Living in the hinther lands of the country, I am somewhat insulated from the goings on in the big cities. I see the stories on the riots, protests and other propaganda. For the most part it is over there, and so be it. Yet what happens over there has a trickle down effect on the rest of the country. Kind of a monkey see …… monkey do.
I grew up during Vietnam, so protests are nothing new. I watched the marches, heard the chants and stood on the sidelines. I watched protestors, trash public spaces and scribble messages on walls and windows. Then there were the violent protests, clashes with police, tear gas and out rage. Laws were being violated and yet there were no consequences for the people breaking the law. The attitude was….. If I am protesting, I can break the law in the name of the protest.
This lawlessness, pretty much has set the stage for the violent protests of today that lead to riots.
Yet the violence of protests are not that new. One can go back a couple of centuries and witness similar protests leading to violent riots.
During the 1880’s Karl Marx was becoming popular and his style of economics was being embraced by some elite academicians around the world. At the same time the labor movement for unions was boiling pretty good. Working conditions around the world were pretty bad. No longer was the agrarian society the dominant feature. Society was shifting to a new way of life, industrialization and factories.
More and more people were flocking to the cities to work and many would end up in the sweat shops. A Tale Of Two Cities, probably best describes the horrible conditions people worked in.
This gave fuel to the Marxists to denounce capitalism, it also gave rise to the trade guilds and unions to fight the capitalists. The Marxists, got into the unions and agitated, soon there were all types of riots around the world.
The elite Marxists had been meeting at various cities around the world and declared they would take to the home countries and introduce Communism to their home countries.
There was tremendous labor strife during the late 1890’s to 1915 in the United States and other countries. There were violent clashes between the military, police and labor organizers. City streets would be jammed with labor sympathizers marching in protest of working conditions, sometimes resulting in violent clashes and often deaths. There were armed conflicts at mines across the country.
The communists were gaining a foot hold and the Communist Party had been formed and they were running candidates for various elected offices, including congress and president.
Two things happened to keep the Untied States from becoming a communist country. World War I broke out and the unions began to get some concessions and improved working conditions.
After the war, lots of the unrest had calmed down and the communists did not have the hatred to build on like they had the previous decade.
In Russia it was different. Lenin had went to Russia with his minions and joined up with the Bolshevik's. A non-aggression treaty was signed with Germany and the Marxist, Lenin continued his takeover of Russia imposing Communism. It was a conflict of labor and peasants and the landed Tsars. One of violent clashes, using the classes of society as a diving point to wage a revolution. The parallels in Russia during the early 1900’s to the United States is astounding.
So when I look at protests that turn to riots, I look where are the agitators. They tend to stay in the background, yet they have a Marxist view on life. The Communists are still alive and well, they are also growing.
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