A Real Coup
Atlanta, GA
January 7, 2021
The calendar flipped, but 2020 continues. Yesterday was the Epiphany, and much was made manifest.
During the afternoon, a hyped-up horde climbed the walls, broke into the US Capitol, wandered its corridors, ransacked a few offices, took in some sights, and posed for photos on the Senate floor. We don’t know exactly who they were, but we have a decent idea what they were not.
The initial and predominant narrative…which always seems as if it sprung from a seven year-old who has learned a new word…incessantly repeated frightening terms such as “insurrection”, “sedition”, and “terrorism.” Comparisons were made by political opportunists and historical illiterates to a Latin American “putsch”, or to the more ominous harbinger at the Beer Hall.
Wednesday’s farce, of course, bore no comparison to those events…tho’ it could resemble the fire at the Reichstag, and be used as an excuse by the ruling class to clamp down on the rest of us. But the act itself was more like a trespassing than a jacquerie. It was disorganized, and most of the offenders appeared to be unarmed. This was Opera Buffa, not Opera Seria. Rabelais rather than Robespierre.
There was never an attempt yesterday to overthrow the government. This was more like a juvenile fraternity stunt that got out of hand. It was less an insurrection than an ad-hoc B&E by a bunch of goof-balls who seemed surprised they got as far as they did.
As the mob made its way thru the building, they proved to be not so much deadly terrorists as uncouth tourists. When they strolled around statuary hall, they even made a conscientious point to mind the velvet ropes. They took selfies with the cops. They engaged more in vaudeville than violence. It was more humorous than horrifying. This wasn’t Pinochet taking Santiago. It was the Village People sampling the Louvre.
The malcontents could have done serious damage had they wished. No one was stopping them. If (as some hysterics insinuated) this were really an armed insurgency led by the President of the United States, it probably would’ve managed to do more than make a mess of Nancy Pelosi’s office.
In the chambers, the hooligans sat at desks, mounted the dais, and took proud selfies. No fires were set, no art defaced, no structures destroyed. Congressmen have done far worse in these rooms…sometimes to each other, and almost every day to us.
One woman was shot, but by Capitol police in what appeared to be an excessive reaction to someone trying to break thru a blocked door. Word is that three others died of collateral “medical emergencies”, and that there were the predictable injuries that accompany such chaos.
Not that things couldn’t have been much worse. Danger beckons anytime a mob forms. When a man enters a crowd, he exits civilization. A man in a crowd doesn’t think for himself. The crowd thinks for him. For evidence, we need look back only six months.
Yesterday’s escapade paled beside what may justly be described as the “terrorism” that ravaged Minneapolis, Portland, Seattle, and countless other cities for months last summer. In those “rampages” (to borrow another hysterical word parroted this week), entire neighborhoods were pillaged and burned, businesses looted and destroyed, and innocent people left destitute, disabled, or dead.
This week, by contrast, one building sustained minor damage, and its occupants were given a fright. And those politicians who cowered on the floors are the same people who routinely push us around, rip us off, and send American youth to die in reckless wars.
In some sense, this was a no-knock raid on the Feds. Congress was forced to flee for a few hours, and duck for cover. That’s too bad. But unlike so many of the unfortunate citizens they ostensibly represent, these cretins were soon able to resume their work…later the same day, in the same place.
Unlike the plebes, the elected Elite need not worry whether they have insurance or if they must somehow survive on government-issue counterfeit cash. They have plenty of each, and are first in line for both. They’ll be fine.
As always in these situations, our concern is not so much with the action, but with the reaction. It is often a freak of nature, in that it violates Newton’s third law by being inordinately excessive and grotesquely disproportionate to the precipitating event.
The powers-that-be know not to let a good crisis go to waste. If necessary, they are more than willing to invite, create, or exaggerate one. They then rile the populace, exploit their patriotism, and clamp down on the real enemy: us.
That has been the tendency for several decades. But it accelerated after 9/11, and went into overdrive last year. The latest fiasco at the Capitol provides a new opportunity. More security, fewer rights, and less freedom are sure to follow.
That makes sense. After all, there was an attempted coup. Only it didn’t fail, and it didn’t happen yesterday.
The Constitution was overthrown long ago, and it was an inside job. It fell silently, over many years: Lincoln’s invasion, The Progressive Era, the Fed, the Cold War, the War on Poverty, the Drug War, the War on Terror, the surveillance apparatus, the COVID response. The poor ‘ole document didn’t stand a chance.
Aside from a few cosmetic trappings…like two senators per state, proportional representation in the House, and prescribed election cycles, almost nothing remains of the Constitution. It’s basically a dead letter. Most people don’t know what it says. And most of the rest don’t care, especially those who swear an oath to uphold it.
Real power happens behind the scenes, in DC back rooms and the board rooms of Northern Virginia and Southern Manhattan. The elections, politicians, and limited range of issues the media allow us to discuss are mostly ornamental distractions to make us think we have some control over what’s being done to us.
Behind the curtain, the Federal Reserve, Wall Street, Intelligence agencies, and the Military/Medical/Education complex make the real decisions about how to concoct cash, confiscate wealth, and accrue as much power as possible to themselves. Their objective, as Colbert put it, is to pluck the most feathers with the least amount of hissing.
Meanwhile, one half of the geese can’t stand the sight of the other. This rift is not reparable. It cannot be “healed” or “united.” Nor should it be. Any government that people want to control this badly has clearly gotten too big. This is the one instance where anti-trust law makes sense.
Why unite people whose world views are so at odds? That’s not only impossible, it’s idiotic. Look what it has wrought so far. Platitudes and saccharine speeches fall justifiably on deaf ears. And does anyone honestly still think we can vote our way out of this? Elections only make it worse.
What the mob did yesterday was incorrigibly stupid on many levels, and especially on their own terms. It resulted in death and injury, will tarnish the image of anyone to the right of Mitt Romney, will result in a further erosion of liberty…and Joe Biden will still be president. This impromtu stunt, while by no stretch of the imagination a “coup”, was clearly foolish.
More reasonable would be an amicable separation, a peaceful secession. It’s time to think local, and act local. The states are sovereign. They should act like it. Why force together people who loathe each other?
There’s no heavenly mandate that these fifty states be bound within some sacred geography. It is time they recall their congressmen, reclaim their powers, and leave the US Capitol to whatever creatures still care to wander thru it.
JD
