Achille's mother had premonitions that her unborn son would die by violence.
She wrestled an indulgence from the gods on Mount Olympus, he would be made invulnerable if he were dipped into the river Styx, at least those parts of him that were wetted.
History proved the promise was valid. Arrows bounced off of him.
Until one day when Paris, the hero of Troy, shot him in his heel. One suspects the death was not instantaneous but was due to dung-induced infection.
Parenting 101
As a parent, we learn that every lie has the seeds of its unwinding coded into the weft and woof of its weaving.
A critical reading of any of the dozens accounts, aka narratives, of the Central American 'caravan' quickly reveals that the Achillies' heel involves mass transit.
In fact, nearly all "popular, spontaneous demonstrations" share that same vulnerability.
Interviews of protestors in Ferguson, Missouri revealed that many of them came from the East Coast. Clue-bat: They did not walk. There is not enough room for them to park their personal vehicles. They rode buses.
WWCZD?
Cletus and Zeke would not try to gum up the flows of financials or attempt to shame the shameless. They are far more direct than that.
They would find out where the buses were parked. One of them would chat-it-up with the one guy who is smoking and the other would walk down the other side of the line of parked buses and kick the tire valve-stems out of every tire he could reach.
All it takes is a pair of work boots and good aim. The actual physical damage to the bus is nil. The issue is that it takes time to repair all of those wheels. Not every shop can handle bus and truck tires.
The primary result is 2000 protestors find themselves stranded 900 miles from home without food vouchers and hotel reservations.
The secondary result is that bus lines stop supplying services to activists who take their buses into harm's way.
Just sayin': The "narratives" are telling you what parts of the operation were not dipped in the River Styx.
I've heard suggestions like this before, but as far as I know no one has ever done it - probably in part because they stay as far as possible from away from demonstrations like these.
ReplyDeleteThat is great advice: Stay away from crowds.
DeleteThe closest I came was when Lance Corporal Troy Nealy came home from the middle East. Protestors were going to disrupt his funeral.
The airlines "accidentally" messed up their plane connections and they never made it.
Some of the rough-old-boys around town were planning to drag their rental cars out of town and plant them at the end of some two-tracks that were accesses for abandoned oil wells.
Do you go to high school games or plays? Do you have to make trips into town for medical procedures or because that is where they put airports. I think it is possible to stumble into a demonstration, especially if you are young and going to college.