127 Comments

The Red Sermon really did seem like a deliberate provocation. Along with a lot else they've done. The other possibility is that they're so insanely overconfident, so charged up with blind hubris, that they think they can continue poking indefinitely without provoking an explosive response when patience gets exceeded. Then again, they'd dearly love to have an excuse to take their secret police and riot mobs fully off the leash, so it's very possible they know exactly what they're doing.

Expand full comment
Sep 15, 2022Liked by Chris Bray

Thanks for the backgrounder showing many instances of political violence in America. Common denominator is The People responding to governmental overreach. And boy howdy is our gov't reachin' over these days. Not even a reach around.

Expand full comment
Sep 15, 2022Liked by Chris Bray

America was forged in violence and has always been a violent place. A lot if that violence was provoked and/or committed by the Government. But show me part of the world that isn’t a slaughterhouse. I’ll wait, but I won’t hold my breath. European sophistication- spare me. More bad political ideologies resulting in more dead innocents have come out of Europe than anywhere else. But you can get truffles with your genocide, so they have that going for them. To paraphrase HL Mencken ( who has his own issues), every decent person is ashamed of their government. Currently we’ve got a government that really deserves our opprobrium. Fascinating to learn about Biden launching his career via fundraisers with terrorists, but not surprising. He’s the ultimate opportunist.

Expand full comment
Sep 15, 2022Liked by Chris Bray

The RED video was hilarious! so funny! They must think everyone is stupid. Ridiculous how he is projecting onto the *evil Magas* democrats own tendencies and inclinations. Thanks for the laugh.

Expand full comment

Two things I've found remarkable about this current "MAGA extremism" rhetoric:

First is the idea that "anti-government" sentiment is an "extremist" view (thank you Alexander Myorcas for that little laugh). Our country was built on "anti-government" sentiment. Even today, you can find very few "regular" citizens that like the government. At the least, they are derisive and dismissive of it, finding it more inconvenience or frustration than help. At most, they are outright hostile toward it. The "extreme" point of view is that the government is to be trusted and deferred to. The only thing that keeps people from acting on that hostility, so far, is the cost-benefit analysis. The government doesn't have a monopoly on violence, but it does have the lions share of the market, so if you're going to take the government on, you better be damn sure there's no other way around it. Of course, the corollary to that is, if you're in the government, you at least want to leave the people the illusion of being able to make a change electorally or you'll set off a revolution (something I think the Democrats understand all too well, which is why we're seeing all the J-6 and political purging, as if they haven't learned that historically *that* has done little more than buy time for the aggressors).

Second is the hypocrisy of Biden's comments of political violence. The BLM riots were *nothing* but political violence. The overriding message of the riots was "You do what we say or we're going to keep looting and burning shit down." If that's not political violence, I don't know what is. Yeah, I know they called it "cries for social justice," but that's only a euphemism for political violence. So by giving tacit approval to the BLM riots, the Democrats have left themselves no room to complain about any political violence on the right, including J-6, although I realize they still do.

Expand full comment

Politics is war by other means.

Expand full comment
Sep 15, 2022Liked by Chris Bray

Once again, Chris, you cut to the chase.

Expand full comment

The raids on individuals homes by the FBI in recent days are more than a little alarming. Seems they wanted to restart the “war on terror,” only they’ve been priming roughly 1/2 of the country to view the other 1/2 as the terrorists we’re at war with. I just...wow.

Expand full comment

No, no, no.

It's not okay when YOU do it.

God, this is so simple.

Expand full comment

Evidently, "progressives" awaken every morning as totally new human beings with no memory of anything they said or did yesterday or the day before.

If that were not true, the people who wrote Biden's speech would remember the violence of Antifa after the election in 2016 and before the election in 2020 - not to mention all the years before and in between. Here is just one example: https://nypost.com/2021/06/03/author-andy-ngo-says-he-was-beaten-by-mob-in-portland/.

They might also remember saying "Civilians do not need assault weapons" when Antifa shows up at demonstrations with AR-15s. Again, here is just one example: https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article172287362.html/.

No memory + No principles = No restraints. They can do or say anything they want.

Expand full comment
Sep 15, 2022Liked by Chris Bray

Democrats have got to be really frustrated right now, they keep poking Republicans/conservatives and they just rollover and give in. Raid the homes of 41 Trump supporters and Republicans just sigh and put their heads back down and "go along to get along". My mantra for this year is "Democrats are the number one existential threat to America, Republicans are number two" (I might have it backwards). Still with approximately 50 days until the election we might still see some real fireworks. How many Trump supporters do they have to raid/purge before someone registers a complaint?

Expand full comment

As recently as the 2020 riots.

In a single eighteen-month period during 1971 and 1972 the FBI counted an amazing 2,500 bombings on American soil, almost five a day set off by nearly a dozen radical underground groups, dimly remembered outfits such as the Weather Underground, the New World Liberation Front, Puerto Rican liberation groups and the Symbionese Liberation Army.

Expand full comment
Sep 15, 2022Liked by Chris Bray

I do enjoy your historical perspectives! So rare these days!

Expand full comment
Sep 16, 2022Liked by Chris Bray

Whiskey rebellion you say. Do tell.

Expand full comment

I began to write a reply about the American Indian Movement, mentioned by Chris, and the political violence the group used in the 1970's. I've been no fan of AIM, in fact, I've often shared the name most tribal leaders of the time referred to it as, "Assholes In Moccasins."

https://www.npr.org/2019/01/25/688499170/the-heartbeat-of-wounded-knee-aims-to-usher-in-a-new-narrative-for-native-americ

"Treuer is not afraid to take on some of the more high-profile Native Americans, including addressing corruption among the hierarchies of some tribes and the leadership of the American Indian Movement, a radical and sometimes violent group from the 1960s and 1970s. He says many Indians muttered under their breath that AIM really stood for "Assholes in Moccasins.""

I'm old enough to remember stories of AIM violence, Russell Means as the radical protagonist. And when I saw the news of Nathan Phillips confronting Nick Sandmann in DC, portrayed as "brave Vietnam Vet Native American elder, facing the smirking white privilege MAGA teen who calmed his fears singing an old inspirational AIM song for strength" I knew Phillips was a long-time activist experienced in using political violence. I also knew that the corporate media powers no longer saw AIM political violence as a bad thing, their violent history now celebrated. When political violence succeeds its often characterized as, "brave and courageous." Practitioners of it celebrated, lionized.

https://www.npr.org/2019/01/20/686988268/video-of-kentucky-students-mocking-native-american-man-draws-outcry

https://www.vogue.com/article/nathan-phillips-activist-song-peaceful-resistance-hope

Even when they're criminals. George Floyd was just one in a long line of criminal media heroes serving a larger purpose.

https://nypost.com/2019/01/24/native-american-activist-nathan-phillips-has-a-criminal-record/

But...

...Then I came across this old speech by Russell Means delivered in 1980 that I had never heard or read:

"“I Am Not a Leader”: Russell Means’ 1980 Mother Jones Cover Story"

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/russell-means-mother-jones-interview-1980/

Which made me rethink how I've thought of Russell Means, what he stood for. Compared to what I was told to believe he stood for. By both those who supported him and those who opposed him. He has some profound insights he shares that were prophetic. He dishes the radical Marxists who tried to ride on his movement's coattails to usher in their Marxist revolution. And he dishes the capitalists found on the right who exploit the people and lands they control. Suggested reading.

My takeaway is that my whole life I would have taken issue with Russel Means' characterization of European society and our systems I've believed to be superior. Reading his words in 2022, especially having witnessed these past three years, the rapid and willing abandonment of reality by so many among us, even among the American Indians he was speaking to who allowed their minds to become "Europeanized" has been astounding. And while I enjoy the benefits and ease of life within the society that the European mind has created, I find myself sympathetic to the concerns and beliefs Russell Means shared with those who would listen to him. I was not one of them. My mind was not open to his message before. He makes many valid, sensible points. That in light of the transhumanist push and push for complete digital surveillance and a social credit system of mind control pushed by Marxist and Capitalist powers a return to ways of living that are more in harmony with nature looks more and more desirable every single day in comparison to a Dystopian future. Proving that as long as our minds remain open we're never too old to learn new tricks, or ways of perceiving the world around us.

Expand full comment
Sep 15, 2022·edited Sep 15, 2022Liked by Chris Bray

Not to mention the political violence and destruction on Jan 20th 2017 and in 2020 as both had a considerable impact on challenging the 2020 results; everybody was scared crapless to do anything.

Expand full comment