Green Zone on the Potomac
In Baghdad, the US embassy complex is a massive fortified area hard on the Tigris called The Green Zone. It is to protect representatives of America’s government–and its governing class–from the barbarians beyond. In advance of Wednesday’s inauguration, Washington DC is being turned into the Green Zone on the Potomac. (H/T to @libertylynx for suggesting the analogy!)
So just who are the barbarians whom the governing class is attempting to exclude from the nation’s capital?
This could be a particularly grandiose exercise in security theater, meant to convey that the country is under threat from shadowy right-wing insurrectionists, and thereby provide a justification for sweeping “domestic terrorism” legislation, followed by early-21st equivalents to early-20th century “Palmer Raids” (Garland Raids?)–these directed at American “fascists” and “white supremacists,” rather than communists and anarchists as in 1919-1920. This would bode very ill for our freedom. It could be the death knell, in fact.
This could also reveal the governing class’s panicked realization that they are heartily hated by a large portion of the populace–and that they know that they are hated for good reason, due to their abject incompetence, irredeemable corruption, and sneering disdain for vast swathes of Americans. We have the worst governing class in the country’s history–and that includes the 1850s, during which the previous holder of this dubious distinction led the country to civil war.
These explanations are not mutually exclusive, of course. A hated “elite,” all too conscious of its failings and unpopularity (Congress ranks somewhere below tertiary syphilis in esteem, with the federal bureaucracy and the media hot on its heels), will out of self-preservation engineer crises that justify the employment of the government’s vast coercive apparatus to crush those who wish them gone.
It is extremely illuminating that actually burning things down, which occurred not just in DC but around the country in May and June, did not elicit such a hysterical response. Only when the precious denizens of DC feel personally threatened by the people they ostensibly govern do they go to Defcon 1.
Don’t fall for it. Don’t let a stupid, but wildly exaggerated, rampage in the Capitol (that never would have happened had the most basic measures been taken–which should make you wonder why they weren’t) provide the pretext for purges and “domestic terrorism” legislation that deprives you of your rights, puts your liberty at risk, and threatens to bring the country to the brink of another break. Don’t fall for the security theater and the FBI’s alarums. These are a pretext to deprive you of your freedoms, most notably your freedom to heap scorn on a failed ruling class, and to hold them to account for their myriad failings.
I would add Michael Yon’s boots-on-the-ground observation that many of the troops dispatched to this effort are unfit for combat. Whether that is due to the DC establishment not taking the threat seriously (security theater), or that Congress doesn’t know what combat-readiness looks like, or that the MD Guard is expected to be more loyal than regular US troops (we all saw how loyalty was more important than competence in the Clinton crime syndicate) is hard to say. I suspect that outsized fear of Trumpers has left the DC oligarchy blind to the threat of a military coup.
Comment by M.Rad. — January 16, 2021 @ 9:20 pm
I hope that you and your website survive the upcoming purges of wrong think that will surely focus on people like you.
Comment by Geoff H — January 16, 2021 @ 11:29 pm
Kabuki
Comment by Sotosy1 — January 17, 2021 @ 12:23 am
I used to read this blog for a bit of markets and civil war history (consistently excellent and illuminating, I must say).
Now I mostly read it for the gymnastic contortions the writer goes through to blame absolutely everything on The Elite. You are the Simone Biles of Trump and his coterie a free pass on their every act of venality and spite.
Comment by Mjmd — January 17, 2021 @ 3:58 am
…I used to read this blog…
and yet, you return time and again, majmud. I wonder why? if this is place so hateful and appalling to you, why drag yourself? is this your job? how much they pay you for your trolling and your reports?
Comment by Tatyana — January 17, 2021 @ 9:16 am
Tatyana,
Every site has one. The Prof is fortunate, he has two.
Comment by John Lewis — January 17, 2021 @ 9:58 am
Hi Tatyana,
I, for one, am paid by George Soros. Are you surprised?
Comment by [email protected] — January 17, 2021 @ 10:18 am
John L: if only.
Their name is legion.
Comment by Tatyana — January 17, 2021 @ 11:18 am
security theatre is absolutely right
and as long as BLM was burning, rioting, looting and murdering on the streets, the NanXi Piglosi gang – and it is a gang – was content to label all of that as “peaceful protests.”
But when their own asses get disturbed in Congress – JIMMINY CRICKET, IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD!!!!! AND THEY START SCREAMING, AS USUAL!
The “insurrectionists” should have said that they were from Black Lives Matter – then everything would have been OK.
All those believers in the 1619 Project and “reparations” – why would they suddenly claim that the Capitol is a “sacred place”?
Churches are not “sacred” of course – you can ban people from attending, if you are part of the Piglosi gang.
Today George Shrill had an opinion piece in which he characterized Trump’s presidency as a four-year “snarl.”
75 million Americans actually voted for the “snarl.”
Hence, the absolutely gigantic effort on the part of lefties to squash free speech:
the Kremlin-on-the-Charles, Harvard, kicks Elise Stefanik off the Institute of Pollitics
Lowe’s bans Josh Hawley from having a fund-raiser at the hotel
Harvard stoonts demand that Stefanik’s Harvard degree be revoked
no-fly lists for Trump supporters
Fakebook, Twister, etc. – no posting for conservatives
and so forth and so on – till people “get their minds right” (remember Cool Hand Luke?)
turns out the FBI found out that the “insurrection” was not incited by Trump, but was pre-planned
and Karl Rove (and others) claim that there are Trump Republicans and “regular” Republicans, and that he and others need to get rid of the Trump Republicans.
“If You Need All This To Protect Your Inauguration from the People, Maybe the F-ing People Didn’t F-ing Elect You!”
Comment by elmer — January 17, 2021 @ 11:19 am
Prof, be leery of using ambiguous expressions such as “hold them to account”. It could mean investigate them, charge them, try them, convict them, jail them. But it could be read, by anyone of ill will, as ‘string ’em up’. Maybe all you mean to do is to implore people to vote against the venal bastards. But that will often involve voting for different venal bastards which isn’t much of an advance.
In some ways we’re luckier in Britain. There seem to be only two Prime Minsters in the last couple of centuries notorious for how they have enriched themselves in office or soon thereafter – Lloyd George and Blair.
Apparently Boris is already complaining that he’s skint, given that he expects to have to pay for child care (though not at the moment) and has heavy alimony to pay too. Perhaps he’s also paying school fees. I suspect that an unsympathetic nation will bellow advice about keeping His Right Honourable Member inside His Right Honourable Underpants.
Comment by dearieme — January 17, 2021 @ 12:35 pm
“voting for different venal bastards which isn’t much of an advance.”
even a theoretical possibility of getting rid of a rep who turned out to be a bastard is much preferable to an unchangeable royal bastards monopoly that some got stuck with no matter what
Comment by Tatyana — January 17, 2021 @ 1:37 pm
Tatyana, your reading comprehension leaves something to be desired. Try to get to the second paragraph next time and process the opening:
“Now I mostly read it for…”
Comment by Mjmd — January 18, 2021 @ 4:31 am
Nothing much to see here. Typical US reaction to a terrorist incident on its home turf i.e. massive show of force.
@elmer – great list! It’s like all our Christmases have come at once… PS You need to add loyalty tests for National Guardsmen. On which note it is impressive to see how efficient the Dems are at organising a police state. Surely even you must be impressed, albeit grudgingly?
@Mjmd – I see Craig more as Reg from The Life of Brian i.e. the drainhead coordinating consultant. The thought of him in a leotard is probably more than any man can bear.
Intriguingly the Critic-Sycophant here ratio does appear to be shifting in light of recent posts. Tatyana has set her (?) stall out quite effectively as the resident toadyess-in-chief.
Comment by David Mercer — January 18, 2021 @ 5:48 am
ahaha! baby mercer crowns himself a “critic”!
made my [MLK] day. laughing into my espresso.
Comment by Tatyana — January 18, 2021 @ 8:07 am
Why won’t Soros pay me? An obvious case of fatophobia and anti Hellenic bias. Let’s deplatform the Happy Sonderkommando!
Comment by sotosy1 — January 18, 2021 @ 1:56 pm
@13 David “terrorist incident” So you agree that Antifa/BLM are terrorists?! I’d not have thought that of you, David. Nice to see, though.
Not surprised you approve of police statism, given your apparent serenity in the face of the advanced spectral position the UK currently occupies.
Personal freedom gutters out and all the social democrats no longer need pretend.
Comment by Pat Frank — January 18, 2021 @ 4:07 pm
Cmon prof, “Congress ranks below tertiary syphilis?” Sure overreaction to shocking incidents is common, but that is true regardless of party in control. Lots of security theater after 9/11 for example, & Japanese interment camps in a worst case scenario. But this & your earlier post noting those who rioted in the capital included a lot of fringe goofballs is a nice exercise in apologetics by means of minimization & indirection. Better I think to make your views clear by addressing Liz Cheney’s cogent summary stating that Trump summoned & assembled the mob & lit the flame. It is indirection & minimization because you ignore the fact that Trump assembled his mob for the explicit purpose of disrupting the confirmation of the electoral college vote. Maybe he & Guiliani et al are Monty Python goofballs but their actions constituted an attempt to prevent completion of a legal process essential to the constitutional order. That’s a seditious conspiracy, so I’m hoping you will take that issue on. You have asserted Trump is not your boy, that you are anti-anti-Trumpers, but I think an explicit attempt to disrupt the constitutional order deserves a less veiled treatment than you are giving it in these posts.
Comment by Ty Kelly — January 18, 2021 @ 6:11 pm
@ Pat: So you agree that Antifa/BLM are terrorists? I honestly don’t know – ask me again when they storm the Capitol building and kill a policeman. Blockading a bookshop doesn’t really qualify.
Comment by David Mercer — January 19, 2021 @ 5:48 am
@17 David, a year of looting and burning and you see a blockaded bookstore.
Hard to believe but you’ve achieved a brand new level of vacuity.
Comment by Pat Frank — January 19, 2021 @ 10:44 am