RIP Chief

One of my favorite people died last week. His name was Milt Frech. I always called him "Chief" (I loved Maxwell Smart). But he was one of the reasons I loved The Town of Brunswick, and I know I'll miss his passing.  He was our Towns Andy. 

https://thebrunswickherald.com/brunswick-police-chief-milt-frech-passes/

Trump aimed them at the Capitol on the 6th

In Trump’s speech to the people he’d asked to come to DC and march on the Capital he gives a long speech in which he says

“After this, we’re going to walk down — and I’ll be there with you — we’re going to walk down, we’re going to walk down — anyone you want, but I think right here — we’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women. And we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them. Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness, you have to show strength, and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing, and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated — lawfully slated. I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard today.”

Trump uses the word “peacefully” and “patriotically” as code for, “you will break into the capitol and demand the count stop!”  Being “strong” and being “peaceful” have opposite meanings in his rhetoric.  It is also his pattern of inciting violence but leaving wiggle room in his speech so he can deny he said what he obviously said.  He is no more credible here than a Mob Boss telling an associate to “do him” about a person he is putting a hit on.  And he goes on to make one false allegation of corruption, cheating, fraudulent votes coupled with asks for the mob in front of him to take action. Threatening congress.  He accuses Democrats of:

“oppos [ing] every effort to clean up their voter rolls. They don't want to clean them up. They're loaded.”

Tells the mob to not only to stop the certification of the count but force the congress to pass sweeping legislation.

“So today, in addition to challenging the certification of the election, I'm calling on Congress and the state legislatures to quickly pass sweeping election reforms, and you better do it before we have no country left.”

He says:

“Today is not the end, it's just the beginning.

And after accusing Democrats and turncoats of every manner of fraud,He says:

“We must stop the steal and then we must ensure that such outrageous election fraud never happens again, can never be allowed to happen again.”

He tells his mob:

“Don't let them talk. OK, well, we promised. I've had a lot of people. Sir, you're at 96% for four years. I said I'm not interested right now. I'm interested in right there.”

He tells them, their mob will:

“Together, we will drain the Washington swamp and we will clean up the corruption in our nation's capital.”

He tells them that their insurrection is actually stopping a takeover of the country:

“If we allow this group of people to illegally take over our country because it's illegal when the votes are illegal when the way they got there is illegal when the states that vote are given false and fraudulent information.”

Then he tells them to fight like hell!

“I think one of our great achievements will be election security. Because nobody until I came along had any idea how corrupt our elections were.”

“And again, most people would stand there at 9 o'clock in the evening and say I want to thank you very much, and they go off to some other life. But I said something's wrong here, something is really wrong, can have happened.”

“And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.”

Then he sets them to march:

“So we're going to, we're going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. I love Pennsylvania Avenue. And we're going to the Capitol, and we're going to try and give.”

“The Democrats are hopeless — they never vote for anything. Not even one vote. But we're going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones because the strong ones don't need any of our help. We're going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.”

“So let's walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.”

And he aimed them at Congress!

Sources:
https://www.npr.org/2021/02/10/966396848/read-trumps-jan-6-speech-a-key-part-of-impeachment-trial

QAnon is psyop, Daniel Morrison lays it out

Daniel Morrison writes an authoritative artical on the origins & probable composition of "Q."

https://blog.usejournal.com/qanon-is-propaganda-and-we-know-whos-responsible-faa133fb6acd

My own pedestrian look at Q makes more sense if Daniel's article is read first. It is likely that "Q" is not one person, but a team operation. A project, funded, staffed & using sophisticated tools to bamboozle people. 

"Jeff Giesea was a digital businessman, Pro-Trump agitator, and associate of Peter Thiel who, drawing on the ideas of Chuck Johnson, published a paper called “It’s time to embrace memetic warfare”. In context, it was pitched as a way to fight ISIS. In practice, it would become a key part of the Trump."

Daniel goes on to layout a theory that ought to be a guide for the FBI.

For the previous post.....

https://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2020/08/is-qanon-fsb-active-measure.html

Chocolate still tastes like Chocolate

The sun still rises in the morning.

Chocolate still tastes like chocolate.

I'm still here but others aren't.

Where did they go?

They are on the mantle

Or under the snow.

How do you close a gaping wound?

Which of those things

is the greater sin?...

Guns or butter

give way to inconsolable tears.

A different war comes home,

With different fears.

When a building is bombed

We expect shock and awe.

But how does one fight a plague?

You can't shoot it or drop a bomb.

The dead died choking,

Their voices suffocating.

But their voices cry to us.

So many pillars,

dropped to the ground.

From Angel voices to Screech.

Gone before their time.

A silent war of disappearances

And silence.

Yet we hear them in our heads.

We have to speak for them.

I, Chris

Has the Trumpist Republican Party become a Front?

The Troubles and Trump

From 1968 to 1998 Northern Ireland was involved in a bloody conflict between Mostly Catholic, Irish Nationalists who wanted to join Northern Ireland with the rest of the Island and mostly Protestant Ulster Irish who wished to remain separate from Ireland & in Union with Britain.  Both sides used insurgency methods, though the Ulsterites had sometimes overt and sometimes covert support from Crown forces.

Sinn Féin and INLA

Most of the terror operations of the Northern Ireland Republicans were carried out by The Irish National Liberation Army (INLA, Irish: Arm Saoirse Náisiúnta na hÉireann).  This "army" was the terrorist "resistance" arm of the mostly Catholic Irish Republican Socialist Party or IRSP.

(Irish: Páirtí Poblachtach Sóisialach na hÉireann).

They separated from the larger Sinn Féin mostly to add a layer of legal separation from the earlier version of the Irish National Liberation Army, which had liberated Ireland from British Tyranny in prior years.

Violent Group Fronts

The Ulsterites fielded several "militia" which also employed a front, terrorist group operation. During that period politics in Northern Ireland became very ugly. It took intervention led by Irish Americans to settle "the troubles." 

The Broader Point

I'm referring to the troubles for a "broader point." You can look up insurgencies, they usually take that form. The front is an ostensibly peaceful group that poo-poos violence, but shares the otherwise violent aims of the terrorists. Front groups recruit, support, fund & excuse the terrorists & their deeds. Without them terrorists starve.

The Question

Have the Trumpist Republicans become a front group of Trumpist terrorism? Have groups like The Proud Boys or The Oathkeepers become shock troops for white supremacy terrorism?

Radical Change?

Radical change? 

Pennies spilt on the ground.

 That wheel of revolution, it had to go round.

 and it kicked everybody to the ground.

 

Radical change? Doesn't that sound strange?

 Cut the roots and you kill the plant.

 Look at those revolutions, look at where they went.

 Lots of death and dying, leaving the world spent.

 Did the workers want change? No they just wanted to eat.

 When they couldn't eat, then they took to the street.

 Out went the Tsars, in came new Tsars.

 The names changed, but the oppression remained the same.

 When that wheel comes round it crushes all to the ground.

 

You want radical change, you might as well head for the stars.

 Even if you get your way, you'd be better off on mars.

 Because as long as human beings want to fight,

 the ends never make the violence right.

 Cut off their heads, new pigs take their place.

 Want to get rid of the old leaders? new ones take up the race.

 Level the pack, and a new monster emerges.

 And in the end, all the mothers can do is to sing their dirges.

 The names might change, but oppression is always strange.

 Fear begets fear, violence begets violence, 

fear has that smell of sulphur and hell.

 and radicals cut the plants down, till new ones won't grow.

 When that wheel comes round it crushes all to the ground.

 

So don't talk to me of radical change,

 It might sound romantic to you, 

but to me it just sounds violent and strange.

 I've heard it before, and those who talk it are whores.

 They'll set others in motion, and then run the other way.

 When the pack disappears, and your standing alone.

 You'll run from the fray, and oppression will win out the day.

 And you'll set in motion events, that will grow and grow,

 Until the grass is all trampled, and young lives are all mowed.

 When that wheel comes round, it crushes all to the ground.

 And when it passes, all that is heard is a plaintive sound.

Christopher H. Holte

Posted to facebook January 21 2012

Great Grandpa Truman C. Carpenter

Truman C. Carpenter

From my mom's compilation  & Sarah Persons.

Truman C. Carpenter, My Great Grandpa, was a big guy and an adventurous fellow.  My cousin tells me a tale that he once met Jessie James while getting a hair cut. Evidently Jessie James came into the same Barber Shop. The story is that Truman commented that he was a mean fellow. Which makes sense.  He was.  That would have been in Kansas or Missouri near the eastern end of the Southern Pacific.  It ran from Southern California to the Mississipi River, started right after the Civil War and didn't disappear until the 60's. 

My Great Grandfather lived in El Paso, Texas, which is about the halfway mark between the two ends of the Southern Pacific, so it makes sense.  He lived there from about 1905 til about 1910 when he moved back east. Long enough for his wife to have my Grandfather born in El Paso. And I thought he was born in St Johnsbury for so many years!

My Great Grandpa, took people on expeditions into the Southwest and Mexico. He took hunting expeditions down into Mexico exploring. The photo above is represented as being Hop Valley in the Sierra Madre (Oriental?) mountains. The picture apparently is of Santa Maria Canyon near Strawberry Canyon. Where-ever it was, his life intersected with the Mexican revolution.

The Mexican Revolution broke out in 1910. Much of it was fought near the Border with the United States. The old President had made himself a President for Life and was ruling as a dictator, and in 1910 the democratic faction insisted on elections. That failed and so a civil war broke out. Pancho Villa was recruited to lead.

...in Potosí, Madero [had] called for revolutionary action against the Díaz regime on 20 November 1910, and declared himself provisional president of Mexico. In Chihuahua, Abraham González, reached out to Villa to join the movement. Villa joined and subsequently captured a large hacienda, a train of Federal Army soldiers, and the town of San Andrés. He went on to beat the Federal Army in Naica, Camargo, and Pilar de Conchos, but lost at Tecolote. Villa met in person with Madero in March 1911.

Shortly after they laid seige to Ciudad Juárez in April and May, and the city fell to the combined forces of Pancho Villa, Pascual Orosco and Madero. Subsequently Porofiro Diaz fell from Power and Madero became President. Villa and Orosco needed to pay their officers, and their plan was to give them seized properties. Madero rejected their demands, and so the revolution didn't stop. Juárez is just across the river from El Paso. It was no longer safe to travel into Mexico, so moving back to Vermont where Truman had family, made sense. And he did.

Truman C. Carpenter And the Mexican Revolution

Truman C. Carpenter left the railroad around 1910. He seems to have seen the risk associated with the Mexican revolution that was breaking out at the same time he left. I knew he was a railroadman. But he was more of a cowboy than I previously thought! I'll ad more as I find it.

For my post on Grandpa Truman E Carpenter: https://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2021/01/great-grandpa-truman-c-carpenter.html