Who says Americans don't riot?

[Why Syzygy]

Obama tells us:
"We are the ones we have been waiting for."

Howard Dean always called us:
"the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Dean#Message_and_themes

Dennis Kucinich is telling the press:
"I'm an American taxpayer." (one of us)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x267921

Where did we riot?

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/robert_reich/2009/02/tom-daschle-and-the-populist-r.php

Tom Daschle and the Populist Revolt
February 3, 2009, 3:08PM

Tom Daschle's surprise withdrawal today shocked most Washington insiders -- after all, Daschle had been a key figure in the Senate, was Obama's pick for a major role in the new administration, would very likely have done a superb job getting a new health-insurance system enacted, and, probably could have mustered enough votes to be confirmed. So what happened? My guess is that official Washington underestimated the public's pique at what appeared to be the old ways of Washington. Hill staffers tell me that many offices have been inundated with telephone calls, emails, letters and faxes expressing concern (to put it mildly) about Daschle -- not only his failure to pay back taxes but his relationships with major players in the health care industry and rich consulting contracts with the private sector since leaving the Senate, and even the fact that he was given a car and driver by one of them.

What's going on here? Maybe official Washington, much like most of Wall Street, is still not quite getting it.
...
I'm sorry Tom Daschle won't be in the Obama administration. He would have served the public well and with distinction. But the public wants change, real change, big change. There's no tolerance any longer for the way things used to be done.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123371136824046167.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

February 4, 2009
After Uproar, Wells Fargo Calls Off Trip to Las Vegas


Wells Fargo & Co. hastily canceled plans to host a Las Vegas employee conference after lawmakers in Washington learned about the trip and heaped criticism on the bank.

The San Francisco bank said it decided to cancel the four-day event "in light of the current environment." Government money wasn't to be used for the meeting, the company said.

Initially, a spokesman for Wells Fargo said in a statement, the bank wasn't going to back away from holding the conference. Just hours later, as television networks and bloggers pummeled the bank, Wells Fargo began backpedaling.

First, a spokesman asked journalists to "disregard" the earlier statement. Then the bank put out a new release about the cancellation of the event, which it said was not a "junket" but a "meeting and recognition event for the hard-working team members who made homeownership achievable and sustainable for borrowers across the nation."

Where we go next:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/02/generals-seek-to-reverse_n_163070.html

Generals Seek To Reverse Obama's Iraq Withdrawal Decision

WASHINGTON, Feb 2 (IPS) - CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus, supported by Defence Secretary Robert Gates, tried to convince President Barack Obama that he had to back down from his campaign pledge to withdraw all U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months at an Oval Office meeting Jan. 21.

But Obama informed Gates, Petraeus and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen that he wasn't convinced and that he wanted Gates and the military leaders to come back quickly with a detailed 16-month plan, according to two sources who have talked with participants in the meeting.

Obama's decision to override Petraeus's recommendation has not ended the conflict between the president and senior military officers over troop withdrawal, however. There are indications that Petraeus and his allies in the military and the Pentagon, including Gen. Ray Odierno, now the top commander in Iraq, have already begun to try to pressure Obama to change his withdrawal policy.

A network of senior military officers is also reported to be preparing to support Petraeus and Odierno by mobilising public opinion against Obama's decision.

We riot. Keep writing, calling, faxing, showing up.

[Career Prole]

1. General Betrayus needs to be shown

the McArthur exit, and sooner rather than later.
The SOB is trying with his hawk buddies to overrule the will of the American people, in the person of the C in C which we elected based on his Iraq proposal.

[Why Syzygy]

2. As a military mom,

I find it stupefying.

[n2doc]

9. Exactly. He needs to "retire"

I'm sure we will see him again, running for office like Ollie North, in the near future. But get him out of there now.

[L0oniX]

16. I smell a military coup n/t

[chrisa]

18. Well, if that happened...

They would be all arrested or killed. I don't think they're that crazy, and this isn't some failed state / banana republic.

[L0oniX]

22. uhm ...not yet but it's on the way.

[Why Syzygy]

26. They are planning a MEDIA BLITZ!! A PR campaign!

outrageous

[Cid_B]

29. Its probably a better idea if we don't put war strategy to a popular vote...

[ClayZ]

3. What is it BETRAYUS does not understand about the word ...

"COMMANDER" in the title COMMANDER IN CHIEF?


Fire BETRAYUS!


K and R

[EFerrari]

4. We need to dig up those stories about this @sshole engaging in

illegal arms sales.

[lostnfound]

11. Why am I thinking of Sybil Edmonds? And weapons smuggling?

Huh.

[Why Syzygy]

25. Where is she? Does anyone want to talk to her NOW? nt

[Why Syzygy]

5. Disobeying a direct order is bad enough.

But to conspire to excite a revolt? What Article is THAT?

[tomreedtoon]

6. We have still NOT rioted.

We resent the fact that CEO's are getting bonuses as their low-level employees are fired. But we don't charge their houses, tie up the CEO's, and make them watch as we roast their wives, mistresses and small children on their huge barbecue spits before we behead them. THAT is rioting.

We are pissed at the Pink Tutu Congresspeople who are still bending over for the Republicans...



...but we aren't gathered in mobs outside their houses, carrying torches and burning their expensive shrubbery. And maybe torching their family pets, while we're at it. THAT is rioting.

We're mad that Bush got away with everything, but we haven't dragged him and frog-marched him and Cheney to the Hague, in numbers so great that his Secret Servicemen are overwhelmed. THAT is rioting.

We have still NOT rioted. What was described in the article was not a riot. It was the equivalent of writing a Letter to the Editor. Americans do not get angry enough to riot, and we haven't been that angry unless we were black and living in Watts in the 60's.

On edit: Sorry, I haven't yet picked up the new Pink Tutu picture that puts Pelosi's picture on one of Daddy Dubya's pink-tutu'd ballerinas.

[Donnachaidh]

7. wait till the weather warms up and people STILL can't find jobs

Those folks who may be facing water shortages, or may have their electric switched off for non-payment and have to deal with HEAT (electric companies don't worry about getting a towel snap from the government in the summer), or cannot get help from food banks because the places have run OUT of federal or state funding. Right now people are trying to stay warm.

[Why Syzygy]

8. You're right of course.

But, we accomplished a few victories without property destruction.

My focus was on outcomes, and a call to arms to use our peaceful methods to keep it up!
Imo, the Results are even better than we could hope to gain by inciting riot police. :shrug:

Having the will of the people enacted without a counter story .. what do you think that does to TPTB? I hope it scares them shitless.

I WOULD like to see more (news) coverage of this People's action.

[tomreedtoon]

10. Riots are not peaceful methods.

In fact, riots are practical anger. And funny thing, riots are rarely practical solutions to problems. The Watts riots, which I think I referenced, did bring attention to the fact that Los Angeles blacks had problems no one was addressing, and it did bring aid and compassion to that area for a while. But only after people had their own homes and businesses burned.

Summoning a riot is like summoning a demon. Easy to obtain, impossible to control, and it often turns on its summoner.

[janet118]

13. Song, in real time, about Watts' riots

From Phil Ochs' "In the Heat of the Summer":

"For shame, for shame," wrote the papers.

"Why the hurry to your hunger?

Now the rubble's resting on your broken streets

so you see what your rage has unraveled."

Baricades sadly were risin'

Bricks were heavily flyin'

And the loudspeaker drowned like a whisperin' sound

When compared to the angered emotions


And when the fury was over

And the shame was replacing the anger.

So wrong, so wrong, but we've been down so long

And we had to make somebody listen

In the heat of the summer......

It could be very hot in the summer of 2010.

[tomreedtoon]

27. Far better: Frank Zappa "Trouble Every Day"

(excerpt)

And further they assert
That any show they'll interrupt
To bring you news if it comes up
They say that if the place blows up
They will be the first to tell,
Because the boys they got downtown
Are workin' hard and doin' swell,
And if anybody gets the news
Before it hits the street,
They say that no one blabs it faster
Their coverage can't be beat

And if another woman driver
Gets machine-gunned from her seat
They'll send some joker with a brownie
And you'll see it all complete

So I'm watchin' and I'm waitin'
Hopin' for the best
Even think I'll go to prayin'
Every time I hear 'em sayin'
That there's no way to delay
That trouble comin' every day
No way to delay
That trouble comin' every day

Hey, you know something people?
I'm not black
But there's a whole lots a times
I wish I could say I'm not white

[Why Syzygy]

14. The Internet seems to be

our new tool of revolt. Which, in my stumbling way, was one thing I hoped to bring into view.

[sofa king]

12. I concur. That's not rioting; it's lobbying.

I disagree, however, that Americans don't riot and don't do it unless they're angry. We create civil unrest quite frequently, and sometimes for reasons which would be humorous if the results were not so unfortunate. Since Watts in '65 there were the DC riots of '68, Kent State in '70, the LA riots of '92, and sports-related riots in Denver, Chicago, and LA in the past ten years or so, some of them stemming from their city's victory, rather than defeat. Colleges and universities around the nation have boiled over dozens of times in the past eight years, sometimes in places as small and remote as Shippensburg, PA, but national news does not report on those instances.

We are a nation comprised primarily of human beings, and human beings are prone to assembling and then acting unruly. What we haven't done of late is to riot so violently that we economically wreck an entire area for thirty years, as happened on U-Street in Washington, DC in '68. We will.

[Why Syzygy]

15. You can be pretty damned sure that if there's

an assassination, people will take to the streets. All precautions need to be taken to ensure that doesn't happen.

edit: I don't even want to think about it.

[L0oniX]

17. Riot? heheh you've got to be kidding ...that will never happen...

on a scale large enough to cause real change. They are ready for us to riot, that's what homeland security is all about. It's been prepared for. The riot would have to be so massive that it over whelms any police or military actions. It's not going to happen. We are gutless lemmings and unorganized to do such a thing. If we try to organize to do this they will know and start putting us in the prison camps that have already been built for us. One way we could do something is if we all stopped working at the same time. That would fuck them up big time.

[bdamomma]

21. a total work stoppage would wake them up.

[monmouth]

19. President Obama is their Commander In Chief. They WILL DO as he orders...n/t

[Why Syzygy]

23. Isn't it against some military code

to participate in a conspiracy to change an order from a superior officer? (that felt good to say)

Insubordination is not tolerated. Is making your case to the MSM?

[NashVegas]

20. The Iraq Problem

Is thus: how do we withdraw in such a way that does not create its own security nightmares?

As troops pull out, the remaining troops and their supply chain becomes vulnerable to insurgents.

[Why Syzygy]

24. As I sat watching shock and awe..

I foresaw a day when our men and women would be leaving under a hail of gunfire. I'm sure there are military models to withdrawal. I personally think there will still be war there. But, at least we won't be in it.

[Why Syzygy]

28. final kick

:kick: