dancarlin.bsky.social
Host of Hardcore History. I do other stuff too. Find our (free) irregularity updated newsletter at https://dancarlin.substack.com
Website: www.dancarlin.com
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Iran is a much tougher military situation than Iraq or Afghanistan. Iran has double the population of Iraq. it has as many people as Iraq and Afghanistan put together. Most of them on the younger side. (To name but one thing that would make it a very tough situation to get into).
A huge commitment.
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Not in U.S. history. This is totally off the map for our country.
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That's a really nice thing to say. Thank you. You made my day.
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Tell me more about this "serious scrutiny" of which you speak. 😂
If serious scrutiny had any power to aid us I doubt we'd now be where we are.
But I am a fan. I'm all for it. But when we're all living in alternate realities, scrutiny loses all its powers to help us.
(No disrespect intended).
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Maybe I'm being naive,but beyond a few strikes by air,it's hard for me to envision anything more substantial. But...I don't think it would be impossible to imagine POTUS using a few air strikes as a rationale for invoking war powers though. Saying "We are at war" on TV and then we're off and running
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That's confidential.
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A great idea.I think that it doesn't take a genius to simply realize that to arm yourself with the flag of your nation is to undercut one of the other side's biggest pieces of propaganda against you they have.Symbols matter and the national flag is a powerful one for a reason.It should be used!
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...and, i'm torn between the idea that this is historically how it's always been...versus the idea that so many new variables (social media,the trends and forces involved in the weakening of political parties,etc.)make this different.
Splitting the difference probably gets closer to being accurate.
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The biggest disappointment for me with everything going on now is how many people can't tell what's really occurring (or don't care, or have too much sunken costs in the way of their cognitive dissonance or whatever). Trump is a symptom. THAT may be the bigger, overriding issue.
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Can't argue with you there.
One of the basic flaws in our system as it deals with protests is it requires hundreds/thousands of people to all be on their best behavior.One rock thrower(or agent provocateur)can get the whole thing shut down (thereby nullifying everyone's 1st amendment rights).
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Experience matters. Learn from the past. The reaction of the "Silent Majority" (in pretty much any country)
Is pretty reliable/predictable and should be taken into account when formulating effective strategies.
Ask the crowd that protested against Nixon about it.
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People don't take that into account enough. Or think "fuck that shit! Are you on the ground?". As if people who already have lived though this stuff learned nothing from it. With that attitude, any experienced gained by today's new protesters will be useless (or labeled as such)by tomorrow's.
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An "America that lives up to the marketing message" is how I always phrase it. A continual work in progress towards living up to the hype.
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There were all sorts of flags at that event. I saw an Irish one too.
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I have and I will! I've been telling everybody to show up Saturday for the No Kings demonstration and I'll be there too. In fact I was at one a few weeks ago. Defend the constitutional republic from autocracy folks! (Photo from a few weeks back)
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Thank you!
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There are more ex-presidents than just him.
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Or maybe some former U.S presidents would be of use right now😡
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Why do we act as if there's no historical data for this stuff? Demonstrations...peaceful ones...have shaken our (and lots of other) government(s). Altered policy. Transformed politics. So,yeah, that is what the goal is.
What was your plan?
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No doubt. But that's strongly tied to the optics, is it not? They want to see rioters and looters and people holding foreign flags "get what's coming to them". If instead it's a bunch of nuns holding crosses and American flags they'd feel differently.
Or maybe I'm wrong?
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A thousand apologies. Didn't mean to come off as dismissive.
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You mean after we've lost?
Because I'm talking about tactics I think will help us avoid authoritarianism.That's my main intention here. Effectiveness towards victory. That's how my weird mind works. What happens in the mopping up if we lose is an entirely different set of tactics and strategies.
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Where should be "well".
Need an edit feature.
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And the rage and such (and God Forbid looting) that provides the good video for the Breitbarts of the world are going to be played as evidence for the NEED and CORRECTNESS for invoking those emergency powers.
This is all so open. It's not
Like they're playing 3-D chess with us here.
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Where we talked about this in the last Common Sense show. It's totally in the open: this is an attempt to foster something that can be portrayed as an emergency so that emergency powers can be invoked. That's all there is to it, and POTUS is telegraphing his intentions.
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But if it's the authorities using violence on people who aren't doing anything to warrant such a reaction,The People tend to see the demonstrators at the victims and the authorities as tools of an oppressive regime. That's the sort of optics that shifts public opinion. The goal of any demonstration.
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This also explains the power of non-violence. Violence turns The People off… So whomever is employing the violence ends up looking like the bad guy.
If both sides are employing violence the authorities can claim the "law and order" high ground. (Which is just what happened under Nixon).
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This is the thinking 2dA conservatives have been expounding all my life.The problem is that violence scares the People.The "Silent Majority" as Nixon branded them. So unless you envision defeating the U.S. army&standing triumphantly on top of the rubble of the White House it's all about optics.
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So, while I have little doubt about the actual veracity of what you are showing, I'm wondering when I should start to doubt anything I see from anyone. When does the A.I. stuff make video evidence unusable? We're "flooding the zone with shit" here, and now even bodycam footage might mean nothing.🤔
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Violence plays into the hands of the State.They use it to foster the legitimacy of their actions.Non-violence is harder for them.
After all,they're trained,equipped&experienced with violence.They have far less experience deftly handling those who use non-violence to make them look like the monsters.
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People involved in protests are too dismissive of the optics. They usually suggest that somehow the way it all looks is beneath the dignity of the cause for which they fight. Ignoring that the whole goal of public demonstrations IS to create optics.
To make sure they're effective is only smart.
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Strong "my brother is Al Pacino" vibes from JT here. 😂
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I have all sorts of things I'd like to see done/not done at protest,but no one is asking for my opinion.
Optics are hugely important though. Not enough attention is paid to that.
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I'll add to that that you don't even have to be empathetic to want to go there. You can do it for purely self-serving reasons. Defend those people's rights because loopholes that allow the government to get them can be widened eventually to get you. Historically that's been the case too.
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Wrong! Non-violence being effective is not predicated on the ruler being conscientious. It's dependent upon the population being unnerved by what they're seeing. And let me know when MILLIONS have been out in the streets for MONTHS. We haven't tried serious 1960s-style nonviolence yet.
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As we said on CS.
Anyone paying even a modicum of attention knew that this was the plan of action that the administration had ready to go. That's part of what makes it extra nefarious.
This isn't a response to a crisis. It's a manufactured crisis designed to rationalize a long-planned response.
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We protect their right to it because to do so is to also similtaneously protect our own. The weakest and most threatened among us are the bleeding edge of constitutional protections. They are our canaries in coal mines.