<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left;line-height:150%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif">Greetings:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left;line-height:150%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif">For those of you who do not get the DNews, this was my column from yesterday. The long version, which has been submitted to Pocatello's <i>Idaho State Journal, </i>is attached. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left;line-height:150%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif">One item that I just discovered yesterday was this tidbit: </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left;line-height:150%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif">One of Rep. Marjorie Taylor
Greene’s associates and Capitol insurrectionist Anthony Aguero said: “We were
all there. It was not Antifa and it was not BLM. It was Trump supporters that
did that yesterday.”
</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left;line-height:150%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif">It looks as if the GOP will now be the Party of January 6, 2021.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left;line-height:150%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif">nfg</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:150%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif">What’s
the Difference between BLM and Capitol Rioters?</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:150%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><a name="_Hlk64460618" style="font-size:11pt"><i><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif">The Capitol is not a liquor store.</span></i></a><br></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:150%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif">—Rabbi Yosie Levine</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif"> At the beginning of the Black Lives Matter protests, I
was dismayed that some BLM leaders were saying that rioting was justified. This incendiary declaration from New York
City’s BLM leader Hank Newsome was most unfortunate: “If this country doesn’t
give us what we want, then we will burn down this system and replace it.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif">What
troubled me even more was misquoting Martin Luther King to condone violence. In a 1967 speech “The Other America,” King
made his position crystal clear: “Let me say, as I’ve always said, that riots
are socially destructive and self-defeating.” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif">BLM
leaders argued that police shootings and the insidious persistence of racial
discrimination justified these actions. These same excuses were offered to King
60 years ago, but he bravely adhered to what he had learned from the
non-violent teachings of Gandhi and Christ.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif">To
their credit Democratic Party leaders have condemned the rioting. House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi warned: “Our democracy has no room for inciting violence or
endangering the public, no matter the ideology of those who commit such acts.” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif">At
the time President Joe Biden said that “protesting police brutality is right
and necessary and the American response. But burning down communities and
needless destruction are not.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif">Republicans
are now pointing to infractions associated with BLM, and they are crying “they
did it too” as an answer to the Capitol insurrection. By condoning violence,
BLM leaders have lost the moral high ground that King always preserved. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif">It is
true that many white nationalists (those, for example, in Richmond, VA) were
found marching under BLM banners setting fires and breaking windows. On the
other hand, they were largely absent from weeks of rioting in Portland.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif">The largest
civil rights movement in American history has been marred by violence, and one
poll showed a 9 percent drop in approval for BLM—from 61 to 52 percent from
June to September of last year. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif">That
difference, however, pales into insignificance when we learn that 81 percent of
those polled condemn the Capitol rioters and 58 percent blame Donald Trump. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif">I
submit that the difference in response is a recognition that BLM was fighting
the Ugly Truth of systemic racism and police brutality, whereas Trump spread
the Big Lie about election fraud that led to an assault on the seat of our
democracy. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif">Wide-spread
burnings and window breaking are certainly criminal, but, as New York Rabbi Yosie
Levine tweeted: “The Capitol is not a liquor store.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif"> One commentator put it this way: “The two
events were fundamentally different. One was an intentional, direct attack on a
hallowed democratic institution, with the goal of overturning a fair and free
election. The other was a coast-to-coast protest movement demanding an end to
systemic racism that occasionally, but not frequently, turned violent.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif">The
largest number of domestic terrorist attacks have come from far-right
militants, and 275 deaths in the last decade have been attributed to them. Only
one murder, which happened during the Portland protests, was committed by an
anti-fascist. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif">Although
70 percent of Republicans believe that Antifa was involved in the insurrection,
this claim is demonstrably false. <i>Newsweek</i> fact checkers have concluded
that John Sullivan, the one suspected anti-fascist, was not “a member of
Antifa, Black Lives Matter, or any other left-leaning group.” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif">It is
significant that GOP leader Kevin McCarthy stated: “There is absolutely no
evidence of Antifa’s presence.”</span> <span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif">One of Rep. Marjorie Taylor
Greene’s associates and Capitol insurrectionist Anthony Aguero said: “We were
all there. It was not Antifa and it was not BLM. It was Trump supporters that
did that yesterday.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif">White
nationalists infiltrated BLM protests, but no left-wingers were at the Capitol
that day. Furthermore, six Capitol policemen were suspended and 29 others are
under investigation for enabling the rioters. White nationalists within our
police forces are a serious problem.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif"> Race-baiting Donald Trump and his rogue attorney Rudy
Giuliani are being sued under the 1871 “Klu Klux Kan” law, which criminalizes
anyone who uses “force, intimidation, or threat” to prevent people from performing
the duties of their office. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif">It is
truly ironic that a law aimed at the most vicious form of racism is being used
against a person who invited racists and neo-Nazis to storm the Capitol of the
United States of America.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif"> Nick Gier is professor emeritus at the University
of Idaho. Read his articles on civil rights at
<a href="http://webpages.uidaho.edu/ngier/CivilRights.htm">webpages.uidaho.edu/ngier/CivilRights.htm</a>. Email him at <a href="mailto:ngier006@gmail.com">ngier006@gmail.com</a>.</span></p><div><br></div>-- <br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div> <div style="height:auto;width:auto"> <div> <div><div><br></div></div></div></div></div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><font size="2"><span style="font-size:10pt"><div><span style="font-size:13.3333330154419px">A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. </span><br style="font-size:13.3333330154419px"><br style="font-size:13.3333330154419px"><span style="font-size:13.3333330154419px">-Greek proverb</span></div><div><br>
“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.
Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance
from another. This immaturity is self- imposed when its cause lies not
in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it
without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! ‘Have courage to use your
own understand-ing!—that is the motto of enlightenment.<br>
<br>
--Immanuel Kant<br>
<br><br></div></span></font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>