POWER TO SOME PEOPLE

I have no idea which side they're on. 

Sunday afternoon, I settled in front of the TV, refreshments at hand, to watch what I hoped would be a full-throttle physical clash in Washington, DC. 

In this corner, weighing no less than 200 pounds each -- the whitest of the white, the brawlers who traded in their white sheets for red neckties, the losers who couldn't get a date with a dog if you tied a pork chop around their ankle
-- give a round of Bronx cheers for Unite the Right!

And in this corner, weighing each race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation carefully so that everyone is equal down to the last eyebrow hair, the fighters who won't cry "uncle" because it would just another case of masculine domination, the patriots who love free speech until you disagree with them, please welcome -- or else they might throw a chair through your business window -- Antifa & Company!

You know Unite the Right is on the losing side when the cops
outnumber the supporters.

Oh yeah, I was ready for the peaceful demonstration to go haywire, expecting a collision like warm and cold fronts causing a massive storm and wreaking havoc all around. 

Boom! It was time for Trump's America to live down to my expectations once again. 

Alas! What a disappointing fight it turned out to be! A disappointing non-fight. Hundreds of people of all stripes vs a couple dozen white guys who only want to be left in peace (i.e., away from other races, Jews, anyone with an accent other than British, etc.) does not an interesting cage match make. 

It's always a good thing when someone wearing a t-shirt reading
FUCK DONALD TRUMP appears live on CNN.

Despite its seemingly ad-hoc look, anti-UTR rally had an organizer, David Thurston. He was the fellow who introduced the opening acts -- speakers, poets, still more speakers -- and generally kept the crowd hopped-up for two hours before the official march. Thurston also gave directions for where people should march to, including  for those who were concerned about hearing "hurtful speech" from the other side. Yeah, those are the people you want in the foxhole next to you when things get tough. 

However, he also knew that there were plenty of people itching for a fight. Those marchers, he told a CNN reporter, had his approval to get into a scrap not only with the UTR morons but the cops as well -- but he himself would take the safe road instead. A regular General Patton he was: Let's you and him fight.

Something tells me I won't have much of a choice
come election day if this comes to pass.

I wouldn't be caught dead, alive, or comatose near a right-wing rally, other than to take pictures and laugh -- still the best reaction to these dopes. But as I watched the coverage of the "anti-hate" counter-rally on C-SPAN, I admit to feeling a little uneasy at many of the participants. Like the middle-aged guy who could have been a small-town mailman, holding a sign reading AMERICA WAS NEVER GREAT! THE SYSTEM NEEDS TO BE OVERTHROWN! while casually walking around as if working on his tan. 

No hate, no fear -- let's shoot people. 

Yup, the anarchists were just itching to get themselves and the white nationalists bloodied up. Anarchy has two definitions: 1) a state of disorder due to absence of authority; 2) absence of government and absolute freedom of the individual, regarded as the political ideal.

Neither of those choices appeal to me, because the individual's  "absolute freedom" likely doesn't include anyone who even thinks about disagreeing with them. The word "irony" is overused to the point of cliché, but sometimes you just can't help it. 

Get your program, you can't tell the good guys from the bad guys

without a program!

Too, there's something about the sight of young people hiding their faces behind bandanas like a squad of leftist Bazooka Joes with meth-crazed eyes that makes me uneasy. Sorry, kids, I associate that look with bad guys in old Westerns who ride into town shooting up the town square, busting up the saloon, and assaulting women before robbing the bank and galloping away in a cloud of dust. 

Now these guys look OK. And they make great oatmeal.

Tu wit: At the risk of sounding like the 62 year-old that I am, if you're afraid to show your face, I can only presume you're up to no good. And the folks on the news shows the following morning congratulating the anti-right marchers as all being on the side of angels should have watched the C-SPAN coverage rather than the cherry-picked spectacle on the other networks. 

White supremacists, fascists, the far right, whatever you want to call them, are horrible people. I wish them nothing but derisive laughter and lifelong impotency in every possible way. 

But nor do I care to associate with a march that welcomes gangs who essentially want the same outcome as the far right, only with different winners. The types who would burn down grocery stores that sold Israeli couscous because they consider it an occupying grain. Whenever they angrily shout, "Power to the people!", I wonder: which people?

Or, to quote another cliché: meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

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