'Better This World'

The New York Times has a review of the PBS broadcast out this week, "Better This World."

See: "Film Is Skeptical About Domestic Efforts on Terrorism." The most interesting thing is how the filmmakers and activists they interviewed are determined to delegitimize the word "terrorism."

The film had an Oscar-qualifying theatrical release here last week, but it will reach many more people when it has its television premiere on Tuesday night on “POV,” the PBS documentary series. Simon Kilmurry, the executive director of “POV,” said it was timed to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

“The legacy of 9/11 is something we’re all living with today, and these are some of the issues that I think tend not to get looked at very closely,” Mr. Kilmurry said.

In a pairing of sorts the next “POV,” on Sept. 13, will show “If a Tree Falls,” a documentary about the Earth Liberation Front, a radical environmental group that set fires and was labeled a domestic terrorist threat by the F.B.I. in 2001. One of its former members, Daniel McGowan, who pleaded guilty to arson charges, says in that film, “People need to question, like, this buzzword” — terrorist — “and how it’s being used and how it’s, like, just become the new ‘communist.’ ” He adds, “It’s a boogeyman word.”

The “Better This World” filmmakers, Katie Galloway and Kelly Duane de la Vega, said they came away from their reporting with a recognition that use of the term “domestic terrorist” had broadened dramatically since the Sept. 11 attacks. “In the media and in the legal realm it’s marshaled for all sorts of political agendas, and it’s complicated,” Ms. Galloway said.

Framing is obviously important, and it can work. Look how frightened people are of being called "racist" even when they're not. Progressive love to attack folks as "racist," but when authorities clamp down on left-wing domestic terrorists, that's a "boogeyman." Typical.

As for Brad Crowder and David McKay, the subjects of the film, they were both idealistic and stupid. They wanted to change the world, got involved in far left-wing causes, and planned a trip to Minneapolis where organizers had planned to "shut the place down." Now how might they do that? By placing flowers in barrels of police shotguns? No, they had planned for streetfighting, even assembling shields and first-aid kits, and when that stuff was confiscated by authorities charged with securing the convention, they screamed "police oppression" and went off to build Molotovs. The only part that's "complicated" is the link to a government informant, Brandon Darby, who had strong creds in radical left circles following Katrina. But he turned state. Crowder and McKay fell under his sway, and some of those in the circle of organizers planned for violence and Crowder and McKay got caught. From Texas, they became known as the "Austin Anarchists." This part's especially good, from Michael May, at the Texas Observer, "The Infamous Austin Anarchists—in Their Own Words." The two carpooled it to Minneapolis, and May picks it up as they got to town:

Things became more testy when the five Austinites pulled into St. Paul. The federal government gave St. Paul $50 million to secure the convention. Authorities raided the homes of activists associated with the RNC Welcoming Committee before the convention started. Darby’s presence in the van assured that the group was under scrutiny. The activists dropped the trailer off at a house so they wouldn’t draw attention, but on the way into the city, the van was stopped by police with their guns drawn. They pulled everyone out of the van and had them lie on the ground before letting them go. Later, when the group returned to the trailer, they found it had been cleared of the shields and the rest of their supplies. The police took them, but didn’t explain their actions or reprimand them.

After the shields were taken, Crowder and McKay decided to make Molotov cocktails in retaliation. “When we got up there, the situation was superheated,” says Crowder. “The police were breaking the law left and right. They broke the law when they searched the trailer. They broke the law when they searched us at gunpoint. The atmosphere is like a military siege. And Brandon Darby has been providing us with his influence, encouraging us to step up our game. So it was confluence of forces and our particular rage and frustration that led us to make a bad decision. We thought, the [police] want to go to the walls; we don’t have to stand for this. We’re going to stand up for ourselves right now. It was an emotional feeling we went through.”

The two got Molotov supplies from a Walmart and a gas station. Within a few hours they were in the bathroom pouring fuel into wine bottles. Crowder says making the Molotovs was thrilling because of their potent symbolism as a revolutionary tool. “It’s a categorical break with official society,” he says. “With the shields, it was illegal, but still in scope of nonviolent resistance. With Molotov cocktails, that’s a flaming middle finger to official society.

"There is no middle ground to Molotov cocktail,” he says. “It’s raw. No good. It’s like with David and Goliath. Molotov cocktails are the proverbial stone. It was all we knew to go to in those times, the first thing in our swirling heads that we stumbled upon.”

They soon calmed down, Crowder says. "The next morning, David and I had slept on it. And we were in a different place. And we knew as heated as it was, it wasn’t the right time. It’s not Egypt. Not Libya. And we decided not to use them.”

When the rest of the group found out about the Molotovs, they confronted Crowder and McKay and told them they had made a terrible decision. One of the group told Darby what was going on and asked him to help stop it. Crowder and McKay left the firebombs in the basement and went to the protest, where they dragged dumpsters into the street and otherwise made a ruckus to stop delegates from reaching the convention. Crowder was arrested and jailed on a misdemeanor.

During that time, Darby and the FBI closed in on McKay. Darby wore a wire and asked McKay about his plans. The conversation wasn’t recorded, but the FBI took notes that state McKay said he planned to throw the Molotovs at a parking lot full of cop cars. McKay now says he was just posturing for Darby. “I didn’t want him to think that I was scared, scared of what was going to happen or afraid of him,” says McKay.

Crowder, who hasn’t spoken to McKay since the day he was arrested, believes that’s the only explanation that makes sense. “David had plenty of opportunity to use those things and never did,” Crowder says. “You got to separate macho talk from actual actions. At end of day, he’s not that guy. He wanted to man up for Brandon.”

McKay and Darby agreed to meet at 2 a.m. to use the Molotovs, but when the time rolled around, McKay blew it off and stopped responding to Darby’s calls and texts. At 4:30 a.m., McKay was awakened by a police officer pointing a rifle at him. He was asleep next to a girl he’d met in St. Paul. In about an hour, he was planning to leave for the airport to fly back to Austin.

McKay took his case to trial, arguing that he’d been entrapped. The trial ended in a hung jury. He added a story that he was eventually forced to admit was a lie, that Darby had directed them to make the Molotovs. McKay eventually pled guilty to making the Molotovs and to perjury. He was sentenced to four years in prison. Crowder pled guilty to possessing the Molotovs and received two years.

Actually, they were rightly convicted. Police informants or not, the two acted on their own. Probably the smartest thing they did was decide against actually throwing Molotovs. But there'll be others. Indeed, thanks to police efforts we've been spared the waves of left-wing revolutionary terrorism for which progressives keep agitating.

Berlin Copes With Car Burning Surge

Via Google, here's the headline at Wall Street Journal, "Berlin Authorities Struggle to Stop Car Burning Surge."

BERLIN — German authorities are scrambling to contain and make sense of a surge in car torchings in the nation's capital that have raised fears that the vandalism spree could escalate into the broader, more dangerous forms of street crime that have recently hit other pockets of Europe.



Setting cars on fire has become a popular form of class protest and petty crime in recent years in Berlin, triggered in part by tensions over fast-rising rents and other forms of gentrification in this relatively poor city compared with other major German cities. But the latest spate—including some 60 cars torched in four nights—marks a sharp surge in the arson attacks. While previous car burnings were largely confined to Berlin's up-and-coming working class neighborhoods, such as Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain, the latest spate has rapidly spread to its more affluent western districts.



They also come amid a wave of street violence across other parts of Europe—most notably riots in London and other U.K. cities this month—that so far has largely left Europe's largest economy relatively unscathed. Elsewhere on the Continent, violence has erupted in countries chafing under austerity measures, such as protests marred by police clashes in Spain and Greece and the deadly firebombing of an Athens bank building just over a year ago.



In Berlin, the circumstances behind the rash of car torchings appear largely local, but many residents and crime experts believe growing economic tensions within the city limits play a role. While Germany's national unemployment rate hovers around 7%, in Berlin it remains stuck at 13.5%. Meanwhile rising rents and real-estate prices are displacing more of its poorer residents from its central and increasingly trendy neighborhoods.

And checking back at that Google search, a number of articles have mystified titles, such as "Is 'Tourism Fatigue' Behind Berlin Arson Wave?", at Spiegel, and "Berliners Still Can't Work Out Who's Torching Their Luxury Cars," at Business Insider. But c'mon, there's no mystery. Business Day nails it, "Berlin’s far left vents fury on ‘fat cat’ cars":

ARSONISTS had set fire to 26 cars in Berlin in the past two days, mainly Mercedes-Benzes, BMWs and Audis, police said yesterday, bringing the number torched in the city this year to at least 138.



Far-left extremists were targeting German luxury cars, symbols of the country’s wealth and export prowess, police said.



"The arsonists want to hit what they say are ‘fat cats’," Berlin police spokesman Michael Gassen said. A special unit was investigating the fires as political crimes after the police received letters claiming responsibility that derided globalisation, gentrification and rising rents, he said. No arrests have been made in the most recent string of attacks.



The fires come amid worsening economic data and political discontent in the country. German growth, last year the motor of Europe’s recovery, almost ground to a halt in the second quarter. Gross domestic product, adjusted for seasonal effects, rose 0,1% from the first quarter, the Federal Statistics Office said this week.



Almost two years into the European debt crisis , restiveness over Germany’s contribution to rescues is weighing on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition as voters rebel over providing aid to fellow euro-zone countries.



When Germany in 2009 experienced its worst recession since the Second World War , a record 221 cars were torched.



A key factor in the unrest is that about 40% of youths are either without a high school certificate or a paying job, said Johannes Becker, head of the Centre for Conflict Studies at the University of Marburg. "In Britain … people are predisposed to jumping on the bandwagon . They see that something is up and want to be part of it, to add some fuel to the fire, as it were. With these cars in Berlin, they are in contrast consciously trying to send a message."

See? That wasn't hard. Far left groups are seizing the moment to heighten revolutionary tensions, but since it's not likely any of the European democracies are at risk of their governments being overthrown, the violence ends up being purely anarchist and nihilist. And that's all you're going to get from the progressive, neo-communist left. It's all of a piece. And it's not only murderously destructive, it's morally reprehensible. Freakin' ASFLs.

Anonymous Hacks BART

At E-Week, "Anonymous Hack Exposes Personal Data of San Francisco-Area Commuters."



And LAT, "Hackers attack BART, Fullerton police websites," and "Protest closes 4 BART stations, leaving commuter crowd stranded."

'Descent Into Evil'

I had this at the blog-item finder, and now it's an essay at New York Post, from John Hinderaker:

What makes the present such a frightening time is that a number of nightmarish phenomena that we had thought consigned to the dustbin of history are reappearing. Rioters in the streets. Burning buildings. Plunging markets and the threat of depression. The scent of socialism in the air.



Who, as of, say, 1989, could have imagined that in barely 20 years, what was then known as the Free World could sink so far?



What we are seeing in London and other English cities is an outpouring of evil. To try to explain evil as the result of something else is almost always a mistake.

'I don't call it a riot... I call it an insurrection of the masses of the people...'

When the riots first broke out I checked over at a couple of the anarchist "occupy everything" blogs and it seems like a lot of them are silent, apparently frustrated at the slow development of revolutionary consciousness. But one needn't look too hard to find deep sympathy for the hooligans (at Comment is Free, for example). Hard-left progressives see in the micreants' criminal thuggery some long needed blows against the capitalist state, even if those were mostly just some deviant losers robbing the shelves blind of goods for which they actually had enough money to purchase. It's not deprivation driving unrest, but hatred of conventional goodness, nurtured by decades of socialist progressivism, manifest in the left's deliberate breakdown of the common family structure, which has left generations of "yobbers" free to destroy property and the sense of sanity in society. Jawa Report posted this video, of Darcus Howe, in which he calls the unrest some kind of dialectical historical moment, "London's Thuggery, Murder, Neo-Marxist, Socialist, etc., etc. Mahem + USDayofRage."

Not surprisingly, BBC is now apologizing for suggesting that the bloke might have been involved. See Telegraph UK, "London riots: BBC apologises for accusing Darcus Howe."



We are witnesses the Mad Maxification of society in the early 21st century.

More Mark Steyn Mania!

At Pundit & Pundette, "After Great Britain."



And at American Glob, "VIDEO: Mark Steyn Explains the UK Riots and More On Hannity."



BONUS: I've meant to post on Melanie Phillips as well, but Blazing Cat Fur beat me to it: "Melanie Phillips on the UK Riots."

London Riots Day 4: Manchester and Midlands on Fire

Criminal unrest continues in Britain as the government struggles to regain control. See Independent UK, "Riots spread north as London cools." And at Daily Mail, "Now it's Manchester and the Midlands' turn as London braces for FOURTH night of rioting." And also Telegraph UK, "London riots spread to Midlands and north-west on fourth night of trouble."

See also Amusing Bunni, "Save Our Streets," Daley Gator, "Would I be wrong to ask just one question concerning the UK riots?," JammieWearingFool, "Heroes of London: 'It Was Like Being in a War'," Right Wing News, "There’s Nothing Wrong With The Government Shooting Looters & Rioters Down Like Dogs In The Street," and Saberpoint, "Massive Rioting in the U.K., Black on White Violence: What's the Solution?"

Also, at New York Times, "Cameron Deploys 10,000 More Officers to Riots," and "London Riots Put Spotlight on Troubled, Unemployed Youths in Britain." (At Memeorandum.)

Britain Descends to Hell

I'll tell you this: If it's coming to America, I will never be forced to strip down to my underwear upon threats from possessed underclass ruffians. I will fight these people to the death. When society has lost its collective mind, and when authorities are helpless to do the thing that they are established to do --- keep order and decency --- then you have to protect yourself and your family. I will not have my wife and children stripped and humiliated and robbed of their clothing on the freakin' streets. And I would help anyone facing such raw brutality if I see it happening to them in person. It can happen here. See London's Daily Mail, "Forced to strip naked in the street: Shocking scenes as rioters steal clothes and rifle through bags as people make their way home." I'll have more on this. The British government clearly isn't up to the task of defending against lawlessness, and things aren't nearly as bad as they could be. God help us:

Police Overwhelmed in London Riots

See London's Daily Mail, "Scotland Yard braced for backlash over 'lack of police on streets' and London Fire Brigade criticised for 'not tackling blazes'."



And at Telegraph UK, "London riots: why did the police lose control":

The police have become so sensitive to the issue of race that it is impairing their ability to do the job.

See also Lonely Conservative, "Riots Rattle London."

PREVIOUSLY: "London Riots Continue for Third Day."

London Riots Continue for Third Day

Lots of coverage at Telegraph UK, "London riots: breakdown of Monday night's violence," and "London riots: Guerrilla warfare erupts as no one knows where mob will strike next."



And again, stunning coverage at London's Daily Mail, "Britain burns at the hands of the mob as the PM finally flies home: Gangs armed with petrol bombs and poles on THIRD night of riots."



Also at ABC News, "Britain Burning: Riots Rattle London, Spread Across U.K."

Update on Tottenham Riots

At Telegraph UK, "Tottenham riot: a community blighted by drugs and gun crime." And, "How technology fuelled Britain's first 21st century riot." There's a live blog as well, "Second night of rioting as violence and looting spread across London."



BONUS: A phenomenal report at London's Daily Mail, "Police and the riot blunders: Top officer flew off on holiday hours before mayhem and doubts emerge over shooting that sparked carnage."

Fox News Twitter Account Hacked

It's trending at Memeorandum.

And a report at New York Times, "Apparently Hacked, a Fox News Twitter Account Sent Out Alarming Posts":

A series of alarming Twitter posts about President Obama appeared on Fox News’ Twitter account for political news early Monday morning, and the Web site for the cable television network said it was a victim of hacking.

The Twitter account, @foxnewspolitics, one of many that is operated by Fox News, claimed that the president died while campaigning in Iowa, but gave no source for the news. On Monday morning, FoxNews.com first posted a brief statement saying that the reports were incorrect, and that it regretted “any distress the false Tweets may have created.”

The six messages — which as of late Monday morning were still available online — created a flurry of attention overnight and senior Secret Service officials were gathering on Monday morning to discuss them, said to a law enforcement official who declined to be identified because of an investigation into the matter.

A spokesman for the Secret Service, George Ogilvie, said, “We’re not commenting on any of this.”

Jeff Misenti, the vice president and general manager of Fox News Digital, said in a later statement on Monday that the news organization will be requesting “a detailed investigation from Twitter about how this occurred, and measures to prevent future unauthorized access into FoxNews.com accounts.”

More details at the link.

And a screencap of the tweets is here.

And check this at Think Magazine, "UPDATED: Think Talks with the Group That Hacked A Fox News Twitter Account."

Inside the Anonymous Army of 'Hacktivist' Attackers

At WSJ:

HOOGEZAND-SAPPEMEER, Netherlands—In this sleepy Dutch town last December, police burst into the bedroom of 19-year-old Martijn Gonlag as he hurriedly pulled on jeans over his boxer shorts. He was hauled away on suspicion of taking part in cyber attacks by the online group calling itself Anonymous.

Mr. Gonlag admits taking part in several attacks on websites, but he recently had a change of heart as some hackers adopted increasingly aggressive tactics.

"People are starting to grow tired of" the hackers, he said in an interview. "People are also starting to realize that Anonymous is a loose cannon."
Now he appears to be a target himself. A chat room he hosts faces frequent hack attacks, he says.

Mr. Gonlag's role reversal provides a glimpse of the unruly hunt-or-be-hunted world underpinning a string of online attacks against major companies and government bodies—incidents that have sparked a digital manhunt by law-enforcement agencies in several countries.

What once was just righteous rabble-rousing by Anonymous in the name of Internet freedom has mutated into more menacing attacks, including by a splinter group of Anonymous called LulzSec, which is alleged to have moved beyond paralyzing websites to breaking in to steal data.

The tumult over online agitators like Anonymous comes at a time when the world's computers are under unprecedented attack. Governments suspect each other of mounting cyber espionage and attacks on power grids and other infrastructure. Criminal gangs using sophisticated viruses cull credit-card and other sensitive data to steal from bank accounts.

Now "hacktivists" who populate groups like Anonymous and LulzSec, mostly young males from their teens to early 30s, have also ignited increasing concern among computer experts over the security of corporate and government systems.

RTWT.

It was bound to happen. These are supposedly anarchists, but mostly they're a bunch of young leftist criminals with too much time on their hands. They'll get more menacing and deadly, their attacks more brazen and malicious, and ultimately these same people will be found allying increasingly with various terrorist groups. Some of the recent bombings, in Spain, for example, were the work of anarcho-communist cells. It's all of a piece, and no coincidence that people like this are championed on the progressive left.

'Antiwar' Protesters Call for Revolution in U.S. — Nationwide ANSWER Rallies Ignored by Mainstream Media Organizations

This isn't news to me, although I'm glad that a growing number of bloggers and citizen journalists are paying attention. The Los Angeles ANSWER organizers held their annual march in Hollywood on Saturday, March 19th. I had my taxes done that day and missed it, but veteran protest photographer Ringo was on the scene, and he reports: "Anti-War Demonstration, Hollywood, CA - March 19th, 2011." I've been focused lately on Israel and the rising tide of global anti-Semitism, and recall the ANSWER folks are at the forefront of the campaign for a new Jewish Holocaust. Naturally, the "push-the-Jews-to-the-sea" crowd was well represented in Hollywood. I'll have more on this in continuing coverage here. Meanwhile, Rebel Pundit has an excellent report from the event in Chicago on March 19th: "Exclusive: Chicago Media Covers Up Socialist Revolution Extravaganza!!" (also at Breitbart and Memeorandum).

After arriving at the protest, we began to notice a trend in the message of the day. The message was transitioning back and fourth between ‘Anti-War, and ending the occupation of Iraq’, to a ‘blatantly obvious and proud Communist/Socialist revolutionary’ message. Threats of taking to the streets, with directives to become ungovernable and to mimic the revolutions spreading across the Middle East and North Africa were prominent in the speeches, most of which were given by radical left wing socialist activists and organizers.

There was clearly no intent on anyone’s behalf at the rally to cover up their radical views. However, in each case of the local mainstream media coverage, (CBS 2 News, NBC 5 News and ABC 7 News) it appears there may have been a deliberate intent to conceal this prominent message, that was delivered loud and clear by the protesters and speakers, or perhaps they decided to just simply ignore it, hoping it wouldn’t be noticed. In ABC 7 Eyewitness News’s coverage, they didn’t even mention the words; socialist, communist, or revolution once. However our footage reveals this was a prominent and consistent theme present during the entire march, and to no one’s surprise, considering the radical ties of those who organized it.

Rebel Pundit argues for a media cover-up of the revolutionary agenda, but that's pretty much standard operating procedure. Some of the first days of the Wisconsin budget protests saw the exact same comparisons between the U.S. and the Middle East (Mubarak), although it was mostly bloggers that brought the news to the wider audience. Last year's pro-immigration march in Phoenix was dominated by communists calling for revolution and the destruction of nation-state borders. I specifically highlighted mainstream coverage of the march at the Arizona Republic and the Los Angeles Times. They treated the event, with dishonest reports and photos of children protesters, etc., as a "civil rights" march. Meanwhile, we've got leftists who continue to insist that revolutionary agitation --- not to mention the left's global anti-Israel campaign of annihilation --- is "imaginary" and the product of a "persecution" complex. It's thus all around us, the lies and subterfuge relentlessly grinding away at the basic fabric of society, warping young minds with anti-American, pro-Holocaust propaganda. Add on top of this the growing black bloc movement of anarchist violence, which despite the "anarchist" label is really about state destruction to prepare for the communist takeover, and folks can get a pretty good picture of the current revolutionary agenda on today's progressive left. Also reporting: Another Black Conservative, The Blast, Left Coast Rebel, and Weasel Zippers.

U.S. Progressives Endorse Anarchist Violence at London Budget Protests

More excellent coverage of the violent demonstrations in London, from the Daily Mail, "200 arrested as anarchists fight police after 500,000-strong anti-cuts march... and cover Trafalgar Sqaure in graffit." It's a pretty pathetic sight all around. Conservatives have alternated between bemusement and outrage, but radicals on the U.S. progressive left are offering throaty endorsements of the mayhem. According Steve Hynd at Newshoggers:

Exactly this kind of protest is what the US needs to [sic] - aimed bi-partisanly at the corporate-serving conservatives and neoliberals who can find endless money for endless warfare, but none for nation building at home.

And No More Mister Nice Blog hesitates to endorse the violence, but ends up doing it any way:

I don't want to see it happen in England or in any other country. But what I do want to see happen -- a real reckoning for the worst abusers in the global financial system, accompanied by "shared sacrifice" that's actually shared, all the way to the top -- apparently will never happen through peaceful means.

Commenting at the post, CUND Gulag, a regular fixture of the demonic progressive fever swamps, offers an endorsement:

Maybe if we had some of this in NYC, Connecticut, Palm Beach, Rodeo Drive, Dallas, Houston, etc., some of the wealthy will realize that all of the security on the planet can't protect them if there are enough of us angry out there. I love Ghandi, and have followed his principles for over 30 years. The same 30 years that have seen our countries steepest decline. If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, like beating my head against the wall, I'm willing to try beating someone else's head up against that wall.

And from a commenter at AMERICAblog:

The only way we, the ordinary people, will get a decent chance at a decent life again is by rising up against our oppressors: The powerful, wealthy, neo-feudal authoritarians.

And from Sarah Jones, in a lengthy economic analysis at Politicus USA, "London Protests Echo Wisconsin Anger At Conservative Class Warfare":

I have yet to meet an honest conservative accountant who would not stress revenue as a crucial part of any balanced budget. And so the question really becomes why are conservatives so averse to doing the one thing they know will help the economy? If conservatives were serious about deficit reduction, they would raise revenue by taxing corporations while making careful budgetary cuts. The worldview of the modern day conservative is that everyone should fend for themselves, except for corporations and the uber wealthy, who are entitled to tax breaks and bailouts. This is not an honest ideology; and therefore, the debate is not about conservative financial approaches versus liberal. If we allow ourselves to have a debate over the deficit or over public sector employees “deserving” their pay, we are being manipulated.

And from the comments there:

The moral and intellectual bankruptcy of further enriching the wealthy few at the expense of everyone else is made even clearer by the protests in London. It looks like there are various rebellions going on around the world against that kind of ideology. The uprisings in Middle Eastern countries, while more bloody and violent against dictators who have been in power for decades, are a pushback against tyranny. Although this country and Great Britain are not nearly at that point, we are seeing threats to rights we have enjoyed and taken for granted for a long time. The common enemy is fascism, which is disguised as patriotism here and in Great Britain. As far as I am concerned, the Republican Party in this country has forfeited its credibility with the unabashed power grabbing of both the House of Representatives and these Republican governors. In their pursuit of power at any cost, they seem bent on alienating almost all American constituents. People like Palin, Beck, Limbaugh, and others are their foot soldiers in selling the kind of propaganda that induces Americans to vote against their own interests and look at other Americans as the enemy. The potential GOP candidates are a bunch of court jesters who are trying to outdo each other in mouthing the kind of lunacy that will get their base to vote for them, and who will willingly carry out the destructive agenda of the Koch brothers and their ilk. That’s why they are trying to dismantle any institution that stands between them and their efforts to reduce us to serfdom.

The comparison to Wisconsin is telling. So far progressives at home have resorted to thuggery, threats and intimidation, but frustration is building, obviously, and all it takes is one spark to set off a larger conflagration of violent unrest. Dan Riehl sees it coming:

We're not that far away from the freeloaders and Marxists taking to the streets in numbers like this in America.

And John Hinderaker issues a warning:

The first duty of any government is to maintain order. Peaceful demonstrations are fine, but mob rule is incompatible with civilization. Any government that cannot maintain order deserves to fall, and will. Napoleon had his faults--well, to be blunt, he was crazy as a loon--but he had the right prescription for dealing with mobs: a whiff of grapeshot.

RELATED: Telegraph UK has the rogue roster: "TUC march: The militants behind the violence":

A ragtag army of anarchists, squatters, student militants, environmental activists and radical academics planned the spin-off protests that led to violence during Saturday's march against cuts.

Coming to America.

Anarchy in the U.K. — Hundreds Arrested as Violent Anti-Capitalists Occupy and Smash London!

Various reports put the number of protesters marching against budget cuts in the 500,000 range. That's a massive show of opposition, but it's the black bloc occupiers and violent anarcho-communists who're dominating the news. And that's half the kick of all this. Commentators are riffing on the headlines, for example, at Instapundit, "LONDON: Moochers And Looters Clash With Police." And at Slap Blog, "Rioting Anarchist Freeloaders Hijack and Rampage London," as well as PJ Tattler, "Wild Animals on the Loose in London":

The “largely peaceful” march saw masked thugs going wild in Oxford Circus smashing shop windows and attacking the police. Americans should take careful note of events, for the London mob has American cousins who share similar attitudes about budget cuts.

But see London's Daily Mail especially, "After blitz of the Ritz, it's the siege of Fortnum & Mason: Anarchists hijack the anti-cuts demo and go on rampage in central London" (via Memeorandum).

RELATED: At Telegraph UK, "Police intelligence gathering failed to prevent occupation of Fortnum & Mason: The disastrous policing of the cuts protests was principally a failure of intelligence-gathering."

I'll have some commentary on all of this later ...

Left-Wing Climate of Hate: Deception and Suppression Keep Casey Brezik Off National Radar

Actually, it did make Fox News, "Man Charged in Dean's Stabbing at College Minutes Before Speech." And AP, "Man Who Stabbed Penn Valley Comm. College Dean Targeted Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon."

But the story didn't gain much more traction nationally, as Ed Driscoll notes, "Doesn’t Fit the Narrative, or Drive the Agenda." And at Gateway Pundit, "Far Left Activist Slashes Throat of Man He Mistakes For Governor – Media Silent." And from Jack Cashill, "Left Wing Climate of Hate and Assassination":

Successful propaganda is composed of equal parts deception and suppression, and the apparatchiks in the mainstream media are much better at the latter.



They may have erred in pushing the Arizona assassination attempt beyond its ideological limits last week, but they succeeded brilliantly a few months earlier in suppressing news of a nearly lethal attempt by a genuine leftist.

The Other McCain has video clips: "Democrat Attacked After Vitriolic Rhetoric From Sarah Palin … No? Never Mind."



But I love this one the best, "Victimless Crime File: Pot Smoking Anarchist Casey Brezik Tries to Kill Community College Dean":

Brezik was reported to have been covered in “demonic” tattoos and to have scribbled a strange symbol on one of the schools walls. Some sources claim that the “demonic” symbols and tattoos were anarchist signs.

This was also not his first rodeo. He was arrested at the G-20 meetings earlier this year, something he proudly wrote about on his Facebook page:

Brezik’s Facebook page paints a portrait of an angry man. He had 26 friends and bragged in June about being the first person arrested at the G-20 Summit.

“Crossed the security fence. Ran from the cops. Was tackled. Spit on an officer. Was arrested, charged, and deported. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED,” he wrote.

For that Brezik spent two days in jail and got ten days (?!?) probation for assaulting a police officer. Had Canada taken his assault of a police officer more seriously today’s violence may not have happened.

Brezik’s devolution began much earlier however. His family reported him missing in March 2009 and he was listed as an endangered missing adult, which means he may have had mental health issues. Marijuana use is known to exacerbate existing mental problems.

It’s easy to blame Casey Brezik’s left wing politics for this violence, but the truth is that these traveling “radicals” are a drug culture and Casey Brezik was a user. The May Day riot in Asheville was another example of these “anarchists” getting high and running wild and the truth about anarchism is that troubled souls who self-medicate and drug addicts are 90% of that movement.

One thing I want to point out here is that marijuana played a significant roll in Brezik’s lifestyle and ultimately his crime. He was high when he tried to murder an innocent person and had more weed on him, suggesting that he planned on getting high again. Would he have tried to kill someone without pot? Maybe. But we know that if pot was legal this crime still would have happened and Brezik’s access to pot facilitated his insanity. This is not a victimless crime.

New York Times Whitewashes Marxist Revolutionary Frances Fox Piven

"I have considerable respect for non-violence, but I don’t treat it as inevitably a necessary rule ..."

That's the quote from Frances Fox Piven's discussion at the C-SPAN clip above.



Piven is a long-established Marxist revolutionary of the slow-burn academic variety. She's notorious for her longstanding call to break the American system through a revolt of the masses from below, called The Cloward-Piven Strategy.

But lately she's been aggressively promoting a more spontaneous form of violent unrest, massed street revolts to topple the American regime.



As reported a couple of weeks ago at The Blaze, "Frances Fox Piven Rings in The New Year By Calling for Violent Revolution":

She’s considered by many as the grandmother of using the American welfare state to implement revolution. Make people dependent on the government, overload the government rolls, and once government services become unsustainable, the people will rise up, overthrow the oppressive capitalist system, and finally create income equality. Collapse the system and create a new one. That‘s the simplified version of Frances Fox Piven’s philosophy originally put forth in the pages of The Nation in the 60s.



Now, as the new year ball drops, Piven is at it again, ringing in 2011 with renewed calls for revolution.

And see also Matthew Vadum's piece, "Marxist Frances Fox Piven Calls For a Violent Uprising Against the American System."

But you wouldn't know it from the New York Times, which has a piece this morning in the left's classic genre of disinformation and propaganda, "Spotlight From Glenn Beck Brings a CUNY Professor Threats":

On his daily radio and television shows, Glenn Beck has elevated once-obscure conservative thinkers onto best-seller lists. Recently, he has elevated a 78-year-old liberal academic to celebrity of a different sort, in a way that some say is endangering her life.



Frances Fox Piven, a City University of New York professor, has been a primary character in Mr. Beck’s warnings about a progressive take-down of America. Ms. Piven, Mr. Beck says, is responsible for a plan to “intentionally collapse our economic system.”



Her name has become a kind of shorthand for “enemy” on Mr. Beck’s Fox News Channel program, which is watched by more than 2 million people, and on one of his Web sites, The Blaze. This week, Mr. Beck suggested on television that she was an enemy of the Constitution.



Never mind that Ms. Piven’s radical plan to help poor people was published 45 years ago, when Mr. Beck was a toddler. Anonymous visitors to his Web site have called for her death, and some, she said, have contacted her directly via e-mail.



In response, a liberal nonprofit group, the Center for Constitutional Rights, wrote to the chairman of Fox News, Roger Ailes, on Thursday to ask him to put a stop to Mr. Beck’s “false accusations” about Ms. Piven.



“Mr. Beck is putting Professor Piven in actual physical danger of a violent response,” the group wrote.

Notice that? The classic propaganda whitewash. The country's unofficial newspaper of record is mounting a disinformation campaign against Glenn Beck. The MFM has been widely rebuked for its libelous reporting on the Arizona shooting, but there's clearly a demand for stories of this sort, since the political payoff has been considerable. While the Times is at pains to indicate that Piven wrote an article "45 years ago" calling for mass uprising, the piece doesn't report that Piven called for revolt once again, just two weeks ago, in the same journal, The Nation, "Mobilizing the Jobless":

Protests among the unemployed will inevitably be local, just because that's where people are and where they construct solidarities. But local and state governments are strapped for funds and are laying off workers. The initiatives that would be responsive to the needs of the unemployed will require federal action. Local protests have to accumulate and spread -- and become more disruptive -- to create serious pressures on national politicians. An effective movement of the unemployed will have to look something like the strikes and riots that have spread across Greece in response to the austerity measures forced on the Greek government by the European Union, or like the student protests that recently spread with lightning speed across England in response to the prospect of greatly increased school fees.



A loose and spontaneous movement of this sort could emerge. It is made more likely because unemployment rates are especially high among younger workers. Protests by the unemployed led by young workers and by students, who face a future of joblessness, just might become large enough and disruptive enough to have an impact in Washington. There is no science that predicts eruption of protest movements. Who expected the angry street mobs in Athens or the protests by British students? Who indeed predicted the strike movement that began in the United States in 1934, or the civil rights demonstrations that spread across the South in the early 1960s? We should hope for another American social movement from the bottom -- and then join it.

These aren't the obscure rants of some raving idiot out in the progressive netroots fever swamps. Piven is establishment. But taking the Times' propaganda one step further is useful idiot Steve Benen:

If you've never heard of Frances Fox Piven, don't feel bad. Up until a couple of weeks ago, I hadn't either. Apparently she wrote some radical stuff about poor people and political activism in 1966, and the voices in Beck's head tell him this is important and relevant in 2011, never mind the fact that the vast majority of liberals haven't read her work and have no idea who she is.

That's a lie. Anyone who reads The Nation knows exactly who she is.



Leftists are liars.

They're liars. They're propagandists. And they're evildoers.

Exit videos from London and Toronto, featuring the kind of spontaneous unrest that Francis Fox Piven wants to bring to America:

See also Left Wing Rebel (via Memeorandum).

April Glaspie Memo Leaked

By Wikileaks, and leftist historian Juan Cole was all over it: "Glaspie Memo Vindicates Her, Shows Saddam’s Thinking."

She wasn't "vindicated," actually.

And Cole takes heat in the comments, and this one's representative:

I generally enjoy your blog posts, and read your blog regularly, however every once in a while you’ll write something that I just can’t understand coming from you. Usually it’s something supportive about Obama (which really from your position on middle eastern affairs makes absolutely no sense whatsoever – think Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel/Palestine, etc…).

Now, though, you write this. As another has said, this information has been out in the open for years. You write an article claiming that this old information purportedly “exonerates [Glaspie] from the charges by her political enemies in the US Congress that she inadvertently gave Saddam a green light to invade Kuwait.”

Yet the case against Glaspie has NEVER been that she gave an EXPLICIT “green light” to Saddam to invade Kuwait, but rather that her indifference on the matter was interpreted by Saddam as “good enough”. Nobody has accused Glaspie of giving Saddam “permission” to invade Kuwait. This entire article, based on years old information, is completely misguided.

I’m no defender of Saddam, but I am a defender of accurate and factual reporting on historical events. Your assertion that Saddam was “paranoid and desperate” and your implication that Iraq WASN’T in financial crisis is absurd. It is a fact that at the conclusion of the war Iraq had around $130 billion in international debt excluding interest. To portray that as simply an assertion of Saddam’s is dishonest.

I’m so sick of people painting this as such a black-and-white issue, and you should know better, Juan. The disputes between Iraq and Kuwait were not solely the fault of Iraq, even less so the fault of Saddam’s “paranoia”.

At the end of the Iran-Iraq war, Iraq WAS in serious financial trouble. Kuwait WAS exploiting the situation by over-producing oil in order to hold down Iraq’s economy. There WAS a legitimate border dispute between Iraq and Kuwait regarding slant drilling to be investigated. These disputes between the two states were exploited by the Ba’ath administration as a pretext for invasion, probably due to the economic pressure it was under (NOT “Saddam’s paranoia”). This was done following consultation with Glaspie, who never offered a concrete position on the matter. BOTH states are responsible for exploiting the situation to their benefit, which culminated in the invasion of Kuwait.

Kuwait isn’t simply the helpless victim as it was portrayed when the US exploited the situation in the exact same way, leading to the Gulf War. Its actions towards Iraq contributed to the lead up to the invasion.

A responsible historian would portray this event in its totality, including the actions of both sides which led up to the invasion. A responsible historian would identify where both legitimate grievences lie and where states are exploiting the situation to further their own interests. A responsible historian wouldn’t paint this in such a storybook manner, as you have here, with Saddam being the evil, “paranoid” mustache-twirling villain and Kuwait the helpless damsel in distress.

I would obviously be interested in hearing your response, or your justification for either this article or for your portrayal of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in general. I’m not trying to attack you but it’s just really disappointing when someone I hold in such high regard writes something as inaccurate and low quality as this. As I said before, I just can’t understand it.

Christian Caryl, Contributing Editor at Foreign Policy and Newsweek, Slams Julian Assange and WikiLeaks

And Caryl's currently a Senior Fellow at MIT's Center for International Studies (CIS). And he's got a refreshing take on the WikiLeaks phenomenon, at New York Review, "Why WikiLeaks Changes Everything":

Among the cables released so far are revelations that have prompted headlines around the world, but there are also dispatches on Bavarian election results and Argentine maritime law. If the aim is to strike a blow against American imperial designs—as Assange has suggested in some of his statements—I don’t see how these particular cables support it. Assange has claimed to Time magazine that he wants to “make the world more civil” by making secretive organizations like the US State Department and Department of Defense accountable for their actions; he also told Time that, as an alternative, he wants to force them “to lock down internally and to balkanize,” protecting themselves by becoming more opaque and thereby more “closed, conspiratorial and inefficient.” This is, to say the least, a patently contradictory agenda; I’m not sure how we’re supposed to make sense of it. In practical terms it seems to boil down to a policy of disclosure for disclosure’s sake. This is what the technology allows, and Assange has merely followed its lead. I don’t see coherently articulated morality, or immorality, at work here at all; what I see is an amoral, technocratic void.

As Alan Cowell has written in The New York Times, the careers of some foreign officials—and not necessarily high-level ones—have already been destroyed or threatened by these revelations.

In at least one case the person’s name had been redacted, but his identity was clear enough from the context. One is justified in asking: Will deaths occur as these and other statements are published? We do not know, and we may not hear about them if they do. But damage of various kinds is sure to result. (For his part, Assange seems remarkably unable to discuss these very real dangers; in the Time interview he claims that “this sort of nonsense about lives being put into jeopardy” is simply an excuse.) Can WikiLeaks at least tell us why this was necessary?

In the old days, journalists would have done what WikiLeaks’s print media partners, like The Guardian and Der Spiegel, are attempting to do now: make judgments about which documents to release and whether or not to redact the names mentioned in them based on the larger public interest and the risk of inflicting harm on innocent bystanders. Yet one cannot escape the feeling that the entire exercise is rendered tragicomically moot by the mountain of raw material looming, soon to be equally accessible, in the background. Khatchadourian contends that WikiLeaks is evolving into something more like a conventional journalistic organization, one that will make value judgments about what it’s doing rather than simply dumping documents into cyberspace willy-nilly. But the sheer scale of what the group does suggests that this is something of a fool’s errand. Assange says the organization has been releasing the cables at the rate of about eighty a day. (By my back-of-the-envelope calculations, that means that we have three thousand days of revelations to go as this article goes to press.)

The comparison some people have been making between the WikiLeaks document dumps and the Pentagon Papers affair back in the 1970s is illuminating precisely because it shows how little the two stories have in common. As pointed out by Max Frankel, an ex–New York Times editor who was one of those overseeing publication of the papers, the leaker in that case, Daniel Ellsberg,

was not breaching secrecy for its own sake, unlike the WikiLeakers of today; he was looking to defeat a specific government policy. Moreover, he was acutely conscious of the risks of disclosure and did not distribute documents betraying live diplomatic efforts to negotiate an end to the fighting. And it took him years to find a credible medium of distribution, which is now available at the push of a button.

I’m fully aware that Daniel Ellsberg has lent his support to Julian Assange. That’s his right. But I think he might be overlooking a few vital points.

One of the most obvious is that WikiLeaks is posting these raw documents on the Web, the most permissive information medium we have yet to invent. As a result we are now experiencing yet another jump from the ploddingly analog to the explosively digital. Just as the concept of “privacy” fades into obscurity when sixteen-year-olds can present their innermost thoughts to an audience of billions, so, too, the Internet distribution of official secrets changes the rules of the game. Once all the documents are online they will be subjected not only to the often clumsy ministrations of journalists and historians but also to the far more efficient data-mining programs and pattern- analysis software of foreign governments and private companies (the extent of which, in the case of China’s handling of Google, the cables themselves make clear). The implications for the conduct of government policy (not to mention individual lives) are monumental. I wish I could predict what they might be, but I can’t. I’m not sure anyone can.

There's more at the link.

I noted Caryl's credentials at the title above because he seems so unusual --- and incredibly lucid. Continuing the essay he unfolds the logic of the argument, which is to say that the enormity of the latest WikiLeaks data dump is greater than any one individual or institution to manage. And the consequences --- collateral damage for the information leakers, who are less interested in changing policies than they are in bringing down governments --- are the untold and potentially catastrophic risks to the lives and careers of honest people carrying out their jobs in government, military institutions, humanitarian organizations, and so forth. These are questions ultimately of tremendous power, and Caryl in fact indicates his support for much of what WikiLeaks is supposedly all about --- greater transparency and accountability of governments. But in the end, Julian Assange comes out looking both quite poor and insignificant in this account. And Caryl perhaps might have continued a bit more by delving into the motivations of Assange, and especially his more enthusiastic adherents on the anarcho- and neo-communist left. If there was ever an equalizing force for anti-establishment actors to take down the state sources of world hegemonic power, WikiLeaks is it. Its utility lies not so much in exposure of government duplicity, corruption, or realpolitik, but in radicalizing the radicals, and enabling their growing revolutionary program. And recall there's an almost perfect ideological correlation betwen those who favor and those who oppose the WikiLeaks project. Even purportedly moderate leftists are gung ho on this transformationalist agenda, while either naive or in conscious denial to the nihilist destruction that's essential to the anarcho- and neo-communist program. Caryl does yoeman's work in getting the alternative meme out in leftist outlets like New York Review. It's an interesting development that will hopefully gain traction.

I'll have more later, in any case ...