Captain moroni arrested

[The Nehor]

5 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

The evidence strongly suggests otherwise.

Nope, and you just spent time saying that an event with lots of video evidence was too confusing to parse out. Now you are saying that you can determine the secret hidden objectives of an entire organization based on two of its founding members writing something pro-Marxist in college?

7 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

Totally captured by the media narrative. 

Also the FBI narrative, the narrative from the USCP cops on scene, the narrative from most members of Congress who were there (some changed their tune later), the narrative established by the video evidence, and the narrative established by all the pre-attack chatter that I was monitoring because we were all pretty certain this would happen. Then I listened to the speeches just before the attack and knew something was going to happen. You know, stuff that would usually be called ‘evidence’ but is too bewildering and confusing for some people so they just throw up their hands and assume that truth cannot be known.

9 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

 So will you.

I know. We all will.

8 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

Of course he is. On this subject he is totally in the pocket of the media machine. As are many others.

I spend literally hundreds of hours going over videos of the attack, combing through the social media of participants, helping process information to identify the attackers and pass that on to law enforcement, and reviewing written accounts and other data. But sure, it all came from Fox and CNN sound bytes. Totally a zombie here just quoting talking heads.

Spoilers: I watched virtually none of the news coverage about it except for some early reports when it started. After that I was too busy working with the raw data. Some of it was pulled from the news but I wasn’t doing that part.

6 minutes ago, Calm said:

This thread so needs to be locked. 

Agreed. However I would like to state for the record that I didn’t start it. The thread or the political stuff or the fire.

 

[bsjkki]

6 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Nope, and you just spent time saying that an event with lots of video evidence was too confusing to parse out. Now you are saying that you can determine the secret hidden objectives of an entire organization based on two of its founding members writing something pro-Marxist in college?

Also the FBI narrative, the narrative from the USCP cops on scene, the narrative from most members of Congress who were there (some changed their tune later), the narrative established by the video evidence, and the narrative established by all the pre-attack chatter that I was monitoring because we were all pretty certain this would happen. Then I listened to the speeches just before the attack and knew something was going to happen. You know, stuff that would usually be called ‘evidence’ but is too bewildering and confusing for some people so they just throw up their hands and assume that truth cannot be known.

I know. We all will.

I spend literally hundreds of hours going over videos of the attack, combing through the social media of participants, helping process information to identify the attackers and pass that on to law enforcement, and reviewing written accounts and other data. But sure, it all came from Fox and CNN sound bytes. Totally a zombie here just quoting talking heads.

Spoilers: I watched virtually none of the news coverage about it except for some early reports when it started. After that I was too busy working with the raw data. Some of it was pulled from the news but I wasn’t doing that part.

Agreed. However I would like to state for the record that I didn’t start it. The thread or the political stuff or the fire.

 

Why do you believe security was so lax that day? I know, I said I was done but I am curious. Did you do the same for any of the other violent protests? 

[Stargazer]

25 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Nope, and you just spent time saying that an event with lots of video evidence was too confusing to parse out. Now you are saying that you can determine the secret hidden objectives of an entire organization based on two of its founding members writing something pro-Marxist in college?

They condemn the US and praise communist Cuba, even after Cuban authorities murdered peaceful protesters -- and I'm pretty sure that at least some of those protesters were black.

Their words today speak rather more loudly than their words in college. And tend to confirm what they wrote back then.

"Some people did something". 

Yep.

[Calm]

38 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

They condemn the US and praise communist Cuba,

BLM as a whole or some of its members/leaders?

Clarification from the Foundation…not seeing their position as full out support of the Cuban government. Seems more like they are focused on self determination and don’t want the US to use its power to force Cuba’s people to adopt what the US wants rather than what their citizens want.  

Quote

We unequivocally join in solidarity with the Cuban people against repression and violence from internal and unseen external actors,” officials said in the statement. “We also understand that Anti-Blackness exists within Cuba and is a Global issue. We struggle for and alongside Black people across the diaspora for liberation and self-sovereignty.”

I am guessing they are focused on certain past habits of the US treating other countries as their subjects, too focused Imo but I am guessing part of that is believing they can influence the US, but not so much the Cuban government. 
 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_Haiti

Edited July 19, 2021 by Calm

[The Nehor]

5 minutes ago, bsjkki said:

Why do you believe security was so lax that day? I know, I said I was done but I am curious. Did you do the same for any of the other violent protests? 

Security was so lax because the President was in on it and it is looking like members of Congress were involved as well. There have been attempts to pin it on others but they were pretty weak. More information is coming out about the potential for a coup in the last days of the former President but by all accounts the military and the intelligence services were not on board. Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle were proactively working with members of the military, intelligence services, and former officials to rally support to accept the election results because everyone knew even before the election that the former President would lie about the results. He lies about the results when he loses. He lies about the results when he wins. The one constant is that he lies about the results.

When the stories of the coup came out:

To paraphrase his nine year old logic: “I didn’t want to do a coup and if I did do a coup I wouldn’t do it with you. I only picked you because the last guy I hired was utter trash and said you were trash. Also, tear gassing peaceful protesters for my idiotic show of strength photo op was ‘totally appropriate’”

He also admits he hires garbage people:

“I am awesome and made these idiots great and then they betrayed me!” This petty gossipy little socialite is somehow an alpha male to many Americans. I genuinely do not get it.

In answer to your question I was involved with the BLM protests. I did some data processing, publicized video streams, talked with a few streamers, and occasionally worked with people monitoring police radio to try to keep protesters informed. My role was pretty minor though. I was not involved with any of the violent action in the BLM protests nor were any of the online supporters I worked with and we cut out anyone who was trying to agitate for and commit violent action early. There were a couple of cretins that hung around for a bit but there were a lot of warnings distributed about activists and counter protesters including names and faces of people to ostracize and avoid.

As I have said before I do not consider protests against legitimate injustice to be on the same level as an attack on the seat of government designed to coerce or kill government officials. The protesters on January 6th that stayed outside and did not rush into the Capitol building and did not assault, intimidate, or attempt to kill police or members of Congress were not terrorists or criminals. I think they support evil but what can you do? I can say that based on the information I saw (and I saw a lot of video) the majority of the violence incidents at BLM protests were instigated by police or counter protesters. Not all. Some were protesters with heady craziness, usually at the periphery of the protest. Some were not attached to the protest at all and used it as cover for violent action on the fringes. Some of the news reporting was shoddy on this point. For example there was a shooting that was initially attributed to the protests but by all indications the protesters were all over ten blocks away. Later it came out that it was unrelated but sadly in these cases often the initial reports are the only ones that get remembered so I am sure many people who insist that the BLM protests were about murder and mayhem still use hearing that sound byte as evidence for their conclusion.

The BLM protests were and are a threat to white supremacists and their policies. The attack on the Capitol was a direct attack on democracy and the nation itself. I cannot conceive how any reasonable person can equate the two without either endorsing white supremacy or believing the attack on the Capitol was warranted or that at least their goal was noble while tutting about violence.

I fear we may see more violence in the future. I hope the DoJ stays the course and continues to prosecute despite the ridiculous arguments that these people are political prisoners. The irony is that this rhetoric is coming from the far-Right news media and Putin himself. If you find a brutal thuggish dictator on your side you may want to reevaluate where you stand. They are prosecuting those involved. It is moving slowly but they are tackling this thing more like taking down a mob organization. The unity of the protesters has been shattered and many feel betrayed. They will hopefully start agreeing to turn on the people who organized the attack. I would not be at all surprised if the FBI is already investigating several members of the previous administration and members of Congress. There will be more “witch hunt” complaints from the actual legitimate witches but we need to keep rounding them up and imprisoning them.

I am not being melodramatic when I say being soft on an attempted coup is almost guaranteeing the fascists win. In Germany, Italy, and Japan in the 1930s all were soft on and afraid of the fascists and let them off with a slap on the wrist and later put them in power figuring it wouldn’t be that bad. America is not somehow immune to this tendency. I have seen demands for a dictatorship as the only way to save the US and hordes agreeing with it. I have seen people who imagine themselves to be patriots lauding Putin as a role model leader and desiring someone like him to ‘right’ America. It is not hard to look at the Bible and (especially) the Book of Mormon where people demand the installation of a king and see why God put those bits in there. More and more it seems the book was written for our day. It is not just an American problem either. Authoritarian leaders are using the pandemic to subvert government all around the world to turn democracies and quasi-democracies into more authoritarian systems.

Fun days ahead.

[bsjkki]

Their citizens are oppressed. They are not free to self determine. Their citizens choose the risk of death to be free. The statement was condemned. 

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/black-lives-matter-faces-backlash-statement-cuba-protest-rcna1438

 

[Calm]

19 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

. I cannot conceive how any reasonable person can equate the two without either endorsing white supremacy or believing the attack on the Capitol was warranted or that at least their goal was noble while tutting about violence.

I don’t go to this with you. I think depending on what people focus on, the two can be equated without any endorsement of white supremacy or the rest.  I don’t think they should be equated, but I have heard some intelligent discussion that I believe is decent, though I think it is too narrow in a couple of assumptions. 
 

I fear drawing the line where you do will result in more defensiveness and less openness to positive changes and less condemnation of the extreme right as more moderate and reasonable conservative voices will feel attacked rather than persuaded they need to be more forceful in rejecting those elements of the far right. 
 

Edited July 19, 2021 by Calm

[The Nehor]

26 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

They condemn the US and praise communist Cuba, even after Cuban authorities murdered peaceful protesters -- and I'm pretty sure that at least some of those protesters were black.

Their words today speak rather more loudly than their words in college. And tend to confirm what they wrote back then.

"Some people did something". 

Yep.

You still don’t understand the difference between the organization BLMGNF and the protests which got the “Black Lives Matter” name because they used that slogan. BLMGNF wasn’t organizing the protests and really didn’t have any leadership role. I have gone over this before but you keep pretending that the organization and the movement are one and the same. They are not. I interacted with dozens of organizers and coordinators trying to help the protests. No one was in charge. The ranks are not filled with Marxists. There are some communists but they were a minority and they didn’t buy into the Marxist bit about the inevitable flow of capitalism to communism. In case you weren’t aware Marxism and Communism are not the same thing. Marxism is one take on Communism.

If you want to believe your idiot propagandists over the reality of the movement go ahead. You’re just wrong.

23 minutes ago, Calm said:

BLM as a whole or some of its members/leaders?

Clarification from the Foundation…not seeing their position as full out support of the Cuban government. Seems more like they are focused on self determination and don’t want the US to use its power to force Cuba to adopt what it wants rather than what their citizens want.  

I am guessing they are concerned with certain past habits of the US treating other countries as their subjects. 

And Calm is right. I don’t agree with parts of the statement but making it out that Cuba is wonderful and beautiful and Cuba is a model for the world to follow is not the message there. Yet somehow the talking Right-Wing heads read it that way. It is almost as if they are deliberately misleading their listeners for propaganda purposes…..again. It also shows the laziness of their viewers. They could read the statement itself in less time than it takes to listen to Tucker Carlson to do his confused and vaguely scared face and ask vague questions about how deep in bed with Cuba BLMGNF is.

[The Nehor]

14 minutes ago, bsjkki said:

Their citizens are oppressed. They are not free to self determine. Their citizens choose the risk of death to be free. The statement was condemned. 

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/black-lives-matter-faces-backlash-statement-cuba-protest-rcna1438

 

True. True. True.

It was an idiotically written statement. I agree the embargo should end but the statement is confusing and talks out of both sides of its mouth by trying to support the Cuban protesters (Woohoo! Good job!) while sneaking in vague suggestions that the government is also kind of good (Wait….what?) The BLMGNF issuing a stupid statement is not proof that the largely not aligned with them BLM protests are advocating for Cuba’s brand of authoritarianism. I mentioned earlier that I did interact with some communists while monitoring BLM protests. All of them were advocates for democratic communism. None of them were fans of Stalin or Castro or Mao. There was one guy with some really weird views on Trotsky but I couldn’t tell if he liked him or hated him. He was kind of strange and I am pretty sure he was on drugs when I talked with him.

[bsjkki]

Just now, The Nehor said:

True. True. True.

It was an idiotically written statement. I agree the embargo should end but the statement is confusing and talks out of both sides of its mouth by trying to support the Cuban protesters (Woohoo! Good job!) while sneaking in vague suggestions that the government is also kind of good (Wait….what?) The BLMGNF issuing a stupid statement is not proof that the largely not aligned with them BLM protests are advocating for Cuba’s brand of authoritarianism. I mentioned earlier that I did interact with some communists while monitoring BLM protests. All of them were advocates for democratic communism. None of them were fans of Stalin or Castro or Mao. There was one guy with some really weird views on Trotsky but I couldn’t tell if he liked him or hated him. He was kind of strange and I am pretty sure he was on drugs when I talked with him.

Sometimes I believe certain groups make sure to have a decentralized structure so they can claim independence...even if they all use the same name. Plausible deniability by design. 

[The Nehor]

Just now, bsjkki said:

Sometimes I believe certain groups make sure to have a decentralized structure so they can claim independence...even if they all use the same name. Plausible deniability by design. 

Sometimes I suspect some people cannot conceive of grass-roots movements and decentralized organizations existing because they have never participated in one so they imagine BLM and Antifa have to have some mastermind pulling all the strings. I suspect members of the Church are particularly susceptible to this since the Church is very well structured. A lot of churches are not and a lot of the people in these protests are from those less structured traditions. I admit I was a bit amazed at how it all seemed to work. When they needed food or water or (often in Portland) equipment to deal with tear gas attacks a lot of it just came because someone donated it. Medical assistance showed up and they just brought what they thought they needed. Experts volunteered info on how to survive tear gas and how to avoid being penned in by law enforcement. It was beautiful in many ways watching it just spontaneously work.

[Calm]

34 minutes ago, bsjkki said:

Sometimes I believe certain groups make sure to have a decentralized structure so they can claim independence...even if they all use the same name. Plausible deniability by design. 

 The world lives off of sound bites. It is a great phrase. It makes sense to me that it was latched onto just as different groups chant USA or use Democracy or a variation in their names whether or not their group is that democratic in ideals. 
 

Quote

 I suspect members of the Church are particularly susceptible to this since the Church is very well structured. A lot of churches are not and a lot of the people in these protests are from those less structured traditions. 

Interesting point.  Seems like that would apply to both the left wing and right wing grassroots movements. And there are likely some people out there trying to take advantage in whatever way they can of both groups.  Being decentralized has good and bad aspects. 
 

PS:  Nazis calling themselves socialists was always confusing to me as a kid. 

Edited July 19, 2021 by Calm

[sheilauk]

7 hours ago, Calm said:

I would prefer if people surrounded him and drowned out his words with hymns or other upbeat songs. 

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
 

Pastor Martin Niemoller