"....At home, we should use our military only when requested to do so, on very rare
occasions, by state governors. Militarizing our response, as we
witnessed in Washington, D.C., sets up a conflict—a false conflict—
between the military and civilian society. It erodes the moral ground
that ensures a trusted bond between men and women in uniform and
the society they are sworn to protect, and of which they themselves are
a part. Keeping public order rests with civilian state and local leaders
who best understand their communities and are answerable to them...." Gen. Mattis
There are other unhappy aspects of this passage, not least of which are some historical counter examples. Some of those are troubling too, but so also is this perspective.
Mattis sounds like a Southern states' rights advocate here. That had been the position of the Confederacy too.
That is a classic lost cause which should not have been fought, and created what Bobbitt termed the First Nation State of Terror.
Thus, when Mattis invokes Lincoln. whole lotta problems of consistency, and other baggage there.
What if a state tells the federal government to stay out? Fine, Mattis says it stays out regardless.
What if a state, and, say, The District of Columbia, agree to tell the federal government to stay out, does the federal government comply?
What if two states agree no federal government? Does Mattis' federal government comply even then?
If you don't militarize, and security services monitor closely, militant domestic and foreign influenced groups at protests, determined to turn nonviolent protests to their purposes, you are failing the nonviolent protesters, even though a substantial number of them may even be unwitting stooges of these violent domestic and foreign groups.
One good job would be education about the inherent dangers of nonviolent protests of anything. People tend not to believe that there are foreign and or extreme influences and conspiracies here, even when manifestly there are. Diverse subversive activities have been the stock in trade both of diplomacy and of out of power and or disenfranchised malcontents long back into history. Palmer did a long book, The Age of the Democratic Revolution, in part chronicling some of these initiatives, from the mid 18th Century forward. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, discusses at length uses of innocent front office folks who are told one thing, and the real movement is furthered behind closed doors and in the street.
it remind me more and more of Weimar, a place filled too with ignoramuses, lead this way or that.
You may get herd immunity in mass protests, but there can be a big price, and you are in two kinds of dangerous herds at the same time.
Stalin relentlessly supported the German Left, even after the obvious danger of the rise of the National Socialists on the right, all fighting eachother in the streets.
Putin I think would make generous contributions to both sides here, but once again, destabilizing the US is a very dangerous game or objective.
That is a classic lost cause which should not have been fought, and created what Bobbitt termed the First Nation State of Terror.
Thus, when Mattis invokes Lincoln. whole lotta problems of consistency, and other baggage there.
What if a state tells the federal government to stay out? Fine, Mattis says it stays out regardless.
What if a state, and, say, The District of Columbia, agree to tell the federal government to stay out, does the federal government comply?
What if two states agree no federal government? Does Mattis' federal government comply even then?
If you don't militarize, and security services monitor closely, militant domestic and foreign influenced groups at protests, determined to turn nonviolent protests to their purposes, you are failing the nonviolent protesters, even though a substantial number of them may even be unwitting stooges of these violent domestic and foreign groups.
One good job would be education about the inherent dangers of nonviolent protests of anything. People tend not to believe that there are foreign and or extreme influences and conspiracies here, even when manifestly there are. Diverse subversive activities have been the stock in trade both of diplomacy and of out of power and or disenfranchised malcontents long back into history. Palmer did a long book, The Age of the Democratic Revolution, in part chronicling some of these initiatives, from the mid 18th Century forward. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, discusses at length uses of innocent front office folks who are told one thing, and the real movement is furthered behind closed doors and in the street.
it remind me more and more of Weimar, a place filled too with ignoramuses, lead this way or that.
You may get herd immunity in mass protests, but there can be a big price, and you are in two kinds of dangerous herds at the same time.
Stalin relentlessly supported the German Left, even after the obvious danger of the rise of the National Socialists on the right, all fighting eachother in the streets.
Putin I think would make generous contributions to both sides here, but once again, destabilizing the US is a very dangerous game or objective.
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