What is the distinction between the Black Lives Matter riots and the January 6 Insurrection? The difference is as clear as it is simple: Black Lives Matter as well as the Occupy Movement before it rose up to demand long-overdue justice and accountability. They did not seek nor attempt to overthrow and replace the United States government with a new regime. Instead they sought to reform the current government and demanded the government at all levels from local to state to federal pay attention and listen to their grievances and cries for justice and reform. The Jan 6 Insurrection, however, sought to overturn a free and fair democratic election, overthrow federal and even some state governments, and kidnap and even murder major government leaders from the Vice-President to the Governor of Michigan. There were attempts to take over state governments as far away from Washington, DC as Salem, Oregon. Records show the Jan 6 Insurrection started well before the 6th of January 2021 and continued past it. Some argue it’s still simmering. Perhaps it’s more resembles Hitler’s failed Beer Hall Putsch before the Nazi’s ultimately successful takeover.

Note the Far Left usually calls for revolution as the Far Right prepares and even seems to desire civil war. The Occupy Movement and the Black Lives Matter revolts were ferocious rallies for justice in the wake of the “bankster” abuse of capitalism and against systemic racism. While there were acts of violence perpetuated by some on the Left such as riots with looting and arson and also the “War on Cops,” much of the violence was instigated by the police in their all-too frequent killings of Black Americans and in provoking peaceful demonstrators to retaliate with violence. Even the worse of these riots were not rallies to overthrow and replace the Constitutional democratic republic of the United States of America.

Trump’s militia mobs, however, were determined to overthrow the government. They hid behind grotesque lies of fake elections supposedly stolen by corrupt Democrats, socialists, and even communists with ethnic minorities “replacing” Christian White people. Trump’s followers were further enthralled in bizarre and nonsensical altho dangerous Q-Anon conspiracies without any basis in reality. They sought a fascist, White supremacist, Christian nationalist, authoritarian dictatorship cloaked in illusions of liberty and righteousness. Many of them actually believed their fascism was more democratic than democracy itself. Some polls even showed a surprising minority of Americans, in alignment with autocratic despots elsewhere, no longer believed in democracy and republicanism and instead preferred an authoritarian regime.

To be sure, historians and analysts looking at the ebb and flow of different periods of social turmoil and political violence within the United States since the end of World War 2 could argue we Americans have been in different periods of LICs or Low-Intensity Conflicts for decades. A strong case can be made we have been in cycles of non-stop LIC since the Wisconsin Insurrection of 2011 merged into the Occupy Revolts which in turn merged into the various Militia movements and sieges, the first Black Lives Matter uprising, the War on Cops, the Standing Rock/anti-Pipeline/Native revolts/Water Wars, the Incel Revolt, crime waves and gang wars, the White Supremacist/Christian Nationalist/Dominionist insurrections, the second BLM uprising, the election violence of 2020, epidemics of gun violence pocked with rising numbers of mass shootings, and the January 6 Insurrection. We’re still in it, too.

People must get their stories straight, however, and, sadly and alarmingly so this is doubtful. Humans excel at believing in whatever they want to believe regardless of evidence otherwise and, unfortunately, acting upon such erroneous falsehoods as if they were true. For us to climb out of this nonstop low-intensity conflict before it escalates into all-out civil war we gotta listen to one another. We gotta walk back from the edge of the cliffs both right and left and build a bridge back to the middle. To do so we must understand the difference between one side calling out for reforms and for justice versus another side calling for civil war and the overthrow of government. If you don’t care, then should events blow up out of control, they shall make you care. It’ll make us all care.

William Dudley Bass
Wednesday 24 August 2022
Thursday 25 August 2022
Monday 28 August 2022
Shoreline/Seattle, WA
USA
Cascadia
Earth
Sol

Copyright © 2022 by William Dudley Bass. All Rights Reserved by the Author & his Descendants until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship over and for our Earth and Solarian Commons. Thank you.