[Occupymendocino] interesting take on Trump's executive order banning immigrants from entering U.S.

[Eduardo Oberweiser]

January 31 at 2:34pm
<https://www.facebook.com/aaron.proton/posts/1017547078350362> ·

wisdom from Paul Cienfuegos <https://www.facebook.com/PaulCienfuegos>

<https://www.facebook.com/PaulCienfuegos>
Here's a fascinating statement from Heather Richardson, Professor of
History at Boston College, analyzing the "shock event" that Bannon is
somewhat successfully unfolding, and how to outwit Bannon's plan:

"What Bannon is doing, most dramatically with last night's ban on
immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries-- is creating what is
known as a "shock event."

Such an event is unexpected and confusing and throws a society into chaos.
People scramble to react to the event, usually along some fault line that
those responsible for the event can widen by claiming that they alone know
how to restore order.

When opponents speak out, the authors of the shock event call them enemies.
As society reels and tempers run high, those responsible for the shock
event perform a sleight of hand to achieve their real goal, a goal they
know to be hugely unpopular, but from which everyone has been distracted as
they fight over the initial event. There is no longer concerted opposition
to the real goal; opposition divides along the partisan lines established
by the shock event.

Last night's Executive Order has all the hallmarks of a shock event. It was
not reviewed by any governmental agencies or lawyers before it was
released, and counter-terrorism experts insist they did not ask for it.
People charged with enforcing it got no instructions about how to do so.
Courts immediately have declared parts of it unconstitutional, but border
police in some airports are refusing to stop enforcing it.

Predictably, chaos has followed and tempers are hot.

My point today is this: unless you are the person setting it up, it is in
no one's interest to play the shock event game. It is designed explicitly
to divide people who might otherwise come together so they cannot stand
against something its authors think they won't like.

I don't know what Bannon is up to-- although I have some guesses-- but
because I know Bannon's ideas well, I am positive that there is not a
single person whom I consider a friend on either side of the aisle-- and my
friends range pretty widely-- who will benefit from whatever it is.

If the shock event strategy works, though, many of you will blame each
other, rather than Bannon, for the fallout. And the country will have been
tricked into accepting their real goal.

But because shock events destabilize a society, they can also be used
positively. We do not have to respond along old fault lines. We could just
as easily reorganize into a different pattern that threatens the people who
sparked the event.

A successful shock event depends on speed and chaos because it requires
knee-jerk reactions so that people divide along established lines. This,
for example, is how Confederate leaders railroaded the initial southern
states out of the Union.

If people realize they are being played, though, they can reach across old
lines and reorganize to challenge the leaders who are pulling the strings.
This was Lincoln's strategy when he joined together Whigs, Democrats,
Free-Soilers, anti-Nebraska voters, and nativists into the new Republican
Party to stand against the Slave Power.

Five years before, such a coalition would have been unimaginable. Members
of those groups agreed on very little other than that they wanted all
Americans to have equal economic opportunity. Once they began to work
together to promote a fair economic system, though, they found much common
ground.

They ended up rededicating the nation to a "government of the people, by
the people, and for the people."

Confederate leaders and Lincoln both knew about the political potential of
a shock event. As we are in the midst of one, it seems worth noting that
Lincoln seemed to have the better idea about how to use it."
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