Fright Club: Trumps’ Troops Invade Blue L.A. County

Capital & Main ^ | July 31, 2017 | Rev. Jim Conn

[2ndDivisionVet]

When I read that some right-wing agitators had gone to Cudahy to disrupt a city council meeting, I thought, “Why?” What’s the point of going to a public meeting in the second smallest city in Los Angeles County to create a nasty scene? But after reading a June Capital & Main piece by Robin Urevich, I realized these people chose Cudahy precisely because the town is small, Latino and a self-proclaimed “sanctuary city.” The hecklers have also attended other council meetings in the area.

But I did not expect a group of similar disrupters to attend meetings in my town. No one did. Yet on July 9, the regular monthly meeting of the Santa Monica Committee on Racial Justice a small group of young men showed up, two of them wearing American-flag bandannas over their faces, another with a video camera. According to one person who attended the meeting, the men proceeded to disrupt the meeting by making loud comments, interrupting speakers and intimidating people with their videoing activities. Although it wasn’t exactly clear what cause they were espousing, the gist of their beliefs might have been gleaned from the Make America Great Again baseball cap one of the men wore.

The justice group has been meeting for over six years and, as one leader told me, “Nothing like this ever happened before.” No one was prepared for it.

Less than two weeks later, agitators showed up at a Santa Monica Democratic Club meeting where State Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León was scheduled to speak. But, again, exactly what cause did they represent, other than a generic xenophobia? (People I spoke to who were there said the disrupters’ signs declared, among other things, “Build a Wall” and “Call ICE.”) There were no masks this time, but lots of chanting and shouting that kept some “Dreamers” from being heard and cut about 20 minutes into de León’s time with the club’s members.

As one local activist said to me, “The Santa Monica bubble burst” — whatever sense of isolation and insulation people on the liberal Westside might have felt, that was over. Another longtime activist – whose memory goes back to the rent control battles of the late 1970s and early ’80s – grew nostalgic for the days when they faced “just the landlords.”

Between the first disruption and the second, there were some preparations. Local police were notified about the potential for conflict, and they showed a strong presence, lining two walls of the room. The evening’s co-chairs framed the meeting as an open, democratic process calling for people not to shout at one another and to respect a prominent elected official. One club member went across the room and sat beside an agitator of about the same age cohort, and engaged him in quiet conversation – which worked to distract him from shouting further insults.

Those efforts helped. The meeting did not dissolve into total chaos. But it is clearly not enough. So I spoke with Dr. Andrew Moss, an emeritus professor who taught at Cal Poly Pomona for 34 years, the last decade at its Ahimsa Center, which teaches nonviolence as a set of tools for social change as well as for personal living.

Dr. Moss emphasized preparation. “The first principle of nonviolence,” he reminded me, “is research.” Who are these people? Are they loners or a group or several groups? What are their intentions, their goals: Do they want to be heard? To disrupt? To intimidate? We also need to know something about their timing: Are they going to show up regularly – as agitators have in Cudahy? Or is this a one-time, “drive-by” event?

Dr. Moss also emphasized that there are no quick fixes. Facing agitators requires doing the research, but also practice in engaging them one-on-one. That takes personal discipline. Our tendency is to match shouting with shouting, to raise our voices to the pitch and tone of our opponents. “But,” Moss said, “becoming louder doesn’t work.” Instead, he points to the “use of silence” that characterized the response of demonstrators to the overt attacks in the Southern civil rights campaigns of the 1960s. The silence and decorum of the black demonstrators stood in stark contrast to fire hoses, clubs and dogs used against them by the white authorities.

That took discipline and preparation. Neither of those were undertaken at the depth necessary to counter the recent surprise-and-disrupt tactics of the bandanna-wearing provocateurs. As people who think of ourselves as liberal or progressive activists, we must be better prepared. We need to be more deeply rooted in the practices of nonviolence that can effectively contrast to the behavior of disruption. We need the discipline to continue the work of creating a society safe and fair and just for everyone.

[2ndDivisionVet]

300 years from now the Left will still be patting itself on the back for the Civil Rights Movement, even though a large percentage of those involved were far from being left-wing.

[Lent]

Note the passive aggressive position of these so-called progressives. If they interrupt conservative venues that’s just righteous. If they get some medicine back the police come out in force and they curl up in a ball at the shocking behaviour.

[seastay]

So conclusion; their idea of “creating a society safe and fair and just for everyone” is successful only when the voices of the dissenting arguments are silenced

[IronJack]

In yer faces, libtards. Karma’s a biotch.

[pgkdan]

300 years from now the Left will still be patting itself on the back for the Civil Rights Movement, even though a large percentage of those involved were far from being left-wing.

Yes they will. My WWI Veteran, Louisana born Cajun grandfather marched several times for Civil Rights and while he was a democrat (who in the south wasn't in the early 60's?) he was FAR from being left wing!

[Eagles6]

Taking a page from the let’s playbook.

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

LOL check out this video with Pelosi, awesome....

https://youtu.be/KRSrphKtQm4

[Nifster]

meh

Leftists upset when their tactics are used on them

[Molon Labbie]

When people conceal their face and stir up trouble like this, I suspect leftist plants.

The right should aspire to be like the fellow in the famous Norman Rockwell paintings, “Freedom of Speech”. ( Which I would post if I knew how).

[Sgt_Schultze]

Yet on July 9, the regular monthly meeting of the Santa Monica Committee on Racial Justice a small group of young men showed up, two of them wearing American-flag bandannas over their faces, another with a video camera. According to one person who attended the meeting, the men proceeded to disrupt the meeting by making loud comments, interrupting speakers and intimidating people with their videoing activities. Although it wasn’t exactly clear what cause they were espousing, the gist of their beliefs might have been gleaned from the Make America Great Again baseball cap one of the men wore.

This describes almost every college campus in California whenever a conservative is scheduled to speak. Leftists hate it when their tactics are used against them.

[IC Ken]

The left always declares their right to do this. Love it when it works both ways.

[JBW1949]

GREAT!!! It’s about time conservatives grouped together as a show unity and force...

It hasn’t happened very much...

Liberals have no problem doing it as they all are followers of “groupthink”...

Conservatives, on the other hand, are individualistic and think for themselves so don’t “organize” like the liberals for protests and marches...

Hope to see much, much more of this....

[MeganC]

Liberals don’t like it when the protest is against them.

[T-Bone Texan]

Victory will only come after we drive these traitors and foreigners from our shores.

They need to be made afraid.

[BlueLancer]

It's easy, once you learn to remember the codes. Find the picture online and right-click on it. There should be an entry something like "copy image location". Click on that. That will save the image location until you need to insert it.

In your message, you enter a < symbol, immediately followed by img src= and then right click and click on "paste". That will insert the location into your entry, immediately following the "=". Then close off your entry with > and that should do it.

It should look something like img src=xxx.jpg with < before "img" and > immediately after the "xxx.jpg" which is the inserted entry for the copy image location.

[IC Ken]

Well there are problems as Soros PAYS people to protest and generally conservative work. Hard to find time when you hold a job.

[JBW1949]

Very true...