a harbinger of what could be next for them.

That's well and concisely put.  News reports every day bear out the truth of Mike's observations.  Consider, for example, the recent murder of a 5-year-old boy in North Carolina.





That sort of barbarism isn't new;  it's just becoming more widespread.  It's not confined to black-on-white crime, either - it's very much black-on-black as well.  In fact, the majority of such crimes are black-on-black, as the crime statistics from our major cities every week illustrate very clearly.

Remember Demetrius Griffin, Jr.?




That meme isn't inflammatory - it's the exact and literal truth.  Demetrius was burned alive.  His screams of agony must have been heart-rending... yet nobody in the surrounding area saw or heard a thing.  To this day, no witnesses have come forward, and his family is still waiting for closure.

Consider the fatalities from crime in every major US city so far this year.  Consider the race of the victims, and (where known) the race of the perpetrators.  Why isn't there many times greater an outcry against their pointless deaths than there is over the death of George Floyd?  The answer, of course, is that there's no political capital in their deaths to be exploited.

I've said many times that I'm neither Republican nor Democrat in my political sympathies.  I vote for the individual, not the party.  I'll vote for a good person who's a Democrat just as quickly as I'll vote for a Republican or an Independent or any other shade of political opinion, because I firmly believe you can't judge from the group to the individual.  There are good and bad Christians, good and bad Americans, good and bad Democrats, good and bad Republicans.  The label you apply to someone is almost meaningless.  What counts is their heart and soul, their conscience, the way they've lived their lives.

Nevertheless, there comes a time when the overwhelming preponderance of evidence forces one to confront reality.  I offer our big cities as an example.  See for yourself:
None of those sources are partisan;  none of them have any political axe to grind about what they're reporting.  What's more, none of them have taken the most recent rioting and politically-inspired unrest into account, proving that the deterioration in urban security is both widespread and of long standing.  Recent events have merely speeded up the progression.

Correlation may not imply causation:  but when the correlation is that strong, it speaks volumes.

As for where this is going, I'll let Abe Greenwald sum things up.

If it wasn’t clear in late May and early June, it should be well understood by now that we are in the throes of a genuine revolution of the most extravagant sort. Like messianic revolutionaries of the past, the revolutionary mob of the 21st century is out to “remake the world.” Their compass is “no longer pointed at one thing.” It’s aimed in all directions at once. As Thomas Paine said approvingly of France in 1791, “it is the age of revolutions, in which everything may be looked for.” A mission so grandiose demands the most radical assault on the current order, and changing the world begins with changing one’s country. So it was in France in 1789, Russia in 1917, and China in 1949. And this is especially so if one’s country is seen as the seat of the present evil and is also the most powerful nation on the planet. This is, then, most fundamentally a revolution against the United States of America and all it stands for.

. . .

We tend not to recognize the revolution for what it is—first of all because it seems to lack a proper paramilitary element. Popular notions of insurgency involve images of AK-47s, organized bands of armed men, and the general flavor of war. But in truth, the current revolution has drifted much further into this territory than the media care to admit. The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ), the anarchist territory formerly established in Seattle, boasted a provisional armed “security” force. Weeks after CHAZ was dismantled, Seattle police responding to a riot uncovered a cache of weapons including explosives, bear spray, spike strips, and Tasers. Antifa members not only routinely dress in similar black garb but have come to rely on a crude but dangerous arsenal of improvised fire bombs, fireworks, rocks, bricks, and frozen water bottles. In New York, three rioters were arrested for throwing Molotov cocktails at police vehicles. Revolutionaries in cities around the country have shown up to “protests” with rifles and assorted arms.

The revolution lacks martial discipline but not a body count. Three weeks in, some 20 people had been killed during riots alone. The number has climbed steadily since. Within the brief life of Seattle’s CHAZ, there were four shootings and two deaths. You can add to these the hundreds dead (overwhelmingly African-American) in major cities due to new policing restrictions. And this is to say nothing of the multitude of nonfatal injuries, including hundreds suffered by law enforcement. Among these is the likely permanent blinding of three federal agents in Portland whose eyes were targeted with high-power lasers.

. . .

Opposing the revolution will necessarily be a slower, more considered process than that which brought it into being. Revolutions are sparked into existence and take off at full gallop. They are born reckless and their nature doesn’t change. This is part of what makes them detestable to the civil-minded. Thus, putting down a revolution isn’t a matter of mirroring its recklessness from the opposite direction; it’s a sober process of reasserting prudence and order. The counterrevolution will not be won in the streets.

It will be accomplished, if it is to be accomplished, as Americans outside the revolution’s burning core come to grips with what it is; as its wreckage exceeds its justification; and as the gap between revolutionary claims and reality becomes too great to ignore.

There's more at the link.

All aspects of American society, every political party, our entire political, social and cultural framework, are threatened by this revolution.  It's up to us to stand firm against it, now, and at the ballot box in November.

Peter

21 comments:

McChuck said...

Welcome back to reality, Peter. Glad your eyes are finally starting to open.

If someone approves of the devil and all his doings, and works to do his vile bidding, then it is natural to infer that that person supports the devil. Because he does.

Brad_in_IL said...

Peter,
I've been living in the northern 'burbs of greater Chicago for about 5 years now ... and I very clearly recall the case of young Demetrius. I couldn't give you his name, but yes, no one is saying a f00kin word about the black-on-black violence. Hardly anyone in the black communities of greater Chicago are voicing outrage. There are a few, but they're a distinct minority. When the entire black community starts peacefully rising up and attempting to deal with the madness, then this (white) American suburban Jew will perhaps be able to stand with Black Lies Matter. Until then .. no way.

Dave said...

I can't help but wonder if this would have turned out differently if the politicians had not neutered the cops.

A year ago, when people worried 'will the cops obey orders to seize weapons', I was worried as well. Now? I'm not so sure. As I commented elsewhere, a pension only matters if you get to spend it -- and you can't spend it if you get fired or killed because your bosses were too busy worshiping at the idpol idol.

"It's a cruel, cruel summer..."

APL said...

"When we see almost all America's big cities dissolving into crime, violence, rioting and anarchy, we can be sure it's not an accident, and isn't merely a social upheaval. It's planned."

Ok, next question: Who is orchestrating the unrest?

Steve Johnson said...

Is there a reason you don't want to say, "It is the Democrats, and not the Republicans, who are behind the urban uprising?"

Nylon12 said...

August 19, 2020 BLM activist Ariel Atkins stated "looting is reparations".....there you go.Theft is justified by the lawbreakers.

Marty said...

#sayhisname - Cannon Hinnant.

Peter said...

@Steve Johnson: It's not as simple as saying one political party is behind it. Members of both political parties are in league with those behind it. Take, for example, the RINO members of the Republican Party, the never-Trumpers, the liberal wing, the Mitt Romneys. They're as bad as anyone when it comes to standing up (or refusing to stand up) against this.

Yes, I agree, the Democratic Party is largely on the side of the rioters. However, some individuals in that party are not. I won't condemn every Democrat for the actions of some, just as I won't condemn the members of any group for the actions of some - even most - of its members. It boils down to the individual, not the group.

That's been the case in almost every group I've ever encountered, up to and including fundamentalist, extremist Muslim mujahedin, members of Qibla in southern Africa. Some of them tried to kill me. My life was saved by other members, who warned me and helped me get out of Dodge before the others could close in.

Get the idea?

Uncle Lar said...

Last year Alabama, the reddest of states, through dirty tricks and political chicanery found itself with a Democrat senator. His platform was "I'm a moderate and will fight for the citizens of my state. I will not be beholden to Nancy Pelosi or the radicals in the party." So he won the special election to fill the remainder of Jeff Session's seat, and almost immediately established his voting record as lock step with San Fran Nan and all the usual suspects. If there is any justice in this sad and troubled world Jones will be a 1/3 term Senator and be replaced this year.
Does not mean the Republicans are much better, but for the most part they simply want to preserve their cushy jobs and maintain the status quo while the Democrats, many of them, seem bound and determined to destroy just about everything we common citizens hold dear and sacred in our lives.
And the majority of both parties will promise anything to get elected then spend most of their term of office ignoring everything they swore to accomplish.

Rob said...

Remember how pallets of bricks showed up all over the country for the spontaneous riots?
Someone knows who caused that to happen and they are not talking...

This battle runs deeper than the republican/democrat sides of the same coin. The republican/democrat differences are there as a distraction (the money keeps going to the same pockets).

Remember President Eisenhower's warning when he left office in 1960?
This is about a different hand flipping a different coin than the one that has been running things since the military-industrial complex won.

Beans said...

Dave - the cops are neutered from taking action because both their overlords on the city councils won't support them and the local prosecutors won't prosecute any rioters.

But they (the cops) will do Red Flag gun confiscations because it's much safer to have 30 cops show up at one white guy's house (it's always a white guy, ever notice that?) and it's both supported by their city council overlords and local prosecutors.

The cops only do what the prosecutors and city council tell them to do. Just like Broward County under Sheriff Israel, they only did what the local powers told them to do.

Follow the law? What law? Law doesn't exist anymore in many of these places.

And that's the issue. Where is the Law? If no Law, then what?

Back in the 1850's, twice citizens of San Fransisco had to take their city back from both the thugs and politicians and held it until the US Army took control. We are at that point, we've been at that point for years in some places.

And if one group of people, or several groups of people, don't have to obey the Law, then the Law is dead. Done. DRT. If the Law only applies to white people who are up to but not quite upper class, then there is no law. If illegals have more rights and don't have to obey the Law, then there is no Law. If blacks won't support the Law, then there is no Law.

One of the greatest things about the show "Live PD" was that it showed that crimes, all crimes, are committed at a much higher rate by minorities than mainstream whites. And that marijuana and booze and other drugs are a major factor in all crimes. (Many cops pulled people over (usually black but also hispanic but few whites,) because they could smell reefer coming from the car while driving behind it. WTF?)

One of the greatest things about the show "The First 48" is that it shows that blacks commit violent crimes against blacks and whites out of proportion to the crimes that whites commit against whites or blacks. And the single greatest threat to a white female is a black man. No, not racist statements, just facts.

Why is it a hate crime for a white to attack and/or kill a black for being black, but not a hate crime for a black to attack and/or kill a white for being white?

There is no Law. The Law is dead. And as the Law goes, so goes our nation.

Steve Johnson said...

So in 1944 it wouldn't be accurate to say "Germany is an enemy of America" even though many Germans were not personally opposed to the USA? Groups can be, and are, opposed to other groups. To fail to see this is to behave with blind recklessness.

BFR said...

I am regularly amused by the reaction to "All of This®".

I watched the failure to interdict the communists in the 60's, including the "Anti-U.S.", (not the more preferred "antiwar label) artists and their lawyer guilds. Instead of rounding them up, and prosecuting them with the most severe charges and sentences available, including any eligible for quick capital punishment, they were wrist slapped.

The current batch are their second and third generation offspring. American society, providing their children to this ilk for 70 years or more, has created a culture ready made for current events. The parents are just as stupid and evil as their children.

Anyone who thinks that they are not willing and able to do whatever it takes to win is foolishly naive. The election? They will destroy it if they can, and those plans are already underway. There is nothing, NOTHING, that is off the table or too evil within their considerations. There is no atrocity they would not commit and no genocide too large for them if it gets them what they want, which is absolute rule..."By Any Means Necessary" is the title of their playbook.

If you cannot imagine, if you think "well that would be horrible, they would never do "that", then you should just sign up to help them, because that mindset is that of the polezniye duraki.

Some of the useless say that there are people on "both sides with good faith":
There is a major problem with that argument.

"We hold these above truths to be self-evident."

The parties on the other side do not.

When one side of the argument is held by people who proclaim that mathematics is racist, and that a person's sex (what they term gender) is interchangeable upon whimsy, it is analogous to arguing with someone asserting that 2+2 equals 9.

One side wants to live in peace; the other side wants those people dead.

Good faith cannot close that gap.

Michael said...

Normally I don't cross post as I can speak my mind pretty well. All I ask of folks is to be a Good Neighbor. But this one speaks my point better than I can right now.

This post is making the rounds on email today. I thought I would share.

I never cared if you were gay until you forced your lifestyle on me and my kids.
I never cared what color you were until you started blaming my race for all of your problems despite your bad behavior.
I never cared for your political affiliation until you started condemning me for mine.
I never cared that your point of view was different than mine until you demanded I change mine to match yours.
I never cared if you were rich or poor until you screamed discrimination while I was promoted for my hard work and you demanded it be handed to you with little effort on your part.
I never cared where you were born. I just asked that you follow the rules and laws like I do. You abuse our generous and benevolent system and demand more.
I never cared that you were born someplace in the US that had a different culture than me until you demanded my culture and history be erased.

NOW I CARE.

My patience and tolerance are gone.

I am not alone; there are millions of us who have had enough of you.

We are done with you.

REMEMBER Everything on the internet is recorded and available for lawyers and Gov.com. Review your post and ask yourself would you say that before a Policeman or Judge?

Because as many folks HAVE found out THEY DID once the Lawyers dug it up for their case.

Peter said...

@Steve Johnson: In World War II, even while calling for unconditional surrender of the Axis powers, the USA and Britain were careful to point out that they were not blaming the entire German and Japanese peoples - rather, their rulers and the institutions that had enforced their rule.

Be very, very careful of stigmatizing an entire group. If you do, there's often no possibility of "mending fences" and getting along in future. It's "the weakest goes to the wall". For one side at least, and perhaps for both, there's no future in that.

Michael said...

People tend to forget history Peter, maybe because they never learned it at all. After the American Civil War, why would I have to say American?

Because a LOT of countries have civil wars and some were destroyed by the "Against the Wall" shoot 'em attitude of the "Winners". But back to the American Civil War we almost lost our country after Lincoln's assassination BECAUSE of the PUNISH those Rebels attitude in Congress.

A fair bit of the Go West movement was folks re-inventing themselves as Not-Southerners as well as a lot of South American migration.

We will need to mend fences, there will be plenty of bad blood to resolve IF we are to rebuild back into the Constitutional Republic so many proclaim to love.

Sometimes Good Neighbors need to forgive each other once the smoke clears or the Hatfield's and McCoy's will again be the situation on the streets.

Bob Gibson said...

Repeal the 17th Amendment!

Bob Gibson said...

Repeal the 17th Amendment!

MrGarabaldi said...

Hey Peter;

I had blogged before about this is an outshoot the movement to break the middle class, this is the endgame. The people pulling the strings believe that they should rule by imperial fiat and what is stopping them is the middle class and they have to break the middle class to do it. We are the modern day "Kulaks" in the coming russian revolution. We individually have little power but together we are the bulwark against those that think that they deserve to rule over us because they habe a lot of power and money. They believe that they are the new feudal class and we "hoi Pelloi" would just be put in our place, things would be so much smoother. The Super rich and everyone else. This is what they want, ultimate power and they have to break the middle class to do it.

BFR said...

"In World War II, even while calling for unconditional surrender of the Axis powers, the USA and Britain were careful to point out that they were not blaming the entire German and Japanese peoples - rather, their rulers and the institutions that had enforced their rule."

Rulers and institutions have zero long term capability when the populace rises against them.

Rulers and institutions are covenantal and representative in nature, and that representation goes in both directions. Every society has the responsibility and obligation to either approve or reject the actions of their government. The reality is that they are always performing those duties (condoning or forbidding) by their action or inaction. As such, there is, in reality, nothing that sustains the premise of "non-combatants". They might not be uniformed or armed, but their very existence as a citizen of a given society and culture places upon them the full responsibility of citizenship, of which whose military or government is acting. Collateral damage and casualties is simply sophistry to ease the reality that yes, we are going to destroy them and tough luck if you live in the same neighborhood.

They are therefore, as a group, not exempt, and they are responsible for the actions of their representative individuals.

"getting along in future"

I do not want to get along with them; their idea of compromise is either a boot on your face for eternity, or dead. They have been on this trajectory for over 100 years; this is and always has been existential in nature.

Peter said...

@BFR: Like it or not, this boils down to "live with them, or die with them". We don't have the option to "live without them". This country is split right down the middle, give or take a few percentage points. Neither side can dominate; neither side has control. If we choose to hate each other enough that things descend into civil war, there won't be much of a future for any of us, because a modern civil war won't be like the first one this country experienced in 1861-65. It'll be like the Balkans in the 1990's, or Lebanon from the 1980's until today. The entire country will fragment and melt down, and no group will come out of it whole, or even partly whole.

Study history, and learn. Defending oneself against aggression? Sure - no problem with that at all.
It's a basic human right. However, insisting on an all-or-nothing, absolutist position will only attract an absolutist response. If that's what you want, please go attract it somewhere else, where the rest of us won't have to be caught in the crossfire.