[FRIAM] Fallback in barbarism
⛧ glen
gepropella at gmail.com
Fri Jan 8 01:34:05 EST 2021
Your exuberant confidence always catches me off guard. I mean, I largely agree with you. But, as usual, my confidence in my own opinion is vanishingly small compared to yours. Anyway, here are some articles that help me doubt my opinion:
https://www.propublica.org/article/capitol-rioters-planned-for-weeks-in-plain-sight-the-police-werent-ready#1040996
https://www.opb.org/article/2021/01/06/washington-2021-legislative-session/
https://pugetsoundanarchists.org/evergreen-state-patriots-new-graphics-and-details/
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/thefreethinker/2021/01/christian-who-breached-capitol-says-rioters-did-what-they-had-to-do/
To boot, your confidence in your opinion that the risk was/is low may be more evidence of below, despite your disagreement re Trump:
https://undark.org/2021/01/07/science-trump-grip-white-male-effect/
I think we should be conservative and assume the risk is very high, even if I think it's actually low. Dave may be right that these are mostly yahoos. But practice makes perfect. Treat this like an exercise for the future when it may not be yahoos.
On January 7, 2021 8:07:16 PM PST, Eric Charles <eric.phillip.charles at gmail.com> wrote:
>(My take, copy-paste from other social media, a around 10 pm yesterday)
>
>Someone posted something asking for positive thoughts and things we are
>hopeful for (to contrast the news cycle), but honestly:
>All considered, so far I'm hopeful for exactly the things others find
>heavy. There were a few thousand peaceful protestors in DC and at the
>absolute most a few hundred who wanted to cause trouble. And it looks
>like
>it's done. Honestly, that's WAY less violence than I was worried about,
>and
>it looks like it's petered out already. I get that the symbolism of it
>happening at the Capitol is particularly disturbing, but it's not an
>honest
>threat of a coup, it's not an uprising, and I'm less worried about
>those
>things now than I was before.
>I seriously thought there would be incidents like this an 20-30
>locations,
>that many of the protestors would be armed and intent on firing, that
>they
>would be prepared to lay siege to buildings, etc. I think the delayed
>declaration of the winner took much of the wind out of both sides.
>For those watching from abroad, this is NOT in any way a serious coup
>attempt. If you are watching news spinning it that way... well.. it
>just
>wasn't. I am already seeing the news cycle rewriting it to be more than
>it
>was. Even with a person shot and several arrests, in a country of
>330,000,000 people, at most a few hundred hoodlums acting like idiots
>is
>not a coup. Those individuals could potentially be charged with some
>pretty
>serious crimes, but they were not in any way an organized group trying
>to
>incite insurrection, and it now seems clear that no bigger group with
>that
>goal is arising anytime soon. They had no military backing, no internal
>structure, no actual agenda. They had nothing.
>
>There wasn't even enough resolve to stay in the DC streets past the 6
>pm
>curfew. There isn't a fraction of the resolve shown by the BLM
>protestors,
>Occupy Wallstreet, or even the Bundy's in that Wildlife Refuge stand
>off.
>They are angry, they are willing to break things, but have no agenda
>and no
>resolve.
>
>Had the Capitol had a few score more police officers (which they
>obviously
>should have), it sure seems like this would have been nothing.
>
--
glen ⛧
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