Modern Insurrection

 What is Insurrection?

According to the Oxford Dictionary as portrayed by Bing on Microsoft Edge:

insurrection

[ˌɪnsəˈrɛkʃ(ə)n]

NOUN

insurrection (noun) · insurrections (plural noun)

1. a violent uprising against an authority or government.

   "the insurrection was savagely put down" · 

   [more]

   synonyms:

   rebellion · revolt · uprising · mutiny · revolution · insurgence · insurgency · rising · rioting · riot · sedition · civil disobedience · civil disorder · unrest · anarchy · fighting in the streets · coup · coup d'état · jacquerie · putsch

ORIGIN

late Middle English: via Old French from late Latin insurrectio(n-), from insurgere ‘rise up’.

Powered by Oxford Dictionaries · Bing Translator

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So, The violent uprisings that occurred all spring, summer, and fall of year 2020 fall into that category. 

A close look at the listed synonyms imply a related overthrow of established authority, but that is not necessarily the implication of the actual definition. 

"A violent uprising against an authority or government" does not mean more than 'I am angry about how you are treating me, you are not listening to me, I elected you to your office, you are ignoring me, I demand you pay attention to my grievance, and if you continue to obfuscate our differences and my grievance against you then I will fight physically to make my case be known.' 

This does not mean that the purpose of the physical altercation is designed to take over the government and change one governance for another.

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To Be Fair – There Are Other Definitions

INSURRECTION | meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary

an organized attempt by a group of people to defeat their government and take control of their country, usually by violence:

Insurrection | Definition of Insurrection by Merriam-Webster (merriam-webster.com)

an act or instance of revolting against civil authority or an established government

Merriam-Webster goes even further to create a sense of scope of the synonyms:

Choose the Right Synonym for insurrection

REBELLION, REVOLUTION, UPRISING, REVOLT, INSURRECTION, MUTINY mean an outbreak against authority. REBELLION implies an open formidable resistance that is often unsuccessful.  open rebellion against the officers  REVOLUTION applies to a successful rebellion resulting in a major change (as in government).  a political revolution that toppled the monarchy  UPRISING implies a brief, limited, and often immediately ineffective rebellion.  quickly put down the uprising REVOLT and INSURRECTION imply an armed uprising that quickly fails or succeeds.  a revolt by the Young Turks that surprised party leaders   an insurrection of oppressed laborers  MUTINY applies to group insubordination or insurrection especially against naval authority.  a mutiny led by the ship's cook 

Insurrection | Definition of Insurrection at Dictionary.com

an act or instance of rising in revolt, rebellion, or resistance against civil authority or an established government

Dictionary.com provides examples of what the internet propagates as insurrections:

EXAMPLE SENTENCES FROM THE WEB FOR INSURRECTION

• To discourage future insurrections, authorities attempted to also bury the news of Sharpe’s rebellion.

  JAMAICA’S CHRISTMAS SLAVE UPRISING|SEAN BRASWELL|DECEMBER 23, 2020|OZY

• It also means facing down an insurrection from the very members she’s long tried hardest to protect, the swing-seat Democrats whose victories in GOP-leaning districts returned Democrats to the House majority last year.

  TRUMP MOVES CLOSER TO PELOSI IN ECONOMIC AID TALKS, AND HOUSE SPEAKER MUST DECIDE NEXT MOVE|RACHAEL BADE, ERICA WERNER|SEPTEMBER 17, 2020|WASHINGTON POST

• From the Boston Tea Party, to John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry, to the 1992 Los Angeles riots, violent insurrections have served as a form of protest and resistance for centuries in the United States.

  KENOSHA’S LOOTING IS A SYMPTOM OF A DECREPIT DEMOCRACY|AARON ROSS COLEMAN|SEPTEMBER 4, 2020|VOX

• Seditious language is generally understood as speech advocating to overthrow the government, but the stories we’ve been collecting don’t, um, point to some mass movement of insurrection.

  MORNING REPORT: SDPD SAYS IT WILL STOP SEDITIOUS LANGUAGE TICKETS|VOICE OF SAN DIEGO|AUGUST 17, 2020|VOICE OF SAN DIEGO

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What Is The Essence Of Insurrection

Breaking it all down, the essence of the meaning of the word is to stand firmly in opposition to an authority, in most instances utilizing physical confrontation as a method or technique of protest.

Now I realize that 'protest' has become a sociological concept since the 1960s, but I think that is akin to Joe Biden stating that Black Lives Matter is not an organization but an idea. Protest is also to stand firmly in opposition to an idea, action, presentation, trend, leader, war, or even government.

Insurrection is more like a protest without physical restraint. When words and signs and numbers-of-gathered-people and speeches have no effect on an undesirable situation, the situational ethos of the gathered group may escalate into a physical altercation—a fight between the parties present.

Is There Any Evidence This Happens

Does anybody actually require proof that escalations occur historically? Probably. So I will bring some evidence of this happening from the recent past.

• Harlem Riot, July 16–22, 1964, New York City
• Selma to Montgomery marches, March 7–25, 1965, Alabama
• Watts riots, August 11–17, 1965, Los Angeles, California
• Long Hot Summer of 1967 refers to a year in which 159 race riots, almost all African-American, erupted across the United States
• Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., April 4, 1968, Memphis, Tennessee, precipitates all April 4–14 riots
• 1968 Democratic National Convention protests, including the police riots of August 27–28, Chicago, Illinois
• Days of Rage, October 8–11, 1969, Weathermen riot in Chicago, Illinois
• Kent State riots/shootings, May 1970, four killed, Kent, Ohio
• Attica Prison uprising, September 9–13, 1971, at least 39 killed, Attica, New York
• Wounded Knee incident, February 27 – May 8, 1973, Wounded Knee, South Dakota
• Levittown Gas Riot, June 23–24, 1979, Thousands rioted in response to increased gasoline prices in the U.S., 198 arrested, 44 police and 200 rioters injured. Gas stations were damaged and cars set on fire, Levittown, Pennsylvania
• 1989 Miami riot, January 16–18, Miami policeman kills a black motorcycle rider. Riots breakout in the Overtown section of the city. Miami, Florida
• Crown Heights riot, August 1991, Brooklyn, New York
• Rodney King riots, April–May 1992, Los Angeles, California
• WTO Meeting of 1999, "The Battle of Seattle", November 1999, Seattle, Washington
• Civil disturbances and military action in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, August – September, 2005, New Orleans, Louisiana
• Riots against BART Police shooting of Oscar Grant, January 7, 2009, 120 arrested, Oakland, California
• Occupy Wall Street (Brooklyn Bridge protests). 2011. Demonstrators blocked the bridge and more than 700 people were arrested. New York, New York
• Anti-Trump protests, November 9–27, 2016. As a result of Donald Trump elected as 45th President of the U.S., thousands protested across twenty-five American cities, and unrest broke out in downtown Oakland, California, and Portland, Oregon. In Oakland, over 40 fires started and police officers were injured.
• Protests began on May 26, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and spread around the world after the killing of George Floyd.

There are at least a hundred more at List of incidents of civil unrest in the United States - Wikipedia.

Civil Unrest – yeah. That's the way to downplay bad manners and uncouth activities. There are groups in the United States whose entire purpose is to cause unrest and unruly behavior in the population. Many of these examples of protest/insurrection are the result of organized intent to disrupt the civil unity of the general U.S. population when a specific nexus has provided appropriate opportunity.

Is It A Conspiracy

Conspiracy – a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful. This could include, but not be limited to—disrupting public civility or (at the similarly opposite extreme) international terrorism. It must, however, involve planning.

We plan a party for birthdays—does that constitute a conspiracy? It is a plan, but not quite a conspiracy. Why? Because there is nothing unlawful or harmful or evil being accomplished by the activity that will result from the planning. How can I add evil to unlawful or harmful from the definition? Click on the word conspiracy above to read several additional definitions. Evil is in that list of definitions. Evil might not necessarily be either unlawful or harmful. It might be something that changes the very nature of the status quo it is operating against.

So, not to get stuck on the concept of evil, I just want to add it to unlawful and harmful for the purpose of defining conspiracy. Also, just for the purpose of Shaving at the Sanity (the reason for this blog-site) of this whole concept of conspiracy, let me tear the word apart into cons/piracy. We probably all have an idea of about piracy: Blackbeard [Edward Teach (c. 1680 – 22 November 1718)] is probably a prime example. Cons (on the other hand) implies the negative side of something: pros & cons. So then what is the negative side of piracy (cons/piracy)?

A pirate is out to get what can be foraged or stolen for personal gain. Sometimes these activities that result in grand personal gain by nefarious means are spur-of-the-moment happenings. That is the easy way to gather ill-gotten spoils. Look, a ship of the Spanish King: let's take it for our own, kill the crew & keep the spoils. If a plan must be made, it may fail. Failure of a plan is not good. So, a con (pros & cons) of piracy might be that you must make a plan. If a plan for ill-gotten gain is needed, it may indeed have become a conspiracy.

Where is all this leading

Beginning with the World Trade Center bombing on February 26, 1993 in New York City, then the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and followed by the more recent bombing and destruction of the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001, there has been a focused attention to the concept of conspiracy.

Now we can read conspiracy theories about the Kennedy Assassinations, the Lincoln assassination, the moon landing, the Illuminati, Free-Masonry in governments, plane crashes & disappearances, the New World Order, George Soros, anti-Semitism, and even the re-writing of recent (or ancient) history. The fact is that you can create any conspiracy theory you want by stinging together some hitherto unexplained phenomena with your own suggestion of the truth as you describe. The TV show X-Files used to present the logo "The Truth Is Out There" and if it can't be readily found, it can certainly be invented.

We are living in a time when a disliked President can be smeared with lies, half-truths, and truths in such a way that no one can clearly comprehend where the reality can actually be found. It is my personal opinion that politicians lie, and the ones that lie better are re-elected forever. The ones that depend on being understood as honest, are removed from office very quickly. It's all about wheeling & dealing. I almost wish we could just start over.

It seems we are moving toward a future that will not be governed by the best, but by the strongest tale tellers, by the team that pretends the best, or by the bigger bully. I don't know how to understand the reasons behind the movement toward falseness in government, but I do think it has been organized, orchestrated, and ordained by the powerful. In short, I think it is according to a plan—a CONSPIRACY.