There is a line in the movie "The Hunt for the Red October" where someone -- maybe Alec Baldwin speaking to Sean Connery, the grizzled old cagey Russian submarine captain, when they first meet on board the Red October late in the movie -- says that it is wise to study the ways of one's enemy. Indeed.
Apropos of that thought I read a number of books that might be deemed 'unusual' for an upper middle class white American male descended from Europeans. "The Communist Manifesto" by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels; "Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of the Inequality Among Men" by Jean-Jacques Rousseau; "Indignez-vous!" (I prefer my translation of this title as 'get pissed off!' to the more milk-toast translation 'time for outrage!') by Stephane Hessel; "de la servitude moderne" (on modern slavery) by Jean-Francois Brient; biographies of Che Guevara; etc. I have decided that the next slot in my book reading rotation will go to "L'insurrection qui vient" ('the coming insurrection') by the invisible committee.
This book is said to be popular and well received by the Anarchist community. What, you didn't even KNOW there was an 'anarchist community?' One of the tenets of the book is to watch and wait for incidents of public disorder and then exploit these incidents to . . . I don't know, I suppose bring down the system, undermine the system, discredit the system, expose weaknesses of the system.
As I say, I have not yet read this book, but it seems it would be good to read it now. There have been some signal episodes of such public disorder since the book came out in about 2007 or 2008. One episode that comes to mind is the month of riots, marches, car burnings, and public strikes in France in October last year when the duly elected representatives of the Citizens of France dared to raise the minimum retirement age from 62 years to 64 years. The current events in England is another episode. When will that unrest end and how will it ultimately turn out? Possibly you could argue that some such events are happening on a small scale in the US -- the mob attack in Milwaukee last week, the mob attacks in Philadelphia, the mob attacks/robberies on Oak Street Beach on the near north side of Chicago in early June/late may.
So, are the anarchists coming? Is the insurrection coming? Are we as vulnerable as the milk-toast civilizations of France and England? Generally the police in England don't even carry guns. How are they supposed to keep order when the hoi-poloi no longer shuffle, head down and say '"scuse me Master! O! Pardon me mizzus!"
When you look at what happened in New Orleans after Katrina, it seems like it's possible. I think the economy would have to get much worse before it became widespread.
We have a substantial population dependent on the government for support. These people tend to have minimal respect for the traditional moral values which hold society together.
If the government spends its way beyond the ability to provide these people with what they have come to regard as their right, I'm concerned that they may feel they have the right to take from those of us who have earned what we have.
I think the fuel is there. It will just take the right spark to ignite it.
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Proud parents of our own "Daddy's Little Girls"
I heard Jesus He drank wine and I bet we'd get along just fine.
When you look at what happened in New Orleans after Katrina, it seems like it's possible. I think the economy would have to get much worse before it became widespread.
We have a substantial population dependent on the government for support. These people tend to have minimal respect for the traditional moral values which hold society together.
If the government spends its way beyond the ability to provide these people with what they have come to regard as their right, I'm concerned that they may feel they have the right to take from those of us who have earned what we have.
I think the fuel is there. It will just take the right spark to ignite it.
We saw some of that here in Houston after Katrina. Our region has roughly 5 Million people. A year after Katrina, we still had 100,000 New Orleans refugees. In that year, roughly 25% of the murders in the city were committed by New Orleans refugees. So, 1/50 of the people were committing 1/4 of the murders. And, when the refugees were told that their free rent was going away, we were faced with attempted blackmail... "If we have to pay rent, your crime rate is going to go up..." I tend to doubt that we will be so generous the next time that New Orleans finds itself under water...
Location: On an Island in the west coast of New England
Posts: 13,132
Same ratios here except they are definitely race related. Vt is the second most white state in the nation and almost all the drug arrests and capitol offenses come from the growing black population. Is insurrection possible... I say yes especially in the largest American cities where some groups of people already do what they want. They have their hands full in GB right now. Having the tactical squads armed with shields and batons doesn't cut it for long. I wonder given the present political climate whether people will rebel by withholding tax payments as a protest against the government. That would probably be a stretch but a grass roots movement to throw all the legislatures out on their ass via the ballot box might be a form of anarchy.
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Too busy with fishing to spend much time here.
stock up on bullets....practice practice practice....I know I can keep a large crowd at bay with sustained accurate fire but there's only so much 1 guy with a rifle can do.... If they have the gumption, I can arm a number of my neighbors if needs be...but we don't have the army of marauding troglodytes that exists in the cities. That's Obama territory and they're on their own.
It is my opinion that at least partially these sorts of things depend on weak victims. Either the criminals are much younger and stronger than their victims or much greater in number than their victims. Part of this, too, is the expectation that the police are weak in some way. In Britain part of that weakness is that they do not appear to carry firearms. As was said . . . shields and batons are only so effective. Even here, however, where police carry firearms the police are weak in that they are constrained by rules of engagement that presume a certain standard of law abidingness. For example, when was the last time a cohort of police officers were given the blanket order to shoot to kill with reference to a crowd of a mob? In the case that the riots seen in London were occuring in a major US city, would such a "shoot to kill" order be appropriate to reestablish order and to stop criminal damage to property? I'm not a police man or a lawyer, but I would feel it was appropriate, especially if it went on for day after day and spread from one area to another. It is one thing to have riots, burning of vehicles, and plundering of stores in a city associated with a finished professional sports championship for one night. It is another when plundering continues night after night and then propagates to other cities. Additionally the police are weak in that they simply are not available in sufficient numbers to address a real uprising.
I was reflecting on this while out on my pre-dawn 2+ mile walk preparing for my mid-October elk hunt. I wondered what could be done if such a thing were to happen in my affluent suburb -- roving bands of opportunistic plunderers began systematically robbing houses. One thought, offered by Bergall, would be to hold them off with your own firearms and guns. But it seems to me that if one home owner is on his own and isolated, these thugs are clever enough to concentrate their forces and rub out the one point of resistance. So I was wondering whether there would be any cause for forming a local body of home owners who could call on each others help under such circumstances -- so the thugs don't really have the circumstances of isolating a single point of resistance and moving point to point, concentrating their forces.
Of course, that is a long ways away. But it is something to think about if "the coming insurrection" ever comes. I know my plan is not to sit back and watch them torch my house or plunder my house.
Location: On an Island in the west coast of New England
Posts: 13,132
Locked and loaded here and ready to engage if necessary. I won't be taking any chances or asking any questions. If anyone comes into my house with bad intent they will not be leaving. Around here there are many haves and even more have nots. Unfortunately having a large property on the lake could invite people intent on robbery. My only saving grace is the fact that since this is a small town everyone knows I am armed and won't hesitate to act. Having the rep is probably better than having to deal with it. I don’t worry too much about the adults it is the teenagers looking for drug money that seem to be a problem.
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Too busy with fishing to spend much time here.
The coming insurrection
