[MandoMan]

Madison is not only the capital of Wisconsin but the home of the main campus of the University of Wisconsin, one of the best public universities in the country. It is also the home of thousands of generally pretty cool graduates who love the city and school and decided to stay on. Most of them are very liberal. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, mind. Many are minimally employed but just love the city. However, there are quite a few teachers and teaching assistants who are radicals dedicated to spreading an agenda of what they call “Social Justice” but which really means “take the money of those who have it and give it to those who don’t.” (That “those who have it” group includes, in their minds, most people able to own homes in The Villages.) These radical teachers (a small minority of the teachers there, actually) are popular and develop coteries of student followers and train them by assigning reading material and research assignments and developing classes that teach how to effectively combat what they call “white privilege”—which is also a code word for overthrowing the established order (though I think most African-American young people don’t realize that). A lot of their graduates hang on in Madison.

There is no need to have an “organization” to which these people answer. They can learn what they need to learn online from many sites and from their teachers. Don’t imagine that labeling some organization as terrorist is going to stop anything. It won’t. It’s what they WANT! If they are persecuted, they will gain more sympathizers and followers. That’s how they win! It’s not “Antifa”! It’s people who agree, have learned what to do to sow discord, and are willing to do it. There was an attempt to do this in the late sixties and early seventies, but it wasn’t big enough and it frittered out, though a couple million Americans still believe in the goals and may even run for office.

For decades, scholars have written books explaining that the purpose of terrorism is to get the normal, average, law-abiding people of a country (most of us) so upset at these acts that we decide we are willing to take strong actions to stop the anarchy: willing to crack down. So we crack down hard, and as a result millions are so appalled by the new laws that they sympathize with the protestors and join the attempts to overthrow the government. Most of these people are good, decent people, but the government reaction to violent protests and terrorism lead them to seek peace by overthrowing the government and democracy and the rule of law. That is usually the goal. That is how it is playing out now. Naturally, countries that believe in communism and would like to see us overthrown are providing propaganda to inflame both sides—all sides. Fighting and disagreement and separation of friends from friends is how they hope to decrease American power and influence. (I have friends at The Villages who frequently repost disgusting and untrue memes on Facebook that they think are witty barbs against liberals, but were designed and originally posted by Russian trolls.)

Two of my children have marched in BLM rallies because they believe in fairness and equality. They are as far from radicals as can be. Whatever the skin color, I think that describes the majority of protestors. But there are definitely anarchists trying to sow anarchy in hope that it will lead to a violent overthrow of our country or at least change millions of minds. That is their agenda. Some of the arson and violence comes from these anarchists. Most of the looting and a lot of the arson and violence is done by criminals and thugs and people who just want free stuff. Meanwhile, the anarchists win whether or not they are in charge. Every time police fire tear gas canisters or rubber bullets or use their shields and clubs, the anarchists win. Again they aren’t organized. They are amorphous. But they still win, a bit at a time, as they politicize both left and right and those in-between.

[I was a state university professor for 34 years and before that a state university graduate student. I’ve watched this happen. When I arrived At my school in 1986, we taught mostly literature classes about various periods of English and American literature. It was a sacred calling to us. Today most of those classes are seldom taught. We used to think English majors should get out of college knowing a little about ever period and every major writer. No more! The department has been taken over by people who openly talk with scorn in department meetings against teaching the work of “dead white men.” They now teach more classes about Activist Writing and how to do it and publish it than they do about the great works of the past. In response to the current situation, the director of freshman writing is developing a new composition class syllabus she hopes most teachers will use called something like “Anti-Racist Activist Writing”. That will sound good to a LOT of students at my school, but it’s a great chance to indoctrinate hundreds of students every semester with communist and anarchist ideas and give them the tools to join the “struggle.” I’m so glad I’ve retired. I couldn’t take it anymore.]