Along with other cities, Washington DC today played host to a large (How large? Who knows?) "March for Our Lives" allegedly put together by and for the students of a Parkland City high school in the wake of the mass shooting there last month. I have expressed on numerous occasions my distrust and dislike of these sort of marches (here and here, for example.) It is never completely clear what the real agenda is and who are the masterminds. (One guess what the real agenda is in this case.)
This demonstration saw the classic stupid prog props, the overwrought rhetoric and performances, including vomiting on stage by a young speaker and, of course, lots of children. Yes, children. Children placed prominently. Children as props. I have a particular disgust for people who bring small children to marches and demonstrations, and hand them pre-printed signs with cutesy sayings.
Children do not belong in such events. I have seen these affairs, in Spain, for example, go south real fast: terrified children being scooped up to get them out of the way of charging police horses, other running marchers, counter protestors, rubber bullets, tear gas, etc. The progs love to bring kids to potentially dangerous events, much like the Palestinians do.
If you're an adult, come as an adult, and brave the currents and tides of fortune as an adult--don't put children at risk. One has to wonder if deep down, some of these folks want to see a child get hurt. Anything for that CNN coverage?
Speaking of less-than-bright, a number of uber rich entertainment celebrities, protected by men with guns, made their presence known at the various anti-gun rights marches: e.g., Oprah, Clooney (who fled his mansion in "gun-less" Britain in fear for his children) and, most galling, Sir Paul McCartney who marched in New York.
We have enough homegrown idiots without need to import them. We are self-sufficient in stupidity. Why doesn't Sir Paul go home to march against knife violence and jihadi terror? Somebody said to me, well, his friend John Lennon was shot and killed in New York. Yes, well, my Foreign Service colleague Marie Burke was stabbed to death in her flat in London. Let's also not forget that Sir Paul's other buddy, George Harrison, was stabbed in his own palatial home near London. I guess I will head for London for the long-delayed anti-knife march . . . hope I don't get acid thrown in my face or run down by a jihadi in a rental van. Sir Paul, I am sure, will join me, and let me borrow his bodyguards.
Marches and marchers . . .
UPDATE! See the interview with my bearded Diploson 3 and his friends at the DC march. Don't tell me he doesn't look like Henry VIII or some Hell's Angel . . . Wonder when YouTube will take it down.
The usual "progressive" orchestrated freak show. With children, the potential for additional victims is greater which is ok to "progressives" as long as the narrative is supported. The left is always marching as useful idiots and cannon fodder for people and forces unseen and unknown to them.
ReplyDeleteLooking back in history, both Hitler & Mao mobilized the radicalized kiddies. That didn't turn out too well
ReplyDeleteThe girl that threw up? Probably not pregnancy. Most likely understandable nerves and legitimate overwhelming emotion. She sang Happy Birthday to one of her slain Parkland classmates who would've turned 18 today. She herself was shot in both legs and wounded by shrapnel in the face.
ReplyDeleteProtest is part of America. But at least protesters should be up front about what they want. Want to confiscate guns and repeal the 2nd amendment? Fine, say so.
ReplyDeleteBut instead of marching, perhaps their efforts should go to running candidates who will espouse their ideas, get them elected, and change the Constitution. I've no problem with that -- we have a mechanism for it. The mechanism does not include mob rule.
That is what this was all about. It was a Democrat GOTV rally.
DeleteImagine all the people ... having the scales fall from their eyes ...
ReplyDelete"March for Our Lives "allegedly put together by and for the students" of the Parkland City high school in the wake of the mass shooting there last month."
ReplyDeleteJudging from an article I noted in The Federalist Mr. Amselem it would appear your doubts are well-placed (if the author did his due diligence which, I for one do not doubt).
Oddly - trying to find this on Google Search was impossible (How can that be?) but switching over to Startpage and entering the exact same terms - lead result!
http://thefederalist.com/2018/03/01/take-two-weeks-truth-emerge-parkland-students-astroturfing/
JK
Excellent article!
DeleteThere's one point that I'd object to, though: Mr. Hines says that these activist kids are not "crisis actors."
Perhaps not, but they are trained actors. They were primed and prepared for either this event, or one very similar to it, and they made the most of their opportunity. Sure, they're eloquent and "spontaneous." It takes a lot of rehearsal for an actor to appear spontaneous!
All those talking points didn't just magically appear in their (mostly empty) heads; they were provided with their script, and they've done a bang-up job with it. No wonder George Clooney, et. al. are pleased with them!
The costume department hasn't done so well. They really should have been issued brown shirts, with appropriate armbands (perhaps a lightning bolt? The swastika has been overused, so it won't do.) Snazzy uniforms will really put this show on the road!
So maybe these kids aren't "crisis actors." They're just actors, who were helped to make the best use of a crisis; as Rahm Emmanuel famously said, "You never want to let a serious crisis go to waste. It's an opportunity to do things that you did not think you could do before!"
good article! thanks for the tip JK
Delete- reader #1482
I do believe both those young men would have held their ground at Agincourt!
ReplyDeleteThat was hoot. I thought the guys were going to whip the crowd into riot!
ReplyDeletehow did you know bolton was the new nat'l sec adviser? :)
DeleteAhem, as tempting as it is to maintain an air of mystery...
DeleteJust one of those rumors that you immediately know is true. Haha mostly blowing smoke outa my ass and got lucky. I will push my luck and prognosticate a little further. Why did Trump cave on the budget deal so uncharacteristically? Was the boost to military spending so acutely critical that nothing else mattered? Worrisome.
ReplyDeleteWhat all those young gun grabbers who were marching around the country this past weekend can't or don't want to realize ... is that our Second-Amendment guns help keep the likes of Donald Trump from ever trying to become our dictator.
I doubt Trump has any designs on becoming a dictator, but two points: the left thinks he does, but still wants government to control all the guns. the right thinks he doesn't, but knows that our possession of guns ensures that it doesn't matter what he wants.
DeleteMy point exactly ...
DeleteI saw the interview with Diploson 3. He was great, very good discussion. This is what is so great about the US. People give their opinions proud and loud and clear even in controversial issues. Maybe it is because of the 2nd Amendment.
ReplyDeleteSwedish lady
I think you like him because he looks like a Viking . . .
DeleteWell, I can very well imagine him on board of a long-ship ( drakskepp), maybe sailing west to visit some of the rich monasterys there and to do some persuasion... Or eastwards up the mighty Russian rivers. Did you know that the Vikings according to some historians gave Russia its name ? Roslagen is a province near Stockholm, people from there were called Ruser and they sailed eastwards.
DeleteSwedish lady
In an interesting historical parallel, many of the most brutal killers in Pol Pot's "year zero" Cambodia, were "children" between the ages of eight and fourteen.
ReplyDeleteThey did not shoot their victims. Firearms were for the exclusive use of the "revolutionary security forces" and ammunition was for shooting at "foreign, counter-revolutionary elements".
So what was an enthusiastic, totally programmed sociopath to do?
Well, rocks were free and pretty good for bashing in the skulls of "back-sliding" family members and former friends and neighbours.
Hardwood sticks were nicely effective, if a little slower, but broke from over-use in the service of the state.
In the spirit of the eco-nazis, a secular epiphany occurred.
The country has an abundance of sugar palm trees. So, the young creative types set to fashioning weapons from the fronds of that ubiquitous tree.
Basically, the "leafy" part of the fronds was trimmed back to leave a fairly good facsimile of a saw-tooth edge. Just the thing for slashing the throats of "the other".
When the repurposed fronds got soggy from all the blood, there were plenty more, literally growing on trees. That convergence of national icon (the sugar palm) and weaponized minds and bodies is pretty grim.
Not many folk want to talk about that particular "children's crusade"
impressive beard!
ReplyDelete- reader #1482
Does any of this matter? So, lots of Democrat/Liberal money got spent flying "children" (or, in World War I terms, military-aged cannon fodder) to walk up & down a bit and make a mess. Percentage of US population which witnessed a "march"? Close to Zero.
ReplyDeleteAh! But the main point was to get CNN TV coverage. OK -- percentage of US population which watched anything about the "march" on CNN? Again, close to zero. That estimate is based on looking at bored people stuck in airports with no alternative to CNN -- and they sit with their backs to the TV screens.
If the Enemy wants to waste her resources on this kind of vacuous theater, let them get on with it!
i dunno... msm seems to be able to choose the narrative endorsed by my neighbors... wish it weren't.. I don't watch TV... maybe that's "my problem"
Delete- reader #1482
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/03/26/jimmy-carter-decries-donald-trump-decision-hire-john-bolton-disaster-our-country/459458002/
ReplyDelete... pissing off all the correct foreign policy opinions...
I like Carter as a person, but his foreign policy views are ridiculous in regards to the US and have led to so many disasters... many far outliving his presidency.
- reader #1482
Mr. Amselem,
ReplyDeleteGiven this, your post's title, More Stupid Ideas, I nevertheless thought you'd appreciate what a retired US Navy Captain has to say:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/donald-trump-foreign-policy-strategic-ambiguity-american-interests/
JK
Thanks. Was writing something along these lines, but will now have to change it a bit . . .
DeleteJK, that is a good article.
DeleteYour comment about knifings hit a chord with me. In the years since I started teaching high school, the place where I work has had two knifings, one of which was fatal. We've also had some beatings. BTW, the rules against fighting and carrying blades are very, very strict.
ReplyDeleteHasn't it occurred Kepha to your School Board to put up one of those little sticky-signs picturing a knife encircled in red with a red stripe from about 2 o'clock through to 7 o'clock at every door which makes that sort of thing illegal?
DeleteSeems to me your local authorities could instantly make the beatings and the fatal knifings into rather, places people "dine on herbs and live where Love is."
One Brow
(As if)
Please translate ...
DeleteGeorge W. Potts,
DeleteObviously, the joke is that I am so naive as to think violence can be prevented entirely, as opposed to mollified.
Personally, I would be more likely to note that one fatality from two knifings and several beatings, while not a good thing, is far less bad than several deaths from a single incident. But that's just me.
Well One Brow I suppose you do know its not only (gasp!) the ARs, the knives and even the fists that's responsible for us all having "our goats got"?
DeleteRecall this?
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/1927-bombing-remains-americas-deadliest-school-massacre-180963355/
And, lest you think that our current "gun-problems" date back to merely Columbine Google the origin of the phrase, "Going Postal."
And yet we're in a frenzy over the exceedingly rare.
JK
Diplomad,
ReplyDeleteThe "progs" do bring the children to events, but so do the "cons".
Moreover, why are people disapproving of the children being coached? It doesn't make what they are saying less heart-felt.
I think it should bother people when adults are coaching children to become tragic symbols, rather than mourning and moving on with their lives.
DeleteIt's borderline abuse, and I suspect these kids will suffer greatly from it in the long run. Sure... it gets them their 15 minutes of fame, a lot of facebook likes, and the commensurate high that probably goes with it. But this is probably a time where they should be forming deeper relationships with other people, rather than being pushed to make their opinions more strident and intolerant of others.
Few things makes one more resolved in their intolerance than being widely lauded for upbraiding others.
- reader #1482