RANGER AGAINST WAR: Not Gonna Die on That Hill <

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Not Gonna Die on That Hill


  --“Lily” calls for violence and death 
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back 
--The Road Not Taken,
Robert Frost

Things go up, things go down,
but at least the Lord is always around 
--There Will be Blood (2007)

Pictures of Lily made my life so wonderful
Pictures of Lily helped me sleep at night
 Pictures of Lily solved my childhood problems
Pictures of Lily helped me feel alright 
--Pictures of Lily,
The Who 
_________________________

From among the people protesting the election of Donald Trump, CNN featured “Lily”, a sign-carrying Latina woman from Los Angeles who called for blood and death. Why this would have to happen for her was unclear.

Lily appeared like your prototypical American, what Ranger calls, the “fat, dumb and happy”. She appeared to be well-fed, clean and well made-up. Like the much too many, Lily was either stupid or misled in the nature of her amorphous animation, or someone paid her and put a sign in her hand.

Like so many people, Lily is living off the fat of the land. It is not a bad life. That is why so many immigrants come to this country.

We don't say anything negative about her call for anarchy because she is a Hispanic person. We are all cowed into fearing being labeled “racist”. In fact, we consider her kind of heroic since she is featured on CNN with no censure.

Lily states enigmatically, “There will be casualties on both sides. There will be, because people have to die to make a change in this world,” she continued. “Trump, enough with your racism. Stop splitting families. Don’t split my family.”

So, there must be casualties, because Mr. Trump has been “splitting families” (even though he hasn’t held political office yet.) This seems something of a non-sequitur.

One might guess that her baffling statement has to do with illegal Mexican immigrants wanting to bring other family members to the United States. Sorry, Lily, but I don’t want to die for your right to break immigration laws.

See, these things are set in law books, and it takes legal action to get them changed. We do have limits on the numbers and qualifications of immigrants which are allowed into the United States annually. You either qualify or you do not, and it all stands on current immigration law (not Donald Trump).

If people like Lily were interested in facts, they would know that President Obama is known as the "Deporter in Chief" for the large number of illegal, mostly criminal, aliens which he has sent toting. Ah, but he is a person of color, so therefore, he too, cannot be criticized.

In fact, his decisions in this matter have been correct, and they are commensurate with those of Donald Trump. (This, according to all the major news outlets.) Yet, despite the pesky facts, Berkeley students are protesting to coerce their school president to make their campus, post-Trump, an immigrant asylum zone.

Why they have remained mum for the past eight years is a mystery.

Now, here is a thought project: what if the sign-carrier were a Cliven Bundy-type telling the government to stay off his land? That he is not going to pay the BLM grazing fees – that he would also like to break the law, like Lily -- and that he too says, “People have to die.”

Would we be kindly disposed to Cliven’s call for blood? Perhaps deify him, too, on a CNN clip?

What if it were a Branch Davidian member in WACO, Texas, calling for people to die? That would have been ironic, since they were the ones who got killed (76 of them).

They were killed in 1993 in their religious compound after a 51-day standoff with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms for suspected weapons violations. It has been postulated that the WACO deaths, in combination with those at the Ruby Ridge standoff a year earlier, were the tinder that set off the Oklahoma City (OKC) Bombing by McVeigh and Nichols exactly two years following WACO.

In 1995, OKC killed 168 people, injuring over 680. National mass killings have been with us more or less since then.

Killing is never a good way to solve a problem. It breeds more violence and killing to avenge the deaths, ad infinitum.

The nation's fear-mongering and anger escalation needs to end. The people must direct their energies to building, versus destroying.

Trump has been called upon by the press to address the rioters. But the rioters have some vague notion that they are rioting against him, so that doesn’t make much sense.

The press would be on standby, ready to call him an “interloper”, someone who does not respect democracy or President Obama, a bumpkin, tone-deaf, a jackboot or some other derisive epithets which they might conjure.

It would be like throwing butane on a fire, and Mr. Trump has rightly not made comment. What could he say after the press has had its year of evil play . . . “Don’t hate me?”

No, it must be a concerted effort, and President Obama could play a great role. By onboarding the President-elect and addressing the nation as a team, the two men could appeal to the nation’s heart and soul.

Perpetuating and fomenting protests against a legally executed election and duly-elected President shows a total lack of faith in our country.
It is a sad spectacle on the part of all the players.

 --Hatfield Clan

Our nation outgrew the Hatfield and McCoy grudge matches in the 19th Century. It would be a pity to resurrect them now.

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23 Comments:

Blogger mike said...

A tempest in a teacup compared to the threats being spread by the Trumpenbullies. Had a run-in with a group of red ball caps yesterday who were scaring away customers from a local taco stand. Mostly teens, but one was twenty-something. But since I am the proud great-grandfather of a baby boy surnamed Gomez, and ~50 years ago had served in harms way with a Garcias and a Martinez, I crossed their line. No problems, just a few curses, dirty looks and muttered thrats. Soon, I hope, cowards like this will slink back into the cockroach dens they came from.

Thursday, November 17, 2016 at 11:09:00 AM GMT-5  
Anonymous David said...

Mike - Yes, it does seem that once Clinton called them deplorables, some people realized they'd best live up to the name.

Thursday, November 17, 2016 at 11:55:00 AM GMT-5  
Anonymous David said...

Lisa - She will no doubt be disappointed by the Democrats, then. I read in the Post yesterday that Senate Democrats were deciding to support Trump's economic policies.

One week, Hitler. The next week, ally.

Thursday, November 17, 2016 at 11:56:00 AM GMT-5  
Blogger Lisa said...

David,


A cosmic joke, eh?

Rattling the cage enough to make the Democratic die-hards feel like they're doing something by massing and being bully boys.

Ranger was traveling the Rust Belt this week taking in the sights and sounds. He encountered a pair of glowering tough ladies on a street with placards emulating Lily's: "Silence is complicity", or somesuch.

What they were accusing those who read their signs of was unclear. Ranger said he smiled and wished them "Good day". (They probably would've decked him if he had extended condolences and said he's hoped they were feeling better soon.)

Anger never helps anyone's cause. Of course, one must have an actionable cause to begin with; being "against" is not adequate.

You can't browbeat someone into thinking whatever it is you want them to think.

Thursday, November 17, 2016 at 3:02:00 PM GMT-5  
Blogger Lisa said...

Since I have read so much madness about upcoming deportations, I read up on it.

Trump has got nothing on Obama, the "Deporter in Chief". He has stated he will merely continue the current policies, which are to deport illegals who have committed crimes, and not to focus on long-standing illegal residents.

Just type in "Trump + Obama + illegals" -- it's pretty easy. Why the madness from places like Berkeley to create asylums? They didn't worry none too much when Obama was doing his thing (that is, legally carrying out deportations.)

So what gives? Why the madness of folks like Lily? Be angry at Obama for eight years, if you're going to be consistent.

How many people have been deported under Obama?

President Barack Obama has often been referred to by immigration groups as the "Deporter in Chief."

Excerpt from ABC news profile:

"Between 2009 and 2015 his administration has removed more than 2.5 million people through immigration orders, which doesn’t include the number of people who "self-deported" or were turned away and/or returned to their home country at the border by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

"How does he compare to other presidents?

"According to governmental data, the Obama administration has deported more people than any other president's administration in history.
In fact, they have deported more than the sum of all the presidents of the 20th century.

"President George W. Bush's administration deported just over two million during his time in office; and Obama’s numbers don’t reflect his last year in office, for which data is not yet available."

Thursday, November 17, 2016 at 6:16:00 PM GMT-5  
Anonymous Ael said...

(AEL: had to re-post fr. deleted redundant post. ed.):


Hmm, I would have thought that protesting is a legitimate form of communication to the President Elect and the rest of the country as a whole.

A total lack of faith in the country would likely involve much darker (and initially less noisy) preparations).

Furthermore, a President Elect makes a large number of decisions that set the tone for their entire administration (a personified by the personnel choices). Protesting seems like an entirely reasonable way of communicating desires in the hope that the protester's concerns will not be completely ignored.

Thursday, November 17, 2016 at 6:57:00 PM GMT-5  
Blogger Lisa said...

Ael,

Like I say, kind of a joke when Trump has said he will merely follow the precedent of the "Deporter in Chief".

What we have is people inciting crime, calling for death, and I did not think that was valid protest. Apparently, people -- cowards -- have been using social media to call for specific killing.

Now really ... that's not our America.

And I'm curious about this whole unleashed hatred towards the half of the nation who voted for the President-elect.

What is this viciousness all about? I know the Democrats felt entitled to have their candidate in office, but she didn't win the election.

So, from when this impotent fury?

Thursday, November 17, 2016 at 7:04:00 PM GMT-5  
Blogger Lisa said...

mike, et al.,


Here's a very sensible post sent to me today by a friend. It's accessible, and irrefutable.

If anyone has the time for charts, graphs and valid reasoning, I'd highly recommend the read:


Are You Still Crying Wolf?

Friday, November 18, 2016 at 1:25:00 PM GMT-5  
Anonymous David said...

What a happy coincidence - I've been following that site for a while! Ultimately, I think I would agree with this pre-election assessment of Trump: that the real risk Trump poses is that he's likely to be politically incompetent and volatile, not that he has come into power with a racist agenda or a sexist agenda or a neo-Nazi agenda or any of the other things now attributed to him. The ongoing farce of a transition in Washington is proof of that much.

I do have a few quibbles with that piece -- for instance, Trump obviously is "the candidate of the KKK" inasmuch as they declared him to be -- but the flip side is that the southern white working class is the one group it's still politically acceptable to mock. This has produced a genuine working-class political consciousness. Who would have imagined that the Republican Party would be the party of Karl Marx?

A shame that they latched onto such an unfortunately unprepared and probably incompetent candidate, though.

Friday, November 18, 2016 at 11:16:00 PM GMT-5  
Anonymous David said...

Sorry for double post:

My first sentence says "this pre-election assessment," but I mean "his ...," from Slate Star Codex.

Friday, November 18, 2016 at 11:16:00 PM GMT-5  
Anonymous Nikolay Levin said...

Once again I'm at a place where time is money and money is time and so I'm left with leaving a couple articles that will explain a few things.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/11/18/death-of-the-liberal-class-death-to-the-liberal-class/

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/19/hamilton-mike-pence-trump-voters-safe-space

The former from a veteran of the current wars Drumpf will probably continue. Ultimately, it doesn't matter that the masses haven't protested in the same manner they should of under the Obama administration, I'm just glad they finally found a sense of urgency- late as it is. It allows the ability to hand out leaflets, put down names and organize call-outs to begin the necessary task of starting over and doing it right in the fallout of the disastrous Bush anti-war movements. Perhaps the working-class can finally at least raise a candle to the mobilizations of the 60s. In the end; the living standards have fallen even from those heights, which means the possibility to rebuild a movement such as the Populist Party has become very reachable indeed. Speaking of history, I think you need a refresher David. Although Drumpf has more Mussolini vibes than Vladimir Lenin.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/25/how-karl-marx-helped-shape-the-republican-party/

As for respect for democracy and "the rule of law", I'll make sure to give him the same respect he gave Obama after the 2012 election.

http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2016/11/donald-trump-from-2012.html

Thats only fair.



Sunday, November 20, 2016 at 7:09:00 AM GMT-5  
Blogger rangeragainstwar said...

David,


You can't help who your fanboys are (re. your, "Trump obviously is the candidate of the KKK".) He didn't solicit their imprimatur. You also can't stop people from living in bunkers, wearing Hugo Boss and jackboots and listening to "Lily Marlene", can you?

Some humans are just a click or so off. Sad fact.

Likewise, Clinton got the support of the Communist Party. A little familiarity with history informs you that the CP has been responsible for echelons above the KKK in terms of worldwide murder.

But no one seemed to mind that little technicality, did they?

--from Lisa

Sunday, November 20, 2016 at 4:43:00 PM GMT-5  
Anonymous Nikolay Levin said...

Lisa, I assume that was for me.

Jewish Israeli Gilad Atzmon also was endorsed by David Duke for essentially arguing for the existence of a Jewish Power Block influencing the United States government against the wishes of the American goyim. Hes credited though with arguing against the insane war policies of the U.S. and Israel; even being once in a blue moon featured on a progressive and/or libertarian outlet. Should he be off the hook too?

A single induced famine in India killed twenty million people after Britain deindustrialized the country and sent its workers to grow cotton instead of rice. It was one of several that turned the biggest textile producer of ancient times into a third-world country and killed off the labor needed for any future reindustrialization to boot. Professor Ward Churchill and Charles C. Mann estimate 100 million Native South and North Americans were killed off for the mercantalist looting needed for the establishment of modern capitalism. One of them won a PEN award for what should of been common knowledge. Andre Vlitchek and Noam Chomsky found that fourty million were killed or starved off after WWII mostly by forcing a country's sold out patsy to give over their wealth and food security to international corporations. Neo-Imperialism versus the more obvious military actions that define Old Imperialism. That list doesn't include the atrocities in Africa and Oceania in the name of such "White Mans Burden" of which the KKK is just a small cog. This easily tops even the most intentionally sensationalist numbers that Communist nations were accused of starving. I'll give Capitalism some slack. Their proponents had a head start.

Did you mean the CP USA? Thats the remnants of the Marxists not exiled, black-listed or jailed in the 1950s after Stalins death when he had stupidly ordered them to cooperate with FDR in the name of the world war effort. Those that were spared were forced to swear an oath literally to capitalism by the House of UnAmerican Activities Committee if I remember. They couldn't be more than a couple hundred. Even the Trotskyists which are all that really remain of the American Communist Left denounce Hillary whether its the International Socialist Organization or the Fourth International.

To the point, the entire incident in question is really misinterpreted. Shes not advocating murder. Shes just acknowledging historically that whenever brown people demand to be treated like human beings, they get brutally murdered and attacked whether its expressed non-violently or not. Please watch the recent documentary "13th" about the 13th Amendment to the Constitution "banning" slavery. There the "Law and Order" redux in chief was quoted as relishing the "good old days" when protestors were carried out in stretchers after one such incident at his rally. It was juxtaposed powerfully with civil rights activists being pummeled decades ago and his supporters threatening to kill activists who try to peacefully protest his rallies again. It also, I should note shows the Clinton Crime family’s complicity in the Omnibus Crime Bill which made Richard Nixon look like a dove, needlessly criminalizing drug possessions, funding the installation of more punitive judges and mandatory minimum sentances and boosting dozens of laws criminalizing the smallest of infractions; ballooning the prison population in America to the highest on the planet- even outdoing old Stalins gulags according to modern historical records. There is a difference here. Everyone after all remembers the four murdered at Kent State. Almost nobody in America knows about the dozen historically black Jackson State University students who were shot up in the same period.

As always as George Santanyana said, "Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it." So it goes.

Sunday, November 20, 2016 at 7:41:00 PM GMT-5  
Blogger Lisa said...

Nyet, Nikolay -- wasn't even thinking of you :)

I'm just pointing the absurdity of this "attack anything" mentality -- even the things one hasn't done! Because someone, somewhere, has said that you did it!

Per your, "Shes not advocating murder": I'm not one of those people. Remember, I'm the chick battling hyperbole, 'kay? The champion of rationality.

Happy Thanksgiving. (Yeah, I know, it's not for everyone. Not for the Native Americans, for ex.)

Thursday, November 24, 2016 at 12:08:00 PM GMT-5  
Anonymous David said...

Niko - It was a reference to my comment about the KKK I imagine.

Sorry for being glib there, Lisa. If you want my actual opinion, it's that endorsements of political candidates should probably be taken just about as seriously as celebrity endorsements of medicines or T-shirts.

Friday, November 25, 2016 at 1:40:00 AM GMT-5  
Anonymous Nikolay Levin said...

Ah yes, thank you. In fact my mothers friends birthday falls on a Thanksgiving which made me delay my own family outing. I ended up celebrating it twice, its falsified genocidal history notwithstanding. Although certain nationalistic jingoists would disagree, being a recent arrival aside; I am still American. So its no surprise I would celebrate American holidays, if ceremoniously.

Speaking of which, this is something I will have to explain to my trucker uncle at Christmas. Its not the party or the candidate but the system thats become absolutely unacceptable. Principled anti-war groups were sending out e-mails to protest the inauguration before voting even began with all the risk of looking irrelevant come the Queen of Chaos's expected coronation. Not somewhere, or someone but Trump of Team Red has promised to continue filling the pockets of defense contractors who obviously don't sit around their board rooms finding out ways to make peace more possible in the Middle East, Africa, Ukraine and beyond. I think you should believe a person when they tell you who they are. "Bombing the shit out of ISIS", unless I'm wrong, involves continuing the Afghanistan quagmire and we all know how that's working out.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/11/18/navigating-the-trump-crisis-both-anti-trump-and-give-him-a-chance-are-wrong/

If I'm to compromise my position if a little Sam Husseni in the link above shows a middle ground. His VotePact organization is dedicated to putting both wings of America's Single Party Capitalist System out of commission and to convince people to stop playing both teams Red and Blues unwinnable game. Other links are not needed. Just look at the statements of anti-war groups ANSWER and UNAC throughout the year.

David, no matter what; if I was endorsed by someone like Duke I would do everything possible to destroy their credibility until they rescinded it. While I would welcome the overflowing of Israel with African refugees of all the countries their reckless arm sales helped destabilize I would welcome the same of the United States. The influx of these desperate mostly harmless refugees is a fraction of the cost to peoples livelihood and wellbeing that was inflicted by the Terror Wars on country after country after country. Its time that the American people stopped whining and uttering mealy-mouthed unsatisfaction with the status quo and start doing something about it. Perhaps the burden would be a better motivation. Next time I keep Israel accountable a David Duke or Gilad Atzmon can put that in his pipe and smoke it.

Tuesday, November 29, 2016 at 11:55:00 AM GMT-5  
Blogger Lisa said...

Nik,

Sometimes, I appreciate a little snark: The "Queen of Chaos's expected coronation" is good ;)

Tuesday, November 29, 2016 at 4:24:00 PM GMT-5  
Anonymous Nikolay Levin said...

Thank you, but the invaluable leftist Diana Johnstone deserves the credit.

Cheers

Friday, December 2, 2016 at 6:25:00 AM GMT-5  
Blogger rangeragainstwar said...

Nik,


Spasiba.

Back soon ...

-Lisa

Sunday, December 4, 2016 at 3:20:00 PM GMT-5  
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Wednesday, December 7, 2016 at 12:47:00 AM GMT-5  
Anonymous David said...

I don't know what happened to them, Luca, but I'm sure that Donald Trump is behind it somehow.

Or possibly the Clinton Foundation.

Wednesday, December 7, 2016 at 9:29:00 PM GMT-5  
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Friday, December 9, 2016 at 7:01:00 AM GMT-5  
Blogger Lisa said...

David,


I don't know how I missed your masterful reply, but "bravo" :)

I could not have comforted Luca any better.

Thursday, February 2, 2017 at 7:08:00 PM GMT-5  

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