I'm celebrating signs of the slow inevitable death of an empire
lmao they could have executed every politician in congress today if they wanted
BULLSHIT. Congress has security - security that shoots people when they're actually close to getting anywhere that matters, as we saw today. Worst case scenario, if the reactionaries were armed and the police sided with them, there'd at least be a shootout between loyalists and insurgents. And then you can be damn sure federal forces would show up and bring everything to a stop.
But it wouldn't even get that far. A handful of assholes in Michigan can't get together and fantasize about kidnapping the governor without someone turning informant. How would you arm an insurgent army and send it on the Capitol without the FBI knowing?? And the FBI wouldn't go along with the coup because they're happy where they are. Biden doesn't challenge their power.
actually trying to gaslight people into thinking this wasn’t inches from a fascist coup?
Calling this a coup attempt is laughable. You're a riot. We should arrest you for an attempted coup with how riotous you're being.
The military-security apparatus is already in charge. Are they going to upset the stock market and tarnish their own image by killing a bunch of Congress members most of whom are lobbyist-darlings with no popular followers anyway? There's a difference between fantasy and reality and you're not living in the right one.
But they would never. Not yet.
You know. The fascist wave of the 30s was all spearheaded by fascists, which had been involved in WW1 and colonial conflicts (China, Morocco, Ethiopia...).
There are two takes from that, one is that fascism only becomes the dominant ideology when capitalism is in extreme peril (WW1 had left many countries, even the neutral ones in a very weak situation, this compounded by the trouble controling the colonies of smaller powers like Spain and Portugal. Big tent radical left movements were poping all over western europe with different levels of success, and the USSR was quickly industrialising, capitalism really felt like it could be coming to an end.). That's not the case here. In fact most people think that the world will end before capitalism does.
The other one is that you need fascists much more used to violence to turn small incidents into a massacre. Nowadays the people with most blood on their hands all do it from safety and far away as if they were playing a videogame.
Just think of the premise of Qanon, with half of the people there at least being pilled as fuck. And yet they did nothing. The forces of reaction are strong and loud, but they are not ready for action yet.
I think its likely that these people would go home dismayed, but keep their radicalization and try more shit elsewhere. However these people very openly displayed their faces and showed a clear lack of organization, I think its also likely that a lot of them will be arrested in a crackdown. I suppose in the end the only way to know what happens long term is to just wait and see, personally I just hope that something happens to stop them from going on and doing something truly heinous like a mass shooting or lynch mob.
We're gonna forget in 4 weeks (would be 2 if it weren't for the inauguration) Then we'll remember for a little while when some of the chuds go to court
Anyone celebrating this are idiots.
Some of us have been trying to tell all of you for fucking months, if not years that the far right are organized, armed to the teeth and are a force to be reckoned with. Oh yeah, also helps that they have the cops to protect them and half of a political party who not only support them, but enabled all of this. Those two things were put on full display today, especially with how the cops just let them in, and the Trump wing of the GOP that has been screaming about how rigged everything is and "stop the steal".
There will never be a communist revolution here. The left is no where near as organized or politically connected as the far right. That should've been evident when more than one QAnon believer won their elections back in November. Instead of organizing, we'll spend the next few years arguing over the usual stupid shit. We have a lot of work to go before we can become a force to be reckoned with. The far right on the other hand have been preparing for this shit for fucking DECADES.
This felt like a test run for a real coup and it should scare the shit out of everyone. While a bunch of people on here like to waste their time stanning a capitalist country using communist imagery and telling us how amazing China is, the far right are organizing and they have their shit together. You saw it today.
Start preparing and getting ready for the future, cause this was only the beginning.
Im skeptical of any attempts to paint this as a “test run” for the real Scary Fascist Coup (what evidence is there for this? wouldn’t this have been the most opportune time? who does belief in this narrative benefit?). As far as I can tell this is the extent of the “coup” attempt and just demonstrates that the right is just as sloppy and unserious about organizing as the left. That they have obvious sympathy from the cops is predictable and troubling, but breaking in and vandalizing Nancy Pelosi’s office is far from an attempt at actually seizing power. I completely agree about a need for organizing on the left but again, if this is the pinnacle of being out-organized by the other side it’s still nothing other than political theater and not some sort of grave existential threat.
yeah this was like an absolute joke. they had zero organization and after taking the capitol they didn't even have the thought to just sit the fuck down and occupy the floor. if they did that in the hundreds and locked arms they'd have at least delayed the count, which I thought was the goal of their stupid plan, but they didn't have a goal.
they didn't even wear masks, and they're all on camera, anyone who took selfies in main seat is going to jail.
As pointed out elsewhere in this thread, the other side is the imperial guvmint and it's extremely well organized
if trump hadn't have backed down i think there could have been a full scale coup today. but he's a chicken shit loser so he pulled out at the last minute
When the crowd was at its peak, running wild through the halls of the capitol, Trump gave a statement telling them to respect the police and be peaceful. How would things have gone if he told the crowd that it needed to fight to the death to save the republic?
It’s not that this was a test run per se, but I think it shows that the right Republican president could seize power if they wanted to.
I think its very possible that these people go on to become very violent. I don't think they'll ever actually overthrow the U.S government, but its not that much of a stretch I think for one of these people to deiced to shoot up a neighborhood, or a bunch of them get together and form a lynch mob. The zeitgeist of the right wing is being radicalized by the addictive and apocalyptic nature of Qanon, as well as the deteriorating material conditions of the average American over the course of the pandemic. I would honestly not be surprised to hear someone say they think Q wants them to put on a bomb vest and become a martyr. These are my fears at least.
Do you think that if the Trumpist (for lack of a better word) movement overthrows our liberal government that the US will tread on the rest of the world less than it already does?
Best case scenario, we will fuck with the rest of the world just as much as we always had, and life in America will become drastically worse for any members of minority/marginalized communities.
Our current government is having its own crisis of legitimacy already, because it is so bad at governing. Don’t think that some sort of right wing populist movement couldn’t legitimize itself just by being evil competently.
I know bringing up the Nazis is cliche, but they replaced a bourgeois liberal democracy, and it didn’t take them long at all to be in a position to exert terrible power on the world stage.
They broke into the capitol building, which should be a defining win for any movement, but it simply wasn't. They made no demands, didn't break anything or kill anyone, then all went home and Biden will probably still become president in two weeks. This is the most furious they've ever been and they essentially just goofed off on the floor of the Senate. That's their level of organization?
I know these people are dangerous, but I'm skeptical of the efficacy of the danger they represent. The pigs only let them in because of the lack of danger the protesters represented. If cops and politicians are already protecting them, they've essentially already won. They won a long time ago. The protesters were whining about not winning hard enough for their liking.
Spectacle, all of it.
You might be able to convince me these same people might perpetuate a pogrom or something in the next few months out of sheer frustration
edit: Also I'm not celebrating. I think it's funny but it's not exactly a good sign, so you're probably right there.
As everyone knows, having a favorable opinion of China takes a lot of time, much more time than having an unfavorable opinion.
Buy a gun, learn how to use it, and try to find a local leftist organization while you're at it.
How do you buy a gun when you're being denied a license for being non-white?
And once you acquire it, how do you train with it, since 99.99% of gun ranges are full of wigs who would have no problem lying about events in the case that one of their own guns you down at the range
It's not 100% to the real thing but you can get a lot of the muscle memory from good replica airsoft guns. If you are in an area near a desert or unmonitored open space you can find impromptu target ranges to practice at. Lots of old cars and washer machines full of holes out in the desert
How do you buy a gun when you’re being denied a license for being non-white?
Can you be more specific here? Do you live in a "may issue" state? Does your state require licenses for all guns, or just handguns?
As for safety concerns while training, go to the range when it's crowded or go when you're the only one there. I live in a fairly chuddy area and I still don't think everyone on the range on a crowded day will cover up a murder at the drop of a hat. That's just not realistic in my experience. If it's realistic in yours, I've had good luck being the only one there early in the morning when it first opens up.
I'm in NY, so all guns. Haven't tried for a license, but I've heard stories.
If you're in the state but outside of NYC, it looks like you don't need a permit to purchase long guns, or to register those guns when you have them.
Inside of NYC, you'd need both, and while it looks like a pain in the ass to get either a handgun or a long gun, I think the most restrictive laws (that allow denial of your application based on no reason at all) are aimed at handguns. For long guns, here are the relevant city rules, and it looks like Section 1-03 ("Applications" -- starts on page 2 of that link) is the most relevant. The fuzziest parts of that law say you must be "of good character" to get a permit, and you can get denied if there is "good cause" to do so. I can't find much on how this is actually applied, and based on the wording it could mean about any level of restrictiveness in practice.
Don't know if this will help, but it may be a start.
They already have, largely. The Militia movement has always been a reactionary force, and though they used to just be fat old cranks they're now picking up young, fit, and motivated members who want to do something like this, but probably even better armed. There are a bunch of dudes in there rn with Zip ties and handguns, there are organised elements making moves already.
Maybe, right now they're super disorganized and if you make the mistake of lurking in their platforms there's a lot of infighting . I see more American version of Italy's Years of Lead and eventual split than I do Beer Hall Putsch, at least for what I'm seeing now. Even more infighting now since some chuds feel Trump betrayed them, others are still in the messianic cult hoping for miracles.
The pictures for today will be iconic and in any future textbooks under the decline and collapse of neoliberalism. We thought the US was a diamond and stone tiger when really its paper mache with origami portions, far less competent with limited ability to handle the vast amounts of data and dynamic situations of the 21st century.
Now that you mention the years of lead I realize you may have a point. Problem with that in Italy was the moderates cracked down hard on the less organized right and from those years on the socialists lost a lot of political power, probably because the communist’s terrorism was better organized and more effective. I hope this situation leads to a real emboldening and radicalization of the American left, but we’ll have to see. By the way, the reason I’m particularly interested in your years of lead comparison is because my dad was in high school in the years of lead, and he had classmates who organized with the red brigades. Very politically divided time indeed, perhaps I should ask him more about those days given the current situation.
I'm going off observations of writings I read by Pasolini and then others in regards to him around the time of his murder, and I felt there's a lot of parallels. Essays can't give experience like a live person can.
I’ll ask my old man and get back to you. Will be an interesting discussion.
Plenty of them have already organized into paramilitaries it's called the police. The ones who stormed the Capitol today were a mix of LARPers and cops who were the first to call in a vacation day.
The Weimar Republic had police too.
ACAB, but I’ll take the police over atomwaffen.
This is my opinion. It's very bad. Because it's showing them how far they can go before there are consequences, but it's hilarious because they're so disorganized and baby brained.
we know they're headstrong and dumb, we know cops are bloodthirsty and dumb. we're hoping those two trains collide.
This is just lib delusion in order to feel smug.
It's like when libs say "the military won't support Trump's coup"
or when libs say "Trump will never get nominated" (2015)
or when libs make fun of fat people with guns, because you absolutely CANNOT be an effective murderer if you're obese.
or really literally anything else to ever be uttered out of lib mouths. Cops love MAGAs. They allowed them into the capitol building. They bought them burger king after killing Black people. Meanwhile libs (and a lot of the left) are more interested in feeling smug than the alarming reality.
the Military Industrial Complex =/= bloodthirsty fascists who join the military. That's the point of a coup, it's when people change their alliegance. Or when the soldiers force their commanders to change alliegance.
I'm not saying the military will definitely support Trump in a coup.
I'm just saying that you don't know. The libs want to pretend they know, for the sake of smugness and "owning the cons"the liberal (and sometimes leftist) smug confidence in fragile political outcomes is harmful to the sense of urgency, and has been shown empirically to be wildly wrong over the last 5 years.
Fucking Nostradamus over here. Literally no one here denies that these people are dangerous.
Cool. Let's just keep making fun of them for looking like chubby dorks, and making jokes about how they will eat their own even though all evidence suggests the exact opposite happening
that will definitely not dampen the alarmist tone
Yeah, maybe a few people fascinated by the spectacle of contradictions heightening or us non-US lot who feel a certain amount of schadenfreude seeing the great satan continue to tear itself apart in new and embarrassing ways, but I don't think anyone thinks it's actually a good thing.
I feel ya. I think that's probably a minority opinion so I wouldn't worry too much about it. Plenty of us agree with you that this is a worrying event. Even if it is also ridiculous.
This is good for the rest of the world. The more the US destabilizes the less it can coup and terrorize the global south.
Powerful militarised countries falling to fascism are famous for their non-interventionism and making the world a better place.
We're already at non-stop maximum war at all times.
Destabilization will at least give the people we declare as enemies a fighting chance. And it's highly unlikely that America retains its position as "leader of the free world," with the rest of the 'international community' joining in to help bomb the new target of the week.
We’re already at non-stop maximum war
Not even close. Shit can and very well might get a whole lot worse. We need to organise and plan around that.
Anything that destabilizes the US and makes us look pathetic on the world stage seems like a good thing to me. I'm not worried about Chud militias I'm worried about the fuckers that killed Huey
Do some three way fight reading or do some kind of read of the fascism/colonialism analysis love of god.
So? Who are they gonna fight? The US government? I hope they hurry it up
