Domestic Terrorism, Fascism (4)

#147 in thread 3, Trump Ohio rally

Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D @RVAwonk
...Behavioral Scientist. Postdoc at UMD. Studying mis/disinformation, cognitive security, mediated communication, & crises.

Re. Last night’s #TrumpRally: While often taking on the appearance of entertainment, rallies actually serve an incredibly important purpose in fascist movements, and we’d be wise not to write them off as a sideshow that can be ignored. 1/

Trump’s supporters don’t go to his rallies to be lied to; they go to participate in the process of co-creating a false reality that relies on social proof to survive. It’s a performance in which they must all take part — a collective reshaping of reality. A partnership. 2/

The purpose of Trump’s style of authoritarian propaganda is not just to deceive people — it’s to articulate and reinforce what the crowd already believes to be true, and to encourage individuals to unify around this false reality and make it their own. 3/

Last night’s rally ticked a lot of boxes on the fascism checklist:

-Talk of an “invasion” of foreigners
-Warning that “sicko leftists” are “indoctrinating” and “destroying our youth”
-Fear-mongering about “skyrocketing” crime
-Denying the legitimacy of political opponents 5/
-Turning political rivals into enemies and existential threats to be destroyed
-Seizing upon the collective fears & anxieties of the crowd, then transforming them into mass disdain for immigrants, trans folks, leftists, & others. 6/
-Denying the legitimacy of elections
-Portraying the US as a crime-ridden, immoral nation in decline — and offering himself as the only one who can save it.
-Attacking the press as the “enemy of the people” 7/
-Attacking the FBI, the DOJ, the J6 Committee, and other institutions designed to hold power accountable.
-Attacking our public education system
-Claiming that Democrats “hate America” and want to “destroy it” 8/

The propaganda at last night’s #TrumpRally wasn’t new. We’ve heard it many times before — often, verbatim. Here’s just one example.

The repetition is purposeful. Both for cognitive effects & cultural meaning — like the retelling of ancient myths about 5-headed monsters. 9/
{~ Biden done more damage than 5 prez }
Newsmax ( https://twitter.com/RVAwonk/status/1571716367505555456/photo/1 )
SkyNews AU ( https://twitter.com/RVAwonk/status/1571716367505555456/photo/2 )
Real America News ( https://twitter.com/RVAwonk/status/1571716367505555456/photo/3 )
Apex World News { https://twitter.com/RVAwonk/status/1571716367505555456/photo/4 }

The repetition of these myths is aided by the well-oiled machinery of the right-wing media ecosystem, which functions like a hall of mirrors and helps legitimize the false reality. This is key to keeping people constantly engaged, mobilized, & immersed in the false reality. 10/

But that’s not all. While Trump is mobilizing the mob at rallies and the media is feeding them constant content to help shape & define their shared false reality, Trump’s allies & loyalists are also hard at work, each with a unique role to play in this assault on democracy. 11/

Gen. Michael Flynn is really commanding the show. With his “ReAwaken America Tour”, he’s creating a movement that is nothing short of QAnon 2.0, except with more Christian nationalism and a lot more money behind it. It’s an influence machine, and he knows how to drive it. 12/
Posters, photo
https://twitter.com/RVAwonk/status/1571716378419249155/photo/1
https://twitter.com/RVAwonk/status/1571716378419249155/photo/2
https://twitter.com/RVAwonk/status/1571716378419249155/photo/3
https://twitter.com/RVAwonk/status/1571716378419249155/photo/4

Steve Bannon and Roger Stone are two other major figures involved in the ReAwaken America Tour. Along w/ Flynn, they’re weaponizing sociocultural issues to craft a conspiratorial, apocalyptic narrative that wraps right-wing ideology in biblical language & imagery. 13/
Photos
https://twitter.com/RVAwonk/status/1571716386048671745/photo/1
https://twitter.com/RVAwonk/status/1571716386048671745/photo/2

There’s much more to say about this, and I’ll get to it soon, but the tldr is that these rallies are part of a sophisticated, multi-pronged attack on democracy that combines elements of Cambridge Analytica-style _targeting with QAnon-style participatory disinformation... 14/

…plus Christian nationalism and authoritarian fear-mongering & scapegoating. This is a huge coalition involving militias, churches, media, think tanks, nonprofits, celebrities, influencers, elected officials, local political parties, Trump loyalists, & more.

It’s a machine. 15/

They’re trying to sell fascism to America by inviting supporters to take part in the creation of a new national fiction. This isn’t just politicians lying to citizens — it’s an entire movement focused on shattering our shared reality & replacing it with their ideology. 16/

This is, in many ways, a high-stakes battle of narratives — and unfortunately, fascists are great storytellers. 17/

>1 margd: you still have to want to believe these lies and still have to want to belong to this movement. There is individual responsibility.

As well the greatest fear among many of the believers is that they will be kicked out of their little movement for not being able to pass all the ever more extreme right wing litmus tests. My take on Qanon is there is only so far that that can go. So many who are going to fall for all the crazy conspiracy theory shit. It's like Giuliani waving his papers (his so called evidence) around. He never shows it. They don't either. It's all innuendo and they never really reveal anything and it's also like the same game the end timer evangelists play that Jesus is right on his way and the rapture is right behind him or a spaceship to heaven. People who desperately want to believe in something.....anything. These really are fascists but at the same time it's a huckster show.

Time to resurrect my copy of the little book The True Believer.

"he is expected to make a full recovery"

Nancy Pelosi's husband was 'violently assaulted' during a home invasion, her office says
Rebecca Shabad | Oct. 28, 2022

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul Pelosi, was "violently assaulted" early Friday by an assailant who broke into their home in San Francisco, according to a statement from her office.

The suspect, who was taken into custody, attacked Paul Pelosi, 82, with a hammer, two people briefed on the incident told NBC News...

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/pelosis-husband-violently-assaulted-as...
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Michael Beschloss @BeschlossDC | 12:24 PM · Oct 28, 2022:
PRESIDENTS OF WAR, 9 other books. @NBCNews, Presidential Historian. Host, “Fireside History,” MSNBC on Peacock . PBS contributor.

So, from reports, an attacker with a hammer entered the Pelosi home, crying, "Where is Nancy?"

____________________________________

margd: Apparently, the Speaker was not at home. If she had been, there would have been security. As it was, there were just security cameras.
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ETA:

Jon Cooper @joncoopertweets | 1:50 PM · Oct 28, 2022:
Former National Finance Chair of Draft Biden, LI Campaign Chair for Barack Obama.

BREAKING: Paul Pelosi is undergoing brain surgery.

There is NO place for violence in our democracy. This horrible attack MUST be condemned by Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson, and Donald Trump NOW!
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MeidasTouch @MeidasTouch | 1:47 PM · Oct 28, 2022:
The suspect in the attack of Paul Pelosi has been confirmed to be a 42-year-old right-wing extremist who spread 2020 election conspiracy theories, COVID disinformation, and hatred of the Jan 6 committee.
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Peter Gleick 🇺🇸 @PeterGleick | 1:44 PM · Oct 28, 2022:
Climate, water, energy. Science communication. National Academy of Sciences. MacArthur Fellow. Birds. Mandolin. 2018 Carl Sagan Prize.

The Speaker of the House is second in line of succession, after the Vice President.
A GOP terrorist just tried to assassinate her.

Biden cannot bring down the temperature of the political discourse because the MAGA cult members do not believe he is actually America's 46th president.

Is the hammer attacker going to become another Kyle-Rittenhouse-type hero for the MAGA cult??? Today's FOX News discussions lead me to believe that type of an outcome is a possibility.

Notecards of JFK’s last words, written for end of speech he planned to give at Austin, Texas, banquet on the evening of November 22, 1963:

Text, note cards
https://twitter.com/BeschlossDC/status/1585747885555154944/photo/1

- Michael Beschloss @BeschlossDC | 5:38 PM · Oct 27, 2022:
PRESIDENTS OF WAR, 9 other books. @NBCNews
Presidential Historian. Host, “Fireside History,” MSNBC on Peacock. PBS contributor.

"In the five years since Mr. Trump was elected in 2016, the number of recorded threats against members of Congress increased more than tenfold, to 9,625 in 2021, according to the Capitol Police. Many lawmakers say they live with a sense of dread ...."

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/28/us/politics/nancy-paul-pelosi-attack.html

Nicole Sganga @NicoleSganga | 5:06 PM · Oct 28, 2022:
CBS News Homeland Security & Justice reporter || formerly #Campaign2020 @UniofOxford notredame

NEW: Days before midterms, the U.S. is warning of a “heightened threat” to the 2022 elections, fueled by a rise in domestic violent extremism and driven by ideological grievances & access to potential _targets, according to a joint intelligence bulletin obtained by @CBSNews . 1/x

“Potential _targets of DVE violence include candidates running for public office, elected officials, election workers, political rallies, political party representatives, racial & religious minorities or perceived ideological opponents,” the DHS, FBI, NCTC, USCP memo states. 2/x

The bulletin also warns extremists might _target state & local government fixtures *after* the election.

Potential _targets include officials or private companies associated with vote counting/certifications and judicial figures involved in election-related legal challenges. 3/x

Full story: New intel memo cautions that government officials and personnel will likely remain "attractive _targets" to those motivated by debunked claims of election fraud that have spread online. U.S. Capitol Police documented 9,600 threats in 2021 alone.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2022-elections-threat-dhs-bulletin/
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Ben Collins @oneunderscore__ | 10:15 AM · Oct 28, 2022:
47-year-old racecar driver. Sole heir to the Vanderbilt fortune. Senior reporter, dystopia beat, @NBCNews.

https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__/status/1585998711754477569

By now, you've seen some of these "tailgate parties," where Trump supporters hang around ballot drop boxes standing watch for "mules," some in tactical gear.

My colleague @vaughnhillyard and I spent the week finding out the origin of this plan.

We found it. It was Truth Social...

These "drop box tailgate parties" took off earlier this month when a Truth Social influencer named Trumper Mel tweeted a picture of a man dropping off a single ballot at a Mesa, Az. drop box. Trump "retruthed" it.

But "mule parties" were in the works on Truth Social for months...
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Fresh from the Pelosi crime scene, Trump draws his followers' attention to a NY judge, Arthur Engoron:

Bill Grueskin @BGrueskin | 1:52 PM · Oct 28, 2022:
Journalist, professor. Started a weekly paper on Standing Rock, then wound up at Miami Herald, WSJ, Columbia. Still unburying ledes, just one tweet at a time.

Perhaps Trump isn't trying to harm this judge. But he's certainly making it more likely.

(Also, NY Supreme Court judges are elected, not appointed, but that's for another day.)

Trump "truth"
https://twitter.com/BGrueskin/status/1586053202080075776/photo/1

It was displayed on outside of stadium at UF/UGA game in Jacksonville earlier tonight and now on outside of other Jacksonville buildings like this one.

0:09 ( https://twitter.com/DWUhlfelderLaw/status/1586560944892780553 )
From sophie

- Daniel Uhlfelder @DWUhlfelderLawn | 11:29 PM · Oct 29, 2022
https://twitter.com/DWUhlfelderLaw/status/1586560944892780553

Experts fear rising global ‘incel’ culture could provoke terrorism (Guardian)

Almost 1,000 references to misogyny and violent action are recorded each day on dedicated incel forums... an increasing overlap between incel followers and the far right...

“I want you to watch Nancy Pelosi hand me that gavel…It’ll be hard not to hit her with it…”
— Kevin McCarthy, July 31, 2021

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/just-in-feds-file-charges-against-david-depape-say-h...

JUST IN: Feds File Charges Against David DePape, Say He Planned to Question Nancy Pelosi and ‘Break Her Kneecaps’

DEPAPE stated that he was going to hold Nancy hostage and talk to her. If Nancy were to tell DEPAPE the “truth,” he would let her go, and if she “lied,” he was going to break “her kneecaps.” DEPAPE was certain that Nancy would not have told the “truth.” In the course of the interview, DEPAPE articulated he viewed Nancy as the “leader of the pack” of lies told by the Democratic Party. DEPAPE also later explained that by breaking Nancy’s kneecaps, she would then have to be wheeled into Congress, which would show other Members of Congress there were consequences to actions. DEPAPE also explained generally that he wanted to use Nancy to lure another individual to DEPAPE.

BBC News - The UK terror survivors tracked down by ‘disaster trolls’

Conspiracy theorists, who claim UK terror attacks have been staged, are tracking down survivors to their homes and workplaces to see if they are lying about their injuries, a BBC investigation has found...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63412651

What we know so far about the man who attacked Nancy Pelosi’s husband (Guardian)

spread far-right conspiracy theories... convicted last year of various criminal charges, including stalking and attempted child abduction... maintained a Facebook account containing multiple conspiracy-laden posts... The account, which was taken down by Facebook’s owner Meta on Friday, included links to videos produced by the My Pillow CEO, Mike Lindell, which falsely claimed that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Republican incumbent Donald Trump in favor of his Democratic rival Joe Biden. Other posts mentioned videos falsely proclaiming that the congressional committee investigating the US Capitol attack staged by Trump supporters on January 6 had collapsed, and another was titled: “Global Elites Plan To Take Control Of YOUR Money! (Revealed)”... he regularly posted rants concerning the “ruling class”. The blog also had a banner reading “Weclome {sic} to Big Brothers Censorship Hell” above numerous posts rambling about government, media, tech and alien conspiracies, among other topics... using biblical justification to do harm...

The Washington Examiner thought the most interesting question was whether or not Depape was an illegal immigrant; apparently it's possible he was a Canadian who overstayed a visa, or so they claim.

Britain had a far-right terrorist attack a week ago. Why the failure to call it by its true name? (Guardian)

Counter-terrorism police have finally concluded that a firebomb attack on a migrant centre last week was terrorism motivated by the far right. But you’d never have guessed it from this past week. There haven’t been column inches from counter-terrorism ideologues laying out the drivers of this terrorist attack, nor has there been round-the-clock media coverage of the community where the perpetrator is from, asking why they hate so much. Most national newspapers didn’t give the attack front-page prominence the next day. The day after the attack, the home secretary appeared to go out of her way to say that the attack was not being treated as terrorism. This is despite the fact that the perpetrator had tweeted that he planned to “obliterate Muslim children” an hour before his attack. He referenced the far-right Islamophobe Tommy Robinson, repeatedly wrote about Muslim “grooming gangs” and shared content from far-right Islamophobic groups including Act for America. Is it possible that the comparatively muted reaction to this despicable act of terror is because the perpetrator was not “foreign”, but instead a Briton hating immigration: a cause much of the rightwing media and our government stand behind?...

US is failing to address ‘persistent and lethal threat’ of domestic terrorism, report finds (Guardian)

Federal government has continued to focus ‘disproportionately’ on international terrorist threats despite spate of racist shootings...

Alejandra Caraballo @Esqueer_ | 9:52 PM · Dec 3, 2022:
...Clinical Instructor, Harvard Law Cyberlaw Clinic...

These are the people who showed up outside of a drag show in Columbus, Ohio and caused it to be canceled. This is terrorism. Where is the DoJ? This is a clear violation of civil rights by neo-nazi orgs.
Photo ( https://twitter.com/Esqueer_/status/1599235284671295488/photo/1 )

Alejandra Caraballo @Esqueer_ | 10:11 PM · Dec 3, 2022:
Patriot front and proud boys were there as well.
Quote Tweet
Brendan Gutenschwager @BGOnTheScene
Patriot Front has just arrived outside the cancelled drag storytime event in Columbus, Ohio
0:36 ( https://twitter.com/Esqueer_/status/1599239832110497792 )

Social Justice Druid @JoeAuerbach | 10:20 PM · Dec 3, 2022:
Fun fact, the local cops refused to protect the event. They were seen all over chatting it up with their paps the terrorists. As shown.
Photo ( https://twitter.com/JoeAuerbach/status/1599242096782606336/photo/1 )

Mainstream media not quite saying this but people on Twitter say vandalism was directed at a drag show(?), e.g., https://twitter.com/TheSGTJoker/status/1599418124356710400

Over 35k without power in Moore County {NC} due to 'intentional vandalism, sheriff says
WCNC | Dec 4, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5ffQwH2ptk

>19 margd: Some of these knuckleheads instead of body armor maybe should be wearing chastity belts.

This past February {2022}, 3 white supremacists plead guilty to a plot to "attack (power) substations, or power grids, with powerful rifles" as an accelerationist plot to bring about a race war.

18 USC 1366 makes it a federal crime to damage an energy facility.

https://justice.gov/opa/pr/three-men-plead-guilty-conspiring-provide-material-su...

Text excerpt ( https://twitter.com/petestrzok/status/1599899578609725442/photo/1 )

- @PeteStrzok@mastodon.social @petestrzok | 5:52 PM · Dec 5, 2022
26 year FBI and Army veteran. {Fired by Trump day before pension-eligible.} Georgetown School of Foreign Service adjunct professor and alum. NYT/WP bestseller: Compromised

>21 margd: Rachel Maddow referenced the February case last evening, as well as one from 2013 in California, in her report on the North Carolina crime.
I’m so puzzled as to why these nuts think it will spark a race war.

Germany arrests 25 accused of plotting coup (BBC)

Twenty-five people have been arrested in raids across Germany on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government. The group of far-right and ex-military figures are said to have prepared for a "Day X" to storm the Reichstag parliament building and seize power...

>23 John5918: Part of their delusion confuses me; it shows up in those who claim to be citizens of an existing Soviet Union as well as in a less-direct sense sovereign citizens as well. Rule is by the consent of the governed, and while the relation of that to reality is complex, it's more real than the reality of a government that fell decades ago and is not recognized by the vast majority of the people it supposedly represents.

Coup attempts in Germany and the US confirm it: the key terror threat is the far right (Guardian)

The danger of violent jihadism persists, but the growing menace is from racist extremists – even if some in the UK government can’t admit it...

Secret Service Members Found To Be Part of Far-Right Extremist Group—Report

https://www.newsweek.com/secret-service-members-found-part-far-right-extremist-g...

A leaked membership list reportedly shows that seven Oath Keepers said they worked or previously worked for the Secret Service, according to files dating from 2009 to 2015.

The membership list was obtained as part of a leak of Oath Keeper documents, according to OCCRP, and were provided by "a former member of the group's inner circle" who requested anonymity because of ongoing federal investigations.
...
More than 300 members of the Oath Keepers identified themselves as current or former employees of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or affiliated agencies in the documents seen by POGO and OCCRP.
....
"The absolute, most important function for this agency is our no-fail mission to safeguard the continuity of the American government," Anthony Guglielmi, Secret Service chief of communications, told Newsweek in a statement on Tuesday morning.

"We have strongly supported recent investigations and prosecutions of alleged insurrectionists including providing testimony on behalf of the government and providing supporting information and evidence to prosecutors to build the strongest cases against defendants.

"While the Secret Service had no prior knowledge of this information, we are unable to corroborate it at this time but it will be reviewed," he said.
____________________________

Major internal intelligence failure

>25 John5918: The Reichstag has a history of being stormed....JMJ....

>25 John5918: Sharia Law is the result of jihad ism, 24 young Iranians risk being hung on construction cranes, this is intimidation by capitol means. Dissenting doctors, rap artists, soccer player and a couple of dozen people arrested in the current uprising for freedom in Iran are facing this barbaric execution unless a tough international stance is adopted, instead of lip service from Washington (dirty oil is more important) and silence from Rome, meanwhile Mah Movsen Shekari and Majidrega Rahnavard both 23 are left hanging 60 feet above a main throughfare To sensitive to show on American news outlets. What are these people dying for, one is a women's right to not be brutalized by thugs masquerading in clerical garb....JMJ....

>28 brone: Sharia Law is the result of jihad ism

No. Sharia law is basically another word for Islamic law, and ranges all over the place, often independently of jihadism. Iran is not a country that has pushed jihadism openly, but is very big on their version of Islamic law.

Dissenting doctors, rap artists, soccer player and a couple of dozen people arrested in the current uprising for freedom in Iran are facing this barbaric execution unless a tough international stance is adopted,

You mean the country that invaded the US embassy and held diplomats hostage? That was a while ago, but Iran is a country that has stood against the international stance almost proudly.

Iranian version of radical islamist ideology, standing against the international silence of murdering their own people is what they are proud of. This Iranian law allows for the execution of girls as young as 9, and boys as young as 13, they morbidly discriminate against women even in their death chambers. This year alone over 500 have been executed, some publicly, confessions are ellicited through torture and due process is a joke. The no. 1 crime punishable by death is "waging war against god"under this umbrella these murderers execute their opponents. Some American news outlets (very few) are reporting 18,000 have been arrested since September....JMJ....

>30 brone: standing against the international silence of murdering their own people is what they are proud of.

More than half the world's nations have completely banned the death penalty. Most of the rest have practically done so. Less than 20 have used it recently; the US is one of those. Perhaps we should lead by example.

There's a lot of things I could say about Iran, but I don't see how the US meddling is going to help.

>30 brone: Sounds a lot like Texas, honestly.

What’s really the big difference between the murderous predilections of the Iranian rulers as opposed to the murdering predilections of the Saudi rulers? Not much as far as I can tell. I see the big difference as far as how the US government looks at it (and from one administration to the next) is that one is seen as an ally and the other as an adversary.

>32 kiparsky: 78 year old Carl Buntion was executed by lethal injection in April one of 5 executed in Texas this year. Buntion shot a police officer in the face during a routine traffic stop, shooting him twice more in the back as he lay dead or dying, before he was arrested he tried to kill two other people, hijacked a car, and held another hostage at gunpoint this happened in 1990. He was executed last April 2022. Stephen Barbee murdered his pregnant girlfriend and her 7 year old child by strangulation Barbee was quoted as saying the reason for his actions were that he didn't want his wife to find out about his affair,that was 17 years ago. He was executed in November 2022. In Iran two corpses are seen strung up on a construction crane, Mah Movsen Shekari and Majidrega Rahnaverd are 23years old committed the crime of protesting the teatment of muslim women, and hating god....JMJ....

>31 prosfilaes: Don't worry about this regime meddling in Iranian affairs we have sold our souls for their dirty oil. However individuals can protest this barbaric behavior albeit with some fear of censorship. And the pope in Rome can speak out but does not want to offend the muslim world....JMJ....

>35 brone: Don't worry about this regime meddling in Iranian affairs we have sold our souls for their dirty oil.

Whatever you mean by that. Middle Eastern oil isn't exactly morally clean, and all of it is bad for the environment.

If you're talking about the nuclear deal, Trump undercut the moderates in the Iranian government by pulling out of the deal. He empowered people in the Iranian government who hated the idea of dealing with the US and thought that Iran should ignore anything the West wants, the people who are willing to beat down as many people as they want to enforce their view of God's will.

There's a reason it's carrot and stick, not stick and stick; the more the US condemns Iran and Iran condemns the US and they refuse to deal with each other, the less they're motivated to try and listen to each other or work together on anything.

However individuals can protest this barbaric behavior albeit with some fear of censorship.

Aw, brave you. It's easy to bash people half way across the world and describe them as barbarians; it's not so easy to critically analyze your own society and reject its own injustices, even if it has vastly more hope of actually having a positive effect.

>33 lriley: What’s really the big difference between the murderous predilections of the Iranian rulers as opposed to the murdering predilections of the Saudi rulers? Not much as far as I can tell.

Iran looks to me to have much more possibility to reform. They are a lot more democratic at certain levels, and they could go the British route and sideline the autocrats peacefully. Saudi Arabia is an autocratic monarchy, and I'm afraid that any regime change there would be rocky and could be very messy.

>37 prosfilaes: Loads of young Iranians want to democratize their country. The rulers maintain power by force with their police and army. One can hope that eventually those young Iranians will take their country away from them. It's really not a whole lot different situation than when the Shah ruled in Iran. He wasn't popular. His secret police and army kept him in power. Those in power now IMO are just a religious version. They're not popular though. They just control the levers of repression. I would much rather our supporting of a democratic movement to replace Iran's rulers than all the saber rattling we've done the last 40 years.

>34 brone: Sorry, but when I see states where women do not own their own bodies because religious fanatics would rather see them dead than living free lives as full citizens in a democratic republic, they sort of run together in my mind. I'm sort of prejudiced that way, I guess. I should work on that.

So what exactly is the distinction you're trying to highlight? If I'm following you, it's that Texas takes too long to kill people and you think they should be more like Iran, is that what you're getting at?

>38 lriley: Loads of young Iranians want to democratize their country.

My point was that they don't need a full revolution. Iran is far from truly democratic, but has democratic institutions and power sharing. They can change the system from the inside which generally makes for more stable and longer lasting governments.

>40 prosfilaes: my thing is that a change happens from within. I don’t mind us helping that change to happen from a distance. I don’t think our past bellicosity is productive at all nor the idea of us or the Israelis dropping bombs on them or the Saudis contracting our armed forces as MBS tried to pull off when Trump was president.

In any case it doesn’t do anyone any good to have pariah states. Just want to change a regime that the majority of the population doesn’t want. Hopefully then Iran can become a democratic state. Not a lot of them in the region.

>39 kiparsky: Your portrayal of freedom as you mysteriously put it, betrays the openness to truth and goodness,If I am correctly reading in between your lines. The real fanatics are those who prefer evil and raise it to a status of a divinity that creates what is good or evil....JMJ....

>36 prosfilaes: I simply was objecting to the hanging of its citizens on construction equipment and the muted silence from the so called free world. As far as brave goes you're right it is easy for me sitting here complaining about barbarism. Yet I wonder on this little platform at least an opportunity exists to help make it possible to effectively help in ensuring that the cruel treatment of women and girls in Iran and other Islamist states are at least spoken of and condemned. My "brave" comment is not bashing it is a re-affirmation of the dignity which every person has a right to and is the foundation for brotherhood among all people....JMJ....you're right oil is dirty.

>42 brone: Yes, I suppose I'd say I'm open to truth and goodness, though those are pretty squishy concepts and it's possible that we don't entirely agree on what they comprise.

I also agree that raising evil to the status of a divinity sounds pretty awful, and clearly has some dire consequences. For example, the false doctrine which claims that women's fertility is the property of some conjoined church/state axis is not sustainable unless we accept the implicit premise that all bodies are the property of the state which enforces these religious dictates. If we accept this, then much evil follows.

That phrase, "raising evil to the status of divinity", by the way, is a very apt characterization of the rise of the so-called "pro-life" concept, and nicely illustrates the willingness of churches to be used by political forces in order to preserve their own power.

These views of yours seem acceptable these days, such as equating Pro-life with evil. They also seem to be held in majority at least here in LT. The views expressed here are current therefore convenient, this convenience comes from the fact that they always involve some degree of skeptisim ultimately inherited from an atheist Philosopher, Hume being at the head. So why you might ask why I a Catholic Catechist would bother with all this. We the west are currently experiencing a great uprising against our religious beliefs. Judging by the flurry of anti christian activity on the internet and on the streets. We believe in a principle it is small in size but huge in consequence, that is the Principle of Causality "That is What begins to be has a cause"....AMDG....

>46 brone: These views of yours seem acceptable these days, such as equating Pro-life with evil.

The modern concept of pro-life has always been a very divisive concept from its beginning, which really is around 1970. Abortifacients were used probably before we first found writing, and are well documented in the writings of Church leaders; the early church believed that ensoulment occurred at quickening, not conception.

The views expressed here are current therefore convenient, this convenience comes from the fact that they always involve some degree of skeptisim ultimately inherited from an atheist Philosopher, Hume being at the head.

We could spend a lot of time arguing about this, but it's ultimately irrelevant, merely a thrust to avoid actually discussing the views.

We the west are currently experiencing a great uprising against our religious beliefs. Judging by the flurry of anti christian activity on the internet and on the streets.

I can't say you're convincing me to see your view more favorably. To be honest, nobody cares what you believe; they care that you're trying to conform our laws to your beliefs. You don't want to join the Jews, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, and many other religious groups that have, at least in their US sects, agreed to accept that they are a small group in a society dominated by another religion, and that they need to argue for plurality and individual rights, not that the whole system should conform to their whim.

We believe in a principle it is small in size but huge in consequence, that is the Principle of Causality "That is What begins to be has a cause"

Huh? Is this "if the universe has a beginning, it must have a creator" chestnut? In any case, I've got a couple personal origin stories; would you prefer our universe to be the creation of a scientist trying to impress a potential mate, or a wall display in Ikea (for suitably cosmic versions of "wall" and "Ikea") with life on Earth being part of the variation due to the "natural processes" used to create the display? "A creator" does not imply morality, or souls, or even that that creator knows about us.

There isn't any doubt the the majority of the United States population wanted women to have access to abortion. That a minority of Catholics and Evangelicals and six out of 9 Catholic Supreme Court justices have tried to take away that access and succeeded at least in some of our states. Should the minority force their religious views on the majority of population who don't share those views? Brone seems to think that's okay.

To be clear the United States is not a Christian nation and never has been. Sure there are a lot of Christians but there's also a lot of differentiation in their opinions. There are also a number of other religions and many of no particular religious faith or no faith at all and all those people should be forced to kowtow to the beliefs (which are only truths to those who think faith in beliefs make them truths) of a minority. Your beliefs are not everyone's truths something that so many Christians refuse to get their heads around.

If anyone here thinks the 2022 elections didn't go the way they wanted and expected them to they can blame those 6 Supreme Court justices. It created a backlash that could possibly carry on into 2024 and 2026.

>46 brone: I don't use the term "pro-life", since it seems hypocritical to use that term in a context that clearly privileges some lives over others, and with reference to a movement that has celebrated the use of murder to achieve its ends.

That being said, I stand by my claim that any doctrine which claims that a women's body is the property of someone other than the woman in question is simply and straightforwardly evil. Do you disagree?

We the west are currently experiencing a great uprising against our religious beliefs.

I disagree. Your religious beliefs are your own, and you are free to hold them. I know of no place in "the west" where your religious beliefs are threatened.

There is a great uprising against the idea that your religious beliefs should bind the actions or the conscience of those who don't hold those beliefs, but that's a completely different question. Do you feel that your religious beliefs should bind the actions of others? If so, are you wiling to be bound by the beliefs of others?

Your're beliefs are not everone's truths", "Brone seems to think", "nobody cares what you believe". I think in scientific terms, youse guys are reading whats not there between my lines. I read whats actually in your lines which are basicaly Philosopies of science or scientism not the same thing as science a sort of faith in philosophies that you have inherited from long ago an alternative to Divine Revelation pretending to be an advocate of reason against faith which you see as foolish. People imbued with this spirit of scientism are skeptics about anything that trancends direct observation. This combination of philosophies of science and scientism results in a sort of schizophrenia which would be surpising if it were not so common....JMJ....PS dont youse guys feel bad about handing it to me I got censored and told to leave "the Tradional catholic" group for these very ideas....AMDG....

>50 brone:
"People imbued with this spirit of scientism are skeptics about anything that trancends direct observation."
Who are you referring to here? I don't know anyone who expects to directly observe an electron. Yet, there's pretty good evidence electrons exist. I do know many people who are skeptical about supposed supernatural phenomena. That isn't "scientism".

>50 brone: "nobody cares what you believe". I think in scientific terms, youse guys are reading whats not there between my lines. I read whats actually in your lines which are basicaly Philosopies of science or scientism

Again, you choose to interpret what we say instead of responding to it. You're not listening to us.

We the west are currently experiencing a great uprising against our religious beliefs.

nobody cares what you believe

You quoted that, but you didn't pay attention to it, despite several of us saying the same things. There is no uprising against you believing what you want; it's against you compelling us to follow your beliefs. That's not scientism; nobody who disagrees with you want your beliefs to control them, and most non-Christian Americans, of whatever beliefs, have agreed to religious pluralism.

People imbued with this spirit of scientism are skeptics about anything that trancends direct observation.

On 21 September 1995, statues of Ganesha world-round started drinking milk -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganesha_drinking_milk_miracle . I suspect you're more skeptical of that than I am; I'm at least a little skeptical of the facile scientific explanation. Many people who toss out "scientism" aren't really less skeptical, instead just choosing to privilege their own beliefs.

In any case, I don't know the exact religious beliefs of the people responding to you, and many Christians, Jews, pagans, and other religious people share many of the same beliefs. Again, you chose to define a box for us and shove us and our arguments into it, instead of replying to our arguments.

Gretchen Whitmer kidnap ringleader, Adam Fox, sentenced to 16 years (BBC)

The ringleader of a plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has been sentenced to 16 years in prison... Earlier this year he was found guilty of planning to abduct Ms Whitmer from her holiday home with other militiamen... As well as conspiring to abduct Ms Whitmer, Fox was sentenced for planning to use a weapon of mass destruction to blow up a bridge after the kidnapping, to make it easier to escape. Fox and his co-defendant Barry Croft Jr, 47, were found guilty by a federal court in August. Croft, who is also a member of the Three Percenters militia group, is due to be sentenced on Wednesday. In August, a jury determined that the two men were guilty of conspiring to obtain weapons of mass destruction - a bomb - to blow up a bridge in order to thwart a police response to the planned kidnapping. Croft, a native of Delaware, was also convicted on a separate explosives charge...

>53 John5918: John Roth was arrested for the attempted murder of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, out side his home a 1am, Roth upset at recent rulings, decided to take a cab to the judges' house with him were a loaded glock 17, a tactical knive, crowbar, pepper spray, ductape, zipties, and screwdriver. this was reported the next day on page A20 of the NYTimes....JMJ....

Interesting how nothing counted as a WMD when their beloved Saddam was buying it from France and Russia... but when it comes to prosecute a patriot a few bags of fertiliser count...

Takes some mental gymnastics... well maybe gymastics is not the right word.

>55 Kuiperdolin: Takes some mental gymnastics

Yeah, it takes a lot of mental gymnastics, to jump from Reagan letting Iran and Iraq blow each other up, to implying that somehow that means that someone with explosives (no evidence of ammonium nitrate*) and plans to blow up a bridge should be let go because he's "our kind of guy". Ignoring the actions of so-called patriots and cracking down on people whose opinions you don't like is called corruption, and it's a root cause behind many revolutions.

* Seriously? A few bags of fertilizer, as if a substance that has killed 500 people in accidental explosions in just the last 20 years, and was used in the largest non-nuclear man-made explosion ever (Minor Scale) is no big deal?

>55 Kuiperdolin: So, just wondering... is there a principal here, or is this purely ad hoc? Do you consider that forming a plan to to kidnap and possibly murder a sitting governor, and to go to war with the legitimate forces of local, state, and national law enforcement, and acting on that plan, to be "patriotism" in all cases, or just in some? And if the latter, when does it count as patriotism for you?

And, not to put too fine a point on it - the voices that are telling you these things, are they the sort of voices that other people can here, or they just for you?

(((Tendar))) @Tendar | 3:29 PM · Jan 8, 2023:
Tyrants are my enemies | Si vis pacem para bellum |🇩🇪| Das Böse triumphiert allein dadurch, dass gute Menschen nichts unternehmen | Military and War News

The attacks in the Brazilian parliament not only remind me of January 6 in the USA but also the attempted storm on the German parliament 2 years ago. And it is always the same circle of people. Right-wing/Anti-Vaxx/Pro-Russian...

1:06 ( https://twitter.com/Tendar/status/1612184666303524865 )

And Anti Communist....AMDG....

……but also a pal of KGB LT. Col. Vladimir Putin. Go figure.

>59 brone: Groups that are loudly anti-communist do have a history of being anti-democracy, overthrowing left-wing democracies and installing autocracies.

Is anyone actually pro-communist these days? While there's a vibrant and diverse collection of movements exploring and advocating for socialism, it seems that communism died with the USSR, and I don't see any serious movements looking to bring it back.

Unless I'm mistaken, anyone calling themselves "anticommunist" in 2023 is at best irrelevant and more likely making intentional use of an age-old dog-whistle for some reasons they're not willing to divulge.

>62 kiparsky:

No, communism didn't "die with the USSR", which--as you should probably know--conceptualized its system as a socialist one, in a stage toward communism. (True for all the so-called "communist" countries.) The USSR died, but it was neither the first, the only, nor the last essay in communism. As long as class inequality exists--and the capitalists by definition need it to exist--so long will live the idea of communism. France in 2023 has a viable communist party, led by a Gen Xer. It's a minor party--but it survived all this time and is actually registering increase in membership.

And I think we know the issue is a red herring anyway--not only is the question of difference at best moot and academic, those who curse communism hardly think much better of socialism.

Marx and Engels were not Lenin and Stalin and for that matter neither were Lenin contemporaries Liebknicht, Luxembourg, Connelly or MacLean. Still socialism and communism gets seen through this prism of Stalin, Lenin and Mao in the United States. At the same time there is this refusal to look at any number of our allies and former allies who were 'capitalist' dictators and South and Central America would be great places to start for that or even our interference in governments in the Muslim world of the Mideast and North Africa. There has been dirt in our politics and our geoglobalism forever and Britain is the same.

The U.S. experiment of government pretty much happens because of its distance from Europe-----still what the so called founders set in place was an electoral system of exclusion not inclusion. That Benjamin Franklin says 'we have a republic if we can hold on to it' is constantly being prattled and stirs the hearts of all kinds of deadheads. What he's talking about is a government of white male landowners--or the wealthy deciding how those without land or wealth or who aren't the right gender or race will live. So let's throw out the pledge of allegiance as nothing but garbage with it's 'too the republic' and 'one nation under god' (which was added in 1954 by what amounts to today as a christian nationalist). A democracy that includes includes everyone of all races, religious of whatever kind (even Lucien Graves Satanic church) and non religious, all genders and gender choices is certainly better. What I wonder is how you build a better society if you have no intention of including everyone who lives in that society in it as equals? And equality also means economic equality. Sounds socialist? Yeah it does.

As for Europe in the 19th and well into the 20th century--the time that spawned thinkers like Marx and Engels and plenty of others (who more often than not when they met up were at odds end with each other) democracy or anything like it didn't really exist. These are older countries steeped much deeper in history and culture than North American countries (discounting Native American history and culture anyway but they have been so marginalized within our society because of greed more than anything else) but they are newer democracies. They had Kings and Queens like the Romanovs, the German Kaiser's, the Hapsburgs and Napoleon the third. They had the power and it was endowed to them and their offspring by god (or so they'd say) and there was no getting them out of power no matter how cruel and despotic they were. Someone like Marx is thinking about how do we build a just and fair society without these parasites. Some people had to.

Chelsea Manning wannabees?

ULTIMATE BETRAYAL: Active-duty Marines arrested for Capitol riot had high clearance levels
Stephanie Bazzle | 21 Jan 2023

...The arrests of Micah Coomer, Joshua Abate, and Dodge Dale Hellonen were facilitated by Coomer’s social media posts, boasting that he was “proud to be apart {sic} of history” and showing photos of himself inside the Capitol.

...Among other things, Coomer discussed in his Instagram messages his desire for “Civil War 2” and declared that “everything in this country is corrupt,” declaring the need for a new start.

He also claimed to have evidence of voter fraud, citing a friend who obtained a ballot for his dead cat, though, as seen in recent cases, safeguards are in place to catch fraudulent ballots when submitted.

...Military.com reports:

“{A}ll three men have been enlisted in the Marines for more than four years, with Hellonen, who enlisted in August 2017, being the most senior. On paper, the three Marines hold demanding jobs tied to the intelligence community, are stationed at major commands, and have personal commendations and awards to their name.”

...Their charges at this time are knowingly entering a restricted building, disorderly conduct (2 counts), and parading or picketing inside the U.S. Capitol.

...However, their access to intelligence information combined with their apparent willingness to join an attack on the U.S. Government is a bad combination, and if they are found guilty, the military could add its own consequences atop those imposed by the court...

https://washingtonpress.com/2023/01/20/ultimate-betrayal-active-duty-marines-arr...

Alec Baldwin, anti gun, anti Trump, anti America, and anti daughter ck out his recorded rage againt her as a child anyway this darling of Hollywood makes a low budget (dirt cheap) movie with guns, with live ammunition (shooting at bottles and into the sky). He is in charge of all this choas, scene one take one, his no experience amourer hands him a gun he aims it at an actress shoots her though the stomach and I believe wounds someone else. When asked the question what happened? Alec does not give the answer everyone else gives, (I didn't know it was loaded) Alec gives the idiotic answer, I didn't pull the trigger. Now Alec has been running around the country to various pity parties even making money commercialy. Now the two tiered legal system we have now will probably charge him with Man (sorry person) slaughter, how much you want to bet ole Alec will get a slap on the wrist....JMJ....

"I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?"
- DJT

>66 brone: he aims it at an actress shoots her though the stomach

False, which makes me uninterested in looking up the rest of the things you claimed. If truth is important, then act like it.

anti America

Whatever you mean by that. You professed to holding a belief against the First Amendment, that a church largely disliked by the Founding Fathers and early Americans should be made the official church. "Anti America" means even less coming from you than the average right winger.

the two tiered legal system we have now

Now? I might give argument about two tiered versus a far more complex system, but this seems to be universal; he who had the money wins, and he who the judge and jury like get away with stuff the outsider could never get away with. A lot of changes, but the basic unfairness has stayed the same.

>63 LolaWalser: No, communism didn't "die with the USSR"

Meh. Metaphorically speaking, it did; it moved from an actual powerful, funded competitor to a has-been.

conceptualized its system as a socialist one, in a stage toward communism.

In English, communism generally means the system that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Chinese Communist Party (at least originally) set up in their countries. It's complex, but they don't get judged on their dreams, they get judged on their realities.

As long as class inequality exists--and the capitalists by definition need it to exist--so long will live the idea of communism.

Monarchy and philosopher-kings have their advocates as well. But I look at communist states in action, and see class inequality, at times rearranged by mass death, like Mao's Cultural Revolution or Pol Pot's genocide, but usually reorganizing themselves into a structure with class inequality, often with the peasants being praised in theory and crushed in practice, just like often in capitalism.

Kenneth Quinn wrote "What emerges as the explanation for the terror and violence that swept Cambodia during the 1970s is that a small group of alienated intellectuals, enraged by their perception of a totally corrupt society and imbued with a Maoist plan to create a pure socialist order in the shortest possible time, recruited extremely young, poor, and envious cadres, instructed them in harsh and brutal methods learned from Stalinist mentors, and used them to destroy physically the cultural underpinnings of the Khmer civilization and to impose a new society through purges, executions, and violence." The 21st century's full retrospective on the Soviet Union, Maoist China and the Khmer Rouge tends to diminish desire for communism.

France in 2023 has a viable communist party, led by a Gen Xer. It's a minor party--but it survived all this time and is actually registering increase in membership.

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parti_communiste_fran%C3%A7ais says that it got 6.9% in the 2012 legislative election, 2.7% in 2017 and 2.3% in 2022. The Italian Communist Party received 34.4% of the vote in 1976, but dissolved in 1991, and the modern Italian Communist Party is getting less than 1%. Communist parties exist, but in most parts of the world they're pretty minor; outside the one party states, Nepal, Peru, Uruguay, and Cyprus seem to have the only parties that hit 20% of the seats of their legislature.

And I think we know the issue is a red herring anyway--not only is the question of difference at best moot and academic, those who curse communism hardly think much better of socialism.

One of my bête noires is the way that socialism is Venezuela and Soviet Union when the Republicans want to demonize it (Reason magazine had an article dismissing the Nordic nations as not being socialist) but when we ask for the slightest step towards what Europe has, that's socialism. So the difference matters; it's making clear that you can oppose communism systems and support systems that are closer to the rest of the developed world.

Russian agents suspected of directing far-right group to mail bombs in Spain – NYT
2023/01/23 - 11:08

US and EU officials believe that Russian military intelligence officers directed associates of a white supremacist militant group based in Russia to carry out a recent letter bomb campaign in Spain whose most prominent _targets were the Ukrainian and American embassies, the Spanish prime and defense ministers, according to The New York Times referring to US officials....

https://euromaidanpress.com/2023/01/23/russian-agents-suspected-of-directing-far...
---------------------------------------------

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/22/us/politics/russia-spain-letter-bombs.html

>67 margd: You could stand in the middle of times Sq and shoot someone now and the DA would have you out in an hour....JMJ....

>68 prosfilaes: How bout he shoots her dead would that be the truth?

" A church largely disliked by the founding fathers and early Americans should be made the official church" if you mean Catholic Church, well the Catholic church's first diocese in Baltimore was established after the Revolution and was hardly a threat to the constitution, Besides Catholics are used to being disliked, but we forgive them and helped them make a pretty good country....JMJ...

>70 margd: So now we have "white supremists" in Russia mailing bombs to the US embassy (an act of war) in Spain, with all these nazis running around the Ukraine and Russia they are drueling over the sophisticated military hardware we are sending them....JMJ....

>71 brone: How does that clearly false statement advance the conversation? George Zimmerman was questioned for five hours after he shot Trayvon Martin, and that was a case where Zimmerman was released without charges. Bail and other pretrial releases are a complex subject with much detailed discussion and varied opinion, and that statement advances it not a bit.

>72 brone: Shoots who dead? Alec Baldwin fatally shot Halyna Hutchins, the cinematographer, dead, not an actress. I've seen no reports that he aimed at her. I really don't see the relevance of the Alec Baldwin stuff at all.

>73 brone: What's your point? The statement is entirely correct; you stand against something that has been one of the core principles of the US since the Constitution, and in a way that most early Americans would have been offended about. What has Alec Baldwin done that has been more anti-America?

Trump's rhetoric years ago about the "China Virus" created an environment that had our usually intrepid friend, originally from Hong Kong and now in his 70s, unnerved for the first time ever. Never thought we'd see THAT!

The private angst over Donald Trump’s racist attacks on Elaine Chao goes public
Meridith McGraw | Wed, January 25, 2023

Over the past several months, the leading Republican presidential candidate has launched a series of racist attacks on the wife of the Republican Party’s Senate leader, a woman who once served in his Cabinet.

But while former President Donald Trump’s taunts at Elaine Chao — demeaning her as “Coco Chow” or a variation of Mitch McConnell’s “China-loving wife” — have been mostly met with silence from fellow GOP officials, the main _target of them is now speaking out.

“When I was young, some people deliberately misspelled or mispronounced my name. Asian Americans have worked hard to change that experience for the next generation,” Chao said in a statement to POLITICO. “He doesn't seem to understand that, which says a whole lot more about him than it will ever say about Asian Americans.”

Chao’s statement is an extremely rare case of the former Transportation Secretary wading into the political thicket that her former boss has laid around her since the end of his administration. It suggests that discomfort with Trump’s anti-Asian rhetoric has reached a new level amid several high-profile shootings _targeting Asian Americans...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/elaine-chao-responds-donald-trump-194357597.html

UK teenager sentenced over far-right videos that inspired US killers (Guardian)

A teenage extremist who inspired two far-right killers in the US has been ordered to serve 11 and a half years in a young offender institution for publishing a “stream of rightwing terrorist bile”. Daniel Harris, 19, celebrated white supremacist murderers including Anders Breivik and called for an armed uprising in videos posted from his grandfather’s house in Derbyshire. Manchester crown court was told that his material was viewed by two men who went on to commit separate far-right atrocities in the US last year...

A 58 year old woman stands out side the D.C. gulag, every night, protesting the treatment of political prisoners. Mama Mici is the mother of the decorated AF veteran who was shot and killed by a Capital Police "hero". She has held nightly vigils for months, and has endured insults and threats from people like your selfs, who demand her removal from the streets of the Capitol. She has even been arrested for "jaywalking" a horrible crime against our democracy....JMJ....

>78 brone: Sure, gulag. What makes it a gulag, and would you object to the same conditions if they were done to people arrested (but not convicted) of, say, robbery?

We've been over the Capitol shooting before. Back the Blue, except when they shoot a member of a mob breaking into the Capitol threatening to hang Mike Pence, I guess.

>78 brone: I don't think there's anyone here rejoicing at this woman's daughter being shot and killed. That is some serious extrapolation on your part. She was part of a violent mob that injured numbers of police guarding the capitol that day and was threatening the lives of elected officials of both parties starting with Pence and Pelosi. I wonder if you saw the event as it went down.....not just the shooting but what was happening right before that in the hallway which which was right outside the house's chambers. A few security guarding the doors.....the mob reaching around them and knocking out the panes of glass behind those security people. Those people in the mob saw the gun seconds before--they're shouting about it....but they were so enraged (not peaceful at all) they went ahead anyway and unfortunately for that woman's daughter she was the first through the panes of that doorway. If you haven't seen it maybe you should take a look.

Brandon Russell: Leader of neo-Nazi Atomwaffen group charged with Baltimore power grid plot (BBC)

Two people, including the founder of a neo-Nazi group, have been arrested after allegedly plotting to shut down power to the Baltimore area. Brandon Russell, 27, and Sarah Clendaniel, 34, were charged with conspiracy to damage an energy facility. The crime carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Authorities say the couple planned to shoot five electricity substations in the state of Maryland. The pair met while both were in prison, and began discussing the alleged plot last year. Ms Clendaniel described their plan as "legendary" and said the attack "would completely destroy the whole city". "This planned attack threatened lives and would have left thousands of Marylanders in the cold and dark," US Attorney Erek Barron said in a statement. Mr Russell is the founder of Atomwaffen Division, a neo-Nazi group which has been linked to several murders, bombings and plots in the United States and other countries. Although relatively small, the group has become known for its extreme violence. Members subscribe to a Neo-Nazi version of "accelerationist" philosophy - the idea that political goals can be achieved only via social collapse. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremist groups, Atomwaffen members "believe that the modern, post-industrial society cannot be redeemed. Instead, they believe it ought to be driven into apocalyptic collapse so a white ethnostate or whites-only utopia can be constructed in its wake"...

>81 John5918: The sham group you mentiom the Southern Poverty law center is nothing but an obscenely wealthy marketing group. The far-left group uses its "hate Map" to intimidate aging boomer liberals to funding their scams. Their favorite tactic is to promote the fiction that conservative christians and nazis are in cahoots, meanwhile back at SPLC's hdqrts 24 employees sign a letter acussing its founder hate crimes The usual litany, Bullying, sex harrassement, racial bigotry, its 500million slush fund dwarfs over the NAACP's budget. Their "work" is deeply partisan. Recenty they had to pay Mayid Navaz millions, admit they defamed him and were forced to apologize for the lies spred about him. In another case in a FBI testimony the gunman who shot up the Family Research Council admitted that he was inspired by the SPLC's hate map....AMDG....

The horrible beating suffered by a black man in Memphis at the hands of 5 black policemen. Even so the left is still trying to make this an instance of systemic racism an aurgument that hardly holds water in a city with a black female police chief, you would think that maybe in this case maybe race is not the primary factor that many have tried to make it. Maybe its something deeper and more fundamental. Maybe its loss of morality, of right and wrong....JMJ....

>83 brone: That is exactly what systemic racism means - "something deeper and more fundamental" than blaming each individual attack on a particular attacker's racist views.

You might want to spend a little time learning something about what "systemic racism" means before you try arguing against it. The idea that "it's a loss of morality, of right and wrong" is a little too pat - it doesn't explain anything, and it doesn't line up with what we're seeing. If, as you want to argue, the problem is that All Cops Are Bastards, then surely you'd expect to see a lot more even distribution of police killings. Instead, we see lots of cops, some of them Black, killing lots of Black people - which is exactly what you'd expect to see under the systemic racism theory.

By the way, it's very interesting to see you taking the ACAB line. I would not have expected you to argue that cops in general have no morality or sense of right and wrong. Today, I learned.

>82 brone: Their favorite tactic is to promote the fiction that conservative christians and nazis are in cahoots,

The Catholic Church told the Nazis that the church wouldn't criticize the government's actions if they'd leave the Catholics alone. It's shocking to me; even as an atheist, I tend to subrationally feel that religion should aggressively stand for what's right against a world that deals so much in compromises and self-interest.

The Nazis and religion is complex; the KKK and religion, not as much. The KKK in the 1920s was undeniably for Protestantism and against Catholics and Jews. It's changed some, but virtually all members of the KKK are Christians.

in a FBI testimony the gunman who shot up the Family Research Council admitted that he was inspired by the SPLC's hate map

Huh. So what you're saying is that the FRC weren't oppressing him by preventing him from peacefully demonstrating with weapons in their offices after threatening to kill some of them, and you don't think he's a political prisoner? It's almost like your beliefs about what happened on January 6, 2021, are disconnected from anything else you believe.

It's horrible, and was deplored by the SPLC but the fact that 11 people have been murdered by anti-abortion crusaders doesn't seem to stop you at all.

For another point about the conservative Christians and the groups the SPLC attacks, when George Tiller was assassinated in the middle of a church service, Southern Baptist pastor Wiley Drake said "Would you have rejoiced when Adolf Hitler died during the war? ... I would have said, 'Amen! Praise the Lord! Hallelujah! I'm glad he's dead.' This man, George Tiller, was far greater in his atrocities than Adolf Hitler, so I am happy; I am glad that he is dead."

Over and over, you demonstrate that you're not willing to wrestle with truth.

>83 brone: Maybe its loss of morality, of right and wrong

Yeah, let's go back to the 1920s when there was the Tulsa Race Massacre and one of the most successful black communities in the US was destroyed. Let's go back to the 1950s, when Emmett Till was lynched and a jury let his murderers go free. Or the 1990s, when there was the Rodney King beating.

"Nobody knows right and wrong nowadays", bemoans conservative Christians, who then make a man President who said "And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. ... Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything." They tell us to back the blue, and then complain when an angry mob attacks Congress, threatens to kill the Vice-President and one member of the mob gets shot and killed. We see them contesting the results of a legitimate election, and rewriting history both recent and old to fit what they want to have happened.

(When I was still in high school, I was quite interested in evolution and creationism. When reading books by creationists and evolutionists, I was stunned by the way creationist quotes were like "Gould said 'evolution ... is ... false'" and evolutionist quotes were like "Here's a page from a creationist book" or "The main body of the text has the short quotes from creationists, but the end notes offer the full paragraphs." It's funny how the side bemoaning a loss of right and wrong has no problem lying about what other people said, and I definitely noticed which side cared about truth.)

What was it Menahem Begin said "Goyim kill Goyim and blame it on theJews"....JMJ....

>86 prosfilaes: Here is some facts concerning your 'facts' concerning the Church and the Nazis. Dr Raffael Cantoni, head of the war time Jewish assistance committee stated that "6 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis, but there could have been many more victims had it not been for the intervention of Pius Xll. Israel's 2nd PM is quoted as saying," My first duty after the war was to thank Pius Xll and the Catholic Church". At Pius Xll's death an effort to name a forest dedicated to his honor. Golda Meir stated that "when fearful martyrdom came to our people in ten years of Nazi terror, the voice of Pope Pius Xll was raised for the victims." The book many of Pope Pius Xll detractors, Hitler's Pope, has been much maligned and refuted, but like Stalin famously said keep telling the same lie and it becomes the truth. The real truth was that the Power of the Pope, Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin was extraordinarily limited given Hitler's hegemony over the continent. To focus on the alleged inadequacies of those who could not prevent the slaughter and imply the Pope was complicit is pure calumny....JMJ.... PS a good movie if you dare on this subject is "The Scarlett and the Black" with Gregory Peck and Christopher Plumer

>85 prosfilaes: The Catholic Church told the Nazis that the church wouldn't criticize the government's actions if they'd leave the Catholics alone. It's shocking to me; even as an atheist, I tend to subrationally feel that religion should aggressively stand for what's right against a world that deals so much in compromises and self-interest.

>88 brone: Here is some facts concerning your 'facts' concerning the Church and the Nazis.

Except they're not concerning what I was talking about. I wasn't even talking about Pope Pius XII; I was talking about Pope Pius XI, who rushed to sign the first international agreement with the Nazi regime, the Reichskonkordat. It said, among other things,

Article 16: Before bishops take possession of their dioceses they are to take an oath of loyalty either to the Reich governor of the state concerned or to the President of the Reich respectively, according to the following formula:

"Before God and on the Holy Gospels I swear and promise, as becomes a bishop, loyalty to the German Reich and to the State of . . . I swear and promise to honour the legally constituted government and to cause the clergy of my diocese to honour it. With dutiful concern for the welfare and the interests of the German state, in the performance of the ecclesiastical office entrusted to me, I will endeavour to prevent everything injurious which might threaten it."

I'd be a little more sympathetic if it had been with the previous government, but he was so eager to sign a concordat with Germany that he swore the bishops to honor the Nazi state.

The real truth was that the Power of the Pope, Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin was extraordinarily limited given Hitler's hegemony over the continent.

Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin are neither here nor there.

As I said before, the way I've been taught to respond to the Lord of Evil is "Greetings and defiance, fairest and fallen." Pope Pius XI chose to deal with Hitler to protect the Catholics and to hell with the Samaritans, their neighbors. The spiritual leader of 40% of Germans was not powerless in 1933. Hitler was not prepared to kill half of Germany, and the Protestant Germans wouldn't have stood for it. But instead Pope Pius XI gave Hitler cover.

To quote words the Catholic J. R. R. Tolkien put in the mouth of an angel: "You cannot pass....I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. You cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udûn. Go back to the Shadow! You cannot pass." I would have expect no less from the Pope versus Hitler.

As the German, Italian and their Eastern European allies forces were collapsing towards the end of the WWII the Pope and numerous of his priests, bishops and cardinals helped set up the ratlines to get Nazis and other Fascists to safe havens all over South America. That is a fact. That Juan Peron amongst others was more than willing to help this to happen is another fact though hardly a surprise. He was a fascist himself. By the way for a long time extreme right wingers didn't have a problem being called fascist. Now it triggers them. Go figure.

Pius Xl signed the concordant with the Weimar republic not the Nazis, 85 years ago Pius Xl wrote encyclical letters condemning both Nazi and Communist regimes The Encyclical (Mit Brenn ender Sorge) was smuggled into Germany, the pope demanding that it be read from the pulpit of every church in Germany. This was done on March 14th Palm Sunday. The letter confronted the power of these dictators, a similar letter 7 years earlier condemned Italian fascism. To the Nazis he is quoted as saying " we condemn the neo pagan and fundamental racist idiocrasy of the Nazis" saying further that only "superficial minds" lock God: "within the narrow limits of a single race."

The fact is 85 years ago Pius Xl wrote Encyclical letters condemning Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia the Germans he called neopagans and condemned their racist ideology. This letter was smuggled into Germany and read from every church in Germany on March 14th, 1937, Palm Sunday. Pius the Xl signed the concordant before Hitler came to power. Pius Xl died before WWll began....JMJ....

>91 brone: Pius Xl signed the concordant with the Weimar republic not the Nazis

>92 brone: Pius the Xl signed the concordant before Hitler came to power.

Why would you make that claim? In any format, it would be but a debating trick; in this one, I can immediately check and refute it. So why?

The Enabling Act starting Nazi Germany was passed March 23, 1933. By July 14, 1933, Hitler had eliminated all other political parties in Germany. The Reichskonkordat was signed July 20, 1933. The Vatican even labels it "Concordat between the Holy See and the German Reich (July 20, 1933)" ( https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/secretariat_state/index_concordati-accordi_en... ).

The letter confronted the power of these dictators, a similar letter 7 years earlier condemned Italian fascism.

First he made deals with them. You don't lay down with the Devil and wake up with God. 1937 was too late to make a difference; 1933 may not have been. By April 1933, Hitler was persecuting the Jews; the Nuremberg laws were passed in 1935.

The anti nazi response by the Catholic Church is a matter of record it cannot be denied, did many Catholics collaborate with the Nazis probably most of them did in one way or another in Germany. Alot many thousands of men women and children of the Catholic Faith died in Nazi extermination camps. The bishops of Germany preached against the anti-semitic propaganda in sermons throughout 1933. 2,579 priests were sent to Dachau including 411 from Germany, 1,034 were murdered, 3,000 Polish priests were sent to Auschwitz, 300 were murdered at Sachsenhausen, 780 at Mauthausen, 5,000 priests died at Buchenwald, thousands of Catholic nuns died at these camps is well documented, these murders do not include the many religious murdered in place. Some priests have written about their sufferings, Christ in Dachau by Fr John Lenz, Priest Block 25487 a memoir of Dachau by Fr Jean Bernard, The Ninth Day a film documentary about priests in Dachau. Prisoner # 16670 murdered by the Nazis at Auschwitz, and Edith Stein also murdered....AMDG....

I add professor Yusuki Narita remarks in this thread because it should spark terror in anyone over 50 in Japan, Yuski however is a professor at one of the top five Universities in the US Yale University. referring to the economic burden the aging population of Japan is causing the esteemed professor recommends "seppuku" better known as Hara Kiri self-disembowelment " the honorable method of taking one's life. If not, that solution Canada's solution would be a lot more tolerable these days....AMDG....

>94 brone: Saying that something is "a matter of historical record" does not change the actual historical record.

Why do you waste your time lying about history to people who know what they're talking about?

There are other works on the subject but I would recommend to Brone The Real Odessa by the Argentine Uki Goni if he were interested in reading about the Catholic Cardinals, Bishops and Priests involved in smuggling Nazis and Fascists out of Europe in the waning days of World War II and afterwards. The Pope was hardly blind to it, tacitly approved of it even if he allowed himself some space for deniability. To go further even our OSS/CIA was involved as were other western secret services.

I think brone fails to distinguish between individual behaviour and systemic or organisational dynamics. I don't think anyone would deny that there were many individual Catholics (and other Christians and people of other faiths and none) who courageously and nonviolently opposed Nazism. Maximilian Kolbe, Edith Stein and Hugh O'Flaherty are names which are often remembered, but the Catholic Church has formally canonised or beatified well over 150 bishops, priests, religious sisters and brothers, and laity, many of whom lost their lives, and there are many more. But that doesn't alter the fact that the Catholic Church as an institution and its institutional leadership has to face some serious questions regarding its stance during the Nazi era. As with many things, I suspect the overall truth is not quite as black and white as either side in a polemical debate would like it to be.

>98 John5918: What intrigues me is that brone flips those facts neatly on their heads, claiming that "many Catholics" and even "probably most of them", but then claims that the hierarchy stood in opposition. Literally the opposite of what is known to have happened, as you point out.

What's amazing to me is the sheer gall required for this level of mendacity. I mean, I've been lied to by conservatives before, to the point where I sort of expect it. I think they can't help it. But usually there's a bit of a question about whether they're lying or just ignorant. In this case, you literally couldn't make up this sort of a lie without knowing enough of the truth to know you're lying, and in fact to know that literally anyone reading it would know that it was a lie, and would know that you knew you were lying. There's not even an attempt to pretend to believe any of it, it's just barefaced lie upon lie.

And about what? About a bunch of dead dudes who had a chance to rise to meet a situation honorably, and failed to do so. That's it. Looking at it honestly, you could learn a lot about what they hoped to accomplish and what they did or didn't accomplish, and why they did what they did or failed to do what they ought to have done, and maybe that would be interesting, but what's interesting about telling lies about it?

>99 kiparsky: Looking at it honestly, you could learn a lot about what they hoped to accomplish and what they did or didn't accomplish, and why they did what they did or failed to do what they ought to have done, and maybe that would be interesting

Well put. People made decisions, often flawed decisions, for reasons that rightly or wrongly made sense to them in their own circumstances and time. By studying it honestly, there are lessons to be learned about how we should make decisions today. Whitewashing it, denying it, twisting the truth, is of no value to anyone.

Three men convicted of far-right plot to stab Emmanuel Macron (Guardian)

A French anti-terror court convicted three people on Friday over a plan to attack President Emmanuel Macron after a trial that put the spotlight on a radical far-right online group. The three men, part of a Facebook group known as the Barjols, were convicted for conspiracy to commit a terrorist act after the court heard how they discussed using a ceramic knife to stab Macron in 2018 at a first world war commemoration... Since the start of the trial in mid-January, the court heard details of the group’s alcohol-fuelled meetings and often racist online discussions of migration, their fear of a civil war, and their hatred of Macron...

Elon Musk has put every lost young man on Twitter in the crosshairs of the far right (Guardian)

Letting the expert online recruiters Patriotic Alternative back on the platform isn’t a win for free speech but for fascism... The reinstatements appear to be part of Musk’s commitment to free speech. But if he knew anything at all about PA, he would realise that he has placed a _target on the back of every disenfranchised and politically lost young man on Twitter, many of whom are recruited to the far right via the platform. Consider the cases of two young men who recently began lengthy prison sentences for far-right terrorism offences. Daniel Harris, 19, is a far-right extremist now serving 11 years for creating videos that inspired mass shooters in the US. Luca Benincasa, 20, who recently started a nine-year sentence, was a member of the proscribed neo-Nazi group Feuerkrieg Division. Both men should be held to account for their behaviour, but their actions did not happen in a vacuum. They did not hatch from a swastika-stamped egg at 17 years old, determined to wreak havoc on the world. Their actions, and the beliefs that drove them, are the end product of years of indoctrination by online extremists...

RICU brands Orwell's, Huxley's, Conrad's, Chesterton's, Boulle's, Tennyson's, Shakespeare's readers as far-right extremists

More like RICUCK amirite? The thing is, it's true. In a world (and on a website) overtaken by the barbarians, mere literacy is in and of itself reaction.

But of course that's only a reason to be proud to be far-right.

>102 Kuiperdolin: More like RICUCK amirite? ... mere literacy is in and of itself reaction.

Which, of course, you demonstrate by using crude sexual insults instead of literate arguments or further research. It's funny how you make that argument on a website that wears its literacy on its sleeve.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/02/inside-ricu-the-shadowy-propaga...

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/can-you-really-be-radicalised-by-great-briti...

So, hey, apparently the Guardian thinks propaganda is fine, but not when it's against something that threatens British citizens. It's unclear what we're looking at; "one list" doesn't mean much, and we're not getting the larger picture.

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/just-in-kevin-mccarthy-releases-jan-6-riot-tapes-all...
JUST IN: Kevin McCarthy Releases Jan. 6 Riot Tapes — All 41,000 Hours — to Tucker Carlson

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has finally released the 41,000 hours of surveillance footage filmed during the Jan. 6 riot at the US Capitol — but not publicly. The top Republican gave the footage to Fox News host Tucker Carlson, according to a new report in Axios.

***
The unfair and unbalanced FOX News network plans to continue its aim to misrepresent. This faux news network and its owner is in cahoots with the GOP just as the released emails indicated last week. There is no need to hide the connection anymore, apparently.

Far right trying to infiltrate UK’s low-traffic protests, campaigners warn (Guardian)

Far-right activists and other extremists are attempting to hijack local issues such as low-traffic schemes by linking them to conspiracy theories, campaigners have warned. It comes after Covid-19 protesters joined thousands demonstrating against Oxford’s Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) scheme, one of the most ambitious in the country and the source of long-running local debate. But the anti-racism charity Hope Not Hate (HnH) warns the issue is one that extremists are attempting to portray as the work of an elite cabal, or “New World Order” (NWO), pulling the strings of world events... "On Saturday’s march some people were literally chanting saying things including ‘refugees are rapists’ and ‘jews will not replace us’”...

I find it rather ironic that the right is complaining about "an elite cabal". If there is any loose informal cabal having a disproportionate influence on world events, it is the right wing - capitalists, the owners of major international media, the military-industrial complex, right wing governments, billionaires, etc.

Edited to add: Secret House of Lords circle ‘shown to have worked with far right’ (Guardian)

A secretive organisation accused of collaborating with far-right activists has been operating out of the House of Lords for more than a decade, a cache of leaked documents suggests. The organisation, called the New Issues Group (NIG), includes the former Ukip leader Malcolm Pearson and the Tory former deputy speaker of the House of Lords Baroness Cox. The cache of documents, acquired by anti-fascist group Hope not Hate, even suggests that a figure who would become one of the UK’s most notorious anti-Muslim activists drafted questions to be asked in the House of Lords by group members. Joe Mulhall, research director at Hope not Hate, described the existence of the secretive organisation as “pretty terrifying”. He added: “Our investigation found members of the House of Lords collaborating with far-right Islamophobes”...

All 25 domestic-extremist murders in US / 2022 were committed by rightwing extremists, DOWN from highs of 47-78 per year in 2015-2019--roughly the Trump years!

Murder and Extremism in the United States in 2022 (36 p)
Anti-Defamation League | 22 Feb 2023

Executive Summary
Every year, individuals with ties to different extreme causes and movements kill people in the United States; the ADL Center on Extremism (COE) tracks these murders. Extremists regularly commit murders in the service of their ideology, in the service of a group or gang they may belong to, or even while engaging in traditional, non-ideological criminal activities.

In 2022, domestic extremists killed at least 25 people in the U.S., in 12 separate incidents. This represents a decrease from the 33 extremist-related murders documented in 2021 and is comparable to the 22 extremist-related murders in 2020. It continues the recent trend of fewer extremist-related killings after a five-year span of 47-78 extremist-related murders per year (2015-2019).

The 2022 murder totals would have been much lower if not for two high-casualty extremist-related shooting sprees. Only 10 of the 25 deaths occurred outside of those sprees—and one of those 10 deaths occurred in a less lethal mass shooting attempt.

The issue of extremist-related mass killings is of growing concern and is the subject of a special section of this report. From the 1970s through the 2000s, domestic extremist-related mass killings were relatively uncommon. However, over the past 12 years, their number has greatly increased. Most of these mass killings were committed by right-wing extremists, but left-wing and domestic Islamist extremists were also responsible for incidents. The Center on Extremism has identified 62 extremist-connected mass killing incidents since 1970, with 46 of them being ideologically motivated. Disturbingly, more than half (26, or 57%) of the ideological mass killings have occurred within the past 12 years. Of particular concern in recent years are shootings inspired by white supremacist “accelerationist” propaganda urging such attacks.

In 2022, 18 of the 25 extremist-related murders appear to have been committed in whole or part for ideological motives, while the remaining seven murders either have no clear motive or were committed for a non-ideological motive.

All the extremist-related murders in 2022 were committed by right-wing extremists of various kinds, who typically commit most such killings each year but only occasionally are responsible for all (the last time this occurred was 2012). Left-wing extremists engage in violence ranging from assaults to fire-bombings and arsons, but since the late 1980s have not often _targeted people with deadly violence. The same cannot be said for domestic Islamist extremists, but deadly incidents linked to Islamist extremism have decreased significantly in the U.S. over the past five years.

White supremacists commit the greatest number of domestic extremist-related murders in most years, but in 2022 the percentage was unusually high: 21 of the 25 murders were linked to white supremacists. Again, this is primarily due to mass shootings. Only one of the murders was committed by a right-wing anti-government extremist—the lowest number since 2017...

Death and Extremism
Mass Shooting Victims Dominate Extremist Casualties of 2022
Exploring the Numbers
The Perpetrators
Extremist Mass Killings: A Closer Look
Extremist Murders in 2022: The Incidents
Notes on Methodology and Sources
Policy Recommendations
Endnotes

https://www.adl.org/resources/report/murder-and-extremism-united-states-2022

How the US power grid is a _target for far-right groups (BBC)

Far-right groups are increasingly talking about attacking the US power grid to cause chaos and advance their cause, terrorism experts say. The warnings come as the founder of a neo-Nazi group and a woman appeared in court on Friday charged with plotting to attack power installations around Baltimore...

Pete Strzok @petestrzok | 6:16 PM · Mar 10, 2023:
26 year FBI and Army veteran. Georgetown School of Foreign Service adjunct professor and alum. NYT/WP bestseller: Compromised

FBI domestic terrorism cases by year, per GAO (and great work by @SeamusHughes ):

2013: 1,981
2014: 1,783
2015: 1,606
2016: 1,535
2017: 1,890
2018: 3,714
2019: 4,092
2020: 5,557
2021: 9,049

Feels like this should be bigger news.

Quote Tweet
Seamus Hughes @SeamusHughes | 5:17 PM · Mar 10, 2023:
Current: @GWUPoE. I read a lot of court records because I like a good story. Won a Pulitzer that one time. “A well-known PACER watcher” - Justice Department

But the number always seemed confusing to me. Because it both never changes and then changes so dramatically. So I dove in. Page 24 of a Government Accountability Office report released last week said that the FBI had 9,049 domestic terrorism cases.

https://gao.gov/assets/gao-23-104720.pdf
Table ( https://twitter.com/SeamusHughes/status/1634317460286369793/photo/1 )

US conservatives love to warn of creeping fascism. Do they understand what it is? (Guardian)

This fine youth was starting out on what most would consider an enviable life, free as precious few of his fellow mortals are or have ever been. Yet he was excited by a new insight, that there was a plot afoot to plunge us into serfdom, fascism, Nazism. This alarm has surged, and now we have men in combat gear standing around at public events, absolutely defying anyone to take away their freedom. If they had not hit upon that one most provocative freedom, the right to menace with firearms, probably no one would ever have given a thought to their rights except to assume that they had the normal set of them. And where is the drama in that? They are standing boldly against an insidious foe, or so they and their friends imagine.

These “enemies” against whom they are armed are Americans who disagree with them.

I am trying to describe a Trumpism that anticipated and continues to enable Trump, that makes a kind of sense of his wild rhetoric and the reaction to it among his loyalists. A historically privileged group – whom it is, sadly, fair to call Republicans – indulge in a fear amounting almost to panic, which has become endemic, stimulated continuously by the presence of those Americans who differ from them, for example about whether the ready availability of guns is related to the criminal use of them...

>109 John5918:--a hint to conservatives fascism starts with trying to marginalize certain sections of society whether their poor, female, immigrants, belong to the wrong races religions or sexual orientations etc. just for some examples. It's also in the 'I'm more patriotic than you are'---all that kind of pseudo nationalism wrapping itself around the flag that says we're better than these others whoever their _target others happen to be. There's also these personality fetishes always towards the wealthy, famous, politicos or would be politicos that come with fascism that would turn their most loved into Gods or Angels and their most hated and despised into irredeemable demons that need to be exterminated. People should get that they are flawed.....everyone is flawed in some way or another. There are no devils, angels or Gods or monsters among homosapiens. Some may aspire with all their hearts to those things and some certainly have worse characteristics than others as some have better characteristics but even the best are not perfect and everyone can be fairly critiqued for something or another.

>109 John5918:

Thanks for posting that link, John. I had not seen Robinson's column. She is always worth reading.

>108 margd: I think the commenter Suresh Nirody whose tweet follows the initial Seamus Hughes post might have offered a better interpretation of those numbers. Given that the columns are titled "Preliminary Investigation" , "Full Investigation" and then the column Hughes emphasizes "Total Cases" it could be the column that matters most is the full investigation whereas the total cases is a summary of anything anyone called in as being suspect.

The reason I think this might be what that column reflects is because I know in the years immediately after 9/11 the number of people reporting what they thought might be terrorist activities really jumped (I myself, because of my interest in taking pictures of real trains, was reported as a terrorist and investigated by the police at least 5 times and I'm sure I was reported and discounted by the police more times than that). If this is the case then what the Hughes column indicates is more people are getting serious about the threat of domestic terrorism and choosing to error on the side of caution.

This doesn't negate Hughes nor your concern but it might be more reflective of serious issues. The thing that does attract the eye (at least mine) is the delta in Full Investigations between 2020 and 2021 - 1865 to 3311.

>112 alco261: My personal metric is the abuse my son (and his similarly hued upscale-carwash coworkers) suffered post-Trump. Mostly verbal, but some wienies tried to get kids fired for "incidents" disproved by security cameras, etc. Wienies were empowered, and I bet more violent people were, too?

The modern Republican party is hurtling towards fascism (Guardian)

We are witnessing the logical culmination of win-at-any-cost politics – and Donald Trump has encouraged it... America no longer has two parties devoted to a democratic system of self-government. We have a Democratic party, which – notwithstanding a few glaring counter-examples, such as what the Democratic National Committee did to Bernie Sanders in 2016 – is still largely committed to democracy. And we have a Republican party, which is careening at high velocity toward authoritarianism. OK, fascism...

George Conway🌻 @gtconway3d | 1:55 AM · Apr 16, 2023:
Recovering lawyer. “Well-known detractor of Defendant.” Contributing columnist, @WashingtonPost.

It appears that a former president of the United States tonight reposted a simulated video of a perceived political opponent being killed.

Photo Trump "ReTruth" ( https://twitter.com/gtconway3d/status/1647478867798417408/photo/1 )

All U.S. extremist mass killings in 2022 linked to far right, report says
Ivana Saric | Feb 23, 2023 - Politics & Policy
https://www.axios.com/2023/02/23/mass-killings-extremism-adl-report-2022
----------------------------------------------------

* Murder and Extremism in the United States in 2022 (Report)
Anti-Defamation League | 02.22.2023
https://www.adl.org/resources/report/murder-and-extremism-united-states-2022

Executive Summary
Every year, individuals with ties to different extreme causes and movements kill people in the United States; the ADL Center on Extremism (COE) tracks these murders. Extremists regularly commit murders in the service of their ideology, in the service of a group or gang they may belong to, or even while engaging in traditional, non-ideological criminal activities.

In 2022, domestic extremists killed at least 25 people in the U.S., in 12 separate incidents. This represents a decrease from the 33 extremist-related murders documented in 2021 and is comparable to the 22 extremist-related murders in 2020. It continues the recent trend of fewer extremist-related killings after a five-year span of 47-78 extremist-related murders per year (2015-2019).

The 2022 murder totals would have been much lower if not for two high-casualty extremist-related shooting sprees. Only 10 of the 25 deaths occurred outside of those sprees—and one of those 10 deaths occurred in a less lethal mass shooting attempt.

The issue of extremist-related mass killings is of growing concern and is the subject of a special section of this report. From the 1970s through the 2000s, domestic extremist-related mass killings were relatively uncommon. However, over the past 12 years, their number has greatly increased. Most of these mass killings were committed by right-wing extremists, but left-wing and domestic Islamist extremists were also responsible for incidents. The Center on Extremism has identified 62 extremist-connected mass killing incidents since 1970, with 46 of them being ideologically motivated. Disturbingly, more than half (26, or 57%) of the ideological mass killings have occurred within the past 12 years. Of particular concern in recent years are shootings inspired by white supremacist “accelerationist” propaganda urging such attacks.

In 2022, 18 of the 25 extremist-related murders appear to have been committed in whole or part for ideological motives, while the remaining seven murders either have no clear motive or were committed for a non-ideological motive.

All the extremist-related murders in 2022 were committed by right-wing extremists of various kinds, who typically commit most such killings each year but only occasionally are responsible for all (the last time this occurred was 2012). Left-wing extremists engage in violence ranging from assaults to fire-bombings and arsons, but since the late 1980s have not often _targeted people with deadly violence. The same cannot be said for domestic Islamist extremists, but deadly incidents linked to Islamist extremism have decreased significantly in the U.S. over the past five years.

White supremacists commit the greatest number of domestic extremist-related murders in most years, but in 2022 the percentage was unusually high: 21 of the 25 murders were linked to white supremacists. Again, this is primarily due to mass shootings. Only one of the murders was committed by a right-wing anti-government extremist—the lowest number since 2017.

Experts warn of increased risk of US terror attacks by rightwing ‘lone wolf’ actors (Guardian)

The US is at an increased risk of domestic terror attacks by rightwing “lone wolf” actors, experts have warned, as inflammatory Republican rhetoric around a variety of issues seems likely to continue ahead of the 2024 election. The number of attacks by adherents to rightwing ideology has soared since 2016, as Republican lies about election interference, and escalating rhetoric from the right about minority groups, have served to “provide mechanisms” for individuals to become radicalized, an analyst said. As the threat of domestic rightwing terrorism rises, researchers say individuals, rather than organized groups, are now far more likely to commit what analysts call “crimes inspired by extremist ideology”...

Across Europe, the far right is rising. That it seems normal is all the more terrifying (Guardian)

Normalisation is the process by which something unusual or extreme becomes part of the everyday. What once provoked horror and outrage soon barely registers. The way the presence of Donald Trump became a mere fact of political life is perhaps the most familiar example. But the normalisation of the far right is happening across the democratic world. Once Trump became “normal”, events that seemed even more extreme did too. A 2022 survey found that two in five Americans thought civil war was “at least somewhat likely” in the next decade. One political scientist speaks of the possibility of rightwing dictatorship in the US by 2030. The same creep of normalisation is happening in European politics...

Frilly dresses and white supremacy: welcome to the weird, frightening world of ‘trad wives’ (Guardian)

"In some more traditional relationships (but not all) the man disciplines the woman either physically (like spanking) or with things like writing lines and standing in the corner,” one woman advises another... Welcome to the weird and frightening world of trad wives, where women spurn modern, egalitarian values to dedicate their lives to the service of their husbands... a toxic combination of anti-feminism, white supremacy, normalised abuse and a desire to return to an imagined past. Trad wives can be traced back to the Red Pill Women forum that was set up in 2013... As with most far-right trends, most of them appear to be in the US, but due to the networked nature of the modern far right, trends that start stateside don’t remain there. Interviews I conducted revealed that the British far right encourages its women to be trad, with women attending nationalist conferences such as the annual Patriotic Alternative conference, and making a name for themselves on the far-right infosphere... A woman’s role is to stay at home, serving her spouse domestically and sexually, while her partner goes to work to support her. Men should “discipline” women... And, of course, they’re white. One meme I encountered on Telegram during my research summed up a good trad wife as being “knowledgable about her European roots” and who “loves her family, race and culture”. Leading the tribe is far-right influencer Ayla Stewart, who shot to social media fame when her notorious “white baby challenge” went viral after she declared: “As a mother of six, I challenge families to have as many white babies as I have contributed.” The motive behind the white baby challenge, and much of trad wife culture, is a fear of the so-called “great replacement” – a baseless conspiracy theory that believes white people are being “replaced” by migrant people from the global south, while feminists repress the white birthrate via abortion rights. To defeat this so-called “white genocide”, as one Stewart fan expressed it, far-right women need to “Make White Babies Great Again!”... the trad lifestyle is fixed to two essential components of fascist ideology that govern the modern far right: white supremacy and patriarchy...

Not all trad wives are out-and-out racists, e.g., intermarriage with other races. Socially judgmental, though: gays, women drinking, etc. Pray for right wing pols such as Ted Cruz. Subservience to husbands may be superficial? Extremely susceptible to anti-abortion dogma (e.g., knee-jerk, unsupported rxn to term "stem cells") and to conspiracy theory such as anti-vaccism. Attached to idea of home-schooling, rejecting advantages of trained teachers, secondary supports, evidence-based curricula, peer-socialization...

Reading the Warmth of Other Suns, I'm thinking Jim-Crow blacks weren't the only Americans who came north in early 20th c. to take advantage of industrial jobs... Also, The Reformation: A History: the Reformation goes on in US, where ministers and pastors seem almost self-declared with their own idiosyncratic views of Scripture?

Trump and the Republican party exemplify these five elements of fascism (Guardian)

1. The rejection of democracy, the rule of law and equal rights under the law in favor of a strongman who interprets the popular will...
2. The galvanizing of popular rage against cultural elites...
3. Nationalism based on a dominant “superior” race and historic bloodlines...
4. Extolling brute strength and heroic warriors...
5. Disdain of women and fear of non-standard gender identities or sexual orientation...

Opinion: White nationalist Patriot Front members sue for being exposed for who they are

https://www.idahostatesman.com/opinion/editorials/article278113542.html

“What’s most interesting about this suit is that the Patriot Front members are complaining that their hideous, “unpopular” beliefs have consequences.

The five plaintiffs say they were fired from their jobs, have been threatened at their homes and have had their tires slashed, among other things, according to the lawsuit. While those latter two things certainly go way across the line, the first is a result of actions having consequences.

“This complaint seeks to vindicate the rule of law and basic principles of free expression for persons who espouse unpopular opinions,” according to the lawsuit.

It’s a warped view of freedom of expression when Patriot Front members attempt to completely conceal their ownership of said expression.“

California elementary school evacuated over bomb threat after rightwing harassment (Guardian)

Chabot elementary in Oakland received racist and threatening emails, forcing 50 students and staff to vacate the premises...

Man charged with murder, abuse of corpse after father found beheaded inside Middletown Twp. home
Sharifa Jackson and Corey Davis | January 31, 2024

...Justin Mohn referred to himself as a militia leader and called his father a traitor to the country for being a federal employee for 20 years.

He also spoke about President Joe Biden and threatened multiple federal agencies in the gruesome YouTube video while reading from a script...

https://6abc.com/justin-mohn-levitttown-middletown-township-pa-father-killed/143...

>123 margd: Newsweek has done a background story on Mohn:

https://www.newsweek.com/justin-mohn-wrote-book-satanic-cult-1865604

Sadly, he’s probably not the only one out there.

Wonder where his dad worked...

US says leaders of white supremacist group plotted global attacks online (BBC)

US prosecutors in California charged two people with running a white supremacist group on the messaging app Telegram to inspire acts of violence across the country. In a 37-page indictment unsealed on Monday, Dallas Erin Humber, 34, and Matthew Robert Allison, 37, are accused of leading the "Terrorgram" network, which urged members to carry out terror attacks in an effort to spark a race war. Officials said the defendants used Terrorgram to distribute materials for bombs, to send lists of potential assassination _targets and to encourage others to carry out their own attacks. Mr Allison told members to "take action now" and "do your part", prosecutors alleged...

Suspicious packages sent to election officials across US
Nadine Yousif | 17 September 2024

...The FBI and the US Postal Department are investigating suspicious packages received by election officials in 17 states.

Federal investigators said they were collecting the packages and that some contained “an unknown substance”, though there were no reports of injuries.

They were sent to secretaries of state and state election officials across a swathe of the country from New York to Alaska.

It comes amid reports of rising threats directed at election officials across the US and warnings of political violence as November's presidential election approaches.

... Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that whoever posted the letters had called themselves as the “US Traitor Elimination Army”...

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c70w49w6pk2o

>127 margd: CONTD.

Doc @DocAtCDI | 10:39 PM · Sep 23, 2024 {x}:

I live in a "swing state," the only place where any votes seem to count according to people who defend the electoral college.

My daughter is a county clerk; she is in charge of handling elections for a large county in Michigan.

The FBI came in and told her to shut down all her social media, and if she couldn’t, to remove all references to family and change her name.

No one in her office is allowed to open any mail without gloves and a mask. They have armed security when they enter and leave the city building. They receive 2-3 letters a day filled with white powder (so far, flour or powdered sugar).

Please don’t think we’ve got this under control. There is LITERALLY a war going on, quietly, waged by domestic terrorists, to take away your right to have your voice heard.

This woman, who I can’t name because her life is in danger, goes into combat every single day to try to protect your right to have your voice heard!

Don’t let her down.
------------------------------------------

Physical Security: Personal Safety
U.S. Election Assistance Commission | June 2023 v 1.0

The 60 Second Security Series is intended to help election officials quickly identify, and address, potential security issues. Each topic includes a brief description, a list of security measures, and potential funding sources for making these improvements. More information about election security can be found at www.eac.gov ...

https://www.eac.gov/sites/default/files/2023-06/Final_60_Second_Personal_Securit...

Property crime? WTH??

Arizona Democratic campaign office damaged by gunfire, police say
Haley Williams | September 23, 2024

No one was in the office at the time.
...Officials are investigating it as a property crime, police said...

https://www.12news.com/article/news/crime/dnc-campaign-office-in-tempe-damaged-g...

MAGA crazy

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C_s90dLONBU/?igsh=MTZ3cmZxcmhyZGxiZA==

>130 2wonderY: Aiyiyi. Wouldn't be bad if these bozos can keep their "Christian" women from voting. Astonishingly a bunch of their ladies are good with that, if social media is any guide. Astounded to discover yesterday that a CANADIAN anti-vaxxer I know is good with Project 2025, RFK Jr, etc., at least the anti-vaxx part of it. Insidious, it is ... SO need to teach critical thinking to the next generation...

BBC confronts neo-Nazi who gave UK rioters arson tips (BBC)

The BBC has confronted a neo-Nazi in Finland who shared online instructions on how to commit arson with UK rioters during the summer. The 20-year-old was an administrator in the Southport Wake Up group on the Telegram messaging app, where he was known as “Mr AG”. He posted the arson manual, which was pinned to the top of the group chat. In late July and early August, the group was key in helping to organise and provoke protests that turned to violence in England and Northern Ireland... Mr AG posted the arson manual, writing: “Something fun for you to read.” The manual is believed to have been written by a Russian fascist group proscribed as terrorists in their own country. It includes details on how to avoid the police and it encourages the _targeting of Muslims and Jews...

Man Arrested and Charged with Attempting to Use a Weapon of Mass Destruction and to Destroy an Energy Facility in Nashville

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/man-arrested-and-charged-attempting-use-weapon-ma...

“Driven by a racially motivated violent extremist ideology, the Defendant planned to attack the power grid with a drone and explosives, leaving thousands of Americans and critical infrastructure like hospitals without power,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray.

>133 2wonderY: Enemies within, indeed...

US Capitol Police arrests man with torch, flare gun at Capitol Visitor Center

https://www.dcnewsnow.com/news/local-news/washington-dc/us-capitol-police-arrest...

>134 margd: I had opportunity to mention the story today in class. We will be discussing How to Blow Up a Pipeline for the cause of climate change protest.

White-supremacist demonstrations have popped up, unannounced, in a couple of Michigan towns.
The days following, locals showed up with mops and brooms to sanitize the sidewalks where the white supremacists had demonstrated. :)

>137 margd: Oh! I like that! I will pass that idea along. Columbus, Ohio had black clad and masked men with Nazi flags strutting their stuff.

>138 2wonderY: Wow! Creeps and incels are feeling emboldened... :(

Masked group marches through Ohio neighborhood with swastika flags
The police are investigating the incident.
Ivan Pereira | November 16, 2024

... Columbus, Ohio ... Howell, Michigan ... {and reportedly Ann Arbor, MI} ...

https://abcnews.go.com/US/masked-group-marches-ohio-neighborhood-swastikas-flags...

There was a pro-slavery march in Boston yesterday.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/11/16/metro/abortion-mens-march-boston-protest/

Ed Krassenstein @EdKrassen | 9:16 AM · Jan 4, 2025:

All of the MAGA republicans trying to somehow blame Biden, or immigrants for this, what do you say now?

Cybertruck Bomber (MSG Matt Livelsberger { the driver of the Tesla Cybertruck that exploded on New Year's Day outside the Trump International Las Vegas Hotel}):

“Try peaceful means first, but be prepared to fight to get the Dems out of the fed government and military by any means necessary. They all must go and a hard reset must occur for our country to avoid collapse.”

No, this isn’t the fault of MAGA either. It’s one crazy person who did a terrible thing. Stop trying to blame others for what one man did.