Smitty, I still say you’re too optimistic about the death of Progressivism or the Left.  But it is somewhat amusing to watch them re-enact the history of participatory and representative democracy.  I extend this to not only the morons in the park, but the more general leftish pundits and MSM who love to talk about how the system doesn’t work.

Even among this small group of nuts, they cannot agree on many things.  Of course, this is normal and natural, and anything different would shock serious thinkers or students of history.  They claim to want lots of democracy, dialog, etc, but only so long as those voting and talking agree with them.

Once they get opposition, it must be illegitimized, because clearly they themselves are the righteous and know the True Path of Good.  At least they’re close to getting the politburo they asked for.

Smitty, this is a familiar process. What is happening with OWS is much like what happened with SNCC and SDS in the 1960s: The leadership has its own agenda and its own ambitions, which are a thing apart from the broad goals of the rank-and-file of the movement. Schisms inevitably occur. The leadership cadre becomes professionalized. The more cynical and savvy of them seek to leverage their radical experience to gain access to positions within mainstream institutions.

Tom Hayden, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn are examples of this process. Many millions of students took part in the anti-war movement of the 1960s, but a comparative handful of the leaders of that movement were able to parlay their radicalism into careers. Ditto the civil rights movement, which became the career springboard for Jesse Jackson.

This take-the-money-and-run move by OWS leadership is certainly not unprecedented. After all, Lenin led only a small faction of the Russian socialists when, with enormous cynicism, he dubbed his own followers the “majority” (bolshevik) party and denounced those who resisted his claim to leadershi as the “minority” (menshevik).

Take any information you get from globalresearch.ca with more than a grain of salt; that’s a kook site founded by a 9-11 Truther.

Right, but the internet is doing to politics what it’s done to business: getting rid of cruft in the middle layer.

Yep, they’ll settle for a single party approach dominated by secretly named insiders.

Guillotines and tumbrels having a way of not making for good press.

“And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, limp up to explain it once more”

What we are seeing here is an age old struggle of mob rule versus individual rights. It’s the philosophies of Rousseau vs Locke, live on pay per view.  The problem is that the Rousseauian forces usually steal a march on those of us comfortable in our prosperous, peaceful Lockean world. Will America wake up in time to lance this boil before it swells, or will Joe Six Pack find himself, bewildered, living in a quasi-totalitarian America with “no idea how this could have happened here”?

I’ll end with two quotes, one from RR, and with more of the Kipling I opened with:

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.
We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be
fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day
we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s
children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.” – Ronald Reagan, “A Time For Choosing”, 1964

“As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began. That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!”
-Rudyard Kipling, “The Gods of the Copybook Headings”, 1919

No actually I think you’re wrong on this.

The situation wouldn’t be in strong Republican areas.  Instead it would be in mid to strong Democrat areas or at least in areas controlled by Democrats who have leadership roles over the police.

Consider the New Black Panthers and what they did in the polling station in Philly.  Consider that they did so without any jail time or fine.  Consider that Eric Holder and Obama still control the DOJ.  So it is extremely unlikely that the DOJ, on Election Day, would intervene in any polling station disruptions.  So response to polling station disruptions would have to be at the state, county and/or local level.  Probably at the local level especially if it is widespread.

I think we have to keep in mind that many national elections occur on a state wide basis and not by local districts.  This specifically addresses the Senate and the White House.  I believe that the Democrats would be willing to abandon control of the House if they can continue control over the Senate and White House.

So let’s posit a scenario.  Election Day and a small crowd of “occupiers” and union goons, shows up at every polling station in areas largely controlled by Democrats.  Their purpose is to intimidate and prevent Republicans from voting by their presence and numbers.  Frankly they could pretty much do this just by standing in the doorways.  Unless the local police are allowed to do something, would they?  If the Democrats in charge order the police to not interfere, would they disobey?  And if they did follow orders to not interfere, what would be the result?

You can argue that the voting on Election Day would be corrupted.  That we would have to vote all over again.  But is there actually a legal method for doing this?  Is there actually a Constitutional method for doing this?  How difficult would it be to get all 50 states to redo Election Day?  What about the Democrat controlled states that may refuse?

Sure you can say that this would go to SCOTUS.  But so what?  Election Day is over.  Votes are in and are counted and, amazingly enough, the Democrats still control the Senate and the White House.  And Eric Holder & Obama still control the DOJ.

Is it a far-fetched scenario?  I sure as hell hope so.  But then again if someone told me that the DOJ would conspire with other federal agencies to spread easily traceable firearms across North & Central America in order to provide a fallacious argument for gun control I would have thought “tinfoil hat time!”.

Yet that is precisely what has happened.

I did enjoy the article and the author’s blog has two more posts discussing the internal politics at Zoo-Cotti,  which are fascinating.

The DoJ doesn’t protect polling places, local authorities do, absent pre voting day upheaval wherein I suppose federal Marshals or whatever might be deployed.

So the best response to this would be to get knowlege of the creation of this “leadership” and their power grab to the rank and file of the Donner Party.

This excerpt from the linked post struck me.

“The participation of oppressed people in oppressive organizations is not a step towards liberation, but is the deepening of their complicity in their own domination. The unabated war on women and people of color in America, during Obama’s presidency, with Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State, is a testament to the structural and psychological nature of oppression, and the inability for spokespeople to represent the oppressed.”

Most Americans celebrate the entry of women and minorities into the upper levels of power in our government as advances FOR the previously disadvantaged. That Fritz Tucker and I assume at least some of the other Donner Partiers believe that Hillary Clinton becoming Sec of State and I presume Obama becoming president for that matter are merely examples of  oppressed people joining oppressive organizations is what I find chilling. Given the broad definition these folks have of who are and what is oppression I can’t wait to see what democracy “looks like”

That doesn’t really make much sense, though.  The states are responsible for conducting elections.  The Feds, I think, are really only involved with respect to Civil Rights being violated, and that’s typically an after the fact sort of thing.  I suppose that in a big city, there are probably some FBI agents nearby, but seriously, what force would you expect the Feds to be able to muster as a quick reaction?

Don’t get me wrong, voting rights are mentioned in several places in the Constitution, so interest in voting by the Feds isn’t necessarily evidence of overstepping their Constitutional duty.

Are all PACs taxable? Most of them claim to serve some sort of “educational” purpose.

Sounds like a lot of gray lines.