Color Revolution
How the chaos in Los Angeles today ties back to the Iranian coup of 1953
Kermit Roosevelt, grandson of Teddy, arrived in Iran in April of 1953. He was the CIA’s point man in what would become an operation to overthrow the populist Mossadegh government. Mossadegh had nationalized the oil fields that had been under British control from a 1920 agreement, and the US eventually became involved in part to assist its ally but also to avoid Iran turning communist in the early years of the cold war.
The operation (TPAJAX) was on the verge of failure, but Roosevelt ignored the order to abort and doubled down instead. He stepped up street protests, even paying two separate groups to fight each other to make it appear that Mossadegh was losing control.
It worked, at least at the time. Mossadegh himself went into hiding then eventually surrendered and was sentenced to house arrest for the remainder of his life. For the next 26 years, Iran would be a solid base of operations for the US in the middle east, and the CIA had itself a blueprint for overthrowing governments.
Ukraine 2014
Dozens of countries later, it was the overthrow of the Yanukovych government in 2014 in Ukraine that popularized the term ‘color revolution’.
A “Color Revolution” refers to a specific type of coordinated attack that the United States government has been known to deploy against foreign regimes, particularly in Eastern Europe deemed to be “authoritarian” and hostile to American interests. Rather than using a direct military intervention to effect regime change, Color Revolutions attack a foreign regime by contesting its electoral legitimacy, organizing mass protests and acts of civil disobedience, and leveraging media contacts to ensure favorable coverage to their agenda in the Western press.
Just as the overthrow of Mossadegh was symbolized by street protests and aggressive media criticism, protests in Ukraine, purportedly sparked by Yanukovych’s refusal to sign agreements that would move Ukraine towards the EU, ultimately erupted in violence and Yanukovych eventually fled the country.
Darren Beattie, formerly of Revolver News and now with the Trump Administration, reported extensively on color revolutions and individuals in the US who have been orchestrating them. (He has recently been accused of having Russian ties - go figure.)
Los Angeles 2025?
When you see top political leaders such as LA Mayor Bass and CA Governor Newsom all singing from the same songbook as the corporate media in supporting the protestors, even when they violently attack law enforcement, the questions about color revolution come to mind. Who organized the protests? Who funded it? While there is certainly sentiment against the ICE raids and Trump’s mass deportation policy, the involvement of the SEIU (government union) and the coordinated attacks do not appear to be organic.
Trump has sent in 2000 national guard troops to quell the rioting in the absence of any real effort by either Bass or Newsom to act. Similar protests over ICE in other parts of the country as well as on-going protests about freeing Palestine require a thorough investigation to root out who might be behind these efforts. It might be debatable on the morality and effectiveness of employing color revolution techniques abroad, but it is inexcusable and must be prosecuted if employed domestically.
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Bro-Vorce
The ‘break-up’ exploded on social media on Thursday. It appears Musk is walking back some of his comments, removing a post that implied Trump was tied to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Trump, for that matter, seems to have moved on.
Yes - it’s a lot of gossip, but when the President of the US and the wealthiest man in the world see their relationship sour, the fallout will be far reaching. Will Musk continue to let X be a platform that is less censorial than other platforms? Will he continue to provide financial support for conservative causes and candidates? Will this cause other tech leaders to be more weary of working with the Trump administration?