Quote:
Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski
My point was it is chaos, and trying to pin any group might be wrong.
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Well, in this instance, the Umbrella Guy was a white power freak. And there will be many instances where that will be the case going forward.
So the narrative that’ll emerge from those abiding the vandalism and looting attendant to some of the protests will be that that stuff was all done by white supremacists looking to undermine the legitimacy of the protests.
But historically, all attempts at full overthrow of the system by the general population are driven in significant part by middle to upper middle, sometimes even affluent individuals. Hoffer’s book, True Believer, gives a solid analysis of the phenomenon. A good bit of it has to do with these people having unmet expectations about life, feeling they’re being stifled by a system in which they should be far up the ladder. Guevara, Castro, Lenin, Trotsky, most of the ‘60s radicals here — a lot of these people came from pretty comfortable backgrounds.
This time it might be different, however, as this attempt at flipping the system is occurring during a depression for the poor. Hoffer asserts that the poor are usually only tepid followers in these movements because typically they’re working too hard to survive, or better their situation, to participate. Presently, a lot of the poor have nothing else to do but join the protests.
