A recently released Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) document titled “Domestic Terrorism Symbols Guide”* links common protest symbols to “terrorism” — another marker in a common theme of conflating militant protest for social justice with deadly terrorist violence within the United States. Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Brennan Center have raised warnings about such documents, citing inadequate protections for people’s constitutional rights.
I refuse to believe those groups are terrorist organizations because the CIA has never armed them.
Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if there were syops to radicalize anti-fascist groups to make them less appealing to the masses.
This is essentially my pet conspiracy theory about Alex Jones. He was a plant by the CIA, to make all conspiracy theorists look absolutely batshit crazy. By having him peddle the extreme theories right alongside the “these are a little too close to reality, and the people are getting dangerously close to figuring it out” theories, they’re able to discredit those accurate theories. Because now they don’t need to attack the individual theory; They can just attack the face of conspiracy theories.
Anti-fascists aren’t conspiracy theorists, though, they’re just people who oppose fascism.
Which is funny
I’m now a violent extremist because I am anti-facism.
But are you willing to fight for it? Maybe take up arms, defend your friends and neighbors, or even travel the world to resist fascism wherever it arises?
Labeling antifascism as violent extremism isn’t new, it’s a way that Americans were punished for fighting fascists in other countries before we went to war with them like in Spain.
You better believe it. If I don’t defend my friends and neighbors when they need it, who will defend me when I need it?
Anti-fascists aren’t a single thing.
What utter monsters. /s
I prefer udder monsters.
Kinky.
Only if they get bent at too sharp an angle.
I feel like that conspiracy is too smart for the CIA. Remember this is the same organization that regularly had employees secretly drugging each others coffee with LSD so much that it became common place around the office. And also tried to convince communists in the Philippines that vampires where real despite Philippine culture/mythology not having vampires.
I feel like that conspiracy is too smart for the CIA
That’s exactly what they want you to think!
See I believe that for 20th century conspiracy theorists. I fully suspect there was an effort to combine aliens, government mind control (and what would eventually be revealed as MK ULTRA), the remnants of the protocols of the elders of Zion and other similar conspiracy theories, COINTELPRO, and other things all together by the FBI. It’s part of COINTELPRO style tactics. Make them sound ridiculous and drive them so far to the extreme they’re hard to listen to.
That said Alex Jones seems pretty much an unintended consequence of all the conspiratorial milieu
The alien thing is especially bad.
This guy - Paul Bennewitz - was a radio operator in WWII and opened a radio repair shop near an Air Force base. He picked up some encrypted signals from the base and went public with them, claiming they were from aliens.
The Air Force decided this was a great cover story, and teased him with information including sending “Men in Black” to look for him, until he was convinced. He got so convinced he became a paranoid schizophrenic, and died in a mental institution not tool long ago.
All of that alien sci fi stuff has its origin with this poor man. The X Files, two Will Smith movies, and everything in that oeuvre including the excellent Resident Alien, all have their roots in the mental abuse my government perpetrated on this poor, curious man.
This is literally on one of those declassified 3-letter agency docs. Dunno about Alex Jones but they do shit like this.
Oooh, I’ve noticed this, too. That there are some ‘conspiracies’ that are / could be true, but if you talk about them to anyone you are instantly one of the crazies. They have weponised the stupid.
Alex Jones says the same thing the FBI does about antifascists. He edges for violence daily, and is using radical christianity to do so. He is absolutely not a plant; he is the face of radical christofascist terrorism. It doesnt matter if he’s serious or not; it doesnt matter that he’s just bilking listeners for money… The fact is that he is a terrorist leader and agitator and should be arrested or executed. If the FBI hasnt done so then we know where their allegiances lie.
Umm , why’s it gotta be execution tho?
Putting him in prison and taking away his business/ dissolving it and taking away his assets should be enough. There’s no reason for two wrongs when You’re trying to go for justice ⚖️ / just society.
Eye for an eye never got us no where ( xept sometimes)
I did say either/or. I am fine with taking all his assetts and doing both.
Yet…have yet to arm them you mean…or they have and we won’t know for 50 years.
All I know is I’m still waiting on my check
According to highly credible german far right Qanon followers german antifascists get paid 600€ (656,15$) per demo they visit. They also get 20€ (21,87$) per sticker they spread. I demand the same payment for any antifascist worldwide! International Solidarity!
Wait. Why the fuck am I still paying for my own guns and ammo?
Somehow I feel like selling the future short is a bad idea
Someone at the Pentagon just had PTSD flashbacks to that time they armed Castro because of this comment
So, being pro-democracy means you are a Violent Extremist?
It does to the people trying to burn that democracy to the ground.
Who are also employed all throughout our government and police forces.
Bbbbbbbut the REAL Americans only vote for OUR people. -Corpratists that don’t realize that’s what they are.
I have no idea what point you’re trying to prove, but I’m certain you’re mistaken.
Sometimes yes. Authoritarians sometimes refuse to cede without violence. The FBI appears to have taken that position
Being violent doesn’t mean being an extremist, though. Especially if they are opposing authoritarians.
It depends on what the culture defines as acceptable politics. It’s so extreme that it’s an executable offense in some countries and has been so in our culture too. We have to fight to keep it from that
https://vault.fbi.gov/domestic-terrorism-symbols-guide/domestic-terrorism-symbols-guide-part-01/view
No.
The document lists symbols that violent extremists use, but explicitly calls out that not everyone who uses those symbols is a violent extremist.
The punisher skull is also in there, but that doesn’t mean they’re claiming every asshole with a punisher skull on their truck is a terrorist. Just that if someone with a punisher skull on their truck shoots up a mosque, that the punisher iconography is evidence that it was an act of right-wing militia terrorism.
Republicans, at CPAC, loud and clear: “We are all domestic terrorists”
The FBI: “But whatabout antifa?”
Let’s not forget these idiots failed so bad to keep to the country safe because all their friends are racist bigots that they were clueless and powerless to stop an attempted violent overthrow of the US government that was planned PUBLICLY on Facebook by all their friends who they just hand wave off as “oh gary is nice, he just doesn’t like black people but he loves America so he is a good guy”.
Literally, what the hell else is the FBI for?
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The traitors are on the inside, prepare accordingly
Excuses to label you as a criminal so their overreach is justified.
Talk about double speak, being against fascists and racists means you’re terrorist now, LMAO.
FBI has long since been relabeled as the face of the cia, nsa and are the gen pop wranglers.
Call this shit the fuck out for what it is, an attack against Americans of ALL political backgrounds. This is a unified issue, they might only be banging on your neighbors door but you are next.
Yup, it’s setting up a legal framework that allows them to designate anyone that ruffles feathers or speaks out as a violent extremist, and haul them off without much recourse (it’s worth noting that if you’re arrested on terrorism charges, your rights are automatically suspended).
Isn’t that unconstitutional to take away human rights for any reason?
I too am curious on the legal basis for the rights forfeiture.
Unfortunately, the face-eating leopard party is not generally concerned with their own faces, so long as people-they-hate’s faces are being eaten too.
“Anti-fa” literally means anti-fascist. The allies storming the beaches of Normandy were “anti-fa.” The only thing “anti-fa” wants these days is for cops to stop murdering them. Needless to say, I support that position.
Some idiot put that in the list for purely political reasons.
It’s easy to hate antifa if you’re fa.
Names are meaningless. The allies were fighting the “National Socialists”, who weren’t Socialists. Likewise, “Defund the Police” movement members need not actually support defunding the police - supporting lowering their funding without lowering it to zero still qualifies.
“Defund the Police” movement members need not actually support defunding the police - supporting lowering their funding without lowering it to zero still qualifies.
I swear this was the worst slogan in the history of all of slogans, and it did irreparable harm to the reform movement.
and it did irreparable harm to the reform movement.
No. The reform movement did it all by themselves.
You are both correct.
Part of me loves that they kept the title, because it’s so easy to ask very brief questions to get the word’s user to start blubbering.
“Anti-what? They’re against ‘fa’? Oh, what is that short for? What idea are these people opposing? Tell me.”
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LOL at all the downvotes for saying that fascism is bad. The Western world is totally screwed.
Yet when the Gadsen flag was put in the same leaflet there wasn’t any commenting on political reasons
No, it’s important to separate ideology from actions. Most, and all reasonable, would agree that fascism is bad. Most people are anti-fascist as is morally right and just.
The novel group of activists that call themselves Antifa have performed inexcusable, terrorist actions in the name of the movement and perverted it’s noble goals. Fascism is bad, as are those that make misguided and foolish mistakes that harm innocents in the name of righteousness.
Antifa have performed inexcusable, terrorist actions in the name of the movement
Name one. And before you say it, no, looting after a protest goes south isn’t an act of terror.
The novel group of activists that call themselves Antifa
Can you name any members of this group or share a news story of any action they have been a part of?
No, it’s important to separate ideology from actions.
Which is something the FBI has chosen not to do by calling the symbols of the ideology terrorist symbols instead of calling out any particular organizations that are doing anything actually criminal.
Antifa is not an organization, so if someone is labeling protest symbols as terrorism, we know where their loyalties lie. (hint: they don’t want freedom of speech, they want to suppress the ideology).
There are actual terrorist organizations operating in the United States that the FBI is actually choosing to turn a blind eye to because they’re afraid of the political ramifications of actually enforcing the law. Donald Trump is public enemy number one and protected only because the federal judiciary is too scared, the legislature too stupid and the executive too lazy to do anything about it.
Oh look… a confused fascist!
Your first half was good, but impugning terrorist actions on them wasn’t the way to go.
I do agree though: setting fire to courthouses, or creating an environment of lawlessness that guarantees small mom and pop businesses get looted is also not a winning cause. Protesting and counter-protesting where normal operations can continue is essential. The moment you start fucking with people’s day-to-day is where you lost.
Isn’t protest supposed to make things inconvenient for people and to make them uncomfortable? I agree that local small businesses should not be wrecked because that just makes you the bad guy, but if people are able to go about their day without having to make any adjustments, then is the message being properly conveyed?
Exactly, that’s literally the point of protesting. To inconvenience people and make them aware of the issues. And to show those in power that you’re not just going to go away if they ignore you. “Peaceful” protests are the show of force in the same way that worker strikes are the compromise workers and bosses agreed to to voice issues instead of going straight to dragging the bosses out of the factory and beating them to death in the streets.
The same things they’re saying today about protesters are the exact same things they said about MLK and the Civil Rights Movement. The hand-wringing about protesting “the right way” has always been about making it easy to sweep the issues under the rug. And that’s not even getting into the number of times stuff like undercover cops were found attempting to instigate violence during Anti-Fa protests so they could justify using violence against the protesters.
The Million Man March on Washington wasn’t a “peaceful protest,” it was a statement. It disrupted the entire city and made white people across the country afraid. Because if black people could assemble a million people to “peacefully” march across the city, disrupting the entire life of the city, what would they be willing and capable of doing if things got worse?
Even Gandhi has been misunderstood on this subject. I see people cite him very vaguely as a way of trying to get people to “quiet down and be peaceful (obedient and subservient)” but Gandhi, while non-violent, didn’t avoid confrontation. He just didn’t use violence to achieve it. He absolutely had an end goal of change, and did not accept the law as a barrier to achieve it.
We don’t have to accept war for change, but we often have to accept some form of confrontation.
This is just another reason why the left continues to lose the working class. Poor working people are not going to react well when you are fucking with their livelihoods. I’ve seen it first hand as a union organizer.
If there is something fascists really hate are peaceful protests, in fact peaceful protests have better impact into society than violent protests and they don’t give any reason to the fascists in turn to use violence and backup behind that pretext. Fascists love to push “legal” use of the force.
they don’t give any reason to the fascists in turn to use violence
Lol! You think fascists need an excuse to use violence?
They don’t but when it’s a matter of being better equiped in a protest usually the state have better chances.
There are ways to be smart about how you do it. I live in Portland and the way Antifa did it here was singularly successful at turning a majority of the city’s population against them and their cause.
And keep in mind that Portland is very much a left-leaning city who’s voters would otherwise have been quite sympathetic to the cause of police reform.
Make who uncomfortable though? Those you are protesting against? Ok sure maybe.
Other citizens that don’t have an interest/stake in the matter? Getting them involved isn’t wise.
Everybody. Getting the general populace that has no interest/stake in the matter involved is literally the point of protesting. The oppressor doesn’t care if you make a racket about the boot on your neck, they’re not going to lift their foot because you asked nicely.
But if you make enough noise that everybody has an opinion on it/gets involved, now they can’t just sweep it under the rug and wait until the oppressed run out of resources to keep up the protests.
Civil Rights didn’t get passed because a bunch of people handed out pamphlets or something, they got passed because a million people ground the entire city of Washington D.C. to a halt. They got passed because a black WW2 vet trained a militia in the Bible Belt to protect black kids and their families using sandbag emplacements and machine guns to keep them from getting killed by the KKK for daring to go to white kids’ schools. They got passed because several billions worth of property was burnt to the ground across the entire nation after MLK was assassinated. Years of protests got politicians to wring their hands. A week of burning cop cars and city districts had the bills drafted, voted on, and passed.
If you can’t get the attention of the people who don’t have an interest and at least attempt to change their minds, then you’ve failed. You may end up turning people against you, but I guess that’s a risk you need to take. Part of the point of protest is to bring injustice into light so people who haven’t been paying attention may finally do so.
Other citizens that don’t have an interest/stake in the matter?
You mean the people who don’t mind fascism?
LOL at this both sides copypasta.
Protests are nice to look at, but they paint free targets on everyone who participates. Conservatism/fascism has never been defeated by pacifism.
If you are motivated to resist fascism/conservatism, arm yourself and train appropriately. Take classes, join left-leaning gun clubs, survival groups and prepper classes. Exercise and learn to fight.
Conservatives have been prepping for years for a war they insist is necessary. They have decided you are their enemy. You cannot change that by protesting.
As a liberal gun owner, I agree.
I want a world without mass shootings.
But right now, the majority of mass shootings happen against the most vulnerable people. And the majority of hate crimes is happening because a bunch of fucktards are pushing violent messages. And the worst part is nobody in power really gives a shit.
When I was growing up in school there was only one mass shooting at the time and that was Columbine. Kids would drive to school with guns in their racks because they planned on hunting later. The notion to shoot people wasn’t even a consideration. What we have isn’t a gun issue, we have a mental health crisis like nothing we have seen before and we are far too unequipped to handle it. We need better mental health programs and ways for people to more easily use them from a young age.
The Columbine shooters did not use hunting guns. We have better access to mental health care than in the past. We also have greater access to more deadly guns. Countries with strong gun control do not have our problem with mass shootings. Implementing strong gun control has been proven to stop mass shootings. A lot of money has been spent by arms dealers to convince you the the problem is your fellow humans, and not the largely unregulated flow of machines of death supplied for capitalist profit.
Should we have better access to mental healthcare, and intervention programs? Sure. Funny, though, how the people insisting it’s all about mental illness and not about the gun profiteers also usually oppose any public spending on mental healthcare as well.
I mean the problem is my fellow human. AI hasn’t picked up a gun and shot up a school as far as I know.
I am for more efforts to provide mental health care for low income people’s and it should be free.
There are attempts at brain washing on both sides depending on the agenda.
I can agree that military style fire arms do not need to be in the hands of ordinary civilians that haven’t undergone training in weapon safety. I believe it should be required to have yearly training on weapon safety for all fire arms.
There are attempts at brain washing on both sides depending on the agenda.
The problem with this “both sides” bullshit is that leftist critique is nearly always targeted at systems, as opposed to reactionary ‘brainwashing’ is targeted at minorities
A “radical leftist” isn’t out to murder anyone, they’re out to disrupt the system. As far as I’m concerned, the problem is almost entirely a reactionary politics problem, not a problem of firearm training and not even one of mental health (though they are contributing factors(
Don’t conflate libratory movements with reactionary terrorism
I am honestly loving your take on the subject. It actually made me think a little about what you are saying and the fact you are very respectful in your wording is wonderful.
Can you explain reactionary brainwashing of minorities a bit further?
Many far leftists I have run into have been very controversial or just plain rude so having someone speak plainly and respectfully is a nice change of pace.
I find your lack of irony refreshing, too.
I’m confused by your question though, can you clarify your choice of using the word ‘of’ in the question “brainwashing of minorities”?
It’s so rare to run into a reactionary conservative that’s so curious about left-leaning politics, thank you for your curiosity
There are attempts at brain washing on both sides depending on the agenda.
Such as? Where is this (supposed) “leftist” brain-washing machine supposed to be at?
It often pops up in opinion pieces or news articles just like any other propaganda mean to influence your opinions.
Pretty much the entire rest of the world thinks that the US gun lobby is batshit insane. Have real been brainwashed?
The rest of the world can do whatever they want.
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” -Benjamin Franklin
Your glib response and cute little quote doesn’t actually answer the question I asked. Possibly because you don’t have a good answer
we have a gun issue and a mental health issue.
There are a LOT of people in America that own, or have easy access to fire arms, that shouldnt be allowed within 2 miles of one.
This is an inadequate summation I am afraid. Most of the world right now is experiencing a mental health crisis. A lot of the countries with similar populations and cultures to the US with primarily English speaking approximations - Australia, UK, Canada and the nordic nations… All of them are experiencing massive mental health and economic issues on a systemic level. There is something unique to the United States… The guns. Not just the lack of public safety measures to control guns but the culture of entitlement to weaponry and maintaining the fantasy of utilizing them against other humans in some sort of nebulous future extralegal event when some sort of universal concensus is reached that war is declared on the US government by it’s rag tag highly individualist citizenry.
Unfortunately you cannot divorce the mental health issue from the gun issue in the States but neither can you solve the issue without actually addressing that guns at that level of saturation are a nightmare that causes a unique presentation of crisis. Calling for it to be addressed strictly as a mental health issue will go no where… And it’s designed to go no where because as long as we are having this debate of whether it’s a gun or a mental health problem neither get addressed… And quite frankly there are simply not enough mental health professionals in the field to address that demand. The burnout rate is real amongst professionals.
There were also mass school shootings before Columbine. The Ecole’ Polytechnique massacre for instance in Canada had 22 victims in 1989 and was committed with a semi automatic weapon and it spurred a massive surge in gun regulation and restrictions for automatic weapons and maximum clip size capacity. The US is unique in that it is the only country to experience these mass shootings and yet refuse any wide ranging gun control reforms at a federal level in response.
The problem also spills over borders. 85 percent of weapons found to be used to commit crimes in Canada have been traced to purchases made in the US.
It is not a mental health crisis. At all. It is a radical fascist mediasphere crisis. Centrists have constantky defended the right of radical fascists to spend all day on the airwaves edging the audience to kill for their sponsors.
I actually agree with what you are saying, but I don’t believe it’s so black and white. I also believe the media realized the profits in outrage and terror so that’s why we are constantly hammered with it… which is likely a contributing factor in mental health issues of the country/world.
Columbine was one of the biggest ones ever at the time and a media field day, but definitely not the only school shootings around that time.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States_(before_2000)
It was the only one I was aware of so I do apologize for my ignorance. I appreciate your candor in the conversation at hand.
The media is a for profit organization that feeds on misinformation, half truths, lies, or propaganda. Reagan did the country a disservice removing the the Fairness Doctrine.
I’d say most of the issues of modern US stem from Reagan era decision making. The us-vs-them mentality took a wild turn from there forward.
Truth
Why does this only happen in the US? The whole world is having mental health issues?
Mass killings don’t only happen in the US. The middle east they use bombs, missiles, and guns. If someone wants to accomplish something they will find a means. Guns are just a tool like any other thing. You can harm just as many people with a nail gun, a knife, a bomb, acid, or fire. Anything can be a weapon in the wrong hands.
I do believe there are definitely people who shouldn’t have a gun but they are typically mentally unstable.
As for assault rifles. I believe that only prior military should be able to poses them since they more than likely have had extensive safety training.
Edit: I also believe that instead of glorifying mass shootings we should mock and demean the person. Too many people have it in their head that they will go down in history for such and act.
Sure. Mass killings occur everywhere but no where with the frequency that they do in the US. Middle east bombs is a terrible comparison though,. Those are acts of war not individuals picking up weapons and going on a rampage. No less awful for that, but not the topic under discussion. You didn’t answer my question. Mental health issues are everywhere in the world. Only the US is racking up mass shootings quicker than days of the year. If it were just mental health, why doesn’t the rest of the world show the same effects?
Apartheid in South Africa was solved politically. The Troubles in Northern Ireland were solved politically. The Berlin wall collapsed and the Cold War ended without violence.
Nelson Mandela was accused of being a terrorist because he was one. The ANC mostly killed civilians, “civilians” that just so happened to be key figures in apartheid politics (well, that was their goal, anyways, and it worked well enough)
Also, just how myopic do you have to be to point to the collapse as the Soviet Union as being “solved politically” while ignoring several decades of proxy wars and an attempted coup?
Shit, it didn’t even resolve that well other than independence for the satellite states, it just left Putin in charge in the end to get a million people killed himself.
Yeah and Northern Ireland involved lots of actual terrorism as well. I didn’t claim these were good people. I didn’t claim the results were a perfect world.
The point is the violence, or the threat of violence, is what forced people to negotiate in the first place.
I don’t disagree. The post I was actually responding to implied that protesting was useless and that fascism can only effectively be resisted with guns. THAT is the point I’m responding to.
Apartheid in South Africa was solved politically.
Bullshit. The Apartheid-regime would never have been ended if it wasn’t for it’s military defeat in Angola and the (extremely violent) uprising in South Africa itself.
The Troubles in Northern Ireland were solved politically.
Bullcrap. If it wasn’t for the IRA, Ireland would still be England’s doormat.
The Berlin wall collapsed and the Cold War ended without violence.
The (so-called) “Cold War” never ended… the US just switched to new pretexts to wage war on the 3rd world.
It required both violence and politics to end Apartheid and the Troubles. Politics and nonviolent actions have always used some degree of violence to be successful. Even with famous nonviolent successes like the American Civil Rights movement and Indian independence movements, the potential of the movements to become violent played a large role.
Gandhi and MLK Jr were dedicated to nonviolence in the formation of their movements. Their nonviolent nature allowed them to become large and organized. Afterall, it’s hard to crush a nonviolent movement once it gains momentum. If the members stop believing that nonviolence can bear fruit, some will probably turn to violence. The goal of nonviolent movements is to change laws, constructions that require enforcement through violence.
War is diplomacy when all other means have failed. The same is true for revolution and resistance id say.
Violence isn’t the only resort. It’s the last one. And often unnecessary. Though not always.
“War is the continuation of policy with other means.”
-Carl von Clausewitz
Can we name the resistance Rainbow Riot?
Pride boys?
I like that one, too. Maybe East Coast and West Coast factions?
hehehehehehehehehe
that would piss em off even more
The Allies
I’m not clear on what situation I’m supposed to anticipate in which shooting people is the preferred resolution.
I hear they call it the “boogaloo.”
[Sarcasm] Don’t worry, though, there are plenty of minorities to sacrifice to appease them. [Very sarcasm with extra pointyness] If you just throw us all into a meat grinder for their amusement they’ll surely never do anything bad!
Voting is a better means of enacting change than protesting. If ethnonationalists control government and you try to actively resist then you get crushed. If liberal-progressives control government and they resist then they get crushed. Defend yourself to the fullest extent if the law but voting is more important than protesting. If the excrement hits the rotating assembly of air moving blades then you want those sympathetic to your ideals at the wheel not those hostile to your ideals. The three most important things in real estate is location, location, location and the three most important things in representative government is vote, vote, vote.
Voting has not worked. At all.
You can make the argument that it maybe hasn’t worked enough but it’s just intellectually dishonest to say it hasn’t worked at all. If it didn’t work at all then we would have made zero progress - EVER. Yesterday this article was published about how a school board was flipped after Republicans started banning books. The only reason voting doesn’t work is because not enough people are doing it.
It has worked great for the fascists. Maybe more non-fascists should try it.
A big point of peaceful protesting is influencing elected officials and swaying voters. Voting and protesting to help are not either or. Don’t just vote, and don’t avoid voting.
Both are misguided views that help no one but fascists and naive accelerationists who have similar hero fantasies to race war nazis. Doing violence yourself isn’t fun, and non violent actions like voting or protesting work better the more free and democratic a society is.
The US requires more than a simple majority to enact positive changes through voting, even when there is simple majority rule on paper. Voter disenfranchisement, gerrymandering, and informational manipulation keeps our democracy from working in the best interests of the majority of people. In order for change that goes against the interests of the ruling class to happen, you need much higher margins of support. Fascists only need a big enough minority to win because of how they’ve rigged the system against the poor and minoritized members of society.
Even in the most progressive states, where gerrymandering and voter disenfranchisement are the lowest, the wealthy convince people to not vote in their best interests. Democratic candidates court the wealthy before trying to get support from the poor, because wealthy voters are more reliable and can give more campaign donations.
The conservative Dems have an advantage over the left, because leftists have developed learned helplessness with regards to electoral politics. They’ve lost so many times because of previously described efforts by the ruling class, that they have no belief in our current democracy, resulting in a self fulfilling prophecy.
Downvoted by 22 doormats so far
Each side has labeled the other as the enemy, it isn’t just conservatives. It’s just a way for the people in power to make the citizens waste their energy on each other rather than focus on the real enemy. Both the right and the left are just tools to sperate everyone. If the citizens are fighting each other then who’s going to fight the corruption in our government?
BoTh SiDeS
More enlightened centrism bullshit. Then difference is that one side wants people dead for who they were born as.
… and they have sponsored talk shows to promote that violence against people born that way
And the reality is that there really aren’t these nicely defined “sides” for the majority of people… but there is definitely large groups of people who chose their “team”
Well put
This dialogue between the two of you is idiotic. One side is calling for the end of democracy. They are calling for violence against judges and election workers. They tried to steal a term of the presidency that they knew they lost.
How can you be so stupid as to say that is conparable? That these are just two different teams, playing the same sport, sometimes one team wins, sometimes the other team wins? Right now, aside from the aforementioned treason, one “team” wants to ban abortion, gay marriage, I terracial marriage, sodomy, and porn, and then they want to eliminate gay people, trans people, immigrants, and other minorities. That’s a different game altogether from a “team” that wants universal healthcare and a fair top marginal tax rate on the richest Americans. Go fuck yourself.
I think people who think as you do have small lizard brains. You think like that in terms of teams, and so you think that’s how politics are for other people as well. It’s not like that for me. My ideas are my own. Arrived at through years of education and experience, tested with science and debate, peer review.
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I deleted the last comment since I mixed you up with another name.
You are doing just as I said. Defining sides and creating teams. If you really want to get into this, I will. But can we at least talk about the conversation myself and another person had that you called idiotic, rather than copy/paste internet sentences? It’s always the same and doesn’t even line up with what we were talking about.
Unless you are a troll/bot/or something … since your final paragraph really has me questioning.
I’m a real human person.
Unfortunately for the over emotional people that drive their personalities from their side tend to devolve into name calling. Those people typically aren’t worth talking too. I hope the best for you.
I could say that for both sides too. Make one conversation with someone on the left about a different view and someone will call you stupid and someone will dm you to kill yourself. Same story.
I’m trans. I was happy to view those on the right as “just people who I disagree with”…until they started pushing to eliminate people like me.
Eliminate? Like kill? Because I have talked to many Republicans about these issues and they have stated time and again it is either a god issue (which I don’t agree with) or it’s a mental health issue. Never have I spoken to one and they say we need a cleansing or something along those lines.
Familiarize yourself or stop making bad faith arguments.
This reads as satire but knowing fanatics it probably isn’t. If this website is legitimate then some people are deluded. However, this one website does not speak for half a nation. It’s more of a sect of delusional people. Delusions of grandeur are still delusions.
Unfortunately trans people are in the early stages of being targeted with genocidal intent. Scary times for us.
Unfortunately it’s similar to the times when homosexuality was targeted.
This is quite literally the website that Trump is holding up as his plan if he wins in 2024. So while you’re right, it doesn’t speak for half the nation. It does speak for what could be the people running the country see as their goals though.
Interesting, thank you for bringing this to me. I appreciate the information.
You’re the guy sitting at the Nazi bar.
Interesting and why is that? What is your reasoning? How did you come to this conclusion?
As a biracial man I feel I would not be accepted into such a bar.
I would like to know your methods of deduction if there are any.
Yes. And I don’t care about how people who support Republicans justify their votes or why they’re voting that way. At the end of the day, the Republican Party is pushing to commit genocide against the trans community. It’s like saying “I don’t support murdering the Jews, but the Nazi party is so good for the economy”. It doesn’t matter WHY you support them.
FWIW, the east way to find the genocide is to look for people who support banning gender-affirming care. It would be the equivalent of banning antidepressants for people diagnosed with depression.
Start with the talk show hosts who promote this shit
The media is to blame in part for sure. However I have noticed that people do not use critical thinking for themselves and take the information as gospel rather than an opinion. Through this inability to parse the information provided themselves they become a weapon of misinformation that typically will shout you down or threaten you.
Right. Like I said: start with the talk show hosts who promote this shit.
I partially agree with you, but also with the rest here. Yes, as people, we should be united fighting against the elites which don’t let us live the life we deserve (because we are receiving less than we should considering our productivity, and because many problems can be solved already). We are all on a planet that we need to save, even if only for selfish reasons. We should be together. But the elites have seized the opportunity to divide us with ideologies such as economics, identity politics, etc. If they need an unfair war against a country to exploit it and extract its resources, they’ll say it’s about patriotism or security or something like that, and many people will believe it and support it. Just look how divided we are about current affairs.
The left usually goes against these interests. Thus the red scare, the fake leftists that only makes us look bad, etc. They need to disband the left, and they have an army willing to do so for free. Here’s where these opinions enter. As long as an elite, yes, but also all their supporters go against us and against basic ethical principles, we cannot sit and say: “people, do not trivialize wars on social media, it is not nice”, “oil is cool, but saving the planet is cooler”, etc.
I believe in stronger actions, for example, the sabotage people are doing against the shipping of weapons that are meant to kill civilians in Palestine or the blockages against deep sea mining. These are actions that can save lives without actually hurting others as the economical damages are not going against individuals but big institutions that can manage the losses.
I also believe in dialogue. I actually dislike how we stop listening to each other as leftists: how moderate, often liberal-leaning leftists censor radical leftists such as marxist-leninists (“tankies”) or gender critical feminists (“TERFs”), without listening to them. No, they do not necessarily promote hate and they have valid points that may need further exploration. That said, I believe in the censorship of hate speech, explicit hate speech like the videos circulating about how others deserve to die or deserve to suffer. That’s unacceptable, no matter the group of people you are talking about. Indeed! If we say that we need to kill white supremacists, it is no better than them saying they need to cleanse the population. Still, we need to keep their hate and all hate out of the normal discourse and we need to defend ourselves in case others turn to violence.
In a nutshell, it’s about defending the wellbeing of beings in the most peaceful and civil way possible. It is about defending ourselves while doing that, because the people in power and their supporters won’t often like it.
Do you want a crude example? Read about the people defending the wild life in Mexico. Politicians and organized crime want to profit off those lands. They rob lands from people, often indigenous people; they get into illegal or non-sustainable logging; they enlarge the black markets, hurting and endangering populations; they transform regions, affecting the whole ecosystem. There are people, usually biologists, who warn against this and dedicate their lives to the protection of the forests, rain forests, etc. They end up dead. It is very dangerous to protect the monarch butterflies, the wolves, the big cats… Isn’t that ridiculous and terribly sad?
This is how it has been for a long time. Speak words of freedom in the kingdom and you might lose your head. Stop the machines and they’ll justify killing you. I mean, read Lord Byron’s defense of the luddites and then think about how they dismissed it…
Personally, I do not see rightists as my enemies, I see them as people tragically going against others’ and their own interests. The ones that are in power are blinded by it, and the ones that only follow are blinded by hope: “Someday I’ll be rich, if only I defend the status quo a little longer”.
My personal enemies are the horrid ideas, feelings, and values that accompany most of these acts I disapprove of. Selfishness, vanity, etc. Some people, many people (I am no exception), naturally tend to them in varying degrees, and I can only feel disappointment for the number of people that embrace them. That leads me to my secondary enemies, the things that make people do not defy them. Cowardice, apathy, dogmatism, etc.
Edit: And I do not have final answers. I do not know if we are in need of a revolution, a reform, an extinction, time… I know very little.
I am very sorry you got caught in one of my rambling, ranting comments. My point is that it is not a situation in which two sides are equally wrong, but a bunch of the population that sides with the tyrants you yourself allude to in your comment. People who still deserve our respect; that respect doesn’t mean passivity when they actively affect others.
You are absolutely right and we need to fight against corruption and many other things, and that’s why I consider myself a leftist: you name it whatever you like. These are my attempts at rationality and correctness, and, while I might be a minority in the details, I know I am in good company in the broader ideals. Many of us disagree in a very trivial way… Sorry, and thank you for reading this far.
Your frustration is heard and accepted. I do not judge those who do not seek judgement but release from the thoughts swirling in the head which can no longer be contained.
A rant is just those feelings and thoughts we keep to ourselves far to long. Words bursting to escape and emotion longing for release. A longing for someone to listen and to have another understand and accept them.
Radical Centrism wins again
Oh no, what will we do if the FBI targets left-wing activists for insane reasons? They might give the J. Edgar Hoover Building a bad name.
And this is why we need to break the current command chain in domestic and foreign intelligence, we never actually banished the ghosts of the Kissinger days, just let them pick less noticeable successors that still hold the same basic world view.
The American public have no say this stuff either, by design, because “America’s security interests” as determined by the military industrial complex are what really drive the nation’s politics and foreign policy. Obviously antifascism is antiAmerican, because fascist governments enable private American companies to extract their resources, and antiracism is a threat under an economic system that invented the very notion of race and is inherently racist.
Just wait for them to finally admit workers rights is finally anti capitalist.
Workers rights?! But that’s completely fascist / terrorist like type of thing ain’t it?
No Ma’am! what’s next human rights? We’d be communist over night, I tell ya!
/S
I suggest getting into the world of OSINT. There’s a lot that can be learned there, and many sources are independent of any government.
Any beginner’s guides you’d recommend?
I don’t really have a guide anywhere, but there are a number of them on the web. One of the OSINT powerhouses is BellingCat. They make finished products. There’s https://liveuamap.com/en for a map on the RU/UA war. Oryx is a good estimate for equipment losses there (I bet you can tell where my interests lie) I’d recommend getting to know some of these finished products first. That, and reading about the history of where you are looking at. Learning about the politics of Coal? Read some books about it. Get some perspectives. Want to know about the Isreal/Palestine conflict? Get to know the last 100 years of conflict since the Ottoman Empire fell
There’s a real big difference in bits and bites investigating and actual finished products. A lot of the tools out there are for getting these bits and bites like https://osintframework.com/. One can buy commercial satellite photos, but those are expensive. They’re usually already bought by people on Twitter anyway. Putting together products is the hard part though, and there are quite a few pitfalls that one can fall into between unreliable sources and deceptive imagery persuasion or DIP. Ryan McBeth is a great source to look at to help you spot this sort of thing.
“Eat the Rich” is now a symbol of extremism…
That is extremely funny and extremely stupid at the same time. Honestly, after both of those conflicting feelings wore off, I am left in a state of confusion.
I mean, I get it. Just because phrases or symbols are used in extremist movements doesn’t make the phrase or symbol exclusively extreme, with some exceptions. (Idiots will look at that “guidebook” and just leverage the FBI classification as a means to reinforce a bias, regardless of the context.)
For example, the Gadsden flag is a part of American history. However, it has also been hijacked for different causes. (I sarcastically see it in its original context as people still holding a grudge against the British, TBH.)
However, it has also been hijacked for different causes.
Another example is an American flag off the back of a pickup truck, usually a sign that the driver is a bigoted douchebag
Part of why I like redesigning the US flag, I feel like the left needs their own banner that can read patriotic while still sending a strong message.
Latest direction I’ve gone has been switching the stars and stripes to represent the 7 original articles of the constitution and the 27 amendments that have since passed.
The old flag represents America’s growth via manifest destiny, its growth as an empire via conquest, while this represents America’s growth as a democracy via reform and the expansion of rights.
For reference:
IMO any redesign will carry the same manifest destiny, imperialism/douchebag energy as the existing one.
I have nothing against the British, but I have a Gadsden flag sticker on the back of one of my bikes because it says “no step on snek.” I dunno, I thought not stepping on the snek was always a pretty wise strategy.
That’s what the sneks want you to think.
Here we go, Big Snek got us again.
I am wearing my “no step on snek” tee-shirt right now, actually. It’s a great strategy to prevent a trip to the hospital, and I just wear the shirt for “snake awareness” reasons.
However, the “no step on snek” stickers and such are awesome. I see it as a clear jab at how some people grossly misunderstand history and any associated symbols. Meh. You can’t always fix “stupid” but you can always make fun of it.
This is my favorite take on that flag.
I’m sad this isn’t the “please step on me” variant
For example, the Gadsden flag is a part of American history. However, it has also been hijacked
And here are some of my favourite versions to mock those it’s now mostly associated with:
Now all of a sudden Aerosmith has gone woke!!
Explains why they coddle white Trump terrorists
it explains a whole lot.
I mean we shouldn’t be surprised, FBI never has had an interest in these so called “civil-rights”
Because they are on their side.
What would non-coddling look like? Straight up executions?
Hm, I wonder where in my sentence I suggested a sentence exactly like that.
On average, most have received under the recommended sentencing time with rare exceptions. Often, people spend more time in prison (5 years) for merely possessing weed considering this was an attempt to overthrow an entire country’s democracy.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/01/06/jan6-capitol-riot-sentencings/
“Judges have gone below prosecutors’ recommendations three-quarters of time, and below federal sentencing guidelines a little less than 40 percent.”
"Judges have been left to determine whether jail time is appropriate; in many instances, they are issuing combo-platter sentences with a variety of punishments, ranging from fines to home confinement to counseling. Nevertheless, there are some emerging themes: More than half of those charged with misdemeanors have, according to Tillman, “received sentences that were lighter than what the government recommended as far as loss of liberty.”
Oh… so the secret police of a fundamentally white supremacist empire that funds and enables fascist terrorism all over the damn planet doesn’t like anti-fascists and anti-racists?
Gee… who coulda thunk it?
“Stop resisting!”
Often repeated by terrorists appealing to their body cameras.
So starwars is now considered terrorism propaganda, ok
The OKC bomber said nobody cared about the innocent people on the Death Star when Luke Skywalker blew it up, ergo, bombing a federal building is okay.
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There has always been a big disconnect between the USA’s fantasies of its values and its actual values.
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The idiots behind this shit really should have paid more attention in history class.
Oh, they paid plenty of attention. That’s the problem - they’re using it as an instruction manual.
Except the FBI also labels the entirety of MAGA as the same, so no, this isn’t what’s happening.
What’s happening is some of these groups are radicalizing and yes, that is indeed a bad thing.
Yes, the radical right is a problem but that doesn’t mean that the radical left isn’t one. Yes, right may be a bigger problem than left but that isn’t the point
The point is that radicalism is the bad thing here, whether it’s left or right. I’m tired of having discussions about why it’s actually ba bad thing to “kick a Nazi” as some people just don’t understand the obvious.
It’s not a bad thing to kick a Nazi
Some people just don’t understand the obvious
