In the UK & Europe, normalising for the periodic outbursts the French have been indulging in for centuries, the modern flirtation with the political hard stuff has mostly been on the 'green' side of things, Andreas Malm and Roger Hallam being the best known promoters. (For the record, I've not read that either has actually advocated or specifically perpetrated anything more than vandalism to date). In both cases their logic goes: if we really think climate change is globally life-threatening on that scale, well, ... - and they are not-so-subtly hinting at a lot worse than vandalism.
So now someone in the Land of the Free and the Readily-Available Firearms has taken a real pop at Trump. More detail to follow in due course, no doubt; but a round from a rifle that clips an ear is an astonishingly close shave. (Mercifully, most people don't have much idea what a rifle-bullet wound looks like.)
What's the next stage in this slow-motion escalation? Of course, many on the Left would adduce ASBO-level racist behaviour on the Right as being a long-running form of political violence: "you started it". The pro-Gaza crowd contains some whose behaviour is increasingly of the same kind - as many a Labour MP knows to their cost. (Again, I'm parking the outright Islamist terror wave.) Left/greens are inclined to say that globalisation etc (in the manner they'd frame it in their own doctrinal terms) is a form of violence against the masses: "you started it" again. There have been outbreaks of "communal tension" in Leicester which are echoes, albeit faint, of the Subcontinent where that phrase originates from. And in an extraordinary, chilling, but apparently fleeting episode, a column of drilled and uniformed black folk took to the streets of Brixton a few summers ago. Political football? Here's a quick-off-the-mark piece from the Graun this afternoon.
That 2020 Brixton episode, and how it was evidently quashed quietly but effectively & with great dispatch, might be a signifier that peaceful politics may be expected to prevail hereabouts, even in these fraught times. Ditto the non-followup to the 2011 riots that seemed to have some political pregnancy at the time; and the significant lack of traction for XR / JSO / IB et al. But it's simmering, with a certain type of "desperate", would-be planet-saving green evidently harkening to the likes of Malms and Hallams. Is the USA sui generis in its gun-based lunacy? We can only wait with a high degree of trepidation.
ND
19 comments:
It's going to kick off in the US if Trump loses (perhaps before) and will not long take over here.
Tommy Robinson is getting more traction and a Leftist violent counter protest is (sooner or later) going to find itself outnumbered with predictable consequences.
There were anarchist murders in the US around 1900, weren't there?
In the UK didn't Churchill turn up to preen at a police siege of anarchist terrorists?
Post WW2 we've had more tolerance for dissent in the West - the treatment of the Jews giving the nations a bit of a slow shake, and a bit of navel gazing about how minorities have been treated.
That tolerance has been co-opted, with the Gaza issue we've known since Rushdie in the 80s that Muslims can get a little crazy, but have been afraid to really tackle it as you start having to draw lines in the sand and converse about where you draw it without becoming a literal Nazi. They're uncomfortable questions for a nation to ask itself, and our governments have excelled in avoiding the uncomfortable until it becomes unavoidable.
There's also been a distinct lack of drilling home the other side of the coin to "rights", which are "responsibilities" - yes, you have a right to protest, you also have a responsibility not to take the piss, lest you give the more autocratic members of government a solid reason to take your toys away to the detriment of future generations.
There's a bit of thing of human rights being immutable and universal, which has the left sitting uncomfortably with Ayn Rand humming a happy tune about self-evident things, rather than being a set of things being agreeable to society at large and policed and protected by the state.
And with Trump, going to be curious to see what goes. The shooter was a card carrying Republican, not some enraged hippy with Antifa tatts. The photo of Trump - who seems to have found a backbone, after the last time he thought he was in danger he was a like rat up a drainpipe - will pretty much seal his win, which of course has triggered any number of conspiracy theories on both sides.
Be a while before we know the full details though.
When I was in the cadets, about 50 years age we would regularly shoot with 0.22 rifles in the school range. About once a year we would go to the barracks in Worcester and pick up half a dozen 0.303 to try full bore shooting. At 200 yards I could regularly keep within the 6 inch bullseye even though the recoil was pretty fierce for a 10 stone weakling using a rifle that was nearly as big as me . The point I am trying to make is just how inept the person was who tried to shoot Trump. If he had aimed at the body rather than the head Trump would be dead.
It does rather dent the Secret Service reputation. I suspect there will be a lengthy investigation before no one is found at fault. The fact that someone could climb onto a roof in full view of the public and get his shots off before anyone reacted does beggar belief. I don’t believe in conspiracy theories but as an example of hubris it is first rate. All the dark glasses and fancy kit are much use if the people are asleep.
As for violence here I doubt the general public are interested. If net zero starts to hurt and people can’t drive or heat their homes I would expect trouble but not at present.
Charles
"Post WW2 we've had more tolerance for dissent in the West"
It all depends. We had police stopping people walking in the Derbyshire Dales, but Black Lives Matter demonstrations went ahead as if Covid hadn't happened - and the police stood by.
Similarly, writing "Lord, give me the confidence of a mediocre white man" is the route to getting a column in the Guardian, but hosting downloadable "It's OK To Be White" stickers gets you sent to prison, as happened recently to a Mr Melia.
As for dissent over Ukraine - well in the 1930s Brits were free to choose a side in the Spanish Civil War, and propagandise, fundraise, or actually go to fight. I recommend "Mine Were Of Trouble" by Peter Kemp for a view from a Francoist Brit.
Now, Brits can fight and die for Ukraine, but merely reporting from the Russian side of the lines, as blogger Graham Phillips does, means your UK bank accounts will be frozen by government fiat - and our "Supreme Court" says that's just fine!
"once a year we would go to the barracks in Worcester and pick up half a dozen 0.303 to try full bore shooting"
I went to see some guys shooting .303s a few years back. Those things are insanely loud - WW1 infantry must all have been deaf.
I don't think we Brits have got much to worry about. A shooter could knock off Charley, Starmer, Sunak and a dozen others on Wednesday and no one would care much. There would still be Jersey potatoes and mange-toute in the shops and the country would still stagger on.
Over the pond I should think Biden has a lot to worry about. His problem is who would like to shoot him, his own side or the others.
As for matters Green, I should think the real problem is that there is nothing useful the UK government can do. Apart from building a few windmills the construction of infrastructure for Net Zero looks impossibly expensive and for other sources we just don't have the physics. Nature will solve the problem for us but we might not like the solution.
@anon 12:21
That goes directly into my point about it having been co-opted in a way.
There is a fear about upsetting people, so the police tend to stick to upsetting just the ones they fear the least.
Arresting some ramblers? What are they going to? Aggressively eat their ploughmans lunch at them? BLM? Ah, well, now we might have a riot on our hands.
So, off down the path of least resistance they skip.
"WW1 infantry must all have been deaf."
Maybe that explains why The Jazz Age followed almost immediately. It hadn't occurred to me: Livery Stable Blues was recorded in 1917 and was therefore ready for a 1918 audience who might be hard of hearing
Unlike as suggested above, the Trump shooter was not a "card-carrying Republican"; rather he was a donor to a far-left Political Action Committee who had registered to vote in the Republican primary - presumably for the purposes of mischief similar to when Tories donated to the Labour Party in order to vote for Corbyn in the leadership elections.
It appears no sniper scope either. Just iron sights
.303 was a painful beast.
I believe I was a 9stn weakling cadet.
for once I have to agree with Wildgoose - being registered with a party is meaningless in the USA: so many people do it for mischief-making
my youthful experience with the .303 is exactly that of Charles & BQ. Even with ones beret folded & rammed into ones shoulder as padding, the recoil was dreadful
it was a revelation to graduate to an FN SLR - essentially same calibre but semi-automatic and everything that means for reduced recoil. But no less powerful: a standard demo to instill due respect for the beast was for a small squad of instructors to demolish a brick wall with a short salvo. Cadets were then marched up to view the aftermath of the destruction: sobering stuff
Shoulder colour was badge of honour. The real fun was the Bren.
No ear defenders - I am rather hard at hearing.
We had 300 lee Enfields and five Brens at school plus 22's. Was armory staff sot 22 most weeks.
Put first class open ranges up on sleeve rather that Marksman indoor!!!
I once had fun with a vintage .44 Winchester repeater.
Firing from the hip was a big mistake.
Having ridden a mechanical bull last week I'm kind of getting a feel for the American way.
Charles here again.
I am glad my distant memories of shooting 0.303 rifles stirred up so many memories. My father who joined in WW2 and served in the gunners until he retired 35 year later, suffered from high frequency deafness. A combination of rifle fire and artillery was not good for the hearing.
I agree that Bren guns were fun but my word they were weighed a ton.
EK - "Firing from the hip was a big mistake."
Because of the recoil?
Over in the States the whole family did some shooting and a 12-gauge Mossberg from the hip sure makes you take a step back, unless you're really well braced.
I laughed this morning. The FBI had been saying that it couldn't crack the shooter's mobile phone. Widespread derision ensued. Now it says it has managed it after all.
They really are taking the piss, aren't they?
If you thought a Bren was heavy (spare barrel and all) you should have tried a GPMG
Both excellent pieces of kit, though
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