Reading genghis' interesting post below brought back memories of a situation I was involved in with a similar group of "peaceful" protesters.

A few years ago in LA, I was driving home from work when a group of gay pride protesters were marching down one of the main roads just south of Sunset Blvd. The group attempted to block an intersection just as I was entering it. They ran in front of my car when they saw that I was almost past them. When I stopped, a couple of them ducked down behind my car out of my view. They were hoping that I would put my car in reverse so they would get bumped and become "justified" in focusing their rage against me and my vehicle.

They were the aggressors but they had a well choreographed plan to spin the situation around where they could claim that I (or any other driver) had recklessly driven into them thus triggering a violent confrontation. Such a manufactured hate crime would have justified the protest group's claim that hateful people aggressively target them with violence for no reason at all.

One of the protesters in the front of my car had a brick in his hand and slammed it against the hood. He slammed it down again as he walked towards my open driver's side window. At that point I opened my jacket and placed my hand on my holstered sidearm. Upon seeing this, the guy with the brick said "What are you going to do? Kill me? Go ahead!” The possibility of dying did not faze the guy at all and in fact it seemed to motivate him to escalate the situation even more.

I told him that I would not kill him but I would shoot him in the spine and he would be in a wheelchair and shit in a bag for the rest of his life. That caused him to pause and back away. The group moved through the intersection and I was able to drive away with no injuries to anyone.

Upon reflection, the event showed me how filled with rage these "peaceful" organized protesters can be. The protesters are not angry because of some perceived institutional or culturally based injustice or grievance. They are a collection of individuals, each filled with a personal rage and are looking for an "acceptable" way to unleash violence on someone who "deserves" it. Such a mentality struck me as being the equivalent of Klansmen who are motivated to terrorize and kill black people based on a need to vent personal rage rather than their claimed perception of some larger, more “significant” racial conflict.

An overabundance of unresolved personal grievances, self doubts, and anger too often creates a person who when faced with the need to identify the underlying causes for their rage, rejects the possibility that it comes from conflict from within and instead embraces the delusion that it comes from evil external institutional or cultural forces. Rage based from within is difficult and painful to address, rage based upon perceived external forces on the other hand, gives one license to live a life of continual outrage and avoid any self introspection.

Posted by: Open Blog at 06:53 AM | Comments (84)
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BUMPED for update.

By beating the shit out of him and trashing his car.

“Seattle police said they were still looking today for one of a group of Critical Mass bicyclists who attacked and injured a driver during a violent altercation on Capitol Hill Friday evening.”

“Two other bicyclists have been jailed. But some riders in the event have said the driver was the aggressor.”

“Just after 7 p.m. Friday, the group of at least 100 bicyclists was moving en masse down East Aloha Street when a man and his girlfriend in a Subaru station wagon tried to pull out of a parking spot, said Seattle police spokesman Mark Jamieson.”

Clearly the driver was in the wrong here. Parking spots are for parking, not for leaving. The bicyclists helpfully suggested some other options and tried to dissuade the driver from leaving:

” According to Jamieson, as the Critical Mass group moved down the street, blocking traffic, some riders got in the way of the Subaru and prevented it from leaving. Some bikers sat on the car and were banging on it, he said."The driver was pretty fearful that he was about to be assaulted by the bicyclists," Jamieson said. The man tried to back up, but bumped into a biker. "This enraged the group," Jamieson said.

Several of the bikers bashed up the Subaru, shattering the windshield and rear window, Jamieson said. The driver tried to drive away, but hit another bicyclist, Jamieson said. Still, he drove about a block, to the corner of Aloha and 15th Avenue East, before the Critical Mass riders cornered the car again and started spitting on it and banging against it.

One bicyclist punched the driver through his open window, and another used a knife to slash the Subaru's tires, Jamieson said. The driver got out of his car, and was hit in the back of the head, opening a large gash.”

Obviously he had it coming to him. Sometimes thereÂ’s just a failure to communicate and gentle persuasion doesnÂ’t quite get the job done. An alternative point of view regarding the intervention is provided here along with many useful comments.

UPDATE: A little more on the story including an interview with the driver and one of the people he allegedly squished is here. (There's a video of the interviews but no video of the actual events)

Strangely enough, I haven't been able to locate any videos of the incident online. Why do I say strangely? Because Critical Mass usually films their monthly rides and posts them on YouTube and congratulate themselves for their brave actions against...well, whatever it is they're against this particular moment. Yet now they're screaming bloody murder that the driver was the aggressor. If that were the case, wouldn't they post corroborating evidence to back up that claim?

In the interest of fairness, a post at Seattle Indymedia explains to us how the "corporate media" got this story all wrong. I urge you to share your thoughts, condolences, best wishes and "get well soons" to the victims of this tragedy who may be scarred for days with road rash.

While you're there, signing the guestbook, feel free to troll around on the site and check out the other fascinating stories posted there.

Posted by: Open Blog at 09:19 PM | Comments (119)
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Obama almost made it through his World Tour without screwing up but he couldn't quite do it and even the MSM has followed up on the troop visit story.

Now McCain has an ad up in D.C. and parts of Colorado and Pennsylvania taking Obama to task for skipping the chance to visit wounded troops.

McCain continues the attack in an interview with ABC's This Week. He says if he found himself in the position Obama was in, his reaction to the Pentagon would have been "seismic". For all my disagreements with McCain, I have no doubt he's telling the truth about that.

This is obviously an issue right in McCain's wheelhouse and he's not going to let it go.

Posted by: DrewM at 05:58 PM | Comments (60)
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Now there's an antpile I'm too smart to kick over. Fortunately, the Other McCain has no fear of being cut off for life. A taste:

If there's anything in the world I hate, it's women reporters writing "Oh, we're so oppressed" stories in the New York Times

[...]

Ladies, please: If your blog sucks, it's not because of some patriarchal conspiracy, OK? And as for making money, you could almost certainly fit into my living room every independent blogger who earns a full-time living off blogging. Generally speaking, bloggers either have some other job to support their blogging habit, or else they're "blogging for the man" (e.g., the Atlantic Monthly bloggers, the Gawker cartel, etc.).

He's got the right idea, but crosses a line somewhere between "get me a cup of coffee, hon" and "so cute when they're angry." You be the judge.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:03 PM | Comments (39)
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This might be a little too inside baseball, but the ongoing self-destruction of the L.A. Times is too much to pass up. Yesterday morning, staffers protesting management's plan to cut 250 jobs by the end of the summer hung a gigantic banner entitled "Zell Hell: Take Back the Los Angeles Times" from the parking garage. The job cuts are blamed on the relatively newish owner, Sam Zell, who is desperately trying to reduce costs in the face of falling circulation.

As if that wasn't enough high school drama, the perpetrators (L.A. Times staffers who refer to themselves as "the oppressed") posted an angsty manifesto explaining why they did it. I've reposted it in its entirety below the fold so you can enjoy the heartfelt adolescent tropes as much as I did. I especially liked "we see nothing but malaise, dread, fear." Also, I wonder if this might be contributing to Zell's problems: "we spend more time reading blogs and departure emails than researching, writing and editing news stories." more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 04:23 PM | Comments (60)
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Once again, it turns out that a story that could have been written at any time over the past six months is only ready for printing on a Saturday.

Funny how it always works out like that.

Analysis: US now winning Iraq war that seemed lost

...

Limited, sometimes sharp fighting and periodic terrorist bombings in Iraq are likely to continue, possibly for years. But the Iraqi government and the U.S. now are able to shift focus from mainly combat to mainly building the fragile beginnings of peace — a transition that many found almost unthinkable as recently as one year ago.

Despite the occasional bursts of violence, Iraq has reached the point where the insurgents, who once controlled whole cities, no longer have the clout to threaten the viability of the central government.

That does not mean the war has ended or that U.S. troops have no role in Iraq. It means the combat phase finally is ending, years past the time when President Bush optimistically declared it had. The new phase focuses on training the Iraqi army and police, restraining the flow of illicit weaponry from Iran, supporting closer links between Baghdad and local governments, pushing the integration of former insurgents into legitimate government jobs and assisting in rebuilding the economy.

Scattered battles go on, especially against al-Qaida holdouts north of Baghdad. But organized resistance, with the steady drumbeat of bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and ambushes that once rocked the capital daily, has all but ceased.

This amounts to more than a lull in the violence. It reflects a fundamental shift in the outlook for the Sunni minority, which held power under Saddam Hussein. They launched the insurgency five years ago. They now are either sidelined or have switched sides to cooperate with the Americans in return for money and political support.

Also, there were no US casualties in Iraq this past week. (Knock wood.)

Meanwhile, it remains NBCNews official, carefully-considered, expert-informed opinion that Iraq is in a state of Civil War.

Note the MSNBC's correspendent's prognosis -- the fact the NBC, and soon the MSM, would call the situation in Iraq a "civil war" would have a great political impact, and would increase the urgency for a withdrawal.

Funny how NBC isn't able to make these "gutsy" semantic decisions when the political impact might run in the opposite direction.

Insiders expect NBC to revisit this carefully-considered, expert-informed opinion two hours after Barack Obama wins the presidency.

If he doesn't win -- the Civil War rages on, baby!

Posted by: Ace at 11:59 AM | Comments (54)
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AP story so no link; US District Judge Susan Illston dismissed Savage's lawsuit against CAIR which alleged copyright infringement and racketeering.

I'm no lawyer (and not a Savage fan either), but the copyright thing seemed awfully weak to this layman. I also don't get the racketeering claim (not that I think CAIR is pure as the driven snow, I just didn't get it in the context of the lawsuit).

Illston also said no evidence was presented to show damages related to loss of advertising - I don't know what was presented but I think that would be what we who are not legal professionals refer to as "kinda important".

Anyway, it's tossed.

In unrelated news, hope for the lonely Zombie.

Loving shambler seeks partner. Looks are not as important to me as intelligence, I love a girl with a big, big brain. Let's take a chance, get to know one another, perhaps share a meal.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 07:29 AM | Comments (38)
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Obama says once the military said his political advisers couldn't come with him, the campaign realized the visit might be viewed as a political stunt, even if he went alone and without press.

"We had scheduled to go, we had no problem at all in leaving, we always leave press and staff off -- that is why we left it off the schedule. We were treating it in the same way we treat a visit to Walter Reed which I was able to do a few weeks ago without any fanfare whatsoever. I was going to be accompanied by one of my advisors, a former military officer."

Continued Obama, "And we got notice that he would be treated as a campaign person, and it would therefore be perceived as political because he had endorsed my candidacy but he wasnÂ’t on the Senate staff. That triggered then a concern that maybe our visit was going to be perceived as political. And the last thing that I want to do is have injured soldiers and the staff at these wonderful institutions having to sort through whether this is political or not or get caught in the crossfire between campaigns."

According to a story by NBC that 'former military officer' is retired Major General Jonathan S. Gration.

Pentagon officials say Gration was the campaign's point of contact at Landstuhl in arranging Obama's visit and "got torqued" when he was told he would not be permitted to join Obama. It was Gration who later suggested to reporters that the Pentagon short-circuited Obama's visit.

So, did a retired General's hissy fit lead to Obama canceling the trip? The military maintains they were more than happy to host the Senator so long as no one from his campaign was there. That's apparently the way they've handled visits by other candidates. Obama has made visits like this before so why suddenly did this one become so different?

Posted by: DrewM at 06:12 AM | Comments (60)
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Interesting TNR article here. The thing is about how the Obama campaign's hubris is starting to piss off the media. In particular an incident with a NYT reporter is written about in some length. When you get lefty rags like TNR openly making admissions like the quote below, and whining about how closed and controlling the Obama campaign is, it sounds to me like the campaign's honeymoon is just about over.

...The press certainly helped Obama get so far so fast; the question is, how far can he get if his campaign alienates them?...

...But, as Obama ascended from underdog to front-runner to presumptive nominee, the flame seems to have dwindled. Reporters who cover Obama these days grouse that Obama's flacks shroud the campaign in secrecy and provide little to no access. "They're more disciplined than the Bush people," a reporter on the Obama trail gripes...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 04:14 AM | Comments (30)
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When Pelosi and Reid lose the WaPo over something like this, you know they're in trouble.

...The result threatens to be the first time since at least 1950 that lawmakers will go home for the August recess without either chamber having passed a single appropriations bill.

If drilling opponents really have the better of this argument, why are they so worried about letting it come to a vote?

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 06:42 PM | Comments (41)
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