Google and Apple take Parler off their app stores. Amazon apparently breaks its own terms of service to take Parler offline ASAP.
Airbnb is cancelling reservations in the DC area during the week of the inauguration.
The language of 'coup' is all over the place in the MSM, it seems:
Abram Brown, senior editor at Forbes:
Since the conservative social media app Parler went down over the weekend, a widely shared Telegram group called Parler Lifeboat has emerged. It has 16,000 members and has established itself as a space to venerate President Trump and the Jan. 6 attempted coup, “an awesome event,” as one rhapsodic anonymous user described it on Monday night.
The "attempted coup" language has been adopted by writers at a number of other outlets.
Assault on democracy: Sen. Josh Hawley has blood on his hands in Capitol coup attempt
It’s Our First-Ever Coup Attempt—and There’s No Doubt Who’s Behind It
And the inevitable:
I dunno. This didn't look much like a coup attempt to me. It was an expression of anger, a riot. But I am not an expert in these things, so what do I know?
However, all the language about coups and insurrection leads me to think this will be overplayed to crack down hard on dissenters and any other targets of opportunity on the wrong side of the political fence.
The big tech oligarchs shutting down communication by the sitting President seems a lot more dangerous to democracy to me. I bet they will defend their actions by claiming they feared a coup if Trump got his message out.
Anyway, this clearly isn't the Reichstag Fire, but maybe they can build it into one.
Next Day D'oh!: I can't believe I forgot the impeachment. That's great cover for anyone taking extraordinary measures against Trump supporters.
So, coup is wrong; but it’s an interesting story. Or will be. I’m running down elements of it now. At this time though I don’t have much to say, except that you shouldn’t invade a Federal building as a rule.
ReplyDeleteHere's an interesting article about how European security people are looking at it:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.businessinsider.com/trump-attempted-coup-federal-law-enforcement-capitol-police-2021-1?op=1
It looks like a coup to me. A slow rolling, still in progress coup. It's being attempted by the left through the press and the more left Progressive-Democrat politicians in Congress.
ReplyDeleteAs Victor Davis Hanson said a few minutes ago as I write (2245), those who use the language of deprogramming, education camps, and so on are the fundamentally authoritarian types.
Eric Hines
They can serve a shit sandwich, that does not mean people are going to eat it.
ReplyDeleteStanding at the counter in Asian restaurant today, waiting for my take out only meal, a slip of a girl was in front of me, all masked up. I guess young enough to be my grandaughter.
I said, "awful tough to make a living like this, down to take out orders only". Says she, in a tone with enough venom in it to kill an alligator, "This is ALL BULLSHIT!" Seriously, she was seething mad about the lockdown. Then she says, "we did it in April and it works so well we have do it again!"
I have wondered from time to time if the incessant propaganda is actually working in reverse, vis a vis government trust.
I think you know how I feel about the government. Or government.
ReplyDeleteStill, I have an oath to keep.
Something to think about, prompted by a tag line Glenn Reynolds has been using off and on since November.
ReplyDeleteDoes anybody think that if Trump had *won* and the popular vote margin was narrow either for or against him that there wouldn't have been rioting in DC? That the Electoral Vote certification *in his favor* would not have generated a protest?
Yeah, I’m struggling to find any common ground with any mob that beats a cop and says “shoot him with his own gun!”
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/davidbegnaud/status/1349933583964639232?s=21
The guys I actually have a lot of sympathy for are the 15,000 Joes they've deployed to the capital, as if we needed a Division of troops to hold down Washington D.C. We had that many in Baghdad in 2009.
ReplyDeleteTom's point that there's a lot of dramatics going on here is a reasonable one. You shouldn't feel a lot of sympathy with the idiots who invaded the Capitol, but it's reasonable to wonder why such a huge display is being made over this. It should never have happened -- it represents a cascade failure of Federal law enforcement and the National Guard -- but it should be easy to understand how it happened. Preventing it from happening again shouldn't require these extraordinary measures.
Years ago when I was listening to him, Rush Limbaugh used to put out lists like this of words that were suddenly being heard everywhere. I remember "gravitas" suddenly emerging from obscurity to be on everyone's lips in the media. This looks similar.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I have no sympathy for mob violence or rioting, and there was definitely that on Jan. 6th.
ReplyDeleteBut it's really being overplayed, I think, in order to justify draconian attacks on democracy, like deplatforming a sitting US president, drawing up lists of his supporters to blackball them from work, breaking contracts and colluding to shut down other potential means of the President communicating to his supporters, etc.
By the way, the most unintentionally funny article of the ones I posted is "How to talk to kids about the attempted coup at the US Capitol." I just recommend everyone here go read that.
ReplyDeleteIt is best paired with a parsimonious beer, maybe a Pabst Blue Ribbon, Budweiser or Coors.
Another good article to understand what happened is by J. Michael Waller. His bio is "senior analyst for strategy at the Center for Security Policy. His areas of concentration are propaganda, political warfare, psychological warfare, and subversion. He is a former professor at the Institute of World Politics, a graduate school in Washington, DC. A former instructor with the Naval Postgraduate School, he is an instructor/lecturer at the John F Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg."
ReplyDeleteHe gives a first-person account of what happened in The Federalist.
https://thefederalist.com/2021/01/14/i-saw-provocateurs-at-the-capitol-riot-on-jan-6/
I know J. Michael Waller. He's definitely a subject matter expert on color revolutions.
ReplyDeleteI hear the number of troops is now up to 25,000, and they've established a "Green Zone" around the Capitol. This is unwise as well as over-the-top; a government that cuts itself off from the people it expects to govern creates big problems for itself.
ReplyDelete...the most unintentionally funny article of the ones I posted...
ReplyDeleteI was only rolling my eyes until I got to the section with the subhead, "Avoid Partisan Politics." After everything that came before, that subhead made me laugh aloud.
I am in complete agreement we are watching a coup.
ReplyDeleteInitiated by the communist party USA, formerly known as the Democrats, and backed by the Communist Chinese.
If one were to extrapolate current trends,a declaration of national emergency, followed by martial law, would be expected after the inauguration of the lie. I think they are going to "jump the shark", in regards to traditional American political transitions.
Normal- did that come from No Mal, as in lack of evil?
Martial law would be new, but there are already emergency declarations in every state.
ReplyDeleteGrim, yes, that was the punchline. I want to ask how they could possibly write that with a straight face. Do they actually believe the views they've suggested ARE non-partisan? Or are they just pretending as a way of influencing others to believe that? Or what?
ReplyDeleteIt occurred to me last night that the other term that's becoming ubiquitous is "the lie" that there was election fraud or that the election was stolen.
https://ymarsakar.wordpress.com/2021/01/17/stand-down-work-for-peace-go-home/
ReplyDeleteI have been told to do some regular updates at my blog. Sorta like the ones i wrote here.
Also, grim, i have fulfilked my promises as a son of god. Expect more from the golden age.
ReplyDeleteI will see you when 2021 spring starts, the real new year celestially.