Muslim Ban: Shock Event?

A family member passed this on through a Facebook 'Copy & Share' message from Heather Richardson, professor of History at Boston College. I felt like sharing it with you, because it does ring true for many reason. The main thing to remember is not to be frozen in our shock, anger, fear, or confusion. Now is the time for all of us to come together and find commonality. We must not let the current Trump regime divide us.

Heather Richardson writes; "I don't like to talk about politics on Facebook-- political history is my job, after all, and you are my friends-- but there is an important non-partisan point to make today. What [Steve] Bannon is doing, most dramatically with last night's ban on immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries-- is creating what is known as a "shock event."

Such an event is unexpected and confusing and throws a society into chaos. People scramble to react to the event, usually along some fault line that those responsible for the event can widen by claiming that they alone know how to restore order.

When opponents speak out, the authors of the shock event call them enemies. As society reels and tempers run high, those responsible for the shock event perform a sleight of hand to achieve their real goal, a goal they know to be hugely unpopular, but from which everyone has been distracted as they fight over the initial event. There is no longer concerted opposition to the real goal; opposition divides along the partisan lines established by the shock event.

Last night's Executive Order has all the hallmarks of a shock event. It was not reviewed by any governmental agencies or lawyers before it was released, and counter-terrorism experts insist they did not ask for it. People charged with enforcing it got no instructions about how to do so. Courts immediately have declared parts of it unconstitutional, but border police in some airports are refusing to stop enforcing it. Predictably, chaos has followed and tempers are hot.

My point today is this: unless you are the person setting it up, it is in no one's interest to play the shock event game. It is designed explicitly to divide people who might otherwise come together so they cannot stand against something its authors think they won't like.

I don't know what Bannon is up to-- although I have some guesses-- but because I know Bannon's ideas well, I am positive that there is not a single person whom I consider a friend on either side of the aisle-- and my friends range pretty widely-- who will benefit from whatever it is.

If the shock event strategy works, though, many of you will blame each other, rather than Bannon, for the fallout. And the country will have been tricked into accepting their real goal. But because shock events destabilize a society, they can also be used positively. We do not have to respond along old fault lines. We could just as easily reorganize into a different pattern that threatens the people who sparked the event.

A successful shock event depends on speed and chaos because it requires knee-jerk reactions so that people divide along established lines. This, for example, is how Confederate leaders railroaded the initial southern states out of the Union.

If people realize they are being played, though, they can reach across old lines and reorganize to challenge the leaders who are pulling the strings. This was Lincoln's strategy when he joined together Whigs, Democrats, Free-Soilers, anti-Nebraska voters, and nativists into the new Republican Party to stand against the Slave Power.

Five years before, such a coalition would have been unimaginable. Members of those groups agreed on very little other than that they wanted all Americans to have equal economic opportunity. Once they began to work together to promote a fair economic system, though, they found much common ground. They ended up rededicating the nation to a "government of the people, by the people, and for the people."

Confederate leaders and Lincoln both knew about the political potential of a shock event. As we are in the midst of one, it seems worth noting that Lincoln seemed to have the better idea about how to use it."

Stand with Standing Rock

Dear President Obama,

President Obama, I was hoping you were finally going to take action to stop the rape of the land and the poisoning of the water going on right now in North Dakota, and halt and/or re-route the Dakota Access Pipeline. Your legacy is a sum total of nothing if you continue to ignore the cries of women, men, children, and elders who only want to protect those lands that they were relegated to after America was colonized, the lands you have forgotten, the people you have decided to forget.

You said you would stand for native rights, you lied. The have dug up sacred lands, now they want to poison the drinking water of millions, and they are ignoring your orders to stop at the water and wait until the Army Corps. of Engineers reassesses the 'situation'. In a recent interview you stated you were "going to see how it plays out", when there is irrefutable evidence that construction is full steam ahead. The oil company doesn't care about fines, they are going to make billions either way. They have no concern for Americans, and if you fail to act, you are saying you don't care either.

No one is watching, or 'observing', as the oil company Energy Transfer Partners, now begin to drill and are ready to go under the lake within two weeks. They tried to slip that bit of news by on Election Day, they wanted as few people to see it as possible, and they love that the media is focussed on doing a post-election autopsy. 

What Energy Transfer Partners, doesn't want you to know - they have brought in police who are pepper spraying, arresting, and firing rubber bullets at unarmed peaceful Indigenous people on their own ancestral lands. They arrest as many journalists as they can and stop any attempt to film what is actually going on at Standing Rock. Obama, you can stop it, but you won't because you have shown yourself to be a coward. The police are facing the wrong way, the ones breaking your orders are not the protectors, they are the construction workers and oil company that feels they are untouchable. Are they untouchable? 

Obama, you took campaign money from Big Oil, are you in their pocket? Now a lame-duck President, you just want it all to go away. It won't go away, people will die trying to protect their water, I know they will.

Your successor Mr. Trump won't stop it, he will make it worse. The next administer of the EPA is slated to be a noted Climate Change denier, I doubt he will even care. We are at a critical point in the battle for the environment and to stop climate change before it is too late. Even if they reverse your decision, at least you will have done the right thing. People will remember that. We have to stop the drilling, mining, and fracking and leave it in the ground, we must shift to renewable energy now.

Barack Obama, please keep your word and stop using Native Land as an alternative whenever an affluent white area refuses to allow a pipeline through. Bismarck ND (largely white population) refused to allow the pipeline to near their residents. All pipelines spill, a lot, and it's only a matter of time before the water will be poison and people will die. Please Mr. President, say no to the Dakota Access Pipeline. This shouldn't still be happening, not in our lifetime, not ever. Money is not life, water is life; please save the humans and animals that depend on that water. We are at a point of no return. This will be your legacy one way or the other, what side of history do wish to be on? Show us your humanity, your basic human decency. Show your daughters that you care about the planet they, and their children, will inherit.

Sincerely,

The Water Protectors of the World.