"The violent rioting that is escalating at every Trump campaign rally across the country is not just local people who are against Donald Trump. Authorities have become aware that many protesters are traveling from one rally to the next, state to state. They are being paid very well to do so, plus benefits." Dennis Michael Lynch
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I suppose some prankster could have posted the ads. pl
http://dennismichaellynch.com/busted-recruitment-method-of-trump-protesters-uncovered/
Dear Colonel,
This is very worrying. First, the military tactics of our wars overseas have returned home (is a MRAP really needed currently by US Police Depts.?), and now it looks like the tactics of color coded elections (aka Ukraine, Syria, etc.) are being brought home.
The end result of this, of course, is politics being argued in the US by militias funded by various power centers, aka civil war. A favorite sci fy author of mine, Mack Reynolds foresaw this decades ago in some of his stories.
Sir
The ads could very well be a prank. But, on the other hand there could very well be a nascent effort to create a climate of fear. The Borg is feeling some heat and they have much to lose.
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/145456082991/my-endorsement-for-president-of-the-united-states
I would think the local police/FBI/Secret Service would be all over this. I notice it’s advertising for protestors the day after the the San Jose rally/protests. That definitely raises the bogus factor. In either case, this is going to one ugly campaign season.
TTG
So, you posit the possibility that pro-Trump people are putting up these ads? I wonder if there are earlier ads. pl
I don’t know if anyone is actively “recruiting” in the old sense, but I am also positively confident that social media has been used to mobilize all manner of troublemakers, not just against Trump, but the whole world over, even without a “big” conspiracy behind it (e.g. rioters in London come to mind.) One could call it the dark side of Color Revolutions (there were much talk about how Color Revolutions, including the Arab Spring, which is basically another extension, have been organized around social media use by local activists without too much input from outside–I tend to believe this, having seen how social media can organize and coordinate people semi-spontaneously.) .
Similar things have been spotted in the past several months:
http://www.snopes.com/craigslist-ad-trump-rally/
pl,
I’m convinced paid protesters are real and they have to be recruited somehow. An ad for protesters posted the day after the event is certainly not the way to recruit protesters for that event. This particular ad seems to be the work of either a stoned anti-Trump person who lost all sense of time or some pro-Trump person seeking to discredit the anti-Trump protests. I do see the latter as a distinct possibility. Beyond this one ad, this whole phenomenon of paid protestors ought to be investigated and exposed.
KHC,
Calling people out to protest using all means of communication is fine. That’s free speech. I feel using encrypted communication to do this is also fine and often necessary. Hiring paid protesters may also be within the law, but it tends to discredit the message.
It’s worthwhile checking with Snopes – http://www.snopes.com/craigslist-ad-trump-rally/
But really, how much recruiting and paying do you think has to be done to get people to protest Trump? He says offensive and bigoted stuff virtually every day. He’s spending more time arguing with and attacking Republicans than he is arguing with Democrats.
As far back as the early 90s, when Jean Chrétien was our Prime Minister, I remember hearing about professional agitators being involved in the G20 summit riots or the 1996 flag day protests. I think there is a class of protestors that are available for rent in North America. While I don’t think much analysis needs to be done on the genuine reaction to Trump’s agitation, I agree that a dissection of these mercenaries and their paymasters would be very interesting indeed.
HankP
If it is so easy to get people involved why are they paying them to do so? pl
Col. Lang –
As Snopes says, many of these ads are for legitimate political organizing outfits. Sure, there could be paid protesters, but I doubt that when you see people protesting Trump that many of them need to get paid. Just like I doubt many people who protest against Clinton need to get paid, they deeply disagree with her positions.
My experiences in life tell me that there are very few actual conspiracies, most people are pretty upfront about their positions and their goals. Real conspiracies tend to be found in business, involving criminal fraud or tax evasion, not so much in politics. They’re just too difficult to organize and keep secret.
hank P
You don’t think there a lot of actual conspiracies? What kind of life did you lead? Anti-Hillary protestors? Where? When? I did not think people cared enough about her to demonstrate. pl
Colonel Lang,
Roger Stone is apparently an adviser to Donald Trump. I remember reading that Roger Stone was involved in sending false-flag “McGovern” “protesters” in McGovern-supporter disguise to various Republican events in the McGovern vs Nixon campaign. So it could be Stone. Or some of it could be Stone and other of it could be anti-Trump money-groups.
And in today’s world some of it could be pure watch-the-world-burn trolls with money.
Col. Lang –
I should have been clearer. Two or three people getting together to do something illegal? Sure, that happens all the time. Grand conspiracies involving hundreds or thousands of people in government/business/academia? Not so much.
Anti-HRC protesters – https://www.google.com/search?q=anti-hillary+protesters&biw=1141&bih=576&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjJ_fyPjZTNAhVY9GMKHZifDtsQ7AkILw
There are pro- and anti- protesters at most political events, I remember seeing them at a Nixon speech I attended in 1968 and every election since. Nothing wrong with it, either, free speech in action.
Colonel Lang,
There was one counter-Hillary protest I read about. It centered around George Clooney’s Three Hundred Thousand Dollars a plate fundraising dinner for Clinton.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/bernie-sanders-supporters-demonstrate-george-clooney-hosted-hillary/story?id=38442322
And a part of this protest I read about elsewhere and may have missed in this article due to scanning it over-quickly . . . was a bunch of people lining the street right by the Clooney driveway, throwing One Dollar Bills at the cars driving in.
I am afraid it’s much, much worse than that: it’s the darkside of the Internet and global communications.
It will be the era of MOB RULE about everything and anything, the more emotional and silly the more prominent.
Have you seen the fuss about shooting Harambe the gorilla?
IMO it’s a case of idiocy on both sides, parents deserving of a Darwin award by proxy and trigger happy security, but that’s now sort of a “national cause” for BOTH SIDES.
For what it’s worth, the location “van ness/downtown/civic center” given in the Craiglist add is for Downtown San Francisco, not San Jose. Also the area they have circled/highlighted is centered on the Castro District, which isn’t really downtown.
jayinbmore
So, the recruiting activity was in San Francisco. Is that significant? pl
Hank P
It doesn’t have to be illegal to be a conspiracy. pl
Col. Lang,
On the point about the recruiting area, it may not be significant. Clearly one could recruit in SF for planned disruptions anywhere in the country. Given the size of the area in the ad, I read it as a location of a planned disruption, not the location of a recruitment zone.
The message is discredited when, and not in every case, the ‘organized’ nature of the message becomes general knowledge.
The information asymmetries become important.
“Dirty tricks” cam be odious, but recruiting for political action can transform into sedition.
I lived on Miami Beach during the 1972 conventions. As a younger teen, I was enticed into producing “hand made” signs and placards for a “spontaneous” demonstration in support of Nixon inside the Convention Centre. The workshop was on the second floor of an older commercial building on 41st Street, on the Beach. All the kids, and all were teens, were paid off in food coupons for the Burger King chain. We didn’t complain, free is free to a kid. I also enjoyed, from a distance, the “riot” that “erupted” later in front of the Convention Centre. Everyone was laughing about how ‘convenient’ it was that the riot began several blocks from the Convention Centre, so that the protestors, fleeing the tear gas, erupted into the plaza in front of the Convention Centre perfectly framed for the Television Networks’ cameras. Even as a teenager I could appreciate the artistry of that particular “frame.”
“And in today’s world some of it could be pure watch-the-world-burn trolls with money.”
Ah, yes poor old George Soros.