Please don't encourage violence.
The anti-Trumpers aren't fighting corruption, they're fighting democracy and their fellow citizens.
Note that I'm anti-Trump myself - I voted against him and find him to be an embarrassment. But that's no justification for putting on masks and beating up random people. Nor is it an excuse for encouraging others to do the same.
It’s certainly difficult to see how anti-trump people are anti-democracy: the mechanism with which trump won is distinctly NOT democratic.
To some extent, democracy (and a republic to a far greater extent) only works because of fear of violence. This was discussed heavily in the early days of the republic (well, both the us and rome).
I am thinking during the Vietnam War protests or Civil Right Movement. I have heard that one reason MLK's protests worked is because there was a credible threat from Malcom X and Nation of Islam, which encouraged gun ownership and self defense.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ballot_or_the_Bullet
Yielding and accepting MLK's ideas was only possible as a compromise to preventing a more violent outcome from other groups.
Quite possibly, I only remember stuff I read a while back and don't know the details.
> he was always a marginal figure across the whole society
I don't disagree that he wasn't marginal, he was. But he wasn't unknown. He advocated violence for self defense. Read "The Ballot or the Bullet" speech
http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/speeches/malcolm_x_bal...
He doesn't say that people should go and commit indiscriminate violence but there is warning that violence might happen if violence against blacks continues. He mentions someone throwing a Molotov cocktail and how unheard of it was for black people to do that. The implication is, this stuff will start spreading fast and quick if the current course continues. There is also an interesting parallel made how the US Army was defeated by guerrilla fighters in Asia, that was a very pertinent remark and appeals to what was on many people's minds at that time.
I think those who were in power certainly knew and were aware of Black Nationalism, Black Panthers, them buying and training to use firearms.
> MLK "won" because he and his allies got the federal government, the establishment media and many liberal Republicans (the convention then) in Congress on his side.
I posit that it happened because there was threat of something like Malcom X was saying happening. I am probably wrong as am only am amateur, you seem to know a bit more about it. So I'd like to hear more on this if you have time or patience.
https://www.vox.com/2015/4/30/8518681/protests-riots-work
Many Americans like to whine about their gun rights because they need the guns to fight an oppressive government! But it seems the U.S. government has gotten away with quite a lot lately in terms of how corrupt they've become and the fact that so many Americans own guns doesn't seem to have deterred them too much.
In fact, every protest seems to be met with increasingly more violence from the government. Something tells me they aren't too scared at all about people's guns. I can only imagine how they will act when they start allowing police departments to launch drones against protesters in the future (taser-armed, pepper spray-armed, whatever).
At least, that's a theory. It might turn into a bloodbath.
And more importantly, law enforcement responds much differently to guns possessed by black people and guns possessed by whites. An African-American only has to put their hand in their pocket or reach for something, and they are shot. White Americans are encouraged by some in law enforcement to own guns and to use them to prevent crime. People talk about gun owners stopping criminals; you would have to be insane to be black and draw a firearm anywhere around police officers or white gun owners, and especially at the scene of a crime.
Right wing protesters/militias regularly parade around with clearly visible guns. Now, perhaps there is a double standard w.r.t. how police deal with them, as opposed to left-wing protesters... But perhaps there isn't.
That is the difference between a first world country and a second or third. Some people may hate trump but they also know in a few years people will have the option of voting for someone else.
When you change leaders by dragging them down a street you get the types of leaders who will drag you down the street if need be.
Or, an ICE agent, police officer, border agent, private security guard, etc. etc.
"Third-world" doesn't mean what you think it means. Switzerland is a third-world country.
A citation would be nice. Also, what countries would be second-world with that definition?
EDIT: Note that I asked what countries would be SECOND-world with this definition. Not third-world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World
>Also, what countries would be second-world with that definition?
In present-day English, the Third World is "the developing countries of Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa".[1] Third world countries in Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Africa include Russia, Albania, Nigeria, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Dominican Republic, Cuba, South Africa, and Armenia. The term usually suggests poverty and low level of industrial development and thus it is the opposite of the term developed nations. This usage is considered by some to be offensive.
About the origin of those terms see [2].
The Second World term was seldom used in Europe even during the 70s as far as I can remember. There is no more second world now. We jump straight from first to third world. It feels sadly right if we agree that the gap is widening.
By the way, nobody in Europe would think Russia is a third world country. It's first world.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_World
[2] http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/third_world_countries....
First, second and third world is now drastically more commonly used as a reference to the level of development.
Oh and BTW, understanding that “1, 2, 3rd world” are not a success scale enshrining the winner position to one’s own moral system does help a lot in not coming through as an arrogant fool.
This is the thing where I am not sure of, and this is the problem. You remember "Lock her up"? Who can guarantee that Trump is not going to follow through on this promise? Who can guarantee that Trump will not again cooperate with the Russians in order to get reelected? Or for what its worth who can guarantee that Trump won't pardon himself (or fire Mueller) when the fire of the Mueller investigations grows too hot - and then, who can guarantee that the Republicans will grow the spine to impeach him?
The perspective of a possibility of change in three years is growing slimmer and slimmer by the day, with each moderate Republican getting replaced by an alt-righter. And you better hope no other Supreme Court justice dies or retires as long as Trump is in power - because then nothing that challenges gerrymandering will pass the SC.
1) He hasn't in over a year of office.
2) He can't do anything that overrides the judicial and legislative branches. Which is why ALL of his major plans go no where. No Muslim ban. No reproductive rights changes. Nothing.
3) If she commits crimes, why should she be above jail time? Shouldn't everyone who major commits crimes be in jail? Trump, Hillary, what's the difference? A crime is a crime--regardless of whether you like that candidate.
And back to #2. That is why your worldview is both insane, and dangerous. Even when you have a "Bad president" the rest of the country keeps ticking along fine because the other branches are designed from the ground up to prevent dictators of all types.
So you basically just want to burn the country to the ground because "your candidate" didn't win. And that's a horrific reason to plunge a country into chaos. You're basically arguing to plunge the country into the very chaos you claim we're already in.
Dragging bodies through the streets? Burning down buildings, and neighborhoods? Smoke bombs? Throwing bottles of piss at veterans? Does that sound like something that brings freedom and liberty and peace? Does utopia come from evil? And how in the world can you be sure "your vision" of utopia is going to be the one that comes when you pull a revolution? You think when you destabilize the most powerful country in the world, that nobody else in the world is going to try and swoop into that power vacuum?
Only if you've been drinking the coolaid.
So let me end with a quote from Bill Clinton:
They need to be for something specific
and not just against something because
if you’re just against something,
somebody else will fill the vacuum
you create.”https://www.guttmacher.org/article/2017/07/laws-affecting-re...
There have been plenty of changes. They may not have occurred on the Federal level, but at the state level, plenty of things have changed. Both of which are empowered in both positive and negative directions (I leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine which is which) by this administration.
For now, they hold. Trump has (more or less) silently nominated huge numbers of federal judges (http://www.businessinsider.de/trump-judges-attorneys-nominat...). Once these go through, or a SC judge dies/retires, these are lifetime positions and will shape US justice for decades.
> 3) If she commits crimes, why should she be above jail time? Shoudln't everyone who major commits crimes be in jail? Trump, Hillary, what's the difference? A crime is a crime--regardless of whether you like that candidate.
"Three felonies a day" and "selective enforcement" are the key points here. Of course it's fine if Hillary really did commit a crime by mishandling her emails - but if his inner circle gets off free for the same offense (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/us/politics/private-email...), it's not fair any more.
> Even when you have a "Bad president" the rest of the country keeps ticking along fine because the other branches are designed from the ground up to prevent dictators of all types.
The Electoral College was designed to keep a unfit person from office, and Trump with his many failures (from bankruptcies over countless accusations of sexual misconduct, some even confessed by himself, to being in collusion with the Russians and the simple fact that many professionals regard him as mentally unfit) still passed. I do not place trust in a system that has been rotting since decades.
> So you basically just want to burn the country to the ground because "your candidate" didn't win.
Burning the country to the ground is what Trump and his destructionist friends (the Bannon circle) are right in the middle of doing! By defunding critical parts of the state, they're eroding public service and thus the trust of the population in the government!
> You think when you destabilize the most powerful country in the world, that nobody else in the world is going to try and swoop into that power vacuum?
This is the thing that scares me: A President obviously unfit for office and chaos across the world - including, to come back to the original topic, Romania and many other Eastern European countries. A competent president would be literally doing everything to keep the US in influence and the Russians in check - Trump is embroiled in so many scandals that Putin, Xi and Kim Jong-Un have free rein.
And, maybe a bit funny because I identify as far-left, but what Putin has been doing in (Eastern) Europe (not just invading Ukraine, but also supporting right-wing and pro-Russian parties in France, Germany, Poland or Hungary) is really scaring me. Putin is dangerous, Europe is way too far split to be any kind of opposition and the US cannot be relied upon any more. Not really nice prospects.
Supporting terrorism to override that system is awful, regardless of how you feel about capitalism.
Point is, you need masses. Masses that are interested in politics, and actually have the time to be interested in politics! If I would have to work two (or more) jobs to get by certainly politics were solid bottom of my priority list. Democracy needs an electorate that is interested in democracy or it will get owned by a minority who is, and then dismantled.
It was also specifically stated by the system architects that their safeguards would inevitably become null.
With that being said, I do not advocate such violent measures. The strategies of Dr. King seem to me to be more effective than violence when dealing with an enemy which has a monopoly on violence.
As far as your remarks on power, I hope you also understand it isn't a replacement for a hierarchy built on competence. Something that the Capitalist system seems to reward as well...interesting...
I doubt this. When the other side has orders of magnitude more money than you, you don't have access to protection by the legal system - this is the very reason why and how, for example, patent trolls stay in business.
> and in fact the utilization of such could allow them to come out of poverty
You're talking about trickle-down effect, I guess? That's been proven false. When all the employers pay only the least they have to, you won't ever get out of poverty. What could help is strikes, but union busting has taken care of that "problem" for the employers.
> it isn't a replacement for a hierarchy built on competence
Competence does not seem to be rewarded as much as it was in ye olde times. Look at who is in government right now: certainly not the experts that the US needs, and in Europe the situation doesn't look much better...
(for the record, given your question above: I have not downvoted you)
Again for the utilization of private property, a person is still able to use their own property without the interference of ANYONE else. I'm not speaking about rich vs poor, I'm speaking as an individual.
Essentially what my entire post has been is about the dynamic of power and victimization when it comes to the criticism of Capitalism. I'm sorry but I really can't subscribe to the idea that it's inherently violent because poor people are oppressed and then the police are used as the henchmen of the rich when the poor act out. Which is why I raised the concept of competency to begin with. A poor person has the right and if they have the ability, they can try to leverage their own way of acquiring value. It becomes violent when resources are scarce and the 'poor' are victimized into believing that the rich are the oppressors aka Maoist China & Stalinist Russia. As long as opportunities exist to move up and down the class/social ladder I don't again think its concise to say that more 'power' is needed and I'd again say that understanding that hierarchy can be achieved of competency is important to remove the idea of victimization.
Lastly to explain my point simply, you might be for those that throw bricks as a display of 'power', but those bricks can be used not only for the skyscrapers of the 'oppressors', but they can be used for the bricks of small businesses and other uses to enable poor people to make a living and in turn create value for others in a capitalist society. How is this related to President Trump and how he became president/what this means for America? I literally have no idea how American capitalism is to blame?
It seems like you just don't like Trump, that's fine me neither. But I'm not going to start raving about anti-capitalistic ideology while I type all of this on a MacBook am I...
Those groups cannot begin to challenge the government with violence. What you are suggesting is much more likely to end up in an orgy of bloodshed with innocent people being the victims. It's time we evolve.
People were literally bombed for wanting better worker's rights a century ago, apparently it's time for that again?
When I say evolve, we're not the apes in 2001 anymore are we?
Notwithstanding the conclusion, the argument is a bit naïve. It's not like we have third party candidates winning left and right. There are established players who crush outside competition, regardless of the quality of the candidates. And there's no guarantee that even if you have any influence, you'll see the benefit in your lifetime. The idea that every problem can be solved peacefully isn't a bad one, but it's just something you have to accept in faith, not something you can ground in truth. Pretending that simply being dedicated to a good cause is all it takes to fix a problem entirely misses why people are proposing other paths in the first place.
No claim about the future can be grounded in "truth", but I can give a very strong factual basis to peaceful change: Centuries of history, in all the democracies in the world. No other means, including violent revolution, has achieved more positive change for humanity.
Isn't there just as much (if not more) history for e.g. autocracies? Couldn't you make the same argument for autocracies a few centuries ago? How is the mere existence of democratic history convincing of anything?
> No other means, including violent revolution, has achieved more positive change for humanity.
Wasn't it violent revolution that led to many of these democracies in the first place?
And how in the world am I supposed to argue with abstract claims like that? If you'll claim no other means has achieved better, I'll just claim that, actually, other means have achieved better. I'm sure you're convinced now, right?
playing by the rules of the game one can play varying game sessions, yet the chess will stay chess and Go will stay Go. Rules define the game. The set of available scenarios under given rules either covers the target outcome or not. In case of the latter the rules change is needed, and the given rules may not allow for the necessary rules change.
>Violence is the lazy and cowardly way out.
if only somebody of that group of lazy cowards applied for the Colonies tea tax collector position 244 years ago... though even if a one applied and was accepted, then what? I'd be really interested to learn your thoughts on that matter.
Btw, interesting that after that violence, a pretty successful rules were written by many the same people - those rules have been working for those 2+ centuries since then allowing for the society to successfully adjust to and frequently lead the changes in our civilization during that time with only one major violence outbreak related to the rules.
We still are and we're getting worse these days.
Voting is obviously better. I was just explaining why those protests in Romania were so effective in contrast to the protests here. I remember the science march, the women's march, occupy, which lasted for a long while. Good things came up from those sure. But there were just not an effective way to make the government listen or do anything, at this point in time, in this particular country because the precondition where not there for it.
Organizing and planning for next elections, having a desirable platform that resonates with voters (in all states, not just on the coasts) is the way to go. Without that things, and focusing on how many scoops of ice-cream Trump had, or how long he shook Macron's hand is also not a valid strategy, and it just sets the stage for a re-election.
Thus the implication seems quite clear - rise up and murder a leader if you want to be heard (then and now).
(OP here). The other implication is use the rules of the system first. Yeah the system is rigged, there are lobbyists and special interests, and propaganda at work. But that is preferable to violence in the streets.
> rise up and murder a leader if you want to be heard (then and now).
The point about the violence is that large protests as an effective tool to make the government listen or do anything are not effective in US, but are effective in Romania, for example, and the reason is that there is a collective memory of relatively recent past of what had happened there.
Another point is that the threat of violence has to be implied or imminent. There might be another way to create that belief than killing a leader.
This is why the Civil Rights movement was successful (To a point). On the one hand, you had MLK preaching peace, and on the other hand, you had folks like Malcolm X, and the Black Panthers, who made it very clear that they will defend their rights.
White America was scared to death of the latter - to the point where they made concessions to the former.
Likewise with Gandhi in India. The British didn't leave because he made them feel bad - they left because if a revolt took place, they knew wouldn't be able to repress it.
You don't have to be killing anyone, there are many ways to stop the machine, but peaceful protest alone has never changed anything.
That's not a valid reason to downvote, unless you're sure they did it purpose as an insult. You could have just pointed out the error.
Sorry buddy but Ceausescu was not killed by the people. His trial was a disgrace, was rushed, staged and was brutal by any democratic standard. Ceausescu was killed by those that were already working under his direct command at that time (here's the main actor sitting next to Ceausescu which also became president a few weeks later: http://static3.evz.ro/image-original-605-388/cache/2016-10/c...).
The whole thing was merely a shift in power by cutting the head of the beast and re-growing a new one from the same body. During those days, all the "revolutionaries" that we saw on TV killing Ceausescu and torturing his children LIVE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNpca3Mh7as), formed a "mafia" group that would rule the country for the next decade; a period in which every industry was sold by these people.
> People came out to protest and within days decision was reversed.
That's more than a month of protests (18 Jan - 26 Feb). We eventually won but we left those protests knowing that this government will try to do its own ways sometimes later. What we are fighting here is the same party that was formed after the revolution in 1989.
Yeah people on the street didn't get to fire at him and his wife, someone else who already had some authority did. There was nothing democratic about it, but there was also not much protesting and rioting following it. People in large supported the capture and execution, no?
Do you feel that if there was a prolonged trial that it would have been a fair trial and it would have somehow ended up better for the country? I am asking honestly as an outsider, I don't know much about it.
> That's more than a month of protests (18 Jan - 26 Feb).
Sorry, I was going by the NYT article which I linked to which said " After five straight days of spirited mass protests..."
> People in large supported the capture and execution, no?
Yeah they did, with the information they had at that time - mainly the nation television which was also seized and controlled by this mafia that is still in power today.
You cannot kill people because it's a popular demand. I don't regret those days at all, I'm just saying - the general population was fouled into believing all sorts of crazy stuff that weren't true.
In short no, the people didn't ask for Ceausescu to be killed. It just "happened". After a longer trial he would have been killed probably...who knows.
> there was also not much protesting and rioting following it
There wasn't, the "terrorists" threat lasted even after they were executed. We were afraid to go on the streets during this time. People had other things to worry about.
No protests were made regarding the killings of the Ceausescu's but, in 1990, people started a new riot against the new "faces" that were trying to put themselves in power. It was called the mineriada: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_1990_Mineriad
This is what happened to those who tried to protest against the new government at that time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xNiGSE0ybQ
There's a big article (the only interview given by his son Nicu) in which he explains how everything took place and how the population were led to believe there's terrorists killing people: https://www.historia.ro/sectiune/general/articol/singurul-in...
The 2017 protests were peaceful.
The ones in 1989 were violent all over Eastern Europe with the exception of Czech Republic. The killing of Romania's late dictator and the mock trial was the doing of former secret police, who's corrupt offspring and relatives are the politicians in power today. They only took advantage of the protests to picture themselves as heroes and sieze power for themselves.
Anti Trump protesters that destroyed private property are just vandals who can't accept the outcome of a democratic election.
That's the point. Because the 1989 were violent, allowed for 2017 to be effective. Peaceful protests are easy, but peaceful and effective is hard.
> Anti Trump protesters that destroyed private property are just vandals who can't accept the outcome of a democratic election.
I can agree with that. They\ ones that came to DC burned a few trashcans, broken windows and set a car on fire. What they perhaps didn't realize is that DC has pretty steep penalties for that kind of stuff, and now many of them have felonies on their record (in US those are the more serious charges that stay with you for a life and often prevent people from getting a good job in the future).
Also Chomsky has pointed out that Antifa is a great gift to the right.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/noam-chomsk...
That's an interesting way to think about it, but perhaps correct as I think in aggregate their action alienate more people than it inspires and in general fail to make the government afraid so their demands are just not heard and paid attention to.
This is BLATANTLY false, please get your facts straight! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1989
http://chnm.gmu.edu/1989/exhibits/unique-experience-of-roman...
The NSF (PDSR/PSDR after that, currently PSD) mentioned in the introduction is the continuator of the Romanian Communist Party. They're the ones who siezed power and split into or infiltrated most if not all mainstream political parties. They're also the ones currenly in power. The current protests are also against them.
But maybe it wasn't a joke after all...
It is simply too tempting to not do it. They have information which the Stasis and KGBs of the past would kill for.
One thing Romanian government should be careful with is not listening to protesters. That is at least one country where they have learned to not piss off the people. In 1989 they rose up, caught and killed their corrupt dictator. All in the matter of days.
Nobody forgot that. In early 2017 I remember they passed some decree to weaken some corruption laws. People came out to protest and within days decision was reversed. It was quick and short. Everyone wiped hands on pants and went home.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/04/world/europe/romania-prot...
Occupy and anti-Trump protestors should study and learn how that works. You see to have effective peaceful protests, there has to be a credible threat of extreme and overwhelming violence that will follow unless the government listens. Government should be afraid of the people.
The interesting development is that with Facebook and large centralized social media companies, the strategy seems to silence and prevent these protests from forming to begin with.