Did this really just happen?

[_Icarus]

On the day Trump announced his intent to designate Antifa a terrorist organization (authority he does not have), an FBI investigation found no evidence of Antifa’s involvement in the rioting. https://www.thenation.com/article/activ ... G7ISOy9aWo

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Mike Mullen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Mullen is so concerned about Trump's recent behavior he penned an op ed in The Atlantic:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... qn5ML42_jw

I Cannot Remain Silent

"Our fellow citizens are not the enemy, and must never become so.

It sickened me yesterday to see security personnel—including members of the National Guard—forcibly and violently clear a path through Lafayette Square to accommodate the president's visit outside St. John's Church. I have to date been reticent to speak out on issues surrounding President Trump's leadership, but we are at an inflection point, and the events of the past few weeks have made it impossible to remain silent.

Whatever Trump's goal in conducting his visit, he laid bare his disdain for the rights of peaceful protest in this country, gave succor to the leaders of other countries who take comfort in our domestic strife, and risked further politicizing the men and women of our armed forces.

There was little good in the stunt.

While no one should ever condone the violence, vandalism, and looting that has exploded across our city streets, neither should anyone lose sight of the larger and deeper concerns about institutional racism that have ignited this rage.

As a white man, I cannot claim perfect understanding of the fear and anger that African Americans feel today. But as someone who has been around for a while, I know enough—and I’ve seen enough—to understand that those feelings are real and that they are all too painfully founded.

We must, as citizens, address head-on the issue of police brutality and sustained injustices against the African American community. We must, as citizens, support and defend the right—indeed, the solemn obligation—to peacefully assemble and to be heard. These are not mutually exclusive pursuits.

And neither of these pursuits will be made easier or safer by an overly aggressive use of our military, active duty or National Guard. The United States has a long and, to be fair, sometimes troubled history of using the armed forces to enforce domestic laws. The issue for us today is not whether this authority exists, but whether it will be wisely administered.

I remain confident in the professionalism of our men and women in uniform. They will serve with skill and with compassion. They will obey lawful orders. But I am less confident in the soundness of the orders they will be given by this commander in chief, and I am not convinced that the conditions on our streets, as bad as they are, have risen to the level that justifies a heavy reliance on military troops. Certainly, we have not crossed the threshold that would make it appropriate to invoke the provisions of the Insurrection Act.

Furthermore, I am deeply worried that as they execute their orders, the members of our military will be co-opted for political purposes.

Even in the midst of the carnage we are witnessing, we must endeavor to see American cities and towns as our homes and our neighborhoods. They are not “battle spaces” to be dominated, and must never become so.

We must ensure that African Americans—indeed, all Americans—are given the same rights under the Constitution, the same justice under the law, and the same consideration we give to members of our own family. Our fellow citizens are not the enemy, and must never become so.

Too many foreign and domestic policy choices have become militarized; too many military missions have become politicized.

This is not the time for stunts. This is the time for leadership."

The very people that need to read this, and internalize it, never will. It's so far beyond their comprehension and empathy that it might as well be written in Sanskrit.

- Doc

[_Res Ipsa]

That’s a good piece, Doc. One of the more thoughtful I’ve seen. Thanks for posting it.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Guys giving thumbs up to protesters get their windows smashed in:

https://mobile.Twitter.com/joshlecash/s ... 6566472704

- Doc

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

[quote=Icarus post_id=1226824 time=1591144007 user_id=19355]
On the day Trump announced his intent to designate Antifa a terrorist organization (authority he does not have), an FBI investigation found no evidence of Antifa’s involvement in the rioting. https://www.thenation.com/article/activ ... G7ISOy9aWo
[/quote]

That article doesn’t make any sense, and again Icarus, I don’t really get what your love affair is with revolutionary Marxist communism, but you’re really playing with fire if you think these guys would welcome you into their fold if they get their way. The hard-left is very, very dangerous and you’re just trading fascism with Trump for another nightmare dressed in olive green military garb.

Anyway. Of course the FBI didn’t get any intel on antifa. It’s composed of pan-leftist groups composed of leftists of different stripes. They all seem to have different views of what they think the ideal social order looks like. Some of them are Marxists, some are Leninists, some are social democrats or anarchists. But they cohere around a response to what they perceive as a common threat which are in short order capitalism, white patriarchy, and cultural imperialism.

Anyway. People have eyeballs. We have Twitter, and Google, and tv. We see enough ‘antifa types’ to know they’re using the protest to create chaos, which invites overreaction, which invites counterreaction, which leads to civil war. And as always, the people that pay the heaviest price for their revolution are the poor, followed by the middle class, and then maybe a percentage of the wealthy. We see that happening right now. They’re using poor POCs to riot and loot to sow chaos so their sociopolitical aims are facilitated. Antifa is right there in the mix, just are various factions of far-left types, working together to create suffering.

Maybe we’ll see some social equality come out of this. Maybe some more free crap will happen for poor people. I dunno. But if I were you I’d be side-eyeing the crap out of these people, because we know what happens if their economic demands are met. And we’re seeing what happens when they aren’t. There’s no upside.

- Doc

[_EAllusion]

Looks like the US was taken over by Cobra Commander.

[_Res Ipsa]

On the day Trump announced his intent to designate Antifa a terrorist organization (authority he does not have), an FBI investigation found no evidence of Antifa’s involvement in the rioting. https://www.thenation.com/article/activ ... G7ISOy9aWo

That article doesn’t make any sense, and again Icarus, I don’t really get what your love affair is with revolutionary Marxist communism, but you’re really playing with fire if you think these guys would welcome you into their fold if they get their way. The hard-left is very, very dangerous and you’re just trading fascism with Trump for another nightmare dressed in olive green military garb.

Anyway. Of course the FBI didn’t get any intel on antifa. It’s composed of pan-leftist groups composed of leftists of different stripes. They all seem to have different views of what they think the ideal social order looks like. Some of them are Marxists, some are Leninists, some are social democrats or anarchists. But they cohere around a response to what they perceive as a common threat which are in short order capitalism, white patriarchy, and cultural imperialism.

Anyway. People have eyeballs. We have Twitter, and Google, and tv. We see enough ‘antifa types’ to know they’re using the protest to create chaos, which invites overreaction, which invites counterreaction, which leads to civil war. And as always, the people that pay the heaviest price for their revolution are the poor, followed by the middle class, and then maybe a percentage of the wealthy. We see that happening right now. They’re using poor POCs to riot and loot to sow chaos so their sociopolitical aims are facilitated. Antifa is right there in the mix, just are various factions of far-left types, working together to create suffering.

Maybe we’ll see some social equality come out of this. Maybe some more free ____ will happen for poor people. I dunno. But if I were you I’d be side-eyeing the ____ out of these people, because we know what happens if their economic demands are met. And we’re seeing what happens when they aren’t. There’s no upside.

- Doc

Antifa-types are guys who like to punch Nazis. It sounds like you’re using the term as a catch-all for those on the left that you despise.

What you’re describing sounds to me like a combination of hard-line Marxists, who hang around every protest and hand out newspapers and extreme anti-capitalist anarchists who hang around every protest and break crap. Granted, I side eye both types because, should they ever manage to instigate an actual revolution, I’ll have to flee the country. But I don’t see either as a serious threat to the country.

What I do fear is “Antifa” being turned into Emmanuel Goldstein” — a symbol for any perceived enemy of the state, whether they are or not.

[Guest]

On the day Trump announced his intent to designate Antifa a terrorist organization (authority he does not have), an FBI investigation found no evidence of Antifa’s involvement in the rioting. https://www.thenation.com/article/activ ... G7ISOy9aWo

That article doesn’t make any sense, and again Icarus, I don’t really get what your love affair is with revolutionary Marxist communism, but you’re really playing with fire if you think these guys would welcome you into their fold if they get their way. The hard-left is very, very dangerous and you’re just trading fascism with Trump for another nightmare dressed in olive green military garb.

Anyway. Of course the FBI didn’t get any intel on antifa. It’s composed of pan-leftist groups composed of leftists of different stripes. They all seem to have different views of what they think the ideal social order looks like. Some of them are Marxists, some are Leninists, some are social democrats or anarchists. But they cohere around a response to what they perceive as a common threat which are in short order capitalism, white patriarchy, and cultural imperialism.

Anyway. People have eyeballs. We have Twitter, and Google, and tv. We see enough ‘antifa types’ to know they’re using the protest to create chaos, which invites overreaction, which invites counterreaction, which leads to civil war. And as always, the people that pay the heaviest price for their revolution are the poor, followed by the middle class, and then maybe a percentage of the wealthy. We see that happening right now. They’re using poor POCs to riot and loot to sow chaos so their sociopolitical aims are facilitated. Antifa is right there in the mix, just are various factions of far-left types, working together to create suffering.

Maybe we’ll see some social equality come out of this. Maybe some more free ____ will happen for poor people. I dunno. But if I were you I’d be side-eyeing the ____ out of these people, because we know what happens if their economic demands are met. And we’re seeing what happens when they aren’t. There’s no upside.

- Doc

Are you kidding me?

Let's get something straight. I'm not "in love" with antifa and I don't give a damn about any of them and I'm sure as hell not trying to be accepted by them. How anyone with a functioning brain could come to that conclusion by me simply pointing out that the Right Wing media's attempt to use them as a distraction from the reason there are protests, is beyond me. Yes, we all have Twitter and google, and anyone who does any amount of critical thinking will see more attempts by people pretending to be Antifa than from actual Antifa. As far as I can tell, with literally hundreds of protests around the country the only clear evidence of Antifa involvement is in places like Portland where we've always known Antifa existed. In most other cases, it is merely assumed that anyone who is white and dressed in black during in a riot must be Antifa. You say you're informed because you have Twitter, but hell, we know white supremacists are posing as Antifa on Twitter too.

It all started with Dan Bongino going off on a FOX News rant using Antifa as a convenient distraction from the main issues at hand, and the next morning Trump announces Antifa to be a terrorist group. They haven't been able to come up with any evidence that Antifa is behind much of anything, and that was the purpose of the post. The FBI hasn't seen any evidence so why in the F is the President declaring a non-existed organization a terrorist organization based off nothing more than the Right's hilarious obsession with using ANtifa as their eternal boogeyman when it is convenient.

[_Icarus]

That article doesn’t make any sense, and again Icarus, I don’t really get what your love affair is with revolutionary Marxist communism, but you’re really playing with fire if you think these guys would welcome you into their fold if they get their way. The hard-left is very, very dangerous and you’re just trading fascism with Trump for another nightmare dressed in olive green military garb.

Anyway. Of course the FBI didn’t get any intel on antifa. It’s composed of pan-leftist groups composed of leftists of different stripes. They all seem to have different views of what they think the ideal social order looks like. Some of them are Marxists, some are Leninists, some are social democrats or anarchists. But they cohere around a response to what they perceive as a common threat which are in short order capitalism, white patriarchy, and cultural imperialism.

Anyway. People have eyeballs. We have Twitter, and Google, and tv. We see enough ‘antifa types’ to know they’re using the protest to create chaos, which invites overreaction, which invites counterreaction, which leads to civil war. And as always, the people that pay the heaviest price for their revolution are the poor, followed by the middle class, and then maybe a percentage of the wealthy. We see that happening right now. They’re using poor POCs to riot and loot to sow chaos so their sociopolitical aims are facilitated. Antifa is right there in the mix, just are various factions of far-left types, working together to create suffering.

Maybe we’ll see some social equality come out of this. Maybe some more free ____ will happen for poor people. I dunno. But if I were you I’d be side-eyeing the ____ out of these people, because we know what happens if their economic demands are met. And we’re seeing what happens when they aren’t. There’s no upside.

- Doc

Antifa-types are guys who like to punch Nazis. It sounds like you’re using the term as a catch-all for those on the left that you despise.

What you’re describing sounds to me like a combination of hard-line Marxists, who hang around every protest and hand out newspapers and extreme anti-capitalist anarchists who hang around every protest and break ____. Granted, I side eye both types because, should they ever manage to instigate an actual revolution, I’ll have to flee the country. But I don’t see either as a serious threat to the country.

What I do fear is “Antifa” being turned into Emmanuel Goldstein” — a symbol for any perceived enemy of the state, whether they are or not.

Exactly. Doc is falling for precisely what the RIght WIng media is trying to do.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

RI,

I don't think antifa is a narrowly defined thing. I think it's a catchall for what I described upthread. I linked a book I read which I thought did an excellent job at describing the movement. Whether a revolutionary Marxist movement names itself after a date, a color, a movement, or an idea is irrelevant. Groups or movements aren't static, and even if antifa is simply an anti-fascist movement a la 1930's Europe or a Marxist movement in 2020, the name itself isn't important. One of the biggest plays by Leftists, and especially hard-left movements, is to simply sow confusion about itself, to always dissemble about what it is or what it's doing in order to advance the overall cause of systemic shift away from a liberal democracy to one of a state planned, controlled, and executed economy. <- That's disaster and I see us taking a hard bend that way which is concerning.

That said, I know I come across as overly concerned with Leftist movements, but I think I've done a fairly good job at simply rejecting Right and hard-right movements. I think they're in fact incredibly dangerous and shift quickly to a sort of libertarian-right which then necessitates an authoritarian-right system to maintain their grip on resources. This is why I try to shoot for the middle because I do find incredibly valuable policies and ideas found in both sides of the spectrum.

What I find valuable in the current protest, and unfortunately with the associated looting and violence, is that it's really pushing the middle to accept a truly egalitarian view of American identity, one that is for everyone. I do believe in American idealism, the principles which we've been espousing for so long, which have been reserved primarily for Whites and Christians. I believe our Constitution, Bill of Rights, and various other systems that espouse some pretty lofty ideals to be worth fighting for and preserving. Where I run afoul of Leftists is that I don't believe people have a pass to be degenerates, criminals, and bigots -- and that goes both ways -- in particular with these looters and rioters. Perhaps I expect too much from all parties concerned metaview-wise because I don't condone blaming white people for every_goddamn_thing that's wrong on earth just as I believe *insert ethnic minority group* isn't accountable for their entire tribe. I believe in personal accountability, so if we can't blame this or that group for x-y-z I believe it's fair to give white people the same consideration in this conversation. I can tell you one thing for sure after having spent so much time on 4chan and having lurked A LOT on Leftist subreddits and discussion forums, we have a serious problem. The hard-right have created a Black Golem and the hard-left have created a White Golem, and we'll inevitably end up in an armed conflict if we don't get some leadership that understand the middle is where true social justice lies.

- Doc