My Problem With 'Black Lives Matter': They're Cowards And A-Holes

Black Lives Matter activists get in Bernie Sanders' face recently in Seattle. Do they have the balls to do that to Trump, Jeb Bush or Scott Walker?

"These newly ignited firebrands do know that their bullshit is more likely to be tolerated among liberals than among, say, those who gather at a rally for Donald Trump, let alone at a Tea Party gathering, and surely let alone an Oathkeepers ammo swap.

So they hit Bernie, and they call people racists who are really not their main problem. They pitch a fit if someone doesn’t repeat their slogan verbatim, and they hold themselves aloof from any possible criticism because, after all, they’re holding all the race cards by virtue of their skin color."

Jaime O'Neill, 'Asshole Lives Matter', on smirkingchimp.com

After seeing several times more the assault by 'Black Lives Matter' activists on Bernie Sanders in Seattle - and YES,  I call it what it is -  I am convinced Sanders now needs to have a retinue of guards at the ready like some other candidates. It is simply not good enough to found most of your protests on the lowest hanging, most vulnerable 'fruit'.  And it is the epitome of ill manners to disrupt a meeting or speech and inconvenience thousands of others for your own pet cause, no matter how important you believe it to be.

As I pointed out in an earlier post,  these nuisance protesters from 'Black Lives Matter' really need to adjust their own reality goggles and keep their powder dry for the 17 Repukes. As opposed to attacking their own ideological, economic allies  with "friendly fire". Note: I do not deny their right to protest and vigorously,  only to do so in a cowardly, selective fashion by going after the lowest hanging fruit - a 73 year old Socialist who is only in this race at progressives' behest and because Elizabeth Warren refused to run.

Thus, it would have far more redounded to their credibility (and gravitas)  to get in the face of Donald Trump, Jeb Bush or Scott Walker first.  THAT would have shown: a) they are serious in their claims they are out to flag and disrupt every candidate, and b) they have the courage of their convictions akin to their 1960s civil rights protester forbears, i.e. at sit-ins in Selma and Montgomery.

Would they risk more by going after the REAL racists and hardline GOOPrs  first? Of course! But that is the point of serious protest as opposed to easy posturing, yelling and grand standing - as originally  demonstrated by Martin Luther King, Jr.  When you bloviate self-righteously that your group is out to honestly protest and "disrupt all", it means nowhere near as much as actually putting skin in the game - before you disrupt elderly candidates who are really on your side.

Note also they couldn't get one inch past Hillary's Secret Service detachment, which shows me they are only interested in  disrupting soft, friendly, easily accessible targets. In Hillary's case, they weren't able to disrupt her confab and had to settle for a special, private meeting. So already they've shown they will "take what they can get" so equal treatment of all candidates becomes a matter of expediency and convenience- which is cowardly. If they are going to disrupt a Sanders' event they ought to do Hillary the same honor -else grant Sanders a special meeting as they allowed for Hillary. But to accept the private meeting with HRC because they couldn't or wouldn't get past her Secret Service contingent is cowardice of the highest form.

 As liberal talk radio  host Bill Press put it on Chris Hayes 'All In' three nights ago: "They are making the perfect the enemy of the good."    Adding:

"You target the people who disagree with you, not your friends."  Bingo!

Alicia Garza, co-creator of Black Lives Matter sounded all full of herself and sanctimonious on the same 'All In' episode, assuring Chris Hayes she was an equal opportunity disrupter. To which I say ''Bull shit!' She also promised that  "all candidates will be disrupted", but I will believe it when I see it.

That means Garza immediately ceasing with the easy Dem disruptions and dispatching her troops after Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, Scott Walker,  and Mike Huckabee! 

But I seriously doubt she or her organization will do that because I don't believe they have the courage of those 60s protestors to really put skin on the line in their disruptions.  Grandstanding by interrupting an elderly Socialist Jew - in the midst of Libs who're too damned polite and politically correct to do anything but stand down-  is lots easier than going after the Donald, or a Bush. In those situations the mob, racist supporters would put those black "activist" lives in real jeopardy.

Maybe also these 'Black Lives Matter' folks ought to keep tighter reins on who joins their ranks. Evidently they had no problems letting in  a former Tea Bagger And Xtian evangelical puppet - Marissa Johnson - who had the fucking nerve to call the gathered  pro-Sanders whites "racists and white supremacists". As Jaime O'Neill noted in his recent smirkingchimp.com blog article,  "not so long ago she identified with the Tea Party and Sarah Palin."  Can a pro-Palin, knuckle dragger idiot change colors or stripes overnight? I doubt it.

See the first link below for more on this. Other libs may shy away from calling these assholes out, but I won't and clearly Jaime O'Neill doesn't either!


See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/jaime-oneill/63447/asshole-lives-matter

http://www.salon.com/2015/08/13/larry_wilmore_mocks_black_lives_matter_activists_at_sanders_rally_black_manners_matter_as_well/

Excerpt:

“You know things aren’t going well when black women get up in your event and start reciting old Destiny’s Child,”

Even The Right's Resident Troglodytes Can't Process Bernie's Rise

Thousands turned out to feel the Bern at LA Memorial Sports Arena Aug. 10

You have to forgive some of those who opine on politics, as well as on global warming in the pages of The Wall Street Journal. Though they often appear to have some educational or institutional creds, once one applies the dissection tool of critical scrutiny a lot of it vanishes under the huff and puff of PR. Such is the case with a recent WSJ piece 'The Democrats' Socialist Surge' by "Manhattan Institute" lightweight, Jason L. Riley.

Like his WSJ  buddy Gerald Seib, Riley clearly knows very little and what he does know is skewed wrong by his ideology. That is the lens through which he judges reality so no surprise the reality  comes out twisted or debauched.

We who've been following Bernie Sanders are aware of the huge crowds he's been amassing - even despite interruptions (as in Seattle) by nuisance protesters from 'Black Lives Matter', who really need to adjust their own reality goggles and keep their powder dry for the 17 Repukes. As opposed to making their own ideological, economic allies targets of "friendly fire". Note they couldn't get 1 inch past Hillary's Secret Service detachment, which shows me they are only interested in  disrupting soft, friendly targets. As liberal talk radio  host Bill Press put it on Chris Hayes 'All In' two nights ago, they are "making the perfect the enemy of the good."    Adding:

"You target the people who disagree with you, not your friends."  Bingo!

Alicia Garza, co-creator of BLM, promised that  "all candidates will be disrupted", but I will believe it when I see it. Now, Ms. Garza, sic your troops after Donald Trump, Jeb Bush and Mike Huckabee!  Cease with the friendly fire tactics which will only backfire on your group.

Moving on, we saw over the weekend, 28,000 turned out to see and hear Bernie in Portland, OR, while 27,500 came out to see him in LA on Monday at the Memorial Sports Arena. And then, on Wednesday, it was announced on MSNBC and CBS that the Bern had broken through in New Hampshire and he was now ahead of Hillary by 44 percent to 37 percent. (Hillary 'Third Way' supporters quoted in the WSJ suggested she "had no plans to attack Bernie because eventually the Lefties will come around to support her". Well, maybe, maybe not.)

All this has the right wing media troglodytes so worried they're pissing in their pants, or on the verge of acquiring the new DSM disorder, psychosis risk syndrome - a pernicious display of paranoia that can lead to paranoid schizophrenia if untreated. What is their paranoia? Well that that the WHOLE Dem party has now gone "socialist".

Gimme a break already!

Riley in his forlorn WSJ column is especially guilty of this bollocks as when he goes through a whole mini-history of socialism (most inapplicable to democratic socialism) then concludes Debbie Wasserman Schultz wasn't able to answer the recent question put to her by MSNBC's squawker Chris Matthews ('What's the difference between a Democrat and Socialist?') because:

"These days it's largely a distinction without a difference."

In other words this moron commits the fallacy of composition on a mega -scale (or moron scale) designating the minority Left base of the party as being its entire aggregate - totally leaving out the Third Way Neoliberals, as well as Neocons who easily comprise 75% of the party.

By saying this is a "distinction without difference" Riley is claiming the Democratic Party - so far to the Right now most of us from the 60s don't recognize it - is really without Neoliberal capitalists, or Neocon warmongers, But IF that were so, how explain all the bailouts of the banks, bankers as well as GM, when a REAL socialist gov't would have nationalized them all?  Also, how explain an immense defense budget - still greater than the next 22 nations combined - when a REAL socialist party (or Democratic Socialist ) would have halved it by now?

And, not to be too obvious - but NO socialist worth his salt (or party) would ever have tolerated a "debt commission" and considered a chained CPI to cut and gut Social Security!

Riley has no genuine reasons only paranoid suspicions for conflating Democrats and Socialists.. For example, because the Dems "allowed Sanders to caucus with them"  then the Democrats must all be the same party as Sanders, Socialist. This is the kind of reasoning I'd expect from a half- bright three year old, when any sensible person would grasp the Dems allowed it out of needing greater voting numbers vis-a-vis the Senate Repukes.

Oh, oh, I forgot "he also was granted seniority status to push a progressive agenda".   And what, pray tell, was this agenda?

Riley then ticks off Sanders' pushing for single payer healthcare (which would actually SAVE us over $500 m the next ten years compared to Obamacare), and pushing for a 50 percent reduction in military spending. That last, he appears to forget, was actually a transfer of spending - from buying new military toys and hardware to increasing VA benefits for troops. A push for which Sanders now has many thousands of grateful vets behind him.

Lastly, Riley whines that Sanders' agenda would only appeal to "upper middle class professionals obsessed with income inequality". But I have news for him, all intelligent people are concerned with that, and if he isn't he's an even bigger moron than I first thought.

His quotation from the book 'The Right Nation' that:

"In America socialists cast their seed on barren ground"

Misses the larger point that when polls are taken regarding which PROGRAMS Americans want, as opposed to which political philosophy, they invariably pick the more "socialist" choices -  showing at heart that Americans ARE socialists  - at least democratic socialists!

Thus, they DO want Social Security there for them, by nearly 70-30 percent majorities.

They also want Medicare to be their healthcare, as opposed to private insurance or even Obamacare

And they favor food stamps and Medicaid for the poorer among us.

Having supported these "socialist" programs in polls, they just need to be reminded that ideally their political philosophies ought to be in synch with their program choices! And conversely, voting for conservatives undermines their program preferences.

Again, political education can be as important as historical education.

See also:

http://www.salon.com/2015/08/13/larry_wilmore_mocks_black_lives_matter_activists_at_sanders_rally_black_manners_matter_as_well/

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-reich/63389/4-recurring-criticisms-of-bernie-sanders-and-why-theyre-wrong