The Civil War that never ended...
I always believed that dikes, kings, dictators, oligarchs, plutocrats... or any ruler... cannot legislate how people behave and in what they believe...
Societies may be coerced and subjugated... enslaved and oppressed... but rulers and mighty armies cannot legislate societies norms and mores...
- The so called Arab Spring... to democratize the Middle east, yielded a very different and sour result... We witnessed the Iraqi war, another dictator replacing Mubarak in Egypt, the failed state of Libya... the civil war in Syria... and the kings and emirs of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and United Arab Emirates...
- The invasion of Afghanistan resulted in the longest American war... Vietnam dwarfed compared to Afghanistan war...
These demonstrated that cultural norms and customs cannot be exported from America to the Middle East an to other countries like Russia and the rest of the oligarchies of the previous Soviet Union...
That is what is happening to the North-South divide in the U.S.
The armed Civil War is over... but values and customs still persist... The Confederate symbols and statues are everywhere...
This again demonstrates that values and societal norms cannot be subjugated by arms and erased by force...
The "hot" Civil War maybe over, but the clash of values and societal norms, the "cold" Civil War is still continues...
That's what French President Macron suggests also...
French President Emmanuel Macron has warned that "there seems to be a European [cold] civil war" between liberal democracy and rising authoritarianism.
 He urged the EU to renew its commitment to democracy, in a passionate speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
"I don't want to belong to a generation of sleepwalkers that has forgotten its own past", he said.
This is very much the same as the cold Civil War in the U.S. and in order to change societal norm and attitudes not only time is needed... but above all to show the superiority of the "other" ideas... and deliver those "other" ideas in a good functioning economy for all... and not only for the one per cent...  French colonial rule had opened up the doors of Africa to France... |
The "cold" Civil War still Goes On...
US students topple Confederate soldier statue in North Carolina...
The statue of a Confederate soldier, nicknamed Silent Sam, has been a target of vandalism and protests for decades.
Some 250 protesters also argued with a handful of counter-protesters, some in Confederate flag T-shirts, media said.
Symbols for the losing side of the American Civil War have become a major flashpoint in a national race debate.
Monday's action is the latest move to dismantle Confederate memorials, which critics call racially offensive, considering the history of slavery in the southern US states.
Supporters argue they preserve American history.
Student protesters toppled a controversial Confederate monument at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Monday night.
SARA DAVIS/GETTY
Protesters, including students, university staff and local residents, pulled down the 1913 statue using rope and buried its face in dirt, student paper The Daily Tar Heel said.
"Last night's actions were unlawful and dangerous, and we are very fortunate that no one was injured," the university said in a statement on Twitter.
"The police are investigating the vandalism and assessing the full extent of the damage."
Protesters gathered to express their frustration at inaction by university leaders and to support a student facing possible sanctions for splashing red ink and blood on Silent Sam in an April protest.
"It's time to tear down Silent Sam. It's time to tear down UNC's institutional white supremacy," student Maya Little, who faces charges, told the crowd on Monday.
No clashes were reported. At least one person was arrested on charges of concealing their face during a public rally and resisting arrest, the university said.
REUTERS
More than 110 symbols have been removed since 2015, and more than 1,740 continue to stand, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
But some southern states have strengthened their laws to protect Confederate statues.
The recent movement to remove Confederate symbols from the 1861-1865 civil war accelerated after the 2015 shooting of nine black churchgoers by a gunman in Charleston, South Carolina.
No one is able to win the Civil War by arms alone... The "North" has to demonstrate that their norms, culture and ideas are superior to that of the "South"...
The "North" must demonstrate that its way of living is the more humane, thus human and better way of living...
Shouting at each other will not do... maybe a better economic system where the 99% also benefits from the better performing economy... maybe sharing the economic benefits and spreading the wealth... will be a better way of advancing the values of the "North..."
Get rid of the rule of the 1% plutocratic "democracy..."
Oligarchic chaos in Russia or plutocratic suffocation in the U.S. are almost identical...
No one is able to win the Civil War by arms alone... The "North" has to demonstrate that their norms, culture and ideas are superior to that of the "South"...
The "North" must demonstrate that its way of living is the more humane, thus human and better way of living...
Shouting at each other will not do... maybe a better economic system where the 99% also benefits from the better performing economy... maybe sharing the economic benefits and spreading the wealth... will be a better way of advancing the values of the "North..."
Get rid of the rule of the 1% plutocratic "democracy..."
Oligarchic chaos in Russia or plutocratic suffocation in the U.S. are almost identical...
***
Saudi Arabia, the "friend" of Putin and the West, may carry out its first-ever execution-beheading of female political prisoner... Israa al-Ghomgham...
Saudi Arabia's public prosecutor has reportedly sought the death penalty for five activists, including the female rights defender Israa al-Ghomgham.
Human Rights Watch said they recently went on trial at a terrorism tribunalon charges including "participating in protests" in the restive Qatif region.
It has been the scene of demonstrations by the minority Shia Muslim community.
Saudi Arabia is calling for the beheading of female human rights defender Israa Al-Ghomgham because she participated in peaceful protests.
This is the same barbaric regime which still sits on the UN Women’s Rights Commission... and is friends of the 1% in the U.S. and Europe... and because of their money and donations to trumpists and trumpism... they have the ears of the rulers in Europe and Russia and the U.S. 
This is how they behead their opponents... Very similar to the Middle Ages in Britain and Europe... when they beheaded kings and queens and archbishops...
Beheadings and the guillotine reign supreme in England and Europe... at the time... they get rid of that tradition...
But Saudi Arabia... still brutalizes its population by their reign of terror...   They confer with them in the hope that petro-investment will pour into their condominium towers and they dance with them to appease them... Petro-dollar has trumped morality and human rights... |
But this may change... that's what the Time magazine cover suggests... and we hope for the best... Maybe better times are still ahead... to make the globe more civilized and human again...
"IN DEEP," the cover says. This is Tim O'Brien's third TIME cover illustration that features Trump.
...and the previous two...
Nothing to See Here, Feb. 27, 2017 Stormy, April, 23, 2018
