I was involved in the BLM protests of 2021. The cops were legitimately pulling people off the street into unmarked, black vans. Some of the people that were grabbed were not even involved in the protests, they were just outside past the citywide curfew.
I had heard about this happening in Oregon and Washington through the ever reliable internet, but I didn’t actually believe it until I saw it happen in my moderately sized Midwestern city.
And yet they let a bunch of reactionary fascists storm the capitol with minimal resistance.
Yeah, about that… let’s talk about a conspiracy theory. I remember reading, I think on Twitter, either just before, or maybe it was a retweet after the fact, someone local to DC saying that the security that had been established around town (or maybe around the capitol specifically) that day in preparation for the demonstrations was weaker than they had ever seen for any run of the mill event there. This would seem very strange because word was very much out that something was going to go down that day, so one would have expected a much higher level of security to have been established. Although I didn’t look very closely into what happened that day and the days surrounding it, it still seems strange that I’ve never heard this discussed since I read it.
Conspiracy fact. I watched on video as cops moved barricades to let rioters in, took selfies with rioters, then literally held the hands of rioters as they walked down the capitol stairs.
At the BLM protests in Buffalo a cop dropped his helmet. When a bystander tried to give it back to them, the cops gave him brain damage.
Conspiracy fact. I watched on video as cops moved barricades to let rioters in, took selfies with rioters, then literally held the hands of rioters as they walked down the capitol stairs.
Thanks, but that’s not what I meant though. What that person described was that an unusually low, insufficient level of security had been established before the event, in comparison to any other run of the mill event that had taken place in that area in the past. The exact opposite should have been done, since everyone expected there to be trouble.
In terms of conspiracy theory, there are two possibilities I can think of: a) someone in power under-secured the event in the expectation that the riot would succeed and become a coup, or b) someone in power under-secured the event in the expectation that the riot would not succeed but would be enough of a spectacle that it could then be used against the people who were involved with facilitating and encouraging it. However, this all hinges on that observer’s evaluation being accurate that the event had indeed been unusually under-secured.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/06/jan-6-generals-lied-ex-dc-guard-official-523777
So here’s the head of the DC national guard saying that they were purposely delayed in their response and that the people from the army who testified in front of the jan 6 committee were, his words, “absolute and unmitigated liars”.
Here are jan 6 rally organizers saying they knew before it happened that the rally was going to involve an unpermitted match in the Capitol. They say they called white house chief of staff Mark meadows about it and were ignored. The person who claimed to have made the call now says they didn’t and the white house was unaware of the plans to march on the capitol. Given the number of rioters who showed up in bespoke tshirts that said “storm the capitol” it’s fair to say that if the white house didn’t see this coming they were the only ones who didn’t. The article also establishes that Enrique tarrio, Alex Jones and Nick Fuentes were there and that organizers put up with their openly abhorrent beliefs because they can “push bodies where we point”. This is relevant because it means that people we’ve proven were in contact with the white house before 01/06 were there to cause a riot and knew it.
The above link also shows that capitol police knew what was coming. The released a memo on Jan 3 saying “Stop the Steal’s propensity to attract white supremacists, militia members, and others who actively promote violence, may lead to a significantly dangerous situation for law enforcement and the general public alike." An internal email from 12/31 said that rally permit requests were “being used as proxies for Stop the Steal” and that those requesting permits “may also be involved with organizations that may be planning trouble” on Jan. 6.
Another thing of note from that source is that no march on the capitol was permitted, but plans among organizers including those known to have been in direct contact with the white house publicly talked about the rally ending in a march on the capitol. It wasn’t until after those plans were published that Trump tweeted that he would personally attend the rally.
It’s also important to know that the DC national guard is unique in that it’s deployment is managed by the white house directly, rather than by state governors as other national guard groups are. The above source says that capitol police requested national guard support 6 times, including after violence erupted, and were denied all 6 times. Muriel Bowser, mayor of DC at the time, had also requested NG support ahead of the rally and had been denied.
So the white house was aware in advance of the rally, including that it would involve an unpermitted march on the capitol. Some organizers were so concerned that violence would erupt that they reached out to white house chief of staff mark meadows about it. They knew violence was coming. After the more openly violent elements announced that they would illegally march on the capitol, Trump tweeted that people should attend the rally and that he would be there personally. They took steps to amplify the violence. Trump also had the power to deploy the DC national guard. The guard was requested both before the rally by the mayor of DC and during the violence 6 times by capitol police. These requests could have been granted by Trump, but were instead denied. The trump white house took steps to hamper the response to the violence.
What else would you need in order to believe that this was a planned assault on democracy, coordinated directly with the white house and designed to take advantage of a legitimate peaceful protest?
What else would you need in order to believe that this was a planned assault on democracy, coordinated directly with the white house and designed to take advantage of a legitimate peaceful protest?
I know it was a planned assault on democracy. I never said otherwise. I also know who had fomented and planned the assault: the people in the White House and all their die-hard followers. None of that is in question. What I was unsure about was who had fucked up and allowed it to happen that day. I had never looked very closely at the details of the events of that day, but I read the NPR and Politico stories you sent. The picture that those paint to me is that a lot of people primarily responsible for securing this event fucked up leading up to it. With all that intelligence that shit was going to go down, the local authorities should have had their shit together, ready for it. They could have asked the National Guard to be in place ahead of time, but didn’t think it was necessary despite having access to the intelligence and were worried about what had happened previously with the BLM protests. If they’re having to call the National Guard after people start rushing the capitol, it’s way too late. From the time that the crowd reaches the security lines at the capitol until the time that the protester is shot trying to enter the House chamber is less than 1 hour 45 minutes. And it sounds like the call goes out to the NG after the crowd reached the capitol.
I didn’t realize or recall that Michael Flynn’s brother was one of the generals involved in the decision to send in the National Guard. WTF, he was probably in no hurry to send in the troops. However, I still argue that the people who were intent on securing the event should not have given anyone the opportunity of a delayed response that could have been obscured by the chaos. Aside from that, what are the chances that the situation could have potentially been even worse had the NG been involved? Can you imagine the endless whining from the MAGAs if more of them had been mowed down by the NG?
they could have asked for NG support before the event
The mayor of DC did, and was denied.
I didn’t realize Michael Flynn’s brother was responsible for sending in the troops
Look up when he was appointed. Trump put him in place during the lame duck period after the election specifically so that he could sabotage security ahead. No one “screwed up” security, they all did exactly what they were there to do. Capitol cops put up a token resistance then waved rioters in, NG was held away from the event until it was well too late, the only people who screwed up were the gangs of terrorists embedded in the crowd who failed to capture any government officials who could potentially have been ransomed in exchange for Trump being appointed. I’m usually a big fan of Hanlon’s razor but in this particular situation that would require a lot of competent people to become very stupid for exactly one day in a way that just so happens to benefit themselves greatly.
I remember the livestreams. Did anyone ever find out what happened to those poor people?
They fucking shot people on their own porches. They fucking arrested a journalist just standing doing nothing live on the air.
The fact we all did not revolt and overthrow those assholes at that point is a moral failing on our part.
They went into people’s houses to arrest them for being out after curfew.
They fired tear gas into people’s houses because they were suspected of giving water to protestors.
In Minneapolis a group of cops went around off duty, out of uniform in an unmarked van and fired irritant paintballs at everyone they saw. When someone shot back they arrested him for assauting an officer, assault with a deadly weapon, attempted murder, etc. He was eventually acquitted because he stopped shooting as soon as they ID’d themselves.
The police are fucking animals roaming the streets and inflicting violence anywhere they can get away with it.
There is a huge amount of fake and bot accounts on social medias, probably as much as the population of many cities, made and used to manipulate the public opinion.
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Theres a huge network of private surveillance cameras, microphones, and other sensors constantly collecting everyone’s information and selling it to whomever can pay, or just straight up giving the feds access to the data.
I like to refer to that corporation as “Little Brother”.
That beautiful
Media has been using nonviolence as a propaganda tool to quash rebellions and silence dissent in the U.S. for decades.
Think about it: almost every single story you ever see across all media that has the heroes using violence in a positive light, especially revenge content, will always portray that character’s actions as a negative even when objectively they are not. They always look to the same playbook of cliched arguments, one-liners, and tropes to do this. They are all oversimplified caricatures of or misrepresentations of nonviolence, violence, and revenge, justice, forgiveness, etc. A lot are just outright lies or ad-homs.
It’s even departmental policy in some companies to force writers to write their scripts in such a manner.
The only director I’ve ever seen rebel against it is Quentin Tarantino and I don’t think he has been doing it deliberately.
It’s definitely more complicated than this. A fundamental premise of enlightenment democracy is the establishment of a framework for the mediation of political power without the need for violence. So that ideal of nonviolence goes back much farther than both the US or the fourth estate, and it can be argued that it is actually a starting point for much of the modern world’s political philosophy.
But in general, it doesn’t take a ton of thought to imagine why cycles of political violence are unsustainable and unproductive. If violence becomes a primary form of political expression, then you will simply have every different group trying their hand. This is why we prescribe the state with a monopoly on violence - a principle even older than democracy.
That isn’t to say that violence is never just. Ironically, contemporary existentialism tackles this issue pretty nicely by establishing some imperatives which revolve around the relationship between oppressor and oppressed. Primary among them is the acknowledgement that the most sustainable and desirable form of change is done through conversation with the oppressor (as in liberal democracy), and that anyone who rejects this imperative acts in bad faith, just as the oppressor does when they refuse to treat.
Simply put, to engage in violence is to ordain yourself the oppressor, and understanding the heavy implications of this action is critical to just violence. De Beauvoir argues that idealism is therefore one critical aspect of justice in all forms, as it seeks, by nature, to preserve transcendent humanity in others. And this is the ambiguity of the freedom fighter - the classic dialectical struggle will always reduce itself to mystification because ideals are not fixed like the flesh, against which violence acts. Therefore, while violence can be just, it cannot be justice, because it does not directly serve any ideal. As such, our morality must be “opposed to the totalitarian doctrines which raise up beyond man the mirage of Mankind” and “freedom can only be achieved through the freedom of others.”
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The MOVE bombing. The fact that the Philadelphia police dropped not one but TWO explosive devices on the roof of their house via helicopter is still nuts to me. What made it even worse was the fact that the fire department showed up and let it continue to burn, destroying 61 evacuated neighboring homes and leaving 250 people homeless.
Any time I tell someone about it that hasn’t heard the story, they’re skeptical.
Another one is the time I learned that I was under local surveillance for being an activist that was part of a local non-violent black liberation org. The police would send a unit weekly to check my whereabouts and movements. I learned through a friend of a friend that didn’t even know who I was, but knew my name and that I was on a surveillance list. Pretty sure they were checking in on everyone involved.
Edit: if this comment has taught me anything, it’s that you’re better off not engaging with pointless nitpickers and police apologists. Fuck me for having an opinion.
I just looked up MOVE after reading this comment. Amazing power dynamics (from wikipedia):
In 1978, a standoff resulted in the death of one police officer and injuries to 16 officers and firefighters, as well as members of the MOVE organization. Nine members were convicted of killing the officer and each received prison sentences of 30 to 100 years.[2] In 1985, another firefight ended when a police helicopter dropped two bombs onto the roof of the MOVE compound, a townhouse located at 6221 Osage Avenue.[3][4] The resulting fire killed six MOVE members and five of their children, and destroyed 65 houses in the neighborhood.[5]
The “city” was found to have used excessive force, and compensation in these cases comes from taxpayer money.
The Philadelphia police wanted MOVE gone because they bucked the system and were at odds with the police over the ongoing murder of their people. That’s why they went to such lengths to eradicate them at their main row house. I remember reading about how it was essentially a shooting gallery for the police. As people tried to escape the building, police fired upon them.
It was an insanely careless plan borne out of hubris, hatred towards black liberation groups in a time of high racial tensions, and the police (again) thinking that they were above the law. I’m actually shocked there was even a lawsuit that stuck. That alone shows how fucked their whole plan was. Even the city and a federal judge couldn’t overlook this one.
