The Political Thread

[Rately]

If CNN are right, and there is worse evidence regarding the coup, and even worse footage from inside the Capitol Building still to be made public

What I've seen already — 'protestors' moving through the building with very clear knowledge of the layout,* coupled with reports of far-right Republican members of congress leading multiple tours of people who've been tentatively identified as 'protestors' through the building the day before plus at least one Democrat reporting that the 'panic buttons' had been physically removed from their office... it's hard not to conclude that some groups in that crowd were a lot more organised than just an angry mob.

*I don't mean just looking like they knew where they were going — I mean, video of them discussing which way to go, what lies beyond closed doors, where to go to find a specific person's office. They were in the building, they knew the layout, and, perhaps most alarmingly, they were sufficiently confident that no one was going to arrest or shoot them that they could stand around discussing which way to go next.

Frightening.

If it actually comes to pass, and we see members of Congress arrested over this, perhaps then the Republican Party might start doing the right thing. Won't hold my breath, though.

[Rately]

Teddy Spaghetti aka Vox Day aka Theodore Beale still high on copium. If THE PLAN isnt happening,you need to trust harder. 

https://archive.fo/G8SWH

Christ. Literally mentally ill.

I've had to mute a few relatives on Facebook because they believe this stuff. Strangely, every time i go down the rabbit hole of concern over vaccines, coups, multi-culturism ( wink, wink ) etc. it nearly always leads back to far right grifters and their anti-semitism, racism and hatred.

One cousin is forever calling me a sheep, whilst posting from the likes of OANN, Newsmax and fringe arseholes like Grand Torino on FB. Challenge him, and he laughs, and says I've been brainwashed by the Mainstream Media, and them Doctors and Scientists with their facts, figures and Degrees.

Ted is a complete lolcow. Or EL-O-EL cow as he pronounced it. We are talking self described 150 IQ genius,musician,game designer,columnist,martial artist,son of a tax fraud and wannabe cult leader Robert Beale...The lore is practically bottomless.

What an utter arsehole. Quickly perused a few articles, and saw he had a spat with another awful human being, Ethan Van Sciver.

[Smith]

@Rately He had internet spats with everyone. Last big thing was him and Owen Benjamin getting their fans to sue Patreon foe torturous interference. 😂

If you are interested in the Spaghetti lore,check out his Kiwi Farms thread or r/gammasecretkings.

[TordelBack]

*I don't mean just looking like they knew where they were going — I mean, video of them discussing which way to go, what lies beyond closed doors, where to go to find a specific person's office. They were in the building, they knew the layout, and, perhaps most alarmingly, they were sufficiently confident that no one was going to arrest or shoot them that they could stand around discussing which way to go next.

Yeah, I was initially dismissive of this - I took a tour of the Capitol building more than 20 years ago, including visiting both chambers, and I still have a reasonably clear idea of the layout, so I imagined it was all pretty common knowledge. But the actual details that have emerged since make for a much more sinister picture.

My only niggle about all this is the perennial false flag issue - it was all remarkably convenient, but just as much for the anti-Trump as the pro-Trump lobby.  It's harder to imagine a plausible scenario where this rabble could have have achieved much more than murdering a bunch of Trump's enemies (not to minimise the human cost) and slightly delaying Biden's certification before the irresistible force of US military stamped it out, than it is to imagine multiple endings where it creates a huge anti-Trump backlash, justification for cracking down on internet freedoms and a Patrician excising of no-longer useful elements of the right in the manner of the Rohm Purge.

I don't think it's going into full-on conspiracy nuttery to wonder if some of the steps along the way might not have been enabled by people with aims opposite to the active participants. 

[Rately]

*I don't mean just looking like they knew where they were going — I mean, video of them discussing which way to go, what lies beyond closed doors, where to go to find a specific person's office. They were in the building, they knew the layout, and, perhaps most alarmingly, they were sufficiently confident that no one was going to arrest or shoot them that they could stand around discussing which way to go next.

Yeah, I was initially dismissive of this - I took a tour of the Capitol building more than 20 years ago, including visiting both chambers, and I still have a reasonably clear idea of the layout, so I imagined it was all pretty common knowledge. But the actual details that have emerged since make for a much more sinister picture.

My only niggle about all this is the perennial false flag issue - it was all remarkably convenient, but just as much for the anti-Trump as the pro-Trump lobby.  It's harder to imagine a plausible scenario where this rabble could have have achieved much more than murdering a bunch of Trump's enemies (not to minimise the human cost) and slightly delaying Biden's certification before the irresistible force of US military stamped it out, than it is to imagine multiple endings where it creates a huge anti-Trump backlash, justification for cracking down on internet freedoms and a Patrician excising of no-longer useful elements of the right in the manner of the Rohm Purge.

I don't think it's going into full-on conspiracy nuttery to wonder if some of the steps along the way might not have been enabled by people with aims opposite to the active participants.

On his Podcast, the former Republican Strategist, Rick Wilson, said he would be surprised if the rioters hadn't been coordinated by people with knowledge of the Capitol. He said he had visited the building hundreds of times, and he would struggle to get to some of the parts of the Capitol building that they accessed.

[Professor Bear]

My only niggle about all this is the perennial false flag issue - it was all remarkably convenient, but just as much for the anti-Trump as the pro-Trump lobby.  It's harder to imagine a plausible scenario where this rabble could have have achieved much more than murdering a bunch of Trump's enemies (not to minimise the human cost) and slightly delaying Biden's certification before the irresistible force of US military stamped it out, than it is to imagine multiple endings where it creates a huge anti-Trump backlash, justification for cracking down on internet freedoms and a Patrician excising of no-longer useful elements of the right in the manner of the Rohm Purge.

Not to justify the conspiracy theories or anything - don't want to trigger the Fact-Checker General - but you assume all things being equal, TB, rather than our having a firmly-established media environment in which many people exist in an alternate reality and already believe batshit-crazy things thanks to deliberate conditioning - a huge number of people already believe that antifa dressed in MAGA hats to frame Trump supporters.  Who in the media was going to speak on behalf of The Left if this had turned into a massacre?
After 911, the US public didn't look inward and consider the cost of their training and funding Al Qaeda operatives, they found an enemy at their gates and they embraced hatred for it that endures to this day, and a massacre in the Capitol would have been a gift to American authoritarians, with Republicans speaking fondly of their poor dead colleagues from across the aisle who simply cannot be allowed to have died in vain - these socialists who stormed the Capitol must be stopped.

I'm sure I've mentioned before how US corporations funded a million-strong private army of fascist veterans to march on Washington DC with the intent of removing FDR from office and installing a military dictatorship in America in the 1930s, and how over time it's been reframed - even on that Wikipedia article - as "a hoax" despite official records of it still existing in presidential and congressional archives.  The capitalist fash of the military-industrial complex has precious few new ideas, just newer methods of execution.

[TordelBack]

All true, but I wasn't really suggesting the left (as if US politics had a left) as having any part to play, more the actions of the usual socialised-capitalism brigade for whom Trump is now a busted flush. How much better that he be condemned by history for a bloody coup attempt in his final weeks than for all those years of fine work making rich folk richer. Then the tools of repression can be sharpened further and business under the other political wing that the oligarchy funds and directs can continue as normal, safe in the knowledge that the threat to the Republic from a lone madman was averted by the robust principles of democracy. Cicero would have had a field day.

[Hawkmumbler]

I often wonder weather Adam Curtis is kicking himself for pitching HYPERNORMALISATION too early, as the prominence of manufactured realities and 'alternative facts' under the Trump administration feels like an inevitable inclusion in that truly mammoth documentary.

[The Legendary Shark]

Aye, I watched the first episode of The Power of Nightmares again not long ago. Same schtick, different crisis.

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

WWN always cheers me up:

[Funt Solo]

It seems like the Properpocalypse is getting started up now after the Fakepocalypse of 2020.

[Rately]

WWN always cheers me up:

We will literally have to start eating flags!

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

WWN always cheers me up:

We will literally have to start eating flegs!

FTFY

[Hawkmumbler]

[TordelBack]

Arsom! I like how feeling certain individual entries need to move down one level* makes me think "...are we the baddies?".


*Cryptids, mainly. Belong above the 'speculation' line and below the 'leaving reality' one. You can speculate on unknown animal life represented in folklore without leaving reality,  surely!  But also 'Govt made diseases' seems a bit high, since I'm sure someone has a budget for that.