Poor Stallman

https://www.stallman.org/archives/2020-nov-feb.html#8_January_2021_(Supporters_of_the_wrecker_broke_into_the_capital_by_force) -- The wrecker spoke to crowd of his supporters in DC and sent them to attack the Capitol. They broke in by force and interrupted Congress, and tried to take over the building. Violence against the US under a Confederate flags declares treason as well as racism. Rebecca Solnit: * I call it a coup attempt because, though I assume that it will not prevent the Biden presidency, it certainly intended to.* I agree. Using rioters in the streets alongside action by insiders is common practice in coup attempts. That worked, temporarily, in Bolivia in 2018. I think it was employed in Czechoslovakia in 1948. I am sure there are other examples that don't come to my mind now. I criticize Solnit on one point. She repeatedly describes the actions of the coup supporters as "white male rage." That is an unjust racist/sexist generalization: it falsely imputes that attitude to all white males. Bernie Sanders is a white male; so are various other progressive leaders. So is Biden. They do not participate in that "white male rage". I am not of Sanders's stature, but I too have rejected that attitude all my life. This stereotype is just as wrong as the hostile stereotypes about blacks and about women, which I am sure Solnit would call out. -- https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/06/us-capitol-trump-mob-election-democracy -- Maga mob's Capitol invasion makes Trump's assault on democracy literal -- Wed 6 Jan 2021 -- Hundreds of the president’s supporters stormed the Capitol in the most dramatic challenge to US democracy since the civil war

The US Capitol, the seat of American democracy, has been stormed by a pro-Donald Trump mob, egged on by the president in a desperate and violent effort to overturn the results of the election. Minutes after the news spread that the vice-president had announced he would not do the president’s bidding and reverse Trump’s defeat to Joe Biden at the ballot box, hundreds of pro-Trump rioters broke down the barriers around the Capitol building, and surged forward. Footage from inside the building showed that some pro-Trump rioters had reached one of the doors to the Capitol and smashed out the glass. A group managed to make their way to the atrium of the Senate Rotunda, carrying Confederate flags. The Capitol police were outnumbered and seemed to melt away. One female rioter was shot and later died of her injuries, according to the DC police. Three other people experienced “medical emergencies” throughout the day and died. Explosive devices were found near the offices of the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee. Several police officers were also injured.

It was the most dramatic challenge to the US democratic system since the civil war and it forced the suspension of a joint session of Congress that had convened to certify the results of November’s presidential election. Members of Congress were told to put on gas masks after teargas was fired in the Rotunda of the US Capitol, and the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, and other senators were led out, escorted by staff and police. A 6pm curfew was declared in the capital, and the Pentagon said about 1,100 DC national guard would be deployed to help support law enforcement agencies. And a few hundred miles away in Georgia, votes were being counted in runoff elections.

Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff both won their races, giving Democrats control of the Senate for the opening of Joe Biden’s presidency in a unmistakable renunciation of Trump and Trumpism in the deep south. The crowds in Washington, however, had been told by their leader that the votes against him had been rigged, and told to march on the Capitol to “stand strong for the integrity of our elections” and to “save our democracy”. Trump told them to converge on Congress “peacefully and patriotically” but order broke down just minutes after he spoke. The mob, in Make America Great Again caps, rushed up the Capitol steps, forcing the police to withdraw, firing flash-bangs and paintballs from higher balconies in an effort to keep them at bay.

The massed ranks of national guard and federal agencies who had driven peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters off the streets around the White House over the summer were nowhere to be seen. In the eyes of the rioters, the democratic procedures and traditions of which the US has thus far been so proud, had been transformed, by their leader’s insistent oratory, into the mere trappings of betrayal. As protesters took selfies inside the Senate chamber and offices, Trump tweeted “Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue.” But the outgoing president came under increasing pressure – from allies and foes – to condemn the violence.

Joe Biden lamented the “assault on the rule of law” in Washington, a “citadel of liberty”. “The scenes of chaos at the Capitol do not reflect a true America, do not represent who we are,” the president-elect said. “What we’re seeing is a small number of extremists dedicated to lawlessness.” Biden said the violence at the Capitol “borders on sedition” and “must end now”. “I call on President Trump to go on national television now, to fulfill his oath and defend the constitution and demand an end to this siege,” Biden said. “It’s not a protest; it’s insurrection. The world is watching.”

Trump’s vice-president called on the rioters to leave the Capitol immediately, going further than Trump who merely called for his supported to “remain peaceful”. In a tweet on Wednesday afternoon, Pence said, “This attack on our Capitol will not be tolerated and those involved will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” Hours after his supporters had stormed the Capitol, Trump released a video telling them: “Go home, we love you, you’re very special,”. But he also used the video to repeat his baseless claims about the “fraudulent” vote which he lost. At the other end of the national mall, half an hour before the Capitol was besieged, the defeated president had painted a stark picture. Those Republicans who voted to upturn the election were the patriots, and the others were “weak” and “pathetic” allowing Democrats to destroy the country.

Trump singled out his vice-president, Pence, who until Wednesday had been loyal to a fault. “Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us, and if he doesn’t, that will be a sad day for our country,” Trump yelled from a stage that had been set up a block from the White House, for a crowd that had gathered on the grassy Ellipse below the national monument. As the president was speaking, Pence was, for the first time, doing the opposite of what he was been told by his boss. He formally notified Congress that his role was a ceremonial one, to read out the election results, not to change them. Trump had promised his supporters he would accompany them on their walk to the Capitol, but instead drove in his motorcade the hundred metres back to the White House, from where he fired off a tweet disowning Pence who he alleged “didn’t have the courage” to protect the country and the constitution. The day had begun seemingly like any other American political carnival, with bright flags, exuberant costumes and vendors selling T-shirts and hotdogs. It was only with a closer look, that something it became apparent far more dystopian was at hand, with a seething potential for violence.

“Fuck Your Feelings, Trump 2020,” was the message on the fastest-selling T-shirt. Some of the flags declared: “Fuck Biden”. The crowd that sprawled across the Ellipse was a mix of families and the elderly, men and women, young and old. Only about one in 10 was wearing camouflage gear, though that was more than the percentage wearing masks. A young couple, Kasey and Mike, were sitting under one of the ornamental cherry trees planted along the mall, having traveled down from Rhode Island to witness the climactic day. They spoke with the dreamy smiles of two people in love, sharing a moment in history, but their message was one of looming conflict. “People here are mad. They’ve watched so many people destroy our country like that. I don’t think they’re just gonna sit back any more,” Kasey said, convinced that a Biden win would lead to a bleak, socialist state. “I think Trump’s only option he really has left is to call military action into it because he has the right to do that.”