----------------------------------------------
Much to like in that post #256 by poster D1943.
I most especially liked these: (edited for space and clarity)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some comments: This oft repeated view that the Police Brutality/Social Justice unrest of 2020 was all BLM and made up of black vandals and gang-bangers, or anti-American white kids posing as Anti Fascist......is simply a handy canard used to advance partisan polemics.
It ain't so.
Certainly it wasn't so in my own community where my bride and I maintain a city-home in a metro of 500,000+.
We had a demonstration. And for hours it was civil, polite, respectful. It was filled with a diverse crowd...tho hugely made up of white-folks as that is what this metro area itself is made up of. I personally knew 3 'church ladies' from our neighborhood who went. They were....and are....respectable, responsible women in their late 60's and 70's. They are the kind of citizen that volunteers at our charities and homeless shelters....who help on Habitat/Humanity construction.
They went to signify how appalled they were with the brutal public murder of Floyd....and the long string of previous incidents of unarmed black men being killed or abused by police that were video'd by bystanders and then made public.
As evening fell, that demonstration became rowdy due to young dicks & karens letting off their frustrations over being cooped up due to the long summer of Covid. They vandalized police cars and some storefront businesses (mostly broken windows, no 'looting' of TV's).
But while those vandals were doing that they were being intently video'd by law enforcement personnel on the rooftops.
And when those videos were developed and screened and the perps arrested....it was 90+% white kids from the suburbs and the small rural towns that encircled our metro area.
---------------------------
Lastly, it is good advice that D1943 offers with --- 'read the New York Times, read the Washington Post.' In my opinion, they do practice good journalism..... responsible quality journalism. And do so consistently.
It is good to get a diverse view of our political zeitgeist. So read your Gateway Pundit, Brietbart, and Daily Caller.....but leaven that fare with other approaches.
It is the smart thing to do.
ps.....and tho a rose by another name is still a rose......a milita called a 'militia' carries a bit more ominous-ity than that rose. IMHO
Okay, here's a Lefty and a Righty agreeing on something. Not as exciting as exchanging personal insults, but there's plenty of that elsewhere for those that like it.
Of course, if there is a peaceful protest, but a section of the crowd become violent, then those opposed to the protest in general will link the violence to the protestors and their cause. Most Americans, quite rightly, don't like violence. If your country becomes one where the streets belong to those who can organize the most violence, the average citizen suffers.
You feel indignant if we do it about the summer 2020 riots, we feel indignant if you do it about the 6 January protests. We can argue about whether the leaders of both of them did enough to rein in the violent ones.
On our side, we need to organize at the ground level, something like the French trade unions and leftwing parties have, a '
service d'ordre', ie stewards, organized and equipped (ie equipped with non-lethal instruments, leave your firearms at home), to deal with both attackers from the outside and infilrators/crazies from the inside.
As for calling yourself a 'militia', at the moment there are two good reasons for not doing it.
(1) It's bad PR. Regardless of whether it's justified, at the moment, in the US, the word 'militia' does not bring up in the average American's mind a blacksmith or farmer reporting for duty to repel the King's German mercenaries. It provokes a negative image.
(2) It attacts the wrong sort of people (a small minority, but that's enough). Namely, police informers, and, unstable men with manhood problems for whom that AR15 is a substitute for something else that they would like to be long and hard. Some of these men have been ex-cons. They're the types who start muttering about 'executing traitors', etc. They're poison.
And they will repel women and non-whites, who together are the great majority of society and from whom we must have support.
Rather, call your group a 'Neighborhood Protection Team' or something like that. Don't have any political tests for joining -- all patriots should be welcome. If a Democrat-voting Teamster wants to join, welcome him with open arms.
For sure, exercise your 2A rights, let your veterans teach you about fire and maneuver, but also learn how to treat a sucking chest wound (not in the Red Cross First Aid syllabus, I think), how to carry someone on a stretcher without jolting him with every step, how to deal with a live downed power line, how to rescue someone from fast-moving water, how to reach someone under a caved-in building.
Do some Habitat for Humanity type stuff like the Houston branch of the Texas State Militia do -- you learn a lot about working together, as well as practical skills. This should help to weed out the would-be Rambos.
I think the former Oathkeepers in Yavapai, Arizona (https:YCPT.org) have got it basically right.
Also note: the people running AntiFa are not stupid. They too do 'community outreach' work: feeding the homeless, having a 'tail-light Saturday' for people too stupid to ... well, for people in danger of being pulled over for a defective taillight who are, just because of their color, murdered in cold blood by a cruel White Supremacist policeman, acting under the secret orders of Donald Trump.
(I subscribe to a kind of rightwing intelligence service that reports regularly on what the Far Left is up to, and I've been struck by the number of 'community outreach' projects they've been doing lately. Learn from the enemy.)
www.axios.com
