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I want to turn away. Stop watching.

I cannot. I see stealing, nose-to-nose screaming, billy clubs and shields, fires, anger, damage and the anguish.

At first I watched eyes wide saying, Who are these people? Why are they burning and stealing?

I dont want to see this because now I hear myself wondering, Who am I?

Here I am again. An observer.

I did the same in the 60s during Vietnam protests and racial strife. As a reporter its easier to watch and take notes. Thats the job.

Our paper took a stand against the war. But I never marched in the streets.

Of course, I judge. Did then and do now. Thats easy. But I struggle with understanding.

Who am I?

I am really wondering, What would I do if I was there? In their shoes? Their world?

Theres no denying the chemistry of fear and anger.

Mix them under pressure and the results are predictable. History tells me so.

Take a moment, as I did, and look at history. Look at that event this country loves to elevate and teach our youth.

The Boston Tea Party.

We are so proud of this rebellion. We puff up and proclaim, This is who we are. Dont tread on me.

I called up a good summary online. To find more than what we remember from history lessons.

Let me share some quick footnotes. (Thank you history.com.)

Disguised as Native Americans, a large group of men boarded three ships loaded with tea from China. The ships belonged to the British East India Co. The ships were built in America and owned by Americans.

To protest a British tax on tea, they threw 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor, which took nearly three hours. That was about 45 tons of tea, worth nearly $1 million today.

Most participants were under the age of 40 and 16 were teens. They hid their identities fearing civil or criminal charges and condemnation from elites for destroying private property.

Those elites included George Washington, who privately said Bostonians were mad. And Benjamin Franklin who wanted the East India Co. reimbursed and offered to pay himself.

To douse such rebellion King George III and British Parliament passed the Coercive or Intolerable Acts that in part created martial law in Massachusetts and ended free elections of town officials.

In turn colonies bonded against the British. In fact about three months later a second tea party put more tea into the harbor. This sparked similar acts in three other states.

This led to colonies uniting for a Continental Congress. There was a growing drum beat for independence and resistance. The Revolutionary War soon followed.

Clearly, our history celebrates protest. Violent protest. For the right cause, of course.

I guess that cause would be freedom, right?

What were those words we sent to the country that had its knee on our throats?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

But theres more

That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government to effect their safety and happiness.

Lets not be shocked by what we are seeing.

Like I said, theres no denying the chemistry of fear and anger.

Mix them under pressure and the results are predictable.

History tells me so.

LONNY CAIN, of Ottawa, is the retired managing editor of The Times. Email to lonnyjcain@gmail.com or mail The Times, 110 W. Jefferson St., Ottawa, IL 61350.

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PAPERWORK: I was shocked by what I saw, but then - MyWebTimes.com

TERRE HAUTE More than 150 people gathered in socially distanced groups on blankets and lawn chairs near the arch in Terre Hautes Fairbanks Park for a Community Talkback session on Thursday night in light of the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and the protests that have swept the country since.

Rev. Terry Clark added historical context for the current events going on in the country during Thursdays Community Talk Back at Fairbanks Park.

Dominique Morefield, one of the organizers, said the goal is real tangible change to build on the momentum of the Black Lives Matter movement that is happening across the country right now. We want to effect real policy (change) in our community because policies that help the black community help the whole community.

A few minutes before the event got started around 7 p.m., Morefield and fellow organizer Isaac Wonderlin said they were very happy with the turnout, as they with the help of Emma Crossen, Tess Brooks Stephens and others got word out mainly through word of mouth and social media.

Featured speaker the Rev. Terry Clark, a Baptist minister and instructor in African American Studies at Indiana State University, kicked off the event.

Protests and that awful R word (riot) may frighten some, but Clark sought to put those terms in the context of American history, noting the country was born from protest and even at least one very famous riot the Boston Tea Party.

They looted those ships and threw chests of tea into the harbor, Clark said.

Clark also dispelled the narrative that riots are or were a black-on-white phenomena, discussing well-documented white-on-black rioting and lynchings over false rape allegations and even over disputes between white and black grocers.

The pastor and teacher was not encouraging violence and noted the lessons from the 1960 Woolworths lunch counter sit-in in Greensboro, North Carolina, in which four young African American men held their ground without striking back despite being verbally and physically assaulted.

They took their seats knowing what was to come and prepared to not meet violence with violence. Though they were cursed, insulted and attacked, they could not be moved, Clark said.

Dissent and protest often does precede change, Clark said, and the country again finds itself at a pivotal moment because the 8 minutes and 46 seconds that Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on the neck of George Floyd have changed America.

People are taking to the streets, Clark said, because black lives matter, and one cannot say all lives matter without acknowledging that black lives matter.

Making jokes about his own age, Clark aimed much of his talk at young people in the audience, because you deserve to be heard. And, he said, There are people, believe it or not, who are beginning to listen.

But the struggle is not new and the effort will be neither brief nor easy, Clark said. He referred to the late 1960s, when the Kerner Commission a presidential panel on civil disorders reported that riots were stemming from black Americans frustration with a lack of economic opportunity.

That commission famously warned Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white separate and unequal.

The Black Lives Matter movement again brought to the forefront of the nations attention must continue, Clark said, because being heard isnt enough.

Whether it takes demonstrations, boycotts, protests, sit-ins or sitdowns, African Americans and their allies must continue to push until they are not only listened to from the outside, but invited inside to begin reform and to change law, Clark said.

After Clark, some of the protesters arrested near the Vigo County Courthouse on Third Street in Terre Haute early Monday, had a chance to talk to the crowd, and others would be invited to share with the audience experiences they have had with police, prosecutors and judges.

Media, however, was asked to leave or to not record the speakers whod been arrested.

Before he turned over the microphone, the Rev. Clark did tell the crowd the movements goals should not include ending policing, only bad policing.

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Being heard isn't enough: Speaker reminds Terre Haute audience reform is the goal - The Herald Bulletin

Jean Paul Marat, one of the key leaders of the French Revolution, once mocked the notion that liberty could be established by his fellow revolutionaries since, apart from a few tragic scenes, the revolution has been nothing but a web of farcical scenes.

Welcome to the modern French Revolution. The tragic killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis resulted in an important focus on race relations and justice in this country. However, it is being lost to an emerging radicalism that challenges people to prove their faith by endorsing farce. Across the country, political leaders and commentators are outdoing each other to demonstrate fealty to this new order, attacking core institutions and values. A growing radical element is fighting to out-shout each other as leaders of a careening movement, with politicians joining calls to defund the police and commentators calling for censorship. Moderate voices seem to be fading with the escalating demands that leaders denounce the values that define them.

Take those calls to defund the police. Once the mantra of only the most extreme elements in society, it has been picked up by elected leaders. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) has said that defunding all police should not be brushed aside. Brian Fallon, former public affairs director at the Justice Department and Hillary Clintons 2016 campaign press secretary, has declared support for the movement.

Said Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who represents part of Minneapolis: The Minneapolis Police Department has proven themselves beyond reform. Its time to disband them and reimagine public safety in Minneapolis. Thank you to @MplsWard3 for your leadership on this!

Other politicians have joined pledges to go after police budgets or entire departments, even as their officers continue to maintain order and stop looting. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti declared that, despite the huge cost of the riots, he will refuse to expand the police budget. Instead, he said his administration has identified $250 million in cuts and pledged to give as much as $150 million from the police budget to the black community as well as communities of color, and women and people who have been left behind.

In Minneapolis, city council member Jeremiah Ellison assured the public that We are going to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department. And when were done, were not simply gonna glue it back together. Others, including Council President Lisa Bender, agreed. During the protests and rioting there, Ellison publicly proclaimed support for antifa, a violent and vehemently anti-free speech movement. In 2018, his father, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, supported the antifa movement as deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee, tweeting that it would strike fear in the heart of @realDonaldTrump.

Many politicians seem eager not to be left alone in the ideological center amid this rapid shift to the far left. Democratic socialist and New York state senator Julia Salazar expressed her delight: To see legislators who arent even necessarily on the left supporting [defunding or decreasing the police budget] ... feels a little bit surreal.

That surreal feeling is likely even more pronounced among looting victims whose stores are left unprotected while politicians and experts excuse such crimes entirely. Socialist Seattle council member Tammy Morales dismissed concerns about looting, insisting that what I dont want to hear is for our constituents to be told to be civil, not to be reactionary, to be told looting doesnt solve anything. New York Times Magazine reporter Nikole Hannah Jones said that Destroying property, which can be replaced, is not violence while, on CNN, Clifford Stott, a professor of social psychology at Keele University in England, said looting is expression.

Northwestern University journalism professor Steven Thrasher declared: The destruction of a police precinct is not only a tactically reasonable response to the crisis of policing, it is a quintessentially American response ... Property destruction for social change is as American as the Boston Tea Party. Of course, the patriots in Boston did not keep the tea for themselves, unlike the looters running out of Target stores with flat-screen TVs.

As politicians rallied around defunding police or defending looting, the media had its own storming of the Bastille this week. Some journalists at the New York Times denounced the newspaper for publishing an opinion column by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on the use of troops to quell riots. Despite the outcry and calls for editors to resign, Times editorial page editor James Bennet and publisher A.G. Sulzberger gave full-throated defenses to using the opinion section to hear all sides of such national controversies.

That was a highpoint in journalistic ethics. It did not last. Hours later, Times editors confessed they had sinned in allowing a ranking U.S. senator to express a conservative viewpoint on the newspapers pages; they promised an investigation and a reduction in the number of opinions. The only thing we were spared was the appearance of Bennet and Sulzberger being rolled down the street in a French oxcart for public judgment in Place de la Concorde.

Even art and creative work apparently must be censored or erased in this new orthodoxy. In Dallas, the well-known statue of a Texas Ranger has been removed because an article in D Magazine referred to racist history connected to the rangers. USA Today reported on the possibility that TV cop shows, from Dragnet to NYPD Blue to Law & Order, must be taken off the air now, so as not to glorify police work.

History suggests, however, that such demonstrations may not be enough. As proven by the French Revolution, todays revolutionaries are tomorrows reactionaries or victims. Pierre Robespierre led that revolutions Reign of Terror until he was guillotined as one of its last victims, and Marats farcical scenes ended with his own stabbing in a bathtub in retaliation for his bloody excesses. It is a cycle repeated in revolutions throughout history: When the music stops, fewer and fewer chairs can be found by those who readily embraced extreme measures.

That is why many of our leaders should consider the words of Abbe Sieyes, a Catholic clergyman and author of the French Revolutions manifesto, What Is The Third Estate? When asked what he had done during the revolution, he simply responded, I survived.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. You can find his updates online @JonathanTurley.

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Can this American version of the French Revolution bring change? | TheHill - The Hill

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Why not hold a Royal Ascot party, Queens birthday parade party, mad hatters tea party, garden party or even a G&T or Prosecco party - whatever takes your fancy.

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Go to http://www.ayrshirehospice.org/appeal/tea-at-3-20 for more details.

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Support Ayrshire Hospice with a virtual tea party - Largs and Millport Weekly News

A powerful conservative coalition whose key members have strong Trump administration ties, is seeking to raise $5m to back hundreds of doctors pressing states to open rapidly and to build support for new tax cuts and curbing pandemic spending, say its leaders.

The Save Our Country (SOC) coalition was launched in April by veteran advocates of small government policies who lead rightwing groups like FreedomWorks Foundation, Tea Party Patriots and the shadowy state policy network the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec).

Nearly all top public health voices, like the White House adviser Dr Anthony Fauci, urge caution in reopening states. There is broad consensus among most public health experts worldwide that too swiftly ending lockdowns risks a potentially devastating second wave of infections in a pandemic that has already cost more than 100,000 American lives.

But the Tea Party Patriots have spearheaded a drive, in radio and TV interviews, to mobilize doctors urging states to move faster. It is now attracting broader financial support from rightwing donors and groups in the shape of the SOC. Doctors in the group have also pushed unscientific theories about the pandemic in ways that have sparked anger and criticism.

The Tea Party leader Jenny Beth Martin said the group has about 800 members and its mission is to educate the American public about the unintended side-effects of the shutdown. Martin said 800 doctors signed a letter in May to Donald Trump which called the lockdowns a mass casualty event causing depression and other ills and urged Trump to end the national shutdown. A copy of the letter is going this week to governors nationwide.

The coalitions key groups are dark money non-profits that historically have been funded by a mix of wealthy donors, corporations and conservative foundations. One leading figure in the loose-knit coalition is the FreedomWorks economic adviser and free markets advocate Stephen Moore.

Brandon said the SOS coalition has raised just over $800,000 towards a $5m goal for projects including new ad efforts online, radio and print to rev up grassroots pressure to reopen states faster, plus curtail more federal spending and promote business-favored tax cuts.

Los Angeles-based Dr Simone Gold, who has been prominent in the doctors drive, was featured over Memorial Day weekend at a rally in Los Angeles which drew the conservative radio host Dennis Prager.

According to the Associated Press, the Council for National Policy Action, another SOS member, on 11 May held a call about the doctors effort with Trump campaign officials who indicated they plan to launch a similar drive soon. Gold told the AP that there was no scientific basis that the average American should be concerned about Covid-19 something that downplays all medical evidence about the pandemics risks.

Gold has also used talk radio to tout the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine which Trump has taken in hopes of blocking Covid-19 despite growing scientific evidence it carries big health risks.

The coalitions economic and health agendas are drawing fire from scientists and economists of all political stripes.

The fact that these organizations have found doctors who are willing to support a rightwing agenda designed to help Donald Trump against all scientific evidence and appropriate public health practices is shameful, said Irwin Redlener, a professor of public health at Columbia University.

Critics notwithstanding, Brandon said the coalition recently spent $50,000 for videos on Facebook, Hulu and Twitter targeting independents and Republicans with the message that Covid-19 mostly hits the elderly to minimize risks for others.

FreedomWorks, which boasts an arm whose tax status permits lobbying, has also been prodding the Senate to pump the brakes on new spending, Brandon said referring to the $3tn-plus that has already been allocated for corporate relief and the pandemics painful fallout for tens of millions.

Besides coalition projects, Tea Party Patriots and FreedomWorks have tapped their email lists and social media to mobilize activists to join liberate demonstrations in more than 10 states including North Carolina, Wisconsin, Virginia and Michigan, with the latter attracting some gun-toting activists.

Key groups in the SOC coalition, which has 200 members, have been funded by prominent billionaires, including some who have been active in the sprawling big-money network led by the oil and gas billionaire Charles Koch.

Tea Party Patriots, for instance, received almost $2m in 2017 and 2018 from Richard Uihlein, whose net worth in early 2020 was almost $25bn according to public records.Charles Koch, whose net worth Forbes last month pegged at $46.5bn, has been an Alec funder. The Home Depot co-founder Bernard Marcus, whose net worth in February was $6.5bn, has backed Job Creators Network which also belongs to the coalition.

The coalition and some member groups have held strategy conference calls that include some wealthy donors and underscore White House ties. FreedomWorks and Brandon hosted one such call on May 21 with Vice-President Mike Pence and Moore.

A GOP source who heard the call said Pence offered mostly familiar rhetoric about restoring American greatness and congratulated the calls distinguished participants.

In turn, Moore stressed FreedomWorks support for a payroll tax cut, an idea Trump has pushed but which has faced bipartisan Senate opposition in part because it mainly helps workers with jobs, and not the tens of millions newly unemployed.

Jerry Taylor, who heads the non-partisan Niskanen Center and used to work at Alec leading a taskforce on energy and the environment, faults the coalitions economic and health analyses.

The political actors involved with these groups are united both in their hostility to mainstream science which they consider a conspiratorial leftist plot to destroy free market capitalism and their superficial understanding of economics.Fully reopening the economy will not produce an economic recovery until the coronavirus is contained and can stay contained, he said.

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Pro-Trump donors in huge cash drive to boost doctors pushing states to reopen - The Guardian