American government told the whole world that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. America used this as justification to invade Iraq and murder its people. It turns out there were no weapons of mass destruction after all.
Since giving waterboarding a go I’ve found myself disgusted by any government that allows the use of waterboarding on anybody - governments that encourage it are even worse, and the way the Americans handled Gitmo is fucking disgraceful.
Gitmo is still open, there’s no past tense involved
And our buddy DeSantis oversaw torture there and laughed about it.
Since giving waterboarding a go
…I feel like there’s some missing context here but I’m not sure I want to ask
Not just America unfortunately. The UK government did this too, their part should not be forgotten.
I always thought poppy production in Afghanistan had something to do with it. In 2001 the Afghan government sucessfully eradicated poppies, and again recently after the American occupation ended.
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.
Some of those who work forces.
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.
Probably mostly just shaken up and released. I think it was the National Guard, but I wasn’t about to get close enough to ask.
Someone needs to go investigate. They could’ve been protest leaders disappeared somewhere for all we know
It happened in Pittsburgh too. Undercovers in unmarked vans were just snatching people up off the street. Cops were shooting at people who were on their knees with their hands in the air. Someone plowed their car through a crowd of protesters on video, with the license plate and cops said there was nothing they could do.
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.
Got cheap, no-name, unbranded LED bulbs off of eBay. Years later, not one of them had broken.
But Philips LED bulbs? Those things don’t last a year. In fact, none of the high-rated, “high quality,” top-ten-list, LED light bulbs have ever outlasted an incandescent in my experience.
If you want your LEDs to last, buy the no-name bulbs, guys. The Phoebus Cartel is still out there.
Boy do I have a video for you. It’s regarding the cartel and light bulb engineering if you’d be interested:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb7Bs98KmnY
Monopolies are scary though, especially if they can make such collective actions without telling anyone.
Oi that’s my boy Technology Connections!
He’s on Mastodon, btw
Unsurprising tbh
I have Philips hue leds in daily use that are actually 6 years old.
Gonna add on to your comment by suggesting ESP-based lights running WLED for any fans of smart lighting; having smart lights that run FOSS firmware, don’t need an external internet connection to work, and integrate well with reactive lighting solutions like HyperHDR and LedFX is pretty dang nifty!
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
I legitimately believe this.
Amazon’s Ring cameras do give this information over. Businesses use beacons whoch ping mobile devices to count foot traffic. If you look at your phones “key locations” setting you’ll find your phone has been logging all your for traffic for years, and your ISP will be doing the same. Even the Tim Hortons app was logging and selling user’s detailed location history. That’s something a lot of apps are definitely doing at smaller scale (or via SDKs where the app may not even know they’re sending that info – segment is almost definitely doing this type of thing).
I did the math once on the “my phone listens and sends ads for what I say” conspiracy and it’s squarely feasible to build even years ago.
Mobile OSes have gotten better permissions, but you could use low quality speech to text algorithms and a bloom filter to select ad categories without much memory or battery hit. You would be able to generate a list of “definitely haven’t used” terms and “maybe used” terms, which is good enough to target ads.
Phone have crazy good microphones too, and you can never know when they’re on or off.
Mostly I think people thinking this was happening were vastly underestimating how much Google and FB know about them – nearly every website sends your info to them. Even if you use a VPN your weather app can leak your IP, or any other app running in the background of your phone like your email client checking Gmail for new messages. All that data can be loaded into an identity graph, which correlates that data with known instances of your activity and assigns a probability of an action being you each hop out in the event*feature network. That’s how FB shadow profiles worked years ago.
I sound like a conspiracy theorist but practically anything you do online can and will be traced back to you. VPNs only protect you from your ISP. Always assume you’re being watched and what you do will be used against you in the future, even if it’s all legal.
Always remember Ken Bone who people loved but then the media ripped on over his commenting on a pregnancy porn subreddit.
I don’t doubt anything you said, except for the last paragraph.
Ken Bone did an AMA on the same account that he commented on porn subs with - that was not a result of surveillance programs.
Yes, I guess my point there is if there’s something people can use against you they will
Also think about all the other cameras that have their eyes on you. Every security camera in large stores feeds back to their corporate cloud storage which is used to build new models on shit like shopper habits, and they’re most definitely selling that data. New cars all have cameras and cellular modems in them now too.
There’s also these fucking things that have been popping up all over my area. They track every single car that passes them by. Color, make, model, and plate numbers. They insist they’re not doing facial recognition as well but it’s literally the same technology.
Trying to avoid all of this tracking, online and IRL, is fucking EXHAUSTING and probably futile in the end. On top of that everyone I tell about this shit either say “meh, i know im being tracked and I dont care” or just think I’m a paranoid schizophrenic.
Yeah it creeps me out. It’s the wanton collection of all data that’s worrying, an adversarial government could do a lot with it.
lol
The people in charge in the U.S. want to eliminate transgender people so that they can have men and women in neat, separate boxes and continue to oppress women as they have been for centuries.
And they’re doing startlingly well in their attempts…
- socsa ( @socsa@lemmy.ml ) 8•1 year ago
Remember that democracy is not something done to you. It is something you do.
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.
That’s not a conspiracy theory. It’s been studied and shown true over and over.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s42005-020-0340-4
https://medium.com/@robhat/an-analysis-of-propaganda-bots-on-twitter-7b7ec57256ae
https://headlineusa.com/china-bots-boost-propaganda/
https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/research/projects/computational-propaganda/
Right
Correct
So true
The Green Party in my country is blocking the development of green alternatives to the industry that is one of the highest emitters of greenhouse gasses and various other pollutants (there’s a reason most of our rivers are no longer safe to swim in and the levels of certain cancer-causing compounds are 10-100x the EU safe limit in some areas’ water supplies), while private corporations and the main right-wing party are pushing for their legalisation.
A certain local indigenous group (which is technically a registered corporation) doesn’t really like people mentioning the fact that they’re currently driving an endangered native animal extinct by turning the only area they inhabit into dairy farms.
Also most of the politicians in this country are liars and/or sociopaths, but that kinda goes without saying lol
Might as well name your country?
New Zealand!
But you’re not from lemmy.nz 🤔
I just kinda liked beehaw when I was first switching to lemmy - was one of the first few people to join the Te Wai Pounamu community when it initially got started a few months back though!
🤣
Until you said that I thought you might be talking about Canada.
UK (keyword: The Green Party)
Nah, New Zealand. Got plenty in common though - we still share a king and all that!
I was driving with a friend on in Louisiana about 3am one night in the late 90s. I thought I saw something ahead in the right lane so I moved into the left lane just in case.
As we got closer there was a giant shadow of some kind with only tiny reflectors at the edges. It was a HUGE matte black boat filling the lane on a matte black trailer with no plates. Closest comparison I can come up with would be one of those river patrol boats from the Vietnam war.
We were on cruise so it took a few seconds to pass them. The boat was being towed by a matte black F-550 (?) MDT with no plates and no lights other than headlights.
I did not look up at the driver when we passed. I have no idea if this was a drug thing, an intel thing, or what.
It could be many things, but I’d guess it’s just someone who thinks it’s cool to have matte black everything. I had a neighbor (who was a cop) who really liked matte black vehicles. It’s not like it’s illegal or anything. (Although, being a cop, he very well may have been a drug dealer also, so who knows?)
And isn’t there some special paint that is the most light absorbing black possible?
I kind of imagine some Dale Gribble type driving it…
COINTELPRO. Since I learned about that the whole Ehrlichmann story about criminalizing drugs to oppress black communities and possibly even CIA involvement in the opoid and crack epidemics seem pretty plausible to me.
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.
- socsa ( @socsa@lemmy.ml ) 17•1 year ago
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.”
I’m talking specifically about modern media which is very plainly obviously propaganizing itself with the agenda I laid down. It’s so obvious it’s hard not to notice. Older media wasn’t like that; there were anti-revenge stories back in the day but most were neutral or pro, and that only changed in like the mid 20th century when, for whatever dumbass reason, Hollywood and U.S. media in general decided to do this.
You don’t even usually see it in other countries, though there are outliers like Hayao Miyazaki though that’s easily chalked up to WW2 and how that war completely ratfucked Japan (and given what their government did, was well-deserved and a minority of their people like him knew it …)
Simply put, to engage in violence is to ordain yourself the oppressor,
Oh, I get it. You’re just one of those types out here defending it. 😕
- socsa ( @socsa@lemmy.ml ) 5•1 year ago
No, I’m literally quoting a very well known, in depth discussion of the issue from Ethics of Ambiguity
Actually no, what you’re doing is taking a specific claim about media exploiting nonviolence and using it as propaganda, to proselytize nonviolence itself, using an old book.
If what I am saying isn’t true, why would you feel the need to do that?
Also, why would it even matter how old nonviolence is? I said media et al. is using nonviolence, not that they invented it.
Why are you assuming they’re arguing in bad faith?
The age of the book is irrelevant, the philosophical ideas are still worth engaging with, even if you don’t agree with them
Because of the fact he went off topic to proselytize, for one.
That and I have dealt with many of his ilk in my life. The reason why he did that is because he, like all of his kind, are fundamentally insecure in their position of moral and intellectual dominance over American discourse, and they fear anyone challenging or questioning their behavior. It’s why so many social media sites ban such talk as mine under inciting violence, because it’s an unspoken paradigm that’s taboo to challenge in our culture. I saw it happen on Reddit all the time.
What he’s really hankering after is to stop anybody else thinking about it or challenging nonviolence. It’s how people like that operate. They don’t care about the common man.
It’s weird as fuck that they do this but it’s true. You actually can get banned from Facebook or Reddit just from talking about violence in a philosophical light unlesss you’re opposing it, and fuck your so-called freedom of speech in the process.
And whenever you do anyway, someone like him always slinks around to pander from what really comes off as a sales script. The same old tired arguments, most of them from movies or games because those are the means by which the media indoctrinates people with those beliefs.
If you don’t believe me, try it.
I can’t say I got that impression from them to be honest. Feels like you have assumed a lot from a couple of comments (though I totally get being jaded after a while of seeing the same kind of thing).
I think this could be a really interesting thing to explore both sides of the argument as I do think you have a point. Just seems like you’re both interpreting it differently in terms of tone (which I guess fits in a way, given your stances)
Are you familiar with revenge porn like Taken? I think your argument falls flat, because on one side there are tons of movies where problems are solved by violence and the hero still comes out looking good. And on the other side promoting violence is not viable long-term for any society that doesn’t want to drown in murder and self-justice.
Celestial Seasonings tea and Shen Yun both have ties to cults. With Celestial Seasonings the cult that founded it no longer own or profit off it thankfully, but their tea is shit so I still don’t recommend buying it.
Oneida cutlery too. The cult died, the cutlery survived.
I drove by a house in my neighborhood. There was a pure white van, no windows, license was VAN 3. A man was walking towards the van dressed in white coveralls and gloves.
As I passed, I stared at him. He stared at me with cold murderers eyes. I’ve seen that look twice before and both guys turned out to be murderers.
I saw UFO’s. I don’t want to believe in aliens, but I witnessed it when I was with a pretty big group of friends and we all remember it and none of us have a better explanation. The people who saw it first were outside smoking pot, the rest of us didn’t believe them until we went outside and saw it ourselves. I was sober that night fwiw. We tried recording it but no one’s phone had good enough dark recording to pick up anything, and no one had a real camera on hand. The flight style didn’t match any craft any of us knew of - it was an array of lights that moved together, and then separated into smaller groups, and eventually individually. They moved unnaturally, with near-instant acceleration, deceleration, and extreme direction changes. It was too high up to be likely to be drones or helicopters, and right above a major Canadian city, not near any military base. If this was, like, Nevada or something, I would assume it was a government test craft. The closest match I’ve ever heard was in an interview with a pilot who saw UFO’s, and that scared the shit out of me. I’d love to find a non alien explanation, because I don’t want to believe and also I know it sounds crazy. Like, I myself probably wouldn’t believe someone else telling me this story.
You know, UFO’s are unidentifiable flying objects. So, any obscure flying objects is an UFO…
If been in courses and workshops where people from the government party in my country teach people how to use twitter, specifically to boost the president and ministers posts. So they were training real people to act as bots and generate artificial engagement.
Also they are 100% using bots, and when bot accounts are removed they loose followers and claim that “imperialistic social media want to censor us”.
Shills? Yeah I think that’s a common accusation.