The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) staged a nationwide training event Saturday to make sure people are aware of their rights as protesters and urge organized, public resistance by those opposed to policies of President Donald Trump.
A month ago Kellyanne Conway pointed out the media's role in "emboldening" violent protesters (in this case at Berkeley).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6gl-iHb1gA
Per The Hill:
“What’s going on out there is what’s going on all across the country,” Conway, a key aide to President Trump, said on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends” Thursday.
“You have protesters who feel very emboldened,” added Conway, who served as Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign manager. "They’ve got media cameras following them, they give interviews.”
“I don’t even know if they know what they’re protesting. Really, what is it, the free speech? Having someone on your campus who has a dissenting point of view or wants to present an alternative point of view?”
Conway said students lashing out at Yiannopoulos, who is a popular figure with the alt-right, are in for a rude awakening upon graduation.
“In the real world, when these kids grow up and try to find jobs – which they will in the Trump economy – [they’ll see] life doesn’t work that way, folks.”
Which was followed last week by the violent clashes between pro-and anti-Trump protesters (in Berkeley)...
This week then saw the non-violent "day without women" protest - the ultimate in "virtue signalling bullshit."
And so, as tensions roil between the left and the right, the gay and the straight, the 'everyone else' and the white, the legal and the illegal immigrants, and the taxpayers and the freeloaders; it appears the ACLU has decided the already-divided nation needs help... in becoming more divided (as AP reports):
Organizers said the event at a sports arena on the University of Miami campus was livestreamed to locations in all 50 states. ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said 200,000 people had signed up to attend one of an estimated 2,000 local events.
The event, staged in town hall style, was aimed at capitalizing on numerous demonstrations since Trump's election in November and to make sure people know their rights to protest, Romero said. He said priority issues are immigration, the First Amendment free speech and religious freedom rights, civil and reproductive rights and rights of gay, lesbian and transgender people.
"We will bring all the lawsuits necessary to defend these rights," Romero said. "We'll do the work in the courts. You do the work in the streets. People are motivated. They want to be engaged."
The ACLU also launched a new grassroots online organizing platform called PeoplePower.org. It's billed as a way for people considering a local protest or rally to connect and coordinate with others around the country with similar intentions, and to provide details of ACLU initiatives.
Another plan is creation of "freedom cities" around the country that would encourage local officials to pass laws resisting Trump policies such as stepped-up deportations of people living in the country illegally, said Faiz Shakir, ACLU national political director.
Other parts of Saturday's event detailed the rules for demonstrations on streets, sidewalks and in public parks, and the rights people have when arrested such as the right to remain silent. ACLU attorney Lee Rowland said large demonstrations generally require a local permit, but government can't typically shut down protesters in public places without good reason.
"The government can't censor you just because it disagrees with your opinion," Rowland said.
Also speaking at the event was Padma Lakshmi, an Indian-born cookbook author, actress, model and television host. She said she emigrated to the U.S. at age four and said the nation appears to be retreating from its welcoming ways.
"Lately I've started to feel like an outsider," she said. "What makes America great is our culture of inclusion. We must not tolerate the intolerance."
With half the nation being pumped on the belief (by various entities) that their protests will unseat a president that they have been told - day in and day out - is as bad as hitler, is a racist, sexist, mysoginist, pussy grabber - we suspect this will only end badly. As Chindit13 previously concluded, the 'other side' has been waiting...
The Deplorables have already considered what is coming. They are as prepared as they can be. Years of decline have enabled many to build their survival skills, to make due with less, to build real communities where one man can trust another, to discover what is truly important and what can and should be salvaged from this society.
Outside of that demographic, however, people are stark naked. They are vulnerable in ways they simply cannot imagine. They are unprepared and unskilled for what will matter most. They are cannon fodder living on borrowed time.
History is full of examples of this sort of collapse. We humans have always rolled along a sine wave of progress and decline, of civility and social unrest. We think we have outgrown the sort of mayhem with which the history books are full, but that thought stems from recency bias. Most of history---the vast majority---is not peaceful.
Societies are not, on average, stable and safe. Thomas Hobbes knew that quite well, as evidenced in his most famous quote. Humanity is likely on the verge of returning to the mean, and the mean is exactly that: mean. In case some have forgotten their Hobbes: solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.