The protest in my little city

So at noon, we were to meet at Traders Joes in our city…
I had some errands and stuff to do, so I got there early and went
into Trader Joes for some stuff to eat… at about 11:15…
sat in my car until I saw some people with signs standing about
40 feet away… maybe 5 people at around 11:40…
I put away my food and got out my sign and walked over…
I was about the 6 or 7 person out there… at 11:45… all the sudden
at around 11:50, a whole lot of people showed up… and by 11:55, maybe
50 to 75 people were out there… and by noon, when it was supposed to start,
there were 100 to 125 people out there and by 12:15, I would say
125 to 150 people were out there, almost everyone had a sign, as I said,
my sign said::::: If Trump was the answer, it was a dumb question…

we were shoulder to shoulder from one end of the block to the other end
and a lot of people were driving by honking their horn… a few flip us off,
but no one really cared… about 12:30, it was starting to rain and then it stopped
around 12:35… I stay until it was over at around 1:00… and then by 1:05, the
rain really came… and I mean it was bad…cold, roughly 51 and hard rain
is not a happy mixture… anyway came home and now after I finish, I am
eating lunch… now my town has roughly 28,000 people and the average cost
of a house is 1.2 million, so we have a small wealthy city…
so to get a turnout on a rainy Friday afternoon, of 125 to 150 people is remarkable…

so what is the takeaway here… I think people are really motivated in ways
they haven’t been in a long time… the average age of the people there were
35 and up, especially people in their 50’s, boomers like me… I have seen pictures
of other protest along El Camino and we probably had from San Francisco to San Jose
along El Camino, over a thousand protesters I would guess…given we have one of the
smaller cities on the Peninsula…

usually presidents have a honeymoon period of around 100 days and if you blink,
you probably missed Herr Trumpf honeymoon. it was that quick…

it has begun… today was just the beginning dance of a long and protracted
upcoming battle that will almost certainly end in violence because as shown
by Herr Trumpf supporters here on ILP, they believe in violence and
hate and anger… they demonstrate this every day with their word violence toward
people who disagree with them… the supporters of Herr Trumpf want
everyone to have the same ideological purity and if you don’t, you are
the enemy…for them, you either for them or you are against them…

I shall protest tomorrow in Redwood city as there is some sort of rally
around the courthouse…today in my small town was a hundred people,
tomorrow will be millions all around the country, united in one purpose,
and that is to return to a country that prizes diversity and doesn’t need or
want ideological purity of thought… this is a movement, a revolution…
a hope for peace and love and truth… not anger or hate or violence…
the other side can have their anger and hate, we have love and we walk in
the shadow of thinkers like Jesus and Gandhi and Tolstoy and MLK…
thinkers who also believed in the power of love and the power of being
united in our beliefs…one human being cannot move a mountain but a
millions of human beings working together can move mountains and we will
move mountains because we are together, united as one…with the truth…

Kropotkin

nytimes.com/2017/01/20/us/p … tests.html

there are always some who act their own way, it doesn’t negate what
everyone else is doing…

Kropotkin

It is beginning to feel like the germination of something like what grew into the mass anti war demonstrations of the Vietnam era. That was very well controlled despite of the mass killings at Kent State and other places, bu if so, does this may imply some sort War?

Actually Jerkey, it looks like Hitler’s Brown Shirts harassing and trying to scare the public and democracy. This isn’t the Weimar Republic, we aren’t going yo boq down to liberal fascist attacks.

Peter, in your own words, what is ideological purity?

I think people here criticize you for your lack of ideological clarity where it has nothing to do with purity whatsoever.

Some may say Trump is dangerous, perhaps he is, but not for the reasons popular opinions complain about. Trump is only dangerous, because as the establishment’s choice, his term will be anything but unpredictable, it is all planned. Trump without a doubt is certainly part of the establishment as was Hillary Clinton, which as I have said before it mattered little who won. Despite the people thinking Trump’s victory represented the people sticking it up the establishment elites, far, far from it. They played right into their hands.

K: thanks for asking… we on the left believe in diversity… we are ok with people holding
many different thoughts… (those who attack PC fail to understand its purpose… we don’t
tolerate hate speech and word violence toward people…and we call people on it… if
you are racist and sexist, we call you on it… hateful speech is not wanted but if the speech
or thoughts are respectful then rock on… we accept that)… Look at the democratic party…
we have many different diverse thoughts about many different subjects and all of that
without any sort of issues…we accept thoughts and feelings that are not hateful and bigoted…
so when Herr Trumpf attacks women or the disable, we call him on it…

let us look at the right… we see something different… there is no tolerance
for other voices… there is no room for dissent…if you don’t toe the party line…
you are attacked…the GOP speaks with one voice… listen to the GOP
voices, they repeat endlessly the same attacks often word for word…
in fact, the GOP attacks the idea of diversity and tolerance as being wrong…
if you attack diversity and tolerance then you support the opposite, the idea of
ideological purity… of everyone having the same ideas and the same belief
system as you… dissent in this country is attack as being un-American
by the GOP… whereas the left believes in dissent… different voices…

the GOP is so into ideological purity that Raygun would be unacceptable
in today GOP because he on rare occasion, actually compromised
and that is unacceptable in the today’s GOP… which is another
difference between the left and right… we accept and expect
compromise whereas the right doesn’t want compromise… it is the
my way or the highway theory with the GOP… in today’s GOP,
they want people to look the same and think the same and hold the same
beliefs as they do…ideological purity means just that…
to be acceptable to the GOP, you must hold certain thoughts
and certain beliefs or you are not acceptable to the GOP…
ideological purity…

this is not true in the left… to steal a phrase, we have a much
larger tent because we allow many different positions in our tent…
now many on the left have roughly the same viewpoints, but
it is not a condition of belonging in the party to hold the exact same viewpoints…
unlike the right…as far as the ideological clarity. I am very clear, but
people around here believe what they want to believe regardless of my actual
thought…once they look to understand my thought instead of what is in their
head, my thoughts are quite clear and understandable… don’t react to what is in
your head about what I am thinking, react to the actual words I am using…
people mistake their thinking in their head as something I believe in…
I am quite clear once you think about what I wrote instead of what
you think I am writing about…

Kropotkin