Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/01/30/was-this-weekend-a-trial-ballo.html
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How do we help stop this?
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This really is bone-chilling. Many of the points brought forward by the original author did slide right by my notice, and I thought I was keeping a pretty good finger on the pulse. For example, I didn’t realize Trump already filed for 2020, nor did I notice the Rosneft sale, which was mentioned in the Steele dossier. Also, Priebus does seem to be taking on a much more public role than CoS in the past.
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Nothing brings jobs back like a police state, amirite?
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A friend posted this on Facebook:
This is long, but please read it. There is so much more going on behind the scene. Don’t be fooled and led like sheep; we can come together and be great - not just great Americans, but great humans. Keep calm and read between the lines…
Discussion of this weekend’s “shock event” from Boston College professor of American History, Heather Cox Richardson: she is writing from the position of a moderate (albeit one who has published several books on the history of the Republican party).
"There is an important non-partisan point to make today. What Bannon is doing, most dramatically with last night’s ban on immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries-- is creating what is known as a “shock event.” Such an event is unexpected and confusing and throws a society into chaos.
People scramble to react to the event, usually along some fault line that those responsible for the event can widen by claiming that they alone know how to restore order. When opponents speak out, the authors of the shock event call them enemies.
As society reels and tempers run high, those responsible for the shock event perform a sleight of hand to achieve their real goal, a goal they know to be hugely unpopular, but from which everyone has been distracted as they fight over the initial event.
There is no longer concerted opposition to the real goal; opposition divides along the partisan lines established by the shock event.
Last night’s Executive Order has all the hallmarks of a shock event. It was not reviewed by any governmental agencies or lawyers before it was released, and counterterrorism experts insist they did not ask for it. People charged with enforcing it got no instructions about how to do so. Courts immediately have declared parts of it unconstitutional, but border police in some airports are refusing to stop enforcing it.
It is designed explicitly to divide people who might otherwise come together so they cannot stand against something its authors think they won’t like. I don’t know what Bannon is up to-- although I have some guesses-- but because I know Bannon’s ideas well, I am positive that there is not a single person whom I consider a friend on either side of the aisle-- and my friends range pretty widely-- who will benefit from whatever it is.
If the shock event strategy works, though, many of you will blame each other, rather than Bannon, for the fallout. And the country will have been tricked into accepting their real goal.
But because shock events destabilize a society, they can also be used positively. We do not have to respond along old fault lines. We could just as easily reorganize into a different pattern that threatens the people who sparked the event.
A successful shock event depends on speed and chaos because it requires knee-jerk reactions so that people divide along established lines. This, for example, is how Confederate leaders railroaded the initial southern states out of the Union.
If people realize they are being played, though, they can reach across old lines and reorganize to challenge the leaders who are pulling the strings.
This was Lincoln’s strategy when he joined together Whigs, Democrats, Free-Soilers, anti-Nebraska voters, and nativists into the new Republican Party to stand against the Slave Power. Five years before, such a coalition would have been unimaginable. Members of those groups agreed on very little other than that they wanted all Americans to have equal economic opportunity.
Once they began to work together to promote a fair economic system, though, they found much common ground. They ended up rededicating the nation to a "government of the people, by the people, and for the people.“
Confederate leaders and Lincoln both knew about the political potential of a shock event. As we are in the midst of one, it seems worth noting that Lincoln seemed to have the better idea about how to use it.”
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Just wanted to leap in here and head off anyone following up by talking up Mussolini: he in fact did NOT get the trains running on time.
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I am a white male in a mostly conservative ‘christian’ family… And ai am afraid.
Everyone else out there should be fucking terrified.
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[quote=“stellans7, post:3, topic:93962, full:true”]
Many of the points brought forward by the original author did slide right by my notice, and I thought I was keeping a pretty good finger on the pulse.[/quote]
Same here. In the midst of being barraged by events, I just didn’t make the connection between the Rosneft sale and Steele’s report. When I looked at the report I just assumed “oh, that’s Putin trying to out-con the con man – a transfer of that scale could never happen.” After I read this article this morning, I’m kicking myself for not knowing better.
[quote=“ChickieD, post:5, topic:93962”]
creating what is known as a “shock event.” Such an event is unexpected and confusing and throws a society into chaos[/quote]
This is why we’re missing things like the Rosneft sale – we’re being bloody buried in these shock events and the subsequent and exhausting FUD. It’s straight out of the Russian playbook described in Adam Curtis’s “Hypernormalisation” documentary.
That’s good advice, especially in combination with everyone choosing one issue or institution or scandal to focus his or her attention on, trusting that others will do the same. That makes it more difficult for us to be overwhelmed. Articles like this can then act as clearinghouses.
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Was this weekend a trial balloon for a coup?
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Sure, but did he claim that he got them running on time? Sounds like one o’ them alternative facts.
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I think you may be right about his claiming it.
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Very concerned for my LGBTQ friends right now.
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One small part might be: socially hilight anyone you know who is complicit with this. If, for example, I discovered I lived next to one of the airport agents who was disregarding the courts, I’d start watching for him/her at the mailbox so I could strike up conversations asking something between “what’s the justification” and “how do you sleep”.
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So at some point they will have to take advantage of a terrorist attack (or create their own) in order to seal the deal, declare martial law, start rounding up dissidents, dissolve the courts, and put the army under their direct control.
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The problem is, they’re going to say the same to you. And they’ll have the full force of the federal government to back them.
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So it may become a numbers game. Do more people call them out, or do more people support the New Order?
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So is this the Shock Doctrine now applied to us?
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Don’t worry Mark.
It will take 20 years to do such a thing.
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Fuck, Guess I’m glad about keeping my orientation out of my workplace.
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Still bitter and hurt I didn’t tell my folks I’m sweet on a trans/genderfluid person. As a Christian this shit is the opposite of what we should be doing. Driving people apart rather than bringing together.
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