National guard members patrol near the Capitol building in Washington DC. Photograph: Andrew Kelly/Reuters
Glenn Greenwald: As the Insurrection Narrative Crumbles, Democrats Cling to it More Desperately Than Ever
If the threat of "armed insurrectionists" and "domestic terrorists" is as great as some claim, why do they have to keep lying and peddling crude media fictions about it?
Twice in the last six weeks, warnings were issued about imminent, grave threats to public safety posed by the same type of right-wing extremists who rioted at the Capitol on January 6. And both times, these warnings ushered in severe security measures only to prove utterly baseless.
First we had the hysteria over the violence we were told was likely to occur at numerous state capitols on Inauguration Day. “Law enforcement and state officials are on high alert for potentially violent protests in the lead-up to Inauguration Day, with some state capitols boarded up and others temporarily closed ahead of Wednesday's ceremony,” announced CNN. In an even scarier formulation, NPR intoned that “the FBI is warning of protests and potential violence in all 50 state capitals ahead of President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration.”
Read more ....
WNU Editor: My must read post for today. Glenn Greenwald dissects what has and is going on.
As to what is my take. I have a certain perspective on what an insurrection looks like. I was there when Russian T-80 tanks were firing on the Russian legislative building in 1993 (Russian Constitutional Crisis). So from my experience .... this "Capital Hill insurrection" was anything but an insurrection.
But it is not only the Democrats who are still clinging to this narrative of a dangerous uprising that justifies the arrest of 300 people (of which many were in the wrong place at the wrong time), the massive surveillance of "suspects", and the need to surround the capital with fences and barbed wire backed by thousands of National Guard troops and police. I would also add the media and the never-Trumpers in the Republican party who are continuing to push this narrative.
Bottom line. For an insurrection that threatened to overthrow the U.S. government. The only person who got shot was an unarmed protester by a Capital Hill police officer (who has still not been named).
