Posted on 04/06/2016 2:38:06 PM PDT by HomerBohn
Reykjavik, Iceland — Monday night, thousands of impassioned college students took to the streets of Villanova, Pennsylvania, to take a stand for what they believe in. Thousands gathered, many of whom clashed with police to stand up for their cause — NCAA basketball.
Had these college students, been at the wildlife refuge in Oregon to protest BLM land grabs, they would have been called terrorists. Had they been in Ferguson, Missouri to protest police killings, they would have been called thugs. Instead, these inebriated individuals who started fires, assaulted cops, and caused other people injuries — are called “revelers.”
It is this tendency of Americans to shun those who stand up for a cause, and the glorification of insignificant bread and circus events, that almost guarantees tyranny.
If we compare America’s view on protesting with that of Iceland, however, we find the opposite.
After the now infamous Panama Papers had exposed Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, and his secret use of offshore accounts, the citizens of Iceland took to the streets.
It was revealed in the leaked Panama Papers that Gunnlaugsson’s wife owned a secret offshore investment company with multi-million claims in Iceland’s failed banks.
According to the Guardian,
The leaked documents from the Mossack Fonseca law firm show Gunnlaugsson and his wife, Anna Sigurlaug Pálsdóttir, bought a British Virgin Islands-based offshore company, Wintris Inc, in December 2007 to invest her share of the proceeds of the sale of her father’s business, Iceland’s only Toyota importer.
Gunnlaugsson sold his 50% stake to his wife for a symbolic $1 at the end of 2009, eight months after he was elected to parliament as an MP for the centre-right Progressive party. He failed, however, to declare an interest in the company either then or when he became prime minister in 2013.
Gunnlaugsson has denied all the allegations against him and has publicly stated that the failure to declare the interest was due to an error created by he and his wife sharing a bank account.
On Monday, tens of thousands of protesters marched on Reykjavik to demand Gunnlaugsson’s resignation. And, on Tuesday — it worked.
A whopping 6.6 percent of the entire country took to the streets — not to celebrate their winning team, drink beer, and set trash cans on fire, but to incite change through letting their so-called leaders know that they will not stand for corruption.
“What would be the most natural and the right thing to do is that he resign as prime minister,” Birgitta Jónsdóttir, a former WikiLeaks activist who represents the opposition Pirate party in parliament, told TheGuardian. “There is great demand for that in society; he has totally lost all his trust and believability.”
On Tuesday, Gunnlaugsson resigned.
As the Guardian reports,
Iceland’s embattled prime minister, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, has tendered his resignation in the wake of a mounting political crisis over his family’s offshore investments, local media have reported.
The agriculture and fisheries minister, Sigurður Ingi Jóhannsson, told state broadcaster RUV that Gunnlaugsson was resigning as prime minister and that he would be replacing him.
Iceland’s track record of holding bankers and politicians accountable is second to none in the West. As corrupt, thieving, and even murderous politicians and bankers in the US get appointed to positions of authority, similar folks in Iceland are rotting in jail.
Until the infatuation with irrelevance takes a back seat to reality and facing down the tyrants out to control our lives, we can expect to see more of the same. We need only look at the choices for presidents in the country right now to realize — Americans have a long road ahead.
Matt Agorist is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world.
(Watch video at link)
I suppose Americans have had too many years of government school indoctrination. Big government is good, small government bad.
Bread and circuses.....
Iceland, banana republic.
Who would have thought.
Laws?
Who needs em. Just MOB action.
That’s always good.
I’m a little busy, earning a paycheck and stuff. That’s the biggest thing “rioters” and protesters have: time on their hands.
Americans are too busy worrying about the next shiny object, the next sports event, what celebrity is getting divorced, and other trivial matters to care about their country.
It was great while it lasted.
The next ball game, of course.
Americans are no longer willing to defend their Freedoms. In fact, they are ready willing and able to vote them away.
Yes, Americans can't take a vacation even to defend their Freedom. Vacations are strictly for fun.
End of Empire, plain and simple.
More than half the current population get all the free sh*t, the rest or us are too old, too scared and too white...we are the sorry bunch! And now the short memories ones are also letting an opportunity of having an outsider in on the inside to help out...
We forgive you TRUMP, but will you ever forgive us for loosing the spirit no matter what to finish getting you over the 1237 mark and then going to Cincinnati to ENFORCE the deal like Iceland did!!!!!
Still not too late but a few of us can’t do it alone. I vote “let’s roll!”
The people who were protesting in Ferguson are not people to emulate in any way that I can see. Energy to get off your rear and open your mouth is fine, but if what is coming out is sheer stupidity, racism, and ignorance, how does that deserve to be in the same paragraph as opposition to the Bureau of Land Management?
“Americans are no longer willing to defend their Freedoms. In fact, they are ready willing and able to vote them away.”
Americans, born after 1982, have no idea what potentially losing freedom looks like.
For them, they think war zones are the oddity. When it is America that is the real oddity on this planet.
I spent my most recent vacation unpacking boxes because we’d just moved. The life of an adult job holding bill paying American doesn’t have a lot of time to wave signs in the street.
“Matt Agorist is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA.”
There it is again. He is an “operator”. Snicker, my mom was an operator. When will this silly tacticool term finally go away.
Otherwise a good article.
I also feel that apathy has taken over the initial momentum of Trump. As if it was focused on long enough and will happen or perhaps that the RNC saying they pick delegates leaves a feeling of futility. Cruz is no less ambitious, corrupt or egotistical than hitlery, but has practiced smooth, quiet, hypnotic speech delivery to delude listeners into believing he is benign. The heirs of America will lose their freedoms, the invaders, illegals and self proclaimed victims will get their socialist country and like pigs believe they wallow in mud when it is the excrement of the elite. A friend once aptly said of his Jewish brethren who longed for the BMW symbol of success, “gas me, I love it.”
Yes, I'm a natural-born US citizen who just retired. I understand your stance. On the other hand, that stance is precisely why the US is no longer what it used to be. It is also why it will never again be the same. The corruption of our Nation is complete.
Small, ethnically homogeneous societies can react in that way.
Everybody can get agitated about the same outrage at the same time.
They take to the streets and get results.
It helps if there's solid evidence of a scandal that comes out quickly and at once.
The US is too large and too internally divided, and we already expect politicians to be crooked.
Wow you know better how to say what I feel...you nailed it, and said it so eloquently! Sadly though...thank you!
It’s not a stance, it’s a practical reality. I’m supposed to stop being able to provide for my family so I can wave stupid protest signs that accomplish nothing? I think if there’s one thing in this that’s why the US is no longer what it used to be it’s that so many people think the best solution to our problems is telling everybody ELSE they aren’t doing enough.
Imagine if our Founding Fathers took your "practical view"? You are in need of some serious soul-searching. Your job won't mean much anymore should your inaction lead to a communist government. Shame on you.
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