Wednesday, January 6th: The Day The Game Of Politics Turned Into Insurrection
from the that-will-live-in-infamy dept
It's Thursday, January 7th, one day after a group of thuggish, Trump-supporting hooligans stormed the nation's Capitol building and attempted to take up residence in the vaunted halls of our self-governance. Already there is an effort to paint this attack on democracy as anything other than what it was: an attempt to either disrupt or overthrow a democratic form of government as dictated by the will of the people. Lin Wood, a lawyer who has been independently creating post-election craziness, suggested the rioters were actually Antifa without evidence, before heading to Parler to claim that a coup was underway. Sarah Palin suggested likewise on Fox News yesterday, while also taking to Twitter to cast doubt on the support these people had for Trump.
This follows weeks and weeks of Trump supporters, political leaders, and elected members of Congress engaging in different flavors of casting doubt on the 2020 election with reckless abandon. And reckless really is the word here. Lindsey Graham, who cynically took to the floor of Congress last night to give a tearful lecture on the importance of respecting our election process and institutions, was accused of calling Georgia election officials weeks earlier, attempting to get legitimate ballots thrown out. Josh Hawley happily waved to the rioters as he headed into the Congressional halls yesterday to voice his nonsense objections to counting electoral college votes, shortly before the rioting began. Ted Cruz likewise lodged objections to the democratic process, all for his own cynical political ambitions. Hours before the rioting began, Rudy Giuliani made reference to "trial by combat" at the rally from where the riots launched in a rambling diatribe claiming the election was stolen. Joe diGenova, Trump Campaign lawyer, was quoted as saying in early December that Trump's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency former head, Chris Krebs, should be "taken out and shot" simply for acknowledging that the election was secure after being fired by Trump.
Many, if not all, of these same people have been quick in the recent hours to distance themselves from any actual violence or rioting that occurred. It should be clear that any such distancing is theatrical bullshit. They, be it has-beens like Sarah Palin or President Trump, simply don't get to trade in the rhetoric of violence, doubt-casting, and conspiracy theories only to wipe their hands clean of what they created.
And what they created was a movement based on insurrection and violence. Trump sent those people to the Capitol Building and was only able to do so because of his enablers in the government and media.
The insurrection at the heart of America's democracy, egged on by Trump's rhetoric, represented a stunning show of force for the fringe movements and their adherents. Four people were left dead during the mayhem, according to the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, including one woman shot by a U.S. Capitol Police officer and three other people who had medical emergencies.
One of the most recognizable figures in the videos and photos of the chaos on Capitol Hill was a man in his 30s with a painted face, fur hat and a helmet with horns.
That man is a known QAnon figure, Jake Angeli, who goes by the moniker QAnon Shaman. This is a crazy person, as should be obvious. But many, many GOP officials in very high places have played footsie with QAnon theories, whereas others, including newly elected members of Congress, have professed their faith in the theory directly. Other participants included members of hate groups like The Proud Boys, other white supremacist groups, and pro-gun militia groups. One of them managed to sit at Nancy Pelosi's desk for a photo, leaving her a vulgar note. Others managed to sit at the dais of Congressional houses, looking for all the world like an occupying force. Four people died.
All the while, they referred to themselves as patriots and Donald Trump, though telling them to go home, professed his love for them all. Still others made the analogy to the Black Lives Matter protests that occurred over the summer, as though the situations were remotely similar.
They are not patriots. Black Lives Matter never forced its way into The People's House as an occupying force. The wanton tear gassing of protesters that happened over the summer magically never materialized yesterday, save for extremely limited use. The federal response was delayed and lacking in the extreme.
Which is a hell of a way for a modern day America to treat terrorists invading the offices of government. Facebook and Twitter, too often the scapegoat for the actions taken by very real people, suspended Trump's account for the remainder of his term, and yet the powers-that-be haven't managed to ban Trump from office, even as the justification for doing so is right in everyone's faces. Josh Hawley and his band of hapless misfits didn't withdraw their objections to counting electoral ballots, even in the aftermath of the invasion into the Capitol building, still all too happy to play the fiddle that led these snakes to begin with. Other than some throaty words from the mouths of the very people who brought this danger to our door, little changed.
There is a cancer in America and it needs to be excised. Instead, one political party is quite busy figuring out how to make the best use of the tumor and then feigns outrage when the cancer metastasizes.
Don't let them get away with it. Accountability must be a thing and political prices for the danger these people have created must be observed. This is no longer a political game, but a very real struggle to keep our Republic.
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Filed Under: donald trump, election, insurrection, joe biden, mob, politics
Reader Comments
The First Word
“So you're a terrorist, then.
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A Sad day in America for sure.
Yet perhaps the saddest is the thought that many of these people, these Trump supporters, might actually truly believe the lies they have been sold for all these years.
Lies from people who definitely know better.
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Trump: “We will remember this day!”
Yeah we’ll all remember this day.... in infamy.
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What does this say about Congress?
It is extremely sad that tech companies like Facebook and Twitter, are doing more to protect the Constitution and this nation than Congress.
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One image that stuck in my mind is some dude screaming it's all about freedom.
The freedom to stage a fascist overthrow of a democratic republic apparently. Because they do not think King Donald would result in any freedom .. holdup, maybe it is freedom to discriminate. They really ought to specify what they mean otherwise some of their followers might become confused and we would not want that to happen now would we?
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Re: What does this say about Congress?
Donald virtually invited them into the congressional building.
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Re: freedom
It's exactly as much about freedom as gamergate was about ethics.
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Re: A Sad day in America for sure.
Radicals for any cause "truly" believe.
If you don't understand that much, you have no idea what your opponents are like.
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We have tons of photos and video of the protestors, some even taken by themselves as they posed for selfies inside the Capital. They should be tracked down, arrested, and charged. Further, the charges should reflect the fact that people died because of and during their actions.
The same for those that instigated the attempted coup. And that includes, especially, the Instigator in Chief.
I'm tired of hearing about "healing". If there are no penalties for this then we're just going to see more of the same.
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Re: Re: A Sad day in America for sure.
No, loads of them are cynical opportunists, some true believers. Some are users, some are tools.
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Re: What does this say about Congress?
Well despite the indignant whining of Congress and others Facebook and Twitter are incapable of violating the constitution as they lack the power to do so. Zero is greater than any negative number. That means they do better by default because they never passed the Patriot Act, Espionage Act, or similar abominations.
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Re:
Except, don't identify/charge any of them until after Jan 20. Before that date he who must not be named could pardon them.
I wouldn't be surprised if he tries to issue some sort of blanket pardon for anybody that participated in the riot.
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FAKE HEADLINE AND SLANDER OF PATRIOTS WANTING THEIR VOICES HEARD
STARTING WITH, "Trump-supporting hooligans stormed the nation's Capitol building".
FALSE! THEY WERE PATRIOTS WHO WANTED THEIR VOICES HEARD CARRYING AMERICAN FLAGS AND CHANTING USA! PATRIOTS, YOU KNOW, REAL AMERICAN PEOPLE WHO KNEW IF THEY DIDN'T SHOW UP IN OBJECTION TO YOUR CHOICE, CORRUPT BIDEN(WHICH IS WHY YOU ARE LABELING HEM HOOLIGANS AND TRUMP SUPPORTERS), THEN THEY WOULD HAVE CONGRESS SHOVE AN UNWANTED PRESIDENT DOWN THEIR THROAT, WHICH IS WHAT ENDED UP HAPPENING. THEY DIDN'T WANT TO BE SHUT OUT AND GAINED ACCESS TO THE CAPITOL BY FORCE BUT DID NOT USE VIOLENCE.
I WAS THERE, YOU WEREN'T. YOU DIDN"T INTERVIEW ANYONE, YOU WEREN'T EVEN THERE. YOUR REPORTING IS SHIT Timothy Geigner!
THERE WAS NO VIOLENCE, ACCEPT POLICE ASSAULTING AND SHOOTING DEAD UNARMED PROTESTERS, UNLIKE YOUR FRIENDS WITH BLM AND ANTIFA.
THAT"S THE REAL FACTS HERE. THIS ARTICLE IS SH*T!
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And yet I'm seeing a narrative emerge that SOMEHOW it's the tech companies who are at fault.
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'What? No, never met the insurrectionists in my life.'
Lin Wood, a lawyer who has been independently creating post-election craziness, suggested the rioters were actually Antifa without evidence, before heading to Parler to claim that a coup was underway. Sarah Palin suggested likewise on Fox News yesterday, while also taking to Twitter to cast doubt on the support these people had for Trump.
If it wasn't such gutless cowardice you'd almost be tempted to admire the sheer chutzpah in trying to pin this on antifa. Months of telling these deranged lunatics that the election was stolen, months of telling them that the country was at risk with a 'nudge nudge' suggestion to 'stand by and wait', literally hours before Trump was telling the mob that he'd lead them to go cheer on the politicians involved(spoiler: he did not), and yet somehow the mob that trashed the place, replaced the american flag with a Trump one and brought a confederate flag into the chambers were anyone but Trump cultists.
(I wonder if they realize that by that same theory Josh Hawley is pro-Antifa given he was waving them on...?)
Any republicans who were acting upset or surprised by this attempted insurrection are completely and totally full of shit. They knew who and what they were courting and playing up to by jumping on Trump's bandwagon. They've known for years how deranged and violent that lot is, so to play at being shocked that violent and deranged lunatics acted like violent and deranged lunatics after being constantly egged on by cowardly and deranged/corrupt politicians is quite literally unbelievable.
The republicans chose to play with fire when they embraced Trump and all the deplorables that comprise his cult and chose to either support them directly or indirectly with their silence, they don't deserve any sympathy when it finally burned them personally and in a way that they couldn't just ignore, with the only thing those involved deserve is open condemnation and charges where appropriate.
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Re: FAKE HEADLINE AND SLANDER OF PATRIOTS WANTING THEIR VOICES H
Are you sure that isn’t the voices in your head?
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Guess what?
70+ million voters and the bulk of the Republican party (still a majority of the House Republicans after the insurrection) buy into the "my wishful thinking is the truth" shit.
Remove the idiot narcissist Trump and put a smarter demagogue in his ready-made and fertile place and the Fourth Reich can commence.
Hitler got by with a quite smaller anchorage of support in populace and politics to work his "Germany First" magic.
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So, please tell me what's gonna happen to Trump and his political backers in Congress and elsewhere, legally, i mean? Will they be arrested, charged with some crime, taken to court? Will they fucking hell as like! If, for no other reason, there's too many supporters in law enforcement who will go to whatever lengths to keep them charge free, and most definitely out of jail and still in their same jobs. Anyone else would have been scooped up and disappeared into some security service black site, never to be heard of again, just as happened in Germany, just as the usa was becoming a clone!
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Re:
I'm tired of hearing about "healing". If there are no penalties for this then we're just going to see more of the same.
Absolutely. 'Healing' only works if you address the underlying problem, if all you do is wipe off the blood and cover over it you're merely punting the problem down the line and all but ensuring that it'll get even worse.
Bring the appropriate charges, try, fine and jail those involved, bringing the hammer down as hard as legally allowed, because if all they get is a wrist slap the message sent is not 'reconciliation' it's 'This is perfectly acceptable to do, do it more'.
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Can't Take The Heat
Back in 2012, Tim Geigner was a big sympathizer with the "occupy" movement. But let there be 2 hours of an occupy movement with which he doesn't agree, and suddenly the romantic writings are over.
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Re: FAKE HEADLINE AND SLANDER OF PATRIOTS WANTING THEIR VOICES H
Admitting to a criminal offense, huh? For some reason I doubt the correct opsec precautions were taken when making this post, either...
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Re:
I expect the republican party will bluster about how this is totally unacceptable and has no place in the US, with some of them throwing some minor shade towards Trump while others merely use it to play up their persecution/stolen election lies, but ultimately do absolutely nothing as they just wait out the clock since they have neither the courage nor integrity to do more and they don't want to upset the deranged lunatics that now comprise a good percentage of their voter base.
As for the democrats, likely little more, maybe some performative bluster, calls for 'coming together in these divisive times', stuff like that.
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Re: Can't Take The Heat
Strange, I don't recall the occupy movement storming government buildings in an attempt to overthrow an election and subvert the democratic process that underpins the country, but I suppose since both events were identical then supporting one and condemning the other is pretty hypocritical, so well spotted there.
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A terrible embarrassment
I don’t care what side of the aisle you’re on. This was a national embarrassment. While terms like sedition tend to get thrown around where it’s not necessary, these people should be charged with sedition. And while “terrorism” is also overused, this is a clear case of terrorism.
Look, even if you thought that the election was rigged, this was a terrible response. Breaking into the nation’s capital, one which is already open to the public, and effectively taking it over is disproportionate to the extreme. It also makes you look worse.
I’m not a strong nationalist or anything, but many people around the world often look to the US as the epitome of democracy. Imagine how they must have felt to see armed (and some unarmed) civilians/protestors/terrorists take over the US Capitol building with minimal and delayed reaction from law enforcement. The fact that the DC National Guard was nowhere to be seen by the time that Maryland and Virginia’s National Guard finally showed up (not that I blame Maryland or Virginia for that) just shows how badly prepared we were for armed insurrection.
Some people bring up the BLM protests, not realizing how bad it truly makes the rioters look in this case. BLM protestors generally remained outdoors and were largely peaceful when they were heavily tear-gassed, pepper-sprayed, tasered, or shot at. Most of the riots in those cases were started after police attacked them or were began by outsiders trying to stir something up. Here, the riots began long before any real violence from LEOs or military officers occurred, many protestors were armed, LEOs were clearly incapable of maintaining peace or order, this occurred on federal property, and the rioters actually broke in and occupied a government building with government officials still inside, and casualties (thankfully) were kept to a minimum.
And there was the President, who instigated the whole mess and who took way too long to realize he had to say something to stop it. Even when he did speak up, what he said was weak. I don’t think he should be prosecuted for what he said, but he came dangerously close to what I would say is a case of instigating imminent violence.
Really, this has gone way too far. To anyone who said or thought, “What’s the harm in humoring the President for now?”, this is the harm. Enough is enough.
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Re: A terrible embarrassment
And, ultimately, the riot failed to accomplish the intended goals. While I condemn the legislators who insisted on going through with their opposition, and I hate giving Mitch McConnell any credit, I’m thankful that both Mitch and Nancy Pelosi handled the opposition votes quickly and efficiently.
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Re: A terrible embarrassment
Largely Peaceful? When did the definition of that change to become arson and looting?
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Re: FAKE HEADLINE AND SLANDER OF PATRIOTS WANTING THEIR VOICES H
Just because you can use caps doesn’t mean that you can persuade the courts out off breaking 13 laws in one day.
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Re: FAKE HEADLINE AND SLANDER OF PATRIOTS WANTING THEIR VOICES H
What's the slander? Was this a deep fake of huge crowds, including some well-known personalities, storming the halls of Congress?
Please, point out the slander if you can.
Bet you have a better chance of finding Waldo.
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Re: A terrible embarrassment
N... no...
They allowed it, is what happened.
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Re: Re: Re: A Sad day in America for sure.
They generally admit that the won't listen to any arguments and will go out of their way to avoid reality, and I'm hard pressed to label anyone who intentionally chooses to look away when evidence comes up as a true believer. They believe they hate and want to hurt the other guy, they might believe they are better off if they pretend to believe (and they don't care that others must pay for that), or if I'm being charitable they believe in some tangent cause that they think is somehow furthered by supporting Trump.. but that's about as far as I can stretch..
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Re: FAKE HEADLINE AND SLANDER OF PATRIOTS WANTING THEIR VOICES H
Those things aren’t mutually exclusive, you know. Patriots can be Trump-supporters and/or hooligans.
He wasn’t just our choice but that of a majority of the nation’s voters and a majority of the electoral college. You can voice your protests inside or outside the US Capitol, but breaking in was unnecessary and (ultimately) pointless.
Actually, they’re labeled “Trump supporters” because they support Trump, and they’re labeled “hooligans” because they resorted to violence, unlawfulness, and chaos to achieve their ends.
Again, a majority of voters and electors said they wanted Biden. That you didn’t want Biden is immaterial.
Congress’s role in this affair is largely ceremonial. There’s no point in blaming them for anything.
The difference between force and violence is immaterial. They broke in and caused a lot of damage.
Also, they weren’t going to be shut out. All they had to do was go through security and leave weapons behind. There was no need to break in and occupy the building.
By the way, you do realize that by taking the route that they did, their message was only weakened. People stopped listening to what was being said and paid more attention to how.
Nothing you said actually refuted any of the facts Tim reported.
The BLM protests were peaceful until Trump supporters or LEOs incited violence. Antifa wasn’t involved.
Also, there was violence. That’s how they got in. We have video footage refuting your claims here.
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Re: Can't Take The Heat
The “Occupy” movement of 2012 were completely peaceful and lawful, didn’t involve the physical occupation of anything other than outdoor public property, didn’t involve forceful occupation of any building, let alone an occupied one, and didn’t involve guns. None of that was true for the occupation of the US Capitol building.
Also, this is an opinion blog. Of course he would speak differently about a movement he agrees with as opposed to one he does not.
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MAN ANTIFA IS SO AWESOMELY POWERFUL!
Antifa has the power to mind control Trump Supporters! That's why Trump got only twenty million votes (and not <checks Wikipedia> 74M).
That or Antifa engaged in the greatest, most massive false-flag operation in history, including creating a Donald Trump impostor to incite them to march on the US Capitol.
Down with fascism!
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So you're a terrorist, then.
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Schrödinger's cat: is a dead cat, and is also a live cat.
Schrödinger's immigrant: is a foreigner who steals our jobs, and is also too lazy to work, living off welfare.
Schrödinger's politician: uses incendiary language about election theft, and is also a strong supporter of democratic norms and order.
Schrödinger's insurrectionist: is a well-meaning but enraged patriot, and is also a sneaky Antifa infiltrant.
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Re: FAKE HEADLINE AND SLANDER OF PATRIOTS WANTING THEIR VOICES H
THERE WAS NO VIOLENCE, ACCEPT POLICE ASSAULTING AND SHOOTING DEAD UNARMED PROTESTERS, UNLIKE YOUR FRIENDS WITH BLM AND ANTIFA.
Now wait a second...I thought I saw some of you Trumptards claiming it was Antifa doing all the violent things, despite the shit-flinging morons who were stupid enough to livestream their felonies to social media.
And the woman who got shot dead should've complied. Break through a barrier and try to get through a window and you get shot.
If she had followed police directions to not do what she did, she would likely still be alive.
Don't expect sympathy for doing what you were complaining about all summer jackass. In your heads, you're patriots. To the rest of us, you're simple-minded unwashed white trash methheads who need a good ass beating.
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Re: Let me paraphrase the snowflake
I'll quote the Wicked Witch from the Wizard of Oz which nicely summarizes your mental state:
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"What a world, what a world!"
Was that late-game existentialist reflection she was doing?
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Re:
Sadly you missed an important part of Schrödinger's cat. That is: while it's both alive and dead, it's totally isolated from the rest of us. Once that isolation breaks, and information about it leaks out to us, it becomes alive or dead.
So the other Schrödinger's things are pefectly fine... because we don't have to deal with them (as they are isolated from us).
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Re: Re: FAKE HEADLINE AND SLANDER OF PATRIOTS WANTING THEIR VOIC
Hey, all-caps makes for nice quote levels.
I think you are overlooking something. The constitutional progress governing elections resulted in Biden being chosen as the next president. It's perfectly legit not to want Biden as the next president and the remedy for that is engaging in political work. However, not wanting the constitutional processes to play out means that one is an enemy of the U.S.A. since the U.S. is defined by its constitution and the will of the people to adhere to it.
Not wanting Biden to be president may be patriotic. Not wanting the constitutional process to run its course, should it come up with Biden, with all checks and balances clearly pointing in a single direction: now that is seditious. When you lose an election, you start working on the next election. Not on the one you already lost. And most certainly not by shitting on the constitution and its processes and guards while calling yourself a patriot. That just doesn't fit.
What kind of patriotism replaces the U.S. flag with Trump banners and Confederate flags? If people with "Blue lives matter" are beating police forces up in order to vandalize the Capitol, what does that tell you about their actual motivation?
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Re: A terrible embarrassment
If I remember correctly, something like "we love you" and "you're special" and "that's what happens when a sacred landslide election is unjustly stolen", leading the media corporations to remove those comments as more inflammatory than helpful.
Seriously, giving him a break would be possible for something like "This has gone too far. I cannot accept this. I immediately concede the election and tell everybody that their continued presence is an insurrection and will be dealt with as such."
But reverting to presidential behavior is not in him. He is indeed mentally incapable of doing the job required of a parting president. Which means that there is no real way around the 25th or impeachment if you don't want to see what the president of the United States can unleash when he wages civil war on his populace.
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Re: Re: Schrödinger
Can't we isolate Donald Trump in such a way that nobody has to care whether he's dead or alive? Find an island without Internet!
P.S. there's precedent, they put Napoleon Bonaparte on Elba.
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Their motive lies in self-satisfaction. Trump gives his supporters license to do whatever it takes for them to achieve that. They won’t be satisfied until Trump is made president for life.
If the cops get in their way? Blue lives stop mattering. If Democrats get in their way? “Blue” lives stop mattering. If “RINOs” and conservatives not in the cult of personality get in their way? They won’t be spared.
All lives matter. But Trump supporters believe their lives and politics are all that matter. Anyone who doesn’t becomes their enemy. Combine that mindset with racist/violent ideologies and…well, you saw what happened yesterday.
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Re:
That one's easy. Pardons for everyone. Takes care of the legal consequences after we can no longer rely on Barr to make ends meet.
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“Largely” doesn’t mean “completely”.
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Re: A terrible embarrassment
I think that's a mischaracterisation. At no point of time I got the impression that he had any interest in stopping it. I think he perfectly well realised that he was in a unique position to say something to stop it.
But his whole point was to start it. Not to stop it. He asked people to travel to DC in order to have them break up the confirmation (and they likely would have destroyed the state votes had they gotten hold of them) in case Pence was not willing to perform a coup.
He told them that Pence was to weak, and that they needed to be strong and sent them to the Capitol. And Giuliani said that the time for combat had come.
So of course he had no interest in stopping it. I mean, he went to all this effort not out of idle fun.
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Re: Can't Take The Heat
But let there be 2 hours of an occupy movement with which he doesn't agree, and suddenly the romantic writings are over.
You'll have to remind me again when the Occupy movement stormed into federal property while the country's representatives were doing their constitutional duty...forgot the date.
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Surprise this never happen before
Corrupt laws like Mickey Mouse Protection/Control Act, DMCA, accept trade agreements hide from public, Obamacare, money for monopoly AT&T, etc I surprise people there not do this long ago. US Congress not care it's country's people, instead love it's company/corporations and big money.
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Additionally:
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Diminished Capacity
In Bob Woodward's book Fear: Trump in the White House there's a point where mustachioed lawyer Ty Cobb is talking with Mueller about an oral interview of the president would be really detrimental because Trump is a compulsive liar, who can not only not tell the truth but is driven to embellish any statement with... well what is in marketing is called fluffing.
In that moment, Cobb realizes his client has diminished capacity, and really is unfit for office, and in hours posts his resignation.
Everyone who has routine interactions with Trump knows he's a narcissist with inclinations very dangerous for an elected official, but also he cannot deal with normal everyday living or everyday interactions. One of those being, making a statement while under oath without committing perjury.
The adults in the room myth is quickly dispelled by the fact that no half of the room is willing to do the adult thing and declare him unfit for office when he obviously is. They like too much having the power of being the President's friend and confidant, even when they know full well he has no sentimentality and they all are expendable as soon as he needs to betray them.
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Also, Trump was happy.
I mean, really happy. Happy-helmet happy. Thousands (thousands?) of people were marching off to war for him and committing crime for him. That's devotion. That's love.
So when he tried meekly to tell them to go home, he so way didn't mean it. It was his moment.
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Re: Surprise this never happen before
The people who did this were fighting to install someone who 100% backs Washington corruption, someone whose priorities were tax cuts for himself, someone who spent four years taking public money for himself whenever possible, from having the military stay at his resorts to nickel and diming the secret This wasn't a popular uprising because of bad laws, this was fascist babies screaming because America looked at what they were selling and said 'F*ck no, no more of this', not once, but twice in the general, then the Georgia run-offs.
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The Trumpian base feels “forgotten” in American society. Well, nobody will forget them now.
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Re: Re: A terrible embarrassment
The arson and looting largely came after being assaulted by LEOs or were performed by outsiders looking to cause trouble. Outside of those two things, the protests were largely peaceful, yes. They were certainly more peaceful when LEOs intervened than the events of yesterday.
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Re: Re: A terrible embarrassment
I was taking the most charitable view for the sake of discussion. My point was that Trump simply does not come out of this looking good.
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Trump generally doesn’t care how he looks so long as people keep looking at him.
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Re: Re: A terrible embarrassment
While I agree that this was stupid, ugly, violent and stupid, calling it sedition or insurrection kinda implies that they had some kind of plan beyond "let's go force our way into the Capitol building and see what happens". I do not think that was necessarily so. Not even for the people who encouraged them or led them.
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Re: Re: Re: A terrible embarrassment
Uh, his main attraction is that he is a despicable disingenuous hypocritical lying scum bag who has cheated himself into the highest position by not heeding any bit of form or decency. I don't see that this would in any way tarnish his brand rather than perpetuate it.
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Re: Re: Re: Schrödinger
Look how well THAT turned out!
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They stormed the Capitol building to disrupt the certification of a free and fair election. Whether they had a plan beyond that goal doesn’t matter. They attempted to subvert democracy through violence and fear. That makes their actions those of an insurrection.
Feel free to argue otherwise. But you’ll first need a stronger argument than “they didn’t have a plan”.
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"Nobody will forget them"
Do you remember Smedley, who stopped the last time some VIPs decided they wanted some of that new-fangled Italian fascism?
It's extra creamy!🍨
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Re: Re: Re: A terrible embarrassment
“Some among America's military allies believe Trump deliberately attempted a coup and may have had help from federal law-enforcement officials”, by Mitch Prothero, Business Insider, Jan 7, 2021
A plan?
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Re: Re: Re: A terrible embarrassment
This story quotes a named source, Fiona Hill, Trump’s former top Russia adviser, who flatly states, “The president was trying to stage a coup.”
“Trump Officials Rush to Keep Him From Sparking Another Conflict—at Home or Abroad”, by Erin Banco and Asawin Suebsaeng, The Daily Beast, Jan 7, 2021
“The president was trying to stage a coup” implies some kind of plan.
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Re: FAKE HEADLINE AND SLANDER OF PATRIOTS WANTING THEIR VOICES H
"THEY WOULD HAVE CONGRESS SHOVE AN UNWANTED PRESIDENT DOWN THEIR THROAT"
This happened in 2016, with a president that 3 million more people had said they didn't want than the ones who voted for him. Yet, there was no attempted insurrection, there was a fight to resoundingly vote him out of office at the next opportunity.
The problem is, you sad entitled fucks can't accept that Trump lost the election resoundingly and the voices of people who didn't want him in the first lace finally had their voices heard, so you resorted to armed insurrection, and you lost even that. Despite your attempt at subverting democracy, Congress still supported the facts of the case, and that Biden has been elected.
Say hello to democratically elected President Biden on the 20th January, and try to keep your childish tantrums to a minimum.
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Re: Can't Take The Heat
You don't need to go back as far as 2012 to find Techdirt writers and commenters to celebrate rape, loot, and murder all across this country. They spent basically all of 2020 doing that.
Suddenly their hardline law and order types when some icky blue-collar White people broke some bookshelves in the world's biggest brothel.
Hell, even Tim Cushing, Techdirt's resident "kill all cops now" "burn everything down" go-to writer is suddenly "back the blue".
When federal thugs shoot White women, children, and dogs, the left wing is "eat lead, Whitey!". But a local cop bitchslaps a BLM rapist or shoves an octogenarian commie to the ground, it's "ACAB!" and "fascist pigs!"
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"Largely" doesn't mean "completely"
aka "When city blocks are burned to the ground, Americans dragged out of cars and stomped by mobs of marauding foreign savages, and small business owners bludgeoned with 2x4s and their life's work looted and destroyed? Meh, shouldn't have been systemic supremacist racisssssts. Plus they got insurance an' sheeeet. Plus it's only buildings. Plus, they only wypipo. When unarmed White mothers are shot in the neck? It's allll gooood."
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Re: Re: Can't Take The Heat
Do you have a link to someone actually saying that, and not your wilful misinterpretation of what they said?
"When federal thugs shoot White women, children, and dogs, the left wing is "eat lead, Whitey!""
Those strawmen in your head sure sound like bad people. Can you demonstrate their existence anywhere in the real world?
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Re: Re: Can't Take The Heat
Your version of reality is in need of something other than bullshit. You see, most really good bullshitterz include several actual facts within their bullshit in order to give said bullshit some sort of believability.
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Presidents elected without popular support.
Considering what happened in the George W. Bush administration, in retrospect maybe we should have stormed the federal buildings in January 2001.
Imagine an America without the Iraq War, without the Disposition Matrix, without torture.
Nope. Don't forgive them. May never.
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Goebbels' new man.
Don't worry. Unless our government can work a Panamax freighter's load of miracles, we're going to see New America emerge in 2024 or 2028, and the Federalist Society Six will be there to assure that the Ermächtigungsgesetz of 2033 is totally constitutional.
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Terrorist
I have to be pedantic, he's a radical, perhaps a seditionist, a vandal or a saboteur. Maybe even an insurrectionist, but to be a terrorist, you have to actually kill civilians.
Like some law enforcement.
Or the military officers that assign drone-strike targets.
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Re: Presidents elected without popular support.
Or, without 9/11. There's a fair argument to be made that a different administration might have done things to make the attack less likely to have been successful, be that overall foreign policy, taking the infamous "Osama Determined to Attack" memo seriously, or any number of other things. Which means not only no Iraq war and torture, but also no Patriot Act, no TSA, no many other things, possibly up to and including the financial crash of the late 2000s
Not having a real crystal ball, it's impossible to tell exactly what might have changed - maybe nothing substantial in the long term. But, the concerns of those at the time angry that a close election had been handed to Bush by a highly suspicious Florida race are far more based in reality than those convinced that 7 million extra votes being cast against the least popular President in history could only be achieved by fraud.
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Re: Terrorist
"Maybe even an insurrectionist, but to be a terrorist, you have to actually kill civilians."
No, you don't. Which is why the IRA were still terrorists even after they routinely called police to warn of bombs in order to get people out of the area before they exploded.
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Re: "Largely" doesn't mean "completely"
"Americans ... foreign savages"
At least you didn't preface with "I'm not racist, but ..."
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Re: Re: Terrorist
I'll agree with you about not having to kill people - strictly speaking, one only has to cause terror, so depending on the situation, the threat alone is enough.
Don't want to divert into Irish politics, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bombings_during_the_Troubles makes very sobering reading (e.g. both sides targeting pubs and clubs with the apparent intention of killing and injuring) - warnings done inconsistently, and there was no warning for political targets (Brighton, Mountbatten, Neave) so tough shit if you were a nearby civvie. Omagh (15-Aug-98) was warned, but poorly, with terrible consequemces. A quick google can find you a quote from the bomber who claims to have invented to codeword scheme, where he says that while some units used it, others were not interested in providing warnings.
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I prefer loss of property to loss of life. Buildings can be replaced; lives can’t. As for the woman killed at the Capitol building on Wednesday: She could’ve stopped herself from climbing onto that barricade. The decision to keep going cost her everything.
Ashli Babbit died because those in charge of protecting Congress did their jobs. Nobody forced her to believe pro-Trump conspiracy theories. Nobody forced her to visit D.C. that day. Nobody forced her into taking part in that terroristic mob. And nobody forced her to climb that barricade. She made those decisions. She alone bears the consequences for them.
Is the loss of her life regrettable? Yes. But is it also justified given the circumstances? Absolutely.
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Re: Re: Re: Terrorist
Yeah, I'm British and while not old enough to have been around during the pub bombings (I was born in Guildford not too long after that bombing), I do remember a lot of what happened in the 80s/90s. I do remember it not strictly being a case of either side just trying to kill people and remember the phone warning being a routine part of their M.O. for a while, however effective it was.
They were just the first example that came to mind of an example of people who would still be labelled terrorists if they didn't actually kill anyone, as murder is not a necessary part of the term's definition.
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Re: Re: Re: A Sad day in America for sure.
"No, loads of them are cynical opportunists, some true believers. Some are users, some are tools."
The tools and true believers were the ones marching and chanting to have the grifting loser instated as lifetime king. The users would be the ones egging them on. The cynical opportunists the ones just very deliberately not publicly lamenting their behavior.
You forgot an honorary mention though - the people only invested insofar as they just want to see the world burn.
They aren't exactly hard to tell apart.
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Re: FAKE HEADLINE AND SLANDER OF PATRIOTS WANTING THEIR VOICES H
"FALSE! THEY WERE PATRIOTS WHO WANTED THEIR VOICES HEARD CARRYING AMERICAN FLAGS AND CHANTING USA!"
So shitting on the US constitution and every official symbol of american democracy is now "patriotic"? In what twisted world would that be? They - and you - are patriotic only in the sense that Hannibal Lecter could be described as a "humanitarian".
But you do you, Bahdad Bob. As always.
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Re: Re: Re: Can't Take The Heat
"You see, most really good bullshitterz include several actual facts within their bullshit in order to give said bullshit some sort of believability."
Yeah, but not Baghdad Bob; Bobmail, out_of_the_blue, Jhon smith, or whatever other name he has gone by in times past, hasn't managed to rise from being the worst kind of abysmally pathetic bullshitter despite desperately wasting ten years of his life trying to produce a better class of dumb when squatting over his laptop.
Like many of the 73 million benighted village idiots still supporting Trump he's more or less irredeemable.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Terrorist
Being a bit older, I remember that the IRA were not generally called terrorists - they were called murderers in the press because that is what they were. 'Terrorist' would have been seen as a justification as a political action whereas 'Murderer' got the point across.
The modern idea of labelling people as terrorists seems to stem from authorities wanting to have a bogeyman now that the cold war is over - it was rarely used before 11th September 2001.
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Re: Re: Re: A terrible embarrassment
"While I agree that this was stupid, ugly, violent and stupid, calling it sedition or insurrection kinda implies that they had some kind of plan beyond "let's go force our way into the Capitol building and see what happens"."
In much the same way that a bunch of colonists forced their way onto a pier and started hurling crates of tea into Boston harbor, yes.
I agree they had no plan. But that they did this at all only further underlines that those 73 million Trump voters are motivated enough that they're willing to shit on the most fundamental tenets and principles of the country they all think they want to represent.
That's like seeing a black lives matter protest carried out with the protestors all chanting support the police and bring back Jim Crow while angrily facing a line of law enforcers and a "Unite the right" counterprotest.
The reality is that both BLM and the crowd storming the Capitol now share the common basis of mistrust in the government as a whole.
With the sole difference that BLM is still about "stop killing us"...while the white supremacists, proud boys and Terminally Stupid are upset them black people are getting uppity again, women and LGBTQ folk still insist on being treated like actual people, and that pizza parlor still traffics children to the satanic pedo ring of the liberals while turning the frogs gay in some sinister plot to...do something nasty and mean, I guess.
So two takeaways from this mess;
1) The pro-trump faction is dumber than a bag of hammers. So incredibly impacted by compartmentalization and cognitive dissonance that by now I'd argue that it's time for everyone else to abandon all hope of those people ever re-learning basic logic or common sense. They have reduced themselves to being 73 million solid arguments against home schooling and not much else. In the hopes that at least the next generation won't grow up irreparably damaged.
2) The lackadaisical police response. Had those people been black there would have been an emergency response by every agency with firearms, pepper spray, water cannons, and a resounding call for the national guard to "dominate the battlespace".
"“No one can tell me that if it had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesting yesterday they would have been treated very, very differently than the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol. We all know that’s true, and it is unacceptable.”"
This...isn't going away. It doesn't matter if Biden somehow manages to undo a lot of the harm Trump did in office, much of which is impossible to fix. Just as Trump got to enjoy the windfall of Obama's fiscal policy and claim the credit, Biden will be taking the blame when the effects of Trump's policies descend on his term. Barring a miracle 2024 will see a republican president in office, and no good odds it'll be someone unpalatable to the 73 million trumpists. Because the liberals currently shouting loudly are tired and just want the Old Normal back, and the democrats frankly can't, as a party, muster the enthusiasm in their base the GOP can swing by just feeding their base raw sewage and hatred.
It's far beyond just "stupid, ugly and embarrassing". It's the geiger counter going fucking nuts, telling you the best case scenario is american democracy is spending the next ten years on chemo while fighting for its life. And if it can't muster that effort it'll barely have time to compose a decent epitaph.
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Re: Re: A terrible embarrassment
Last year when Techdirt was praising riots. along with a bunch of politicians. Apparently when they're attacking random police, police property, as well as looting, vandalizing, or burning random stores that did nothing riots are cool. They're 'largely peaceful' protests. Then when a small riot targets solely the US capitol not random innocent people who've done absolutely nothing, apparently riots suddenly aren't so cool.
Or maybe it's just who was doing the rioting. I have to wonder if the BLM protesters had broken into the Capitol if Techdirt would instead be praising them.
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Re: Re: Re: A terrible embarrassment
"My point was that Trump simply does not come out of this looking good."
That's...putting it with massive diplomatic effort.
Trump's last four years, and 40 before he became candidate for president, didn't leave him looking "good". The main issue is that "Donald Being Donald" just resulted in normalizing pretty frigging horrifying behavior to the point where it took Trump encouraging radical right-wingers to make him King by force of arms for people to sit up and notice.
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Re: Re: Re: Schrödinger
I say exile trump to Liliput. The world as a whole will be rid of him and he'll never want to leave, finally being the biggest man around.
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Re: Re: Can't Take The Heat
Huh? I guessed I missed the BLM rapist (thought I suppose that's possible) part. Also, what does the political leanings of anyone, let alone an octogenarian, have to do when being assaulted by law enforcement?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: A terrible embarrassment
While I agree with a lot of what you've written in your post, I believe your leanings are clouding your judgement in regards to your number 2.
Had those people been mostly non-white (not that many of his supporters would fit into that category) the response would have been exactly the same. Trump was trying to stage a coup. He sent his deluded mob to storm the capitol and appoint him President for life. He made sure that there would be minimal federal law enforcement presence. His toady, the acting Secretary of Defense Miller, miraculously wasn't answering his phone while people frantically tried to get not only the DC Guard, but the Maryland Guard deployed. It took the Secretary of the Army McCarthy to authorize deployment into DC. It was only once Maryland and Virginia started sending law enforcement and National Guard troops that Trump's enablers felt the need to finally send federal troops in.
So, please leave racism out of this. This was a coup attempt by a deranged man trying to cling to the last scraps of power anyway he can. The difference in law enforcement deployment was in furtherance of his insurrection. If this coup was attempted by Billy Bob of Bob's Bait an Tackle from Billing's Montana, the capitol building would have been surrounded by federal troops and National Guardsmen before the congress even convened.
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Re: Re: Re: A terrible embarrassment
No one is praising riots, or at least they shouldn't be.
Riots are wrong, no matter who's doing them. Innocent people always end up hurt, and it's often the ones the rioters claim they are there to help.
Peaceful protest is the way to change. Sure it takes longer, and it's often more painful for the people protesting, but there is the only way to lasting change.
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Re:
Schrödinger’s rapist: Not every person will become a rapist, but a rapist can come from anywhere
ftfy
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Re: Re: Re: A terrible embarrassment
Please show consideration for your fellow commentors and clean up any excess straw once you're done with it.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Terrorist
Now, that's a load of bullshit. I definitely remember people like the IRA, ETA, Iranian hijackers, and so on being called terrorists well before 9/11. Hell, there were entire genres of action movie in the 80s and 90s that focussed on terrorism after the Russians and Nazis became tired as villains. Remember Die Hard, where one plot twist was they they were only pretending to be terrorists to deflect from their real goal? How does that work if nobody was being called terrorists before then?
The only things that have really changed are the need to pretend that murder is necessary to be a terrorist (or even as far as to pretend it needs to be a bomb, so that certain types don't get called terrorists when they shoot places up), and that people need to have a darker complexion than your average Irishman to qualify.
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Two things:
We have proof otherwise.
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MLK condemned riots, but he also understood why they happened.
The Trumpians were rioting for the cause of fascism. That is a far cry from rioting for racial justice.
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Re:
"We have proof otherwise."
Yeah... Trump had a peaceful protest at the same place dispersed with tear gas and rubber bullets so that he could do a half-assed photo op at a church. Can you imagine the carnage if they even appeared to be trying to storm the capitol building?
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Re:
"Ashli Babbit died because those in charge of protecting Congress did their jobs"
Needs to be said. The "poor unarmed woman" only works if you choose to ignore that she was attempting to overthrow the government at the time. Which, most of these idiots will do wilfully, of course.
Meanwhile, black guy shot to death because some right-wingers mistakenly didn't like a detour he made while out jogging? That's more justified, somehow, and people should just stop protesting about that kind of thing.
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Correct. We're not disagreeing on your viewpoints.
I don't know why you guys are bothering trying to "clarify".
We all said the exact same things: you dislike when cops prevent White people being killed, and love when cops kill unarmed White people.
You then reiterated my point. We're not disagreeing here.
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You don't know what "strawman" means
That One Guy, you don't know what a strawman is.
The commenter said Techdirt and politicians were praising riots. That is not a strawman. Check out Cushing's article from June 2020: "Let. The Motherfucker. Burn" ... "Let it burn. Let it all burn." Those are direct quotes.
Now Techdirt is wringing their hands because some bookcases were broken and some goofy pictures were taken by awful White people. (What's worse: blue collar White people!)
Not a strawman.
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Re: Re: Terrorist
Yeah, I'm still sensitive about when Jason Leopold was called a FOIA Terrorist. The word Terrorism / Terrorist had completely cycled into generic derision the way teenagers might call something gay or a retard.
At some point in the aughts people tried to suggest terrorists were those who did wanton violence (or wonton violence) to political end. But in the late 20th century, it was used to mark freedom fighters not favored by the current US administration.
Before that, it terror weapons referred to ones that were used against civilian population targets, like railroad guns, buzz bombs and V2 rockets. Oh and firebombing air raids.
Destruction of property falls well into the category of sabotage. And I can think of plenty of viable targets, myself. (Police IMSI-catchers, Predictive policing systems and fruits of asset forfeitures are the first that come to mind.)
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Turning the frogs gay
Oh we have plans. Great plans
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Praising riots
Rioting might be wrong, but a century-plus of police brutality against peaceful protests only continues to push the people into a corner, where rioting and violent reprisal are the only options left.
And you know, we're out of time. Blue ocean events. Global temperature change. We're projected to not have a civilization by 2100 and not have a species to see 2200.
So please, provide some working alternatives to La Résistance. The police seem to be unable to stop killing people (while they're neither armed nor resisting). There's a real problem here, and while violence isn't necessarily even a solution, it's the only card we haven't played.
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Well, actually
I don't really believe all the yelling, posturing or apologizing from neither one or the other side because I know for a fact that most (yes most of you commentators here too) will still vote for one of the two political parties that is ruining the US. In the end it is more important for people to be part of those that voted Democrats, Republicans or stayed at home than put your vote at someone who wants a real change. This time it was one side but the other is just as bad, just in a different way. If you are part of either Dem. or Rep. you are part of the problem.
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Re: Well, actually
Reminder:
"Both Sides" us just a paper-thin veneer over its original name of "false equivalence."
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Didn't Democrat activists occupy congress during the Kavanaugh hearings? And womens rights activists during the me too movement?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: A terrible embarrassment
And yet that's exactly what Tim Cushings did in that article. Statements like:
-"Let. The Motherfucker. Burn."
-"LET IT BURN. LET IT ALL BURN."
-"you cannot argue with protesters going straight to the source of the problem. "
-"by all means, burn every cop car, precinct, etc. that stands between black Americans and the respect of their rights."
-"The message is clear: cops are the problem, not the solution. Burn the shit that means something to them"
-"But let's just say you're arguing that riots/protests/looting don't solve anything."
-Be the god of righteous hellfire.
Cannot be interpreted as anything less the the endorsement of rioting, burning, directly targeting the people you find at fault, and even attempted murder; all in the name of attempting to right a wrong.
And his colleagues were apparently okay with that. Yet now that a different group who believes they've been wronged has rioted while directly targeting the people they think are at fault, his colleagues are suddenly shocked and appalled.
True enough. The problem there is that much of the media spent a significant chunk of last year praising the "protests" while simultaneous downplaying or refusing to acknowledge the violence going on at protests. Such as the time CNN called a protest "fiery but mostly peaceful" when it was obvious looting and burning was going on. Or the time they edited a blurb of theirs from "violent protests" to just "protests". Other times you could find various outlets insisting on continuing to label rioters as "protestors" even as the article itself clearly described a minor riot with random store windows being smashed, random vehicles being set on fire, and dangerous objects being thrown at the police monitoring them.
In that kind of atmosphere, politicians highly praising the protests and not mentioning the violence or denouncing it only after they're finished praising the protests seem like they're just covering their asses. Especially as the media often didn't prominently cover them denouncing the violence as that would mean acknowledging violence that couldn't be excused as outside provocateurs.
The result is that people see the media calling violent protests "peaceful protests" and calling riots "protests". Then see politicians praising the "protests". While those politicians' condemnations of violence are little more than footnotes. After months of that, they start to lose sympathy for the "protestors" and the people that praise them. Then something like this happens and people can't help but see massive hypocrisy as suddenly the media and the politicians aren't okay with riots now that one has targeted something they don't approve of.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: A terrible embarrassment
Making what you presumably think is a witty reference to a logical fallacy is not actually an argument, nor do you make any sort of point. You might as well be one of the people screaming "election fraud" for all the value that your post adds.
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Ummmm.... just a thought.... but doesn't claiming that your most dangerous enemy is ANTIFA - ANTI-FA scists - kinda mean that you're admitting you're a Fascist, or that you support Fascism?? Trump really doesn't think these things through does he...
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Context matters
Even for the sake of argument agreeing the two are equivalent if you can't tell the difference between 'people rioting because they're tired of police brutality and a system indifferent to said brutality' and 'people rioting because they refuse to accept that their guy lost an election and are determined to overthrow/prevent it' I don't know what to tell you.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A terrible embarrassment
I see no reason to put more effort into my response than you did honesty into your comment.
Trying to downplay an attempted insurrection as a 'small riot' that 'targets solely the US capitol not random innocent people who've done absolutely nothing' is a bullshit claim and you know it, unless you want to claim that the multiple fatalities all(as opposed to just the one) had it coming along with those that had to evacuate, or the timing just so happened to be during the finalization of the election and didn't have any wider implications.
Had BLM been trying to overthrow an election then yeah, people probably would have been objecting to the survivors of that attempt just as much as they're objecting to the attempted insurrectionists now, but they weren't, they were objecting to something that actually exists as opposed to the lies and petulant denial that caused the recent riot and storming of the capitol.
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They didn’t storm the Senate floor with zipties in hand. And they all got arrested for protesting inside the Capitol.
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"You will still vote"
I know for a fact that most ... [of all of you] will still vote against one of the two political parties that is ruining the US.
Fixed it for you.
I have never had the opportunity to vote for a candidate that I liked. Third parties have always been spoilers for one of the two parties.
FPTP allows one person one vote against one of the two most popular candidates. That's all.
Feel free to actually take election reform seriously. Maybe someday we can see an amendment to the US Constitutions about implementing a better voting system.
For now, we can't even kill the Electoral College.
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Re: Well, actually
There are a fair amount of commenters here that aren't US citizens, me included. So what you know for a fact isn't really fact.
Also, you are proposing the simple solution of voting for a 3rd party that wants change in a political system that's stratified. The truth is that there's no simple solution for a complex problem unless you are prepared to bear the cost of the associated collateral damage when you have to break the system.
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Thinking things through.
He doesn't have to. His followers are not bothering to think things through either. It's how communists and socialists continue to be bugbears long after the USSR is dead.
To be fair, North Korea is the DPRK, e.g. the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. It's a dictatorship ruled by a dead guy with his grandson as acting regent. And the Democratic Republic of the Congo which is governed by an authoritarian transitional government which will one day yield to a democracy. Someday.
So Antifa could plausibly not be so antifascist or only provisionally antifascist.
There is one valid argument I've heard critical of the policies of Antifa: Fascism is, according to Antifa, so great a threat to human society that force is warranted. As such they will attack fascist speakers and disrupt gatherings of known fascist groups, in what is either violation of their rights (and, therefore, assault) or in an act of vigilantism not consistent with the procedures of citizen-arrest (and therefore, assault).
But then, Antifa engages in far less violence than those groups they attack. It's not a justification but shows they have more restraint. Also those that criticize Antifa often fail to be similarly critical of those other groups for engaging in violence. Most conversations about them are completely partisan.
So actual fair assessments of all this direct action and coalition interaction is rare.
Me, I find it hilarious that we, allegedly, have a fleet of buses by which to transport our legions of crack Black-Bloc ninja counter-protest rioters. (We're trained CQC masters with black go-bag duffels always at the ready to mobilize to the next Fascist meet-up.)
We are armed better than Baywatch and GI Joe combined (the animated version with the lasers). We have assassins behind every tree and have hacked your phone to provoke you into acts of partisan terrorism to make Trump look bad.
Also we rigged the 2020 General Election, but only the Presidential Election.
You cannot, on one hand, act like we are all a bunch of spinless ineffectual overly-sensitive soyboys, and at the same time, we are somehow a cabal of special-forces shadow-queers. -- Trae Crowder
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Only in your head, Scarecrow.
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Re: Correct. We're not disagreeing on your viewpoints.
[Gaslights facts not in evidence]
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Re: Context matters
I don't find rioting okay regardless of the reason. Wednesday's events would not suddenly have been "okay" if they were protesting police brutality instead of election fraud.
Sure there's a difference between the two groups.
One side is a group that have deluded themselves in to thinking the complex problem of police brutality is purely a matter of all cops being white racists who only murder black people. When the reality is that cops are a variety of races who commit brutality against a variety of races, for a variety of reasons. However racist cops is a subset of the problem, and the larger problem has fallen disproportionately on black people so they aren't wholly wrong and their complaints have some basis in reality.
The other side is a group that fell hook, line, and sinker for propaganda and conspiracy theories and deluded themselves into thinking massive fraud had been perpetrated in a close election. Said propaganda and conspiracy theories were pushed to them by the highest of authorities in the US president, as well as being embraced by a number of Senators and Representatives. Regardless of the authoritative people pushing it, the reality is that while this past election has been more difficult to track and understand than previous ones, there is no real evidence given that fraud took place in any substantial quantity, much less enough in multiple states to swing the election. So their complaints have no basis in reality to speak of.
However I find the difference irrelevant to the point at hand. The point being that neither group should be rioting, much less invading the US capitol. Sure one group has a more real complaint than the other. However that means little as both groups think they're justified, and neither group should be hurting random people, vandalizing random locations, or targeting lawmakers with violence.
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Re: Re: Context matters
There's a difference, one group have systematically been treated as second class citizens for centuries and still is, the other group is a bunch of gullible and entitled assholes with a poor grasp on reality and its consequences.
One group's justification has a basis in reality, the other hasn't. One group's intent is the desire to be treated and valued the same as everyone else, the other group's intent was through violence disenfranchise everyone not in their group of their choice.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A terrible embarrassment
I call it a small riot because it's a small riot. A crowd of mostly unarmed rioters vandalized one building, forcing the occupants to temporarily flee. That's a small riot. One violently protesting the election results, but a riot nonetheless. Calling it an 'insurrection' is a laughable exaggeration for something that clearly had no long term plan, much less chance of success. Especially considering that most people were there to protest not overthrow the government, and were easily dispersed. It's no more an insurrection than the time people protesting Kavanaugh 'took over a Senate office building' was an insurrection. Or the time GreenNewDeal protestors took over Pelosi's office. It's less of an insurrection than the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone was seeing as that actually occupied territory, kept police out, and wasn't put down for nearly a month until their "security forces" shot some random kids.
So yeah. Rioting protestors. If security hadn't failed to do it's job, we wouldn't even have people calling it an insurrection. It'd just be rioters arrested outside the capitol.
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Terrorists all around us
Case in point, recently, Director-General Tedros Adhanom of WHO was not long ago called a Communist Terrorist by Trump-supporters after WHO fell out of favor with the Trump administration (I think for providing information conflicting with White House official statements).
It's super-duper easy to be branded a terrorist these days.
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Re: You don't know what "strawman" means
Accepting the Techdirt argument as true, what politician praised actual riots?
Also, an officer was killed, bombs were set, and more violence was threatened. Plus some broken windows and other property damage. Don’t minimize what actually happened.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A terrible embarrassment
They also placed pipe bombs, killed an officer, tried to go after Senators and Representatives, were more armed than you claimed, did so with the specific intent of stopping the process of recognizing Biden as President-elect, many fought back against police, were quite numerous, and came with the intent of holding hostages/executing people. While it was unlikely to succeed and didn’t have any long-term plans beyond keeping Trump President, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t at least an attempt at insurrection.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: A terrible embarrassment
I was going for understatement.
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Re: Re: Can't Take The Heat
Evidence, please?
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Re: Correct. We're not disagreeing on your viewpoints.
Actually, the race of the woman killed was not the point, and the BLM protestors shot were, by-and-large, peaceful until after police started assaulting them. (That is, the cops weren’t trying to prevent white people from being killed.)
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Re: Re: Re: A terrible embarrassment
First off, it was just one writer. It doesn’t appear to be a universally held position on Techdirt.
Second, present evidence of the politicians who praised the riots, specifically. Not by some vague implication; I mean directly.
Third, as I explicitly said, I’m talking about the actions of actual BLM protestors (as opposed to outsiders trying to instigate something) before police started assaulting them. Under those conditions, they were largely peaceful. Most of the violence and destruction was carried out by pro-Trumpers or after the protest was assaulted by police. They were also unarmed. This was not the case for the riot on Capitol Hill. That’s the difference.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: A terrible embarrassment
As a side note, I’m not condoning, let alone praising, riots. At best, I think they’re largely counterproductive. That said, I don’t hold all riots to be equal, either.
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Re: Re: Re: A terrible embarrassment
Your lack of reading comprehension skills, combined with your false equivalencies, are duly noted, and with that, you can now go fuck off.
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Re: Re: Re: Context matters
Also, a lot of the violence associated with one group has been carried out by people from the other group, which is the one that invaded the White House.
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Re: Correct. We're not disagreeing on your viewpoints.
"you dislike when cops prevent White people being killed, and love when cops kill unarmed White people"
What's impressive is that you can't even keep a thought straight in a single sentence.
Sorry dude, your pathetic attempt at insurrection failed, and your cultist died. Let's hope you deal with the real world soon, rather than cause more innocent people to die in the cause of a fantasy.
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Re: Re: What does this say about Congress?
"Donald virtually invited them into the congressional building."
As did a suspicious number of police officers on camera.
That reeks, incidentally. The public had enough advance warning that DC hotels were closing business on wednesday just in case and several businesses - and the washington bureaucracy - alerted their employees not to come in that day.
Yet the police were under strength. Only about one quarter of the regular force were there. And of those several were seen on camera just standing around when the mob stormed the capitol. Or in one memorable case, even giving directions to the mob.
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Re: Re: freedom
"It's exactly as much about freedom as gamergate was about ethics."
A more appropriate comparison would be kristallnacht.
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Re: Terrorist
"but to be a terrorist, you have to actually kill civilians."
Not really. The US definition of terrorism is wide enough (as is that of many other western nations) that it could apply to a twelve year old throwing a clod of dirt at the windshield of a cop car, as long as the assailant was demonstrating a political intent while doing so by waving a flag or screaming a slogan.
A mob storming capital to intimidate and disrupt the proceedings of ballot counting? It's an attempted revolution or terrorism. It certainly falls under the heading of "politically motivated violence".
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A terrible embarrassment
"Had those people been mostly non-white (not that many of his supporters would fit into that category) the response would have been exactly the same."
Uh, you realize that's like saying "If the guards at Treblinka had been jewish..." or "If the guys in the KKK were black..."?
That's a logical and practical impossibility so lets leave that argument in the ditch, mkay?
"He made sure that there would be minimal federal law enforcement presence."
That's just it - he couldn't have. On that specific day there was enough warning in the air that DC hotels closed their doors and the bureaucracy told people not to come to work...but the police were down to a skeleton staff of 500 or so rather than their full 2300+ headcount, for that specific day only. The people behind that? Normal police chiefs which, unless Trump personally called them up one by one, made the decision to keep their presence to a minimum and the response muted by themselves.
Want to look at the early FBI investigations on how many of that mob were ex-police? veterans? Since the FBI's latest probes into white supremacy organizations it's already known that to a frightening degree membership in radical right movements often overlaps with active duty as law enforcement. It's no stretch at all to realize the boys in blue had prior warning that shit was about to go down and chose not to be there.
"So, please leave racism out of this."
Not really possible when what stormed the capitol was a mob with a very heavy representation of confederate flags and swastikas, and when oh so many of the leaders got caught on camera - or outed themselves in live streams - and identified as white supremacists with records.
"This was a coup attempt by a deranged man trying to cling to the last scraps of power anyway he can."
That too. But you really can't separate racism from Trump or his base. By now that's just trying to take racism out of debates around the KKK.
Yes, this was part of a coup attempt by Trump, abetted and encouraged by Trump. It was also a white supremacy power grab, planned by known white power leaders who'd obviously done their homework since they managed to locate those offices which belonged to the targeted politicians in that maze even Michael Moore, longtime veteran of trying to sneak into the capitol with a camera crew, stated was extremely complex.
You can't take racism out of trumpism, because his hardcore base is all about outright white supremacy.
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Re: Turning the frogs gay
"Oh we have plans. Great plans"
So...tomorrow's terrorist is someone toting a death ray powered by a basket of gay frogs and a van der graaf generator?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: A terrible embarrassment
Well, the difference between successful self-defense and first degree murder remains, in the eyes of all too many, just a matter of skin tone.
I have no hope at all for the 74 million. 1 in 3 americans have proven themselves an actively malignant tumor on the human race.
Until the US decides to go full post-WW2 Germany on nazism and racism and take its chemo treatment like a good patient, that tumor will continue to spread. Longterm prognosis already isn't good, and Biden may just be that one last gasp of lucidity before the end.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A terrible embarrassment
"I was going for understatement."
Go google "trevor noah trump african president" on youtube. Then drink it in, for a few moments, that going for understatement where 45 is concerned has so much leeway by now you could drive a nazi troop transport beneath the bar.
In other words, no need to be all british about it.
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Re: MAN ANTIFA IS SO AWESOMELY POWERFUL!
"Antifa has the power to mind control Trump Supporters! That's why Trump got only twenty million votes (and not <checks Wikipedia> 74M)."
Most Trump supporters line their red hats with tinfoil for precisely this reason.
Except that QShaman guy who relies on biker tattoos and the spirit of Great-plastic-buffalo to shield the saggy tatters of his sanity from that liberal lefty called reality.
There is a sort of logic behind that conclusion, because if any of the conspiracy theories often pounded out by that particular crowd is true to any extent then it's clear the global jewish cabal of the NWO - and their Antifa stooges, naturally - have access to mind control powers, black magic, and time travel.
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Re: Well, actually
"In the end it is more important for people to be part of those that voted Democrats, Republicans or stayed at home than put your vote at someone who wants a real change."
To be fair, the US political system makes it impossible to do anything other than going with the lesser of two perceived evils. First Past The Post is, in practical terms, a filtering machine which condenses every possible political nuance by candidates to the selection of two extreme candidates.
Which in the US becomes the choice; between the ever-widening umbrella of the democrats incorporating every cause under the sun and not accomplishing much because it puts progressive pseudosocialist leftists under the same hat as old-style traditional 1950-style republicans; and the current GOP which caters to those four topics every group sufficiently invested in hatred and fear can all agree to support. Guns, Religion, Anti-abortion and xenophobia.
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Re: Thinking things through.
"You cannot, on one hand, act like we are all a bunch of spinless ineffectual overly-sensitive soyboys, and at the same time, we are somehow a cabal of special-forces shadow-queers. -- Trae Crowder"
Trae Crowder and Beau of the fifth column are, i think, the sole reason for me to believe there may be hope for the US yet.
But he's missing the point, as is Beau. There is no problem for a person to truly believe in two irreconcilable facts at the same time, as long as that person has gone far enough down the rabbit hole. The phenomenon is called doublethink or, to use the psychology term, compartmentalization.
The human mind is a wondrous thing, quite capable of closing the logic gate around assumed facts which invalidate one another.
I'm inclined to look at Henry Ford here. The man was a raging anti-semite supporting a publication which kept pouring bile on jews for every perceived grievance in the world, who often spoke out in public against jewry.
At the same time he had nothing but the highest respect for the neighborhood rabbi to whom he tried, as a sign of respect, give one of his first cars and was baffled when the rabbi didn't want to accept it.
We live in a world where a person can end up being a fervent KKK-member eager and willing to do and cheer on violence against black people in the belief they are an irredeemable plague upon the white folk, while still holding his black work colleagues and neighbors in high regard.
That's just humanity for you. And one of the reasons why I believe the solution to the Fermi Paradox might be that any actually intelligent life out there must be very benevolent indeed if all they do is quarantine themselves from the shit-stain fuckup of the human race rather than drop a few shoemaker-levy's on the vermin lest it spread.
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Re: Terrorist
Even according to your definition, these people - or some of them at the very least - are terrorists.
Failed ones though.
Pipe bombs and molotov cocktails were found. Some of them had clearly expressed plans to kill Pence and some members of Congress. A noose was set up outside and zip-ties were brought in. That's a lot for people with no intention to kill.
I didn't even mention assault rifles and other guns because these are just standard equipment for right-wing nuts like them. They never go to a rally without heavy firearms, so it's difficult to distinguish when they actually intend to use them. They even had less than I expected. Every thing else above clearly expresses murderous intent.
If that doesn't fall under "terrorism", what does?
Also, the right wing has had a way more liberal use of the word than we do here. They called people "terrorists" for peacefully assembling, expressing disagreement with a republican elected official, or filing too many perfectly legal FOIA requests.
We call people terrorists when they use or threaten violence on people they disagree with politically.
Who is abusing the word here?
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Failed terrorism
Yes, a lot of evidence has emerged since I wrote my first objection to the word, above.
I still don't like the word, as we really like to use Terrorist to mean anyone the administration doesn't like (for instance applied to asylum seekers approaching the Mexican-American border, and protestors in Portland).
But I will concur in this case there were evident terrorists within the crowd that stormed the US Capitol on January 6th.
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Re: FAKE HEADLINE AND SLANDER OF PATRIOTS WANTING THEIR VOICES H
Only voice is you are hearing is in your head..
FAKE?
LOL
SLANDER?
LMFAO
SLANDER OF PATRIOTS?
ROTFLMAO!
You are a pathetic TRUMPTARD!
Be nice when MAGA terroists get fucked and burned like any other Terroists that deserve it.
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Re: Failed terrorism
"I still don't like the word, as we really like to use Terrorist to mean anyone the administration doesn't like (for instance applied to asylum seekers approaching the Mexican-American border, and protestors in Portland)."
The bigger problem is the desperation the other way to pretend that other people are not terrorists. Whenever you have a case where some right-wing extremist commits a terrorist act, people fall over themselves to try and redefine it as something else.
Either way, while the word is definitely misused a lot, it fits perfectly here. Like "fascist" and "Nazi", just because a word is misused, you can't ignore the disturbing cases where they actually apply. Especially in these recent events, where all three words are sadly highly appropriate.
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pretending people are not terrorists
Someone who kills people is murderer.
Someone who assaults people† enough to injure them is an attempted murderer.
Someone who does property damage is a vandal.
If that damage involves fire or explosions, he's an arsonist.
Someone who does property damage that halts important processes is a saboteur.
I'm pretty sure all these classifications are actionable by the justice system even before we decide what they did was terrorism.
So yeah, I get it, but I'm still pretty sure that we'd be safe by deciding killing civilians was the threshold.
† This always bothered me about Batman who routinely beats people up (thugs at that) within an inch of their lives and failing to render first aid. The only reason he sustains a code against killing with a record like that is author appeal. In reality, some folk would die after a Batman-beating. And Batman would have do deal with both emotional and legal consequences for their death.
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Re: pretending people are not terrorists
"This always bothered me about Batman who routinely beats people up (thugs at that) within an inch of their lives and failing to render first aid. The only reason he sustains a code against killing with a record like that is author appeal."
Reminds me of a novel where the protagonist attempts to explain Batman to an alien with the words "We have this warrior myth about a hero who dresses like a bat and punches poor people.."
On which the response is, very reasonably; "That sounds like a terrible myth".
One of the major problem about superhero comics is that they never accurately portray the factual outcome of hitting a person hard enough to render them unconscious from blunt trauma, not even going into how often an actually super-powered individual would be maiming people by putting 0,05% of their strength into the back slap or hug rather than the 0,001% which would could as a gentle tap from a gorilla.
"I'm pretty sure all these classifications are actionable by the justice system even before we decide what they did was terrorism."
The real use of the "terrorism" classification is that it can often apply even if no other law does, or turn what ought to have been vandalism with a fine or a few months of jail into a '20 to life with no parole' experience.
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Re: pretending people are not terrorists
I’d be willing to accept “terroristic intent” as an aggravating factor/sentence enhancer when it comes to sentencing people for a crime committed (as long as it’s well defined and a significant number of criminal acts would be convictable without proving terroristic intent), but I don’t see why we need “terrorist actions” or “terroristic intent” to be a crime in itself.
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No wasn't a real coup attempt.
Overall they had about zero chance of an insurrectionary success. Hitler's 1923 Beer Hall Putsch was more successful. Hitler was shot by the police, went into hiding and arrested two days later for treason. The Reichstag fire wasn't until 1933. For a real coup to be possible there would need to be a reason to end the two capitalist party charade. Like massive nationwide strikes threatening capitalist power or an independent labor party contesting for state power.
My bet is heads will role among the capital police for such a miscalculation of a violent attack upon the Congress. My bet is that the Congresspeople, Senators. and VP Pence were never in any real danger. They have a special underground shelter reserved for a possible military or terror attack on Washington DC.
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Transcript of Trump’s speech
“Transcript of Trump’s speech at rally before US Capitol riot”, Associated Press, Jan 13, 2021
(Archived copy.)
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