Hundreds of Armed US Counter-Protesters Fall for 'Apparent Hoax' (seattletimes.com) 390
Yesterday as America celebrated its Independence Day, the Washington Post reports something unusual happened at the historic Civil War battefield at Gettysburg:
For weeks, a mysterious figure on social media talked up plans for antifa protesters to converge on this historical site on Independence Day to burn American flags, an event that seemed at times to border on the farcical... There would be antifa face paint, the person wrote, and organizers would "be giving away free small flags to children to safely throw into the fire."
As word spread, self-proclaimed militias, bikers, skinheads and far-right groups from outside the state issued a call to action, pledging in online videos and posts to come to Gettysburg to protect the Civil War monuments and the nation's flag from desecration. Some said they would bring firearms and use force if necessary. On Saturday afternoon, in the hours before the flag burning was to start, they flooded in by the hundreds — heavily armed and unaware, it seemed, that the mysterious Internet poster was not who the person claimed to be. [Alternate URLs here and here.]
Biographical details — some from the person's Facebook page and others provided to The Washington Post in a series of messages — did not match official records. An image the person once posted on a profile page was a picture of a man taken by a German photographer for a stock photo service... The episode at Gettysburg is a stark illustration of how shadowy figures on social media have stoked fears about the protests against racial injustice and excessive police force... Armed vigilantes lined the streets of small Idaho towns last month after false claims circulated online about antifa... Similar hoaxes have befallen towns in New Jersey, South Dakota and Michigan in recent weeks.
It is not always clear who has made these false claims and why, whether they seek to advance a political agenda, antagonize people with whom they disagree or achieve some other goal. Social media companies have in recent weeks shut down a handful of fake accounts created by white supremacist groups posing as antifa operatives in a bid to undermine peaceful protests.
The Post reached Twitter and Facebook, who shut down the accounts last week, "saying the person behind them had manipulated the platform by creating multiple accounts with overlapping content in an effort to amplify their messaging." But by then the counter-protests had already attracted hundreds of supporters.
"An official at Facebook said the person appeared to be operating the accounts from inside the United States."
As word spread, self-proclaimed militias, bikers, skinheads and far-right groups from outside the state issued a call to action, pledging in online videos and posts to come to Gettysburg to protect the Civil War monuments and the nation's flag from desecration. Some said they would bring firearms and use force if necessary. On Saturday afternoon, in the hours before the flag burning was to start, they flooded in by the hundreds — heavily armed and unaware, it seemed, that the mysterious Internet poster was not who the person claimed to be. [Alternate URLs here and here.]
Biographical details — some from the person's Facebook page and others provided to The Washington Post in a series of messages — did not match official records. An image the person once posted on a profile page was a picture of a man taken by a German photographer for a stock photo service... The episode at Gettysburg is a stark illustration of how shadowy figures on social media have stoked fears about the protests against racial injustice and excessive police force... Armed vigilantes lined the streets of small Idaho towns last month after false claims circulated online about antifa... Similar hoaxes have befallen towns in New Jersey, South Dakota and Michigan in recent weeks.
It is not always clear who has made these false claims and why, whether they seek to advance a political agenda, antagonize people with whom they disagree or achieve some other goal. Social media companies have in recent weeks shut down a handful of fake accounts created by white supremacist groups posing as antifa operatives in a bid to undermine peaceful protests.
The Post reached Twitter and Facebook, who shut down the accounts last week, "saying the person behind them had manipulated the platform by creating multiple accounts with overlapping content in an effort to amplify their messaging." But by then the counter-protests had already attracted hundreds of supporters.
"An official at Facebook said the person appeared to be operating the accounts from inside the United States."
Fascist Nationalist are pretty gullible (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Fascist Nationalist are pretty gullible (Score:5, Funny)
... and someone just trolled them hard. not sure it's a good idea to kick that wasp nest, but can't deny it's fun.
If it was any other Department of Justice (Score:5, Interesting)
If it was any other Department of Justice, I would think this was an FBI intelligence gathering operation - stir up some shit and get a bunch of persons of interest to show up somewhere that you've blanketed with surveillance.
This Department of Justice doesn't appear to give a shit about ultra-nationalist hatemongers though.
You will note... (Score:2, Interesting)
...no one was arrested. No one was assaulted. Nothing was burned, looting, vandalized.
BLM should take a lesson from this.
Also, a bunch of armed black men showed up at a famous Confederate memorial. No one was arrested. No one was assaulted. Nothing was burned, looting, vandalized.
Seem that people who are lawfully armed don't have issues with the law.
Re:You will note... (Score:5, Funny)
At least in America, we still have the freedom to burn our flags.
The situation is much worse in Europe: Brexiteer Fails to Burn Flag because of EU Rules on Flammable Material [metro.co.uk].
Re:You will note... (Score:5, Insightful)
...no one was arrested. No one was assaulted. Nothing was burned, looting, vandalized.
So an armed, vigilante mob turns up to what was billed as a legal protest (after all flag burning has been deemed protected speech by the supreme court), but there was no one there actually burning flags.
Now imagine the confrontation that could have occurred if there was an actual flag burning. Especially given the harassment that *did* occur of Trent Somes, who was coincidently at that location, simply wearing a BLM t-shirt.
This was a powder keg ready to go off, and all that it needed was a single match to set it off. And it would have been a legally lit match that did it.
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What's the legal situation for the person who conned them into going there if say someone get injured or killed?
They indirectly caused those people to go there but the link is much less direct than shouting fire in a theatre.
Seems similar to cases where people try to prevent others from voting by feeding them misinformation. Has anyone been prosecuted for that, and if so what was the alleged crime?
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...no one was arrested. No one was assaulted. Nothing was burned, looting, vandalized.
BLM should take a lesson from this.
right. let's have cops violently arrest and even kill a few thousands of them over a year for absolutely no other reason than they being white fascist males, let's have courts then systematically dismiss the 10% of cases that would be prosecuted at all as mere routine police work and then let's try the experiment again and see what happens? i mean, so that you comparison starts to make the most tenuous sense at least.
you know, blm isn't about some dumbfuck trolling about burning dumbfuck symbols. black peo
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You will note... (Score:4, Insightful)
FFS either the city government is responsible for the police department, or they are not. Which is it?
Yeah, it'd be nice if it were that simple, wouldn't it?
Re: You will note... (Score:5, Insightful)
How did this this modded to 5? Bots?
If you have a choice between electing officials who are sympathetic to your complaints about over-policing, or electing officials who tell you the problem is with you and imply that you should know your place, whom do you elect?
Maybe voters are electing Democrats _because _ there are problems with policing in their communities.
To suggest that Democrats are the cause of the problem is to confuse correlation with causation.
There are too many smart Slashdot mods who understand the difference between correlation and causation -- so how did parent post get modded to 5?
Re: You will note... (Score:3, Insightful)
They police already kill more white people than blacks every year you smooth brained moron. Only stupid fuckwits who think population percentage with no adjustments for things like economic strata and police per sq mi is the correct metric to judge whether the police are out gunning for the black man think otherwise. America does not have a police race issue, it has a police brutality issue.
Re:You will note... (Score:4, Insightful)
The difference was not the people being armed, it was that the police didn't turn up in force with military vehicles, water cannons, sonic weapons, tear gas and a strong desire to try them out on the protesters.
BLM have learnt that lesson thousands of times. The problem is police violence.
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That explains why CHAZ/CHOP was so peaceful, and didn't have five murders, including an unarmed black kid.
There is a problem with police exacerbating the situation in some instances, but it's ridiculous to say it's always the case. There were nights in Atlanta, Milwaukee, and NYC where the cops completely disappeared, yet the riots went on. Of course you don't know that, since you watched only the most slanted news which edits out the part you don't want to see ("look at this policeman being mean! of cou
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Last count I saw, 19 people dead due to the riots, either outright murder, or Darwin Award winners (getting crushed by a very large statue).
Hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars in damage (and contrary to popular opinion, no insurance covers civil unrest). Almost all of it to minority owned businesses
This was a fucking Apple orchid infested with Fire Blight.
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Did you include the deaths attributed to the Boogalo followers like https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ne... [telegraph.co.uk] ?
Did you include the one deliberately run over on the interstate last week?
19 dead is a pretty low number for a nationwide protest given the number of people participating, the passions involved and period of time this has run.
Re:You will note... (Score:5, Interesting)
More often than not, when a peaceful protest turns violent it's *because* of police overreaction or embedded provocateurs. When the World Trade Center protests in Seattle went off the rails the police blamed a group of Oregon anarchists who were actually eight blocks away. One of the initial looters was identified by my co-worker, an ex-Seattle cop, as an off-duty police officer. The Seattle police chief had been whining for more money for additional cops and more weapons, and the city council had turned him down because they weren't necessary. It was widely believed that the riot was deliberately provoked to bring in the increased funding, and the police chief was fired almost immediately.
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"More often than not, ..."
Citation required.
I agree that evidence is required... but also that evidence is required to assume the opposite direction as well. There is evidence that "Boogaloo bois" have gone to start violence, that some young white men in Chicago and Philadephia went because they saw an opportunity to break things and get away with it, so we know that some of that has happened. Undoubtedly, in some cases it was black protesters... some of the footage from the earliest protests seems to show that.
In general... we don't know. How much
Re: You will note... (Score:3)
Ah yes, the first person to shout for police are those who want to abolish them.
Re:If it was any other Department of Justice (Score:4, Informative)
""FBI" and "Intelligence" do not belong in the same sentence, despite the acronym."
Uhh... what? Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Re:Fascist Nationalist are pretty gullible (Score:5, Insightful)
This flag desecration happens year round, especially at the is time. For those who do not know, either because they are not American or not raised in a patriotic fashion, flag burning is not disrespectful in the US. This is not something I made up, look at the Title 36 rules that are federal regulations.
Letting a flag touch the ground, printing it on a t-shirt, throwing it in the trash, all these are desecration. Every year millions of flags are desecrated by Americans who hate their country. They buy them from some traitor soldier for a dollar, then put them on the ground and throw them in the trash like used chewing gum.
Every year some terrorist places them on staff in the dirt, them lets them fall to the ground and get flushed into the gutter.
The US Flag should not be weaponized to spread hate. If we want to respect the flag, those procedures are well documented and written by congress and other agencies. It is not ambiguous. If you buy a flag, do not desecrate it, and if it becomes damage, burn it.
Do not sit there and let it just fly until it is in shambles. Do not think because you leave it up all night, unlighted, that you are more patriotic than someone who chooses not to desecrate the flag. You are not, you are less patriotic. You should burn your flag, if you love your country, ask forgiveness, and never buy another one agains.
Re: Fascist Nationalist are pretty gullible (Score:2)
Now is burning an American flag bikini considered unpatriotic?
Though I am curious why the US is almost the only country which gets hung up on flag burning?
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I think we should remove them when encountered (although the wearers my object a bit.)
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Maybe under the UCMJ flag desecration is a crime, but out here in the wide world of civilian life, it's free expression. You can burn it, discard it, or wear it. It might not win you any friends in certain situations, but it's not illegal.
I don't much get why you'd do it unless your goal was to make people who love it very angry with you, though.
Re:Fascist Nationalist are pretty gullible (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps the problem is worshiping a piece of cloth, seems even more stupid then worshiping a politician or reality TV star.
Re: (Score:3)
They buy them from some traitor soldier for a dollar...
Why wouldn't they get one from a store like a normal person?
Re:Fascist Nationalist are pretty gullible (Score:5, Informative)
Printing the flag on a t-shirt is not desecration. Using the flag as clothing is. And perhaps you should actually read Title 36 of the Code of Federal Regulations. If you actually read them you would see that they have nothing to do with the flag. The US Flag Code is US Code Title 4, Chapter 1, Section 8.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/us... [cornell.edu]
No disrespect should be shown to the flag of the United States of America; the flag should not be dipped to any person or thing. Regimental colors, State flags, and organization or institutional flags are to be dipped as a mark of honor.
(a)The flag should never be displayed with the union down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.
(b)The flag should never touch anything beneath it, such as the ground, the floor, water, or merchandise.
(c)The flag should never be carried flat or horizontally, but always aloft and free.
(d)The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery. It should never be festooned, drawn back, nor up, in folds, but always allowed to fall free. Bunting of blue, white, and red, always arranged with the blue above, the white in the middle, and the red below, should be used for covering a speaker’s desk, draping the front of the platform, and for decoration in general.
(e)The flag should never be fastened, displayed, used, or stored in such a manner as to permit it to be easily torn, soiled, or damaged in any way.
(f)The flag should never be used as a covering for a ceiling.
(g)The flag should never have placed upon it, nor on any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature.
(h)The flag should never be used as a receptacle for receiving, holding, carrying, or delivering anything.
(i)The flag should never be used for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever. It should not be embroidered on such articles as cushions or handkerchiefs and the like, printed or otherwise impressed on paper napkins or boxes or anything that is designed for temporary use and discard. Advertising signs should not be fastened to a staff or halyard from which the flag is flown.
(j)No part of the flag should ever be used as a costume or athletic uniform. However, a flag patch may be affixed to the uniform of military personnel, firemen, policemen, and members of patriotic organizations. The flag represents a living country and is itself considered a living thing. Therefore, the lapel flag pin being a replica, should be worn on the left lapel near the heart.
(k)The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning.
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They are not just gullible, but unpatriotic.
This flag desecration happens year round, especially at the is time. For those who do not know, either because they are not American or not raised in a patriotic fashion, flag burning is not disrespectful in the US. This is not something I made up, look at the Title 36 rules that are federal regulations.
Deep and subtle thinking is not their strong suit.
Re: Fascist Nationalist are pretty gullible (Score:3)
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Re:Fascist Nationalist are pretty gullible (Score:5, Insightful)
No, but they did teach their youngins that it is okay to set up a strawman, direct hate toward it, and then feel pleased about being "patriotic".
So violent stupid thugs, basically? (Score:3, Insightful)
Fits my image of Trump supporters.
You should get out more (Score:2)
If you actually believe that more than half the country is "stupid violent thugs", you might see a much brighter reality if you step away from /r/LateStageCapitalism or whichever propaganda outlets you normally spend your days in. Perhaps say hi to your neighbors. Get to know actual humans in your area. Then see for yourself if most of them are stupid violent thugs, or if maybe certain people have been bullshitting you.
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At this point, I'm fairly sure that pretty much everyone thinks that half the country is stupid violent thugs.
The only thing that people can't agree on is which half it is. Usually, it's the half they don't belong to.
I hope not. Compare CNN/Fox front pages (Score:5, Insightful)
You may be right. I hope not "pretty much everyone".
People see things from different perspectives based on their own experience, and unfortunately which media outlet they have chosen as their primary source of news.
I think a lot of times we argue with one person daying the elephant is big and the other person saying it's hairy. I hope MOST people can recognize that it just might be big and hairy. The June version of that was:
Some cops do really bad things!
Not all cops are bad!
Some cops do really bad things!
Not all cops are bad!
Some cops do really bad things!
Not all cops are bad!
Yeah some cops aren't very nice people. Some cops do bad things. Duh. I hope most people can recognize that's obviously true. Also, MOST cops never have, in their entire career, fired their weapon outside of a training range.
It's interesting sometimes to compare the headlines on CNN.com and on Foxnews.com. Then to see the trend on each. Like a formulaic TV series, they each have a pretty consistent pattern. Each day they run a certain number pf stories covering each of the themes in their formula. Sometimes they have to reach pretty far to come up with SOMETHING relevant to the theme they can treat as news.
If I read mostly CNN and had a sprinkling of other liberal voices feeding my worldview, I'd probably be a raging liberal. That would be the reasonable response based on the evidence presented to me. If I read mostly Fox News, with a sprinkling of other conservative commentators, I'd probably be a raging conservative. That again would be rational based on the news stories I'd see. I hope most people can recognize that. The guy with a different viewpoint than you is literally viewing the world from a different perspective.
On most issues that are contentious, where there are people concerned about two sides, AmiMoJo and I see opposite sides of the coin. That doesn't make AmiMoJo stupid. What would make AmiMoJo stupid would be if they couldn't recognize that there ARE two sides of the coin, that I'm seeing something they aren't seeing and vice-versa.
Re:Surprised at the post (Score:5, Informative)
Shitposting, I see.
Can you identify any violence by Trump supporters that was *not* in response to original violence by the left?
Yes, here's one [cbsnews.com]. A person exercising their Constitutional right to free expression sucker punched by a con artist supporter then kicked while they were down. But I'm sure that protestor had it coming to them, right?
Here's an entire list [theguardian.com] of unprovoked attacks by con artist supporters. Items 2 and 3 are particularly telling as the criminals went out of their way to attack people.
Immediately after the election it was Hillary supporters rioting all over the country, and that didn't die down for 2 months after the inauguration. Hillary did not publicly ask for the rioting to stop
This is the only one you are correct on.
In Charlottesville, most of the bad actors were on the left. The one guy ramming his car through the crowd was in response to him fearing for his life as the crowd pounded on his vehicle - even if you disagree with his explanation, it was still only *one* incident in a weekend full of leftist violence and mayhem.
Bullshit. The guy deliberately drove his vehicle into a crowd of people [nbcnews.com]. He left the area, went to the top of a hill, turned around, and gunned it. Stop the lies.
Brennan Gilmore, a 37-year-old who works for a start up, shot the footage and said he heard tires squealing before he saw a car build up speed and ram the crowd. It hit a number of people before plowing into the bumper of another car.
"It was very clearly intentional," Gilmore told NBC News. "From the far end of the street it accelerated, slowed down right before the crowd and then slammed on the gas through the crowd sending bodies flying. And then it reversed back into the street dragging bodies and clothes."
BLM and the black community had the support of the country a couple of weeks after the death of George Floyd, but for weeks after that it was primarily leftists doing all the rioting and burning.
Try again. FBI says it was done by people from all groups [cnn.com], not just one in particular. And that's excluding the bomb plot in Las Vegas by far-right terrorists [nypost.com]who recorded himself handing out explosives and was later shown setting fire to a police station, then bragged about it on social media.
Leftists are the ones tearing down and throwing paint on all the statues - in numerous cities. Let's not forget the people shot, knifed, and raped in the CHAZ zone.
You mean like those rightists who keep shooting up the Emmitt Till sign or hanging nooses from trees? Last I heard, this country was founded on civil disobedience which included the tearing down of statues [teachushistory.org]. I guess those folks were a bunch of leftists as well.
Besides, why should there be statues honoring traitors and losers? I thought we didn't give out participation awards.
As for the violence, apparently there's no violence anywhere else in the U.S. where rightists are in control.
Recently an 8-year-old girl was shot by rioters [cbs46.com] in Atlanta. She was passenger in a car that got off the freeway and found itself blocked by rioters.
As opposed to all those kids being killed in road rage incidents by people who are deliberately targeting the vehicle.
Numerous recent incidents of cars
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"Can you identify any violence by Trump supporters that was *not* in response to original violence by the left?"
Of course, who can't? Is there any "original violence by the left" at all?
Have fun, I expect a detailed rebuttal of each case mentioned here. https://www.theguardian.com/us... [theguardian.com]
Driven by a black man (Score:5, Informative)
Well, a 24 year old BLM protestor in Seattle died last night after being intentionally run over by a car.
A car driven by a black man.
And apparently it wasn't intentional: the driver was fleeing some [unrelated] drug incident, and the protestor was wearing all black and standing in the middle of a freeway at 1:30 AM.
Characterizing the incident as 1) a Trump supporter, and 2) intentional, is exactly the sort of fake news we complain about.
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wearing all black and standing in the middle of a freeway at 1:30 AM.
so..... a stupid person.
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intentionally run over
After seeing the news about people shooting into cars I wouldn't stop. I would do my BEST to not hurt anyone, but I wouldn't stop.
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Re: Surprised at the post (Score:3)
Right, the idiot protesting on a highway at night near a curve with no hazard gear in place like flares or highly reflective clothing and markers by someone who was speeding, so say at least 80 mph, who swerved to avoid the vehicles which had no lights on blocking the road, swerved again to avoid the protesters on the side of the road, and hit a couple of the Darwin award winners in the middle of the highway. Then he stops, at which point the Darwin award runner ups attack his vehicle so he goes further dow
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Turns out, it was a black man driving. [newsone.com]
I leave it to you to process the dichotomy in your head now.
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That's not evidence of him seeking to murder anyone, just that he was trying to get on to the road way. For all you know he took a wrong turn or was looking to do a little pedal to the metal early morning drive when he thought no one would be around.
We don't know
He was traveling pretty fast around a partially blind turn into a set of cars not easily visible. Turning away from the (slightly more) visible vehicles
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Did you really just suggest that the 'right winger' tent is a bigger and more inclusive place than than BLM? Apparently in the 'right winger' tent you hint at, blacks and whites agree that BLM is trash!
We don't know
Maybe... (just coming up with crazy ideas here), the driver is a staunch left-winger who hates the fact that so much of the BLM has been co-opted by white liberals and decided to a
Cult consequences (Score:5, Insightful)
This is what happens when you create a cult filled with people so gullible that they believe their own external propaganda.
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Like the Civil War re-enactor who keeps complaining that every year the South loses again?
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Antifa's flying Trump "Keep America First" flags [eveningsun.com] now?
Silly (Score:5, Insightful)
People going out to defend a piece a flag, while also wearing the flag of the opposing side, completely unaware of how illogical that is. The confederates were rebels and traitors, and that flag didn't even gain popularity until long after the war anyway.
Plus, it's just a flag. It's not like anyone is being hurt if it's burned, a piece of cloth. They're all for free speech, except now they're not because they're treating the flag like it was some precious holy relic. You know the bozos are only there to start a fight and the trolling succeeded.
The fact that we put up statues to their losing generals, including many terrible generals, is an insult to this country. There is no history being erased because history was being erased when those statues were put up the first time, as a deliberate propaganda effort by the Daughters of the Confederacy in an attempt to make the losing side look good, to make the issue of the war seem noble when it was 100% about slavery and maintaining the lifestyle enabled by slavery. They Daughters of the Confederacy managed to get schoolbook guidelines created across the south to promote the view of the Confederacy as a noble institution. And this propaganda worked! Because now you have many southerners who honestly believe the bullshit, they think it's fine for a statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest to be put in a high place of honor, a man of low character, and the man in charge when surrendering union troops were massacred. Probably the worst of the worst when it comes to confederate villains. There is no "heritage" being preserved here.
We can remember the history by writing about it, not by putting up civic statues of scoundrels. Put up some statues of Harriet Tubman, or statues to the southerners who sided with the Union.
Sorry. Had to rant because of all the idiocy going on.
Re:Silly (Score:5, Interesting)
Agree with 99% of your post except for one bit:
"including many terrible generals"
I was under the impression that overall the South's one advantage was they had better generals. Everything else was not in their favor, they were basically screwed. (One thinks about idiots in Florida and similar doing stupid 'hold my beer' stuff and it seems like the Civil War was almost the same kind of stunt). They were outmanned, outgunned, outfunded by such an immense margin that victory was never possible without some incredible tactics and strategy.
So the reason the civil war dragged on for years and racked up an immense body count was supposedly due to bad union generals.
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True, but what I meant was that many of those confederate statues, not all, were not not good military leaders.
Re:Silly (Score:5, Interesting)
True, but what I meant was that many of those confederate statues, not all, were not not good military leaders.
Let's see here. They had 1/10 the number of soldiers, worse weapons, no real navy, and yet they came within about 10 ft (or a misinterpreted command, or about 20 other things that could have happened differently at Gettysburg) of winning the war. Remember, if Lee had won there, there wasn't a real army between the army of the Potomac and Washington (and NYC). We are talking about a large war so making blanket statements isn't going to be accurate. However, the Union never had a general who was Lee's match. Even the better Union commanders later in the war weren't. They just had such huge advantages in just about every way that all they had to do is not be surrounded. You don't have to like history, but you don't get to just make it up as you go.
What you can say is that several of the best southern commanders were not given statues because the locals didn't like their politics after the war. And there are several statues of very forgettable confederate commanders. However, the protesters also tore down a statue of U.S. Grant. So I'm not sure history is their strong suit.
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Re: Silly (Score:5, Interesting)
As the war went on, the US generals got better as the Old Army/politically connected officers washed out (Hooker, Burnside, etc) and were replaced by more effective officers(Meade, Grant, Sherman), while in the South as the war went on their best generals tended to die (Jackson, Armistead) or relegated due to infighting and army politics (Longstreet, probably one of Lee's best corps commanders after Jackson) and replaced with officers who had good reputations as division commanders but couldn't handle a corps (Ewell and AP Hill).
Ironically, the best generals on both sides almost all tended to have been junior officers in the Mexican War and many either served together there or at West Point and, if not friends, new each other.
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Let's not forget ol' Braxton Bragg, the main Confederate general in the west--and the main reason why the Confederates lost so badly in the west. finally getting decisively beaten by Grant at Chattanooga, losing the entire Mississippi, and splitting the Confederacy in two. After that a Confederate defeat was just a matter of time.
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Re:Silly (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Silly (Score:4, Informative)
However before that time there were statues put up as memorial and paid for by members of both sides and groups are pushing for them to be removed. At the end of the war it was decided by the Union that they would attempt to reunite the country so Union solider paid a portion of confederate memorials and union memorials were supported and and money provided for them by former confederates.
As for your statues of southerners who sides with the Union, good luck with that Texas has some of those and they are being discussed to be removed, or like statues for abolishonists and Union leaders have been destroied by the various protesting groups.
However if you want to put up statues for Lenin or Stalin those look to have excaped destruction .
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It's kind-of sad you can't see what that flag means to the people who fought and died so you could submit that post.
And there are flag laws which prohibit such disrespect. These laws are not enforced, but it's considered good manners to follow them.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/us... [cornell.edu]
Social media: Too much power, too few people (Score:5, Interesting)
That's the fundamental problem with social media. It puts too much power in the hands of too few people, or even just one.
Human's genetic social behavior simply never evolved to handle situations like this. In tribal days, the most one single person could do is to convince his tribe, a few dozen people at most, to raid the neighboring tribe. As communications progressed and tribes turned into kingdoms, one single person could trigger wars of a few thousand victims at most. Then kingdoms turned into nations, and now one single person couldn't do it alone. He/she needed help, partners, strategic alliances, etc.
But now, with the advent of the Internet, a single person has gained the power to reach the entire world's population in a matter of minutes. But humans still behave and react like the tribal days, and it's not unreasonable to assume that one single particularly crafty and evil person could trigger a world war, or some other kind of world wide bloodbath.
Re:Social media: Too much power, too few people (Score:5, Interesting)
That's the fundamental problem with social media. It puts too much power in the hands of too few people, or even just one.
Arguably, it does the exact opposite. In the pre-social media days when traditional media dominated the culture, a lot of power was concentrated in the hands of very few people. Now, virtually anyone can participate, for good or for ill.
Re:Social media: Too much power, too few people (Score:5, Insightful)
That was the selling point was a few decades ago, that the Internet would "democratize" the exchange of information. That was before social media inserted automated, algorithmic gatekeeping (like filter bubble) into the equation. 20 years ago, the most useful thing on Yahoo was their human-curated, categorized directory. Web rings were compiled by hand. You generally had to pass some small hurdle of intelligence to establish a web presence on Geocities. Yes, it was open to all - but it took some small effort to fire up Netscape Composer and and save the .html file and upload it to your account. Now, people's phones are designed to actively solicit their input at all hours, they ping you while you're taking a shit if it feels like you haven't looked at it enough recently.
It's extra insidious because it makes you feel like you've got a well-positioned window on the world. "Mechanized media" describes it just as well as "social media". And instead of "democratizing information", it's more like "inbreeding information".
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It kinda reminds me or the Babelfish being responsible for more and bloodier wars than anything else in the galaxy.
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it's not unreasonable to assume that one single particularly crafty and evil person could trigger a world war, or some other kind of world wide bloodbath.
You would be right... if everyone was an extremist. Extremism actually causes neurological changes which someone was able to trigger in an extremist group. It's more likely that extremists will be manipulated and lured into a situation where some of them become violent. This was actually something that Russia attempted to do before the 2016 election.
Not everyone can have their emotions manipulated so easily.
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Again, but with better locations! (Score:3)
They should organize another Antifa flag-burning party in the middle of Death Valley at the peak of summer, and then a Christmas flag-burning (and generic holiday gift exchange) deep in the Alaskan wilderness :D
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They should organize another Antifa flag-burning party in the middle of Death Valley at the peak of summer, and then a Christmas flag-burning (and generic holiday gift exchange) deep in the Alaskan wilderness :D
What about the live animal market in Wuhan China? Or ... down town Teheran?
Why would skin heads and closet nazis protect... (Score:2)
the battlefield of Gettysburg? How many showed up? 10, 20, 100?
Wrong person escorted out ... (Score:5, Informative)
A church pastor visiting Gettysburg, wearing a BLM t-shirt and minding his own business, gets harassed by gun-wielding "patriots" and is escorted out of the park by federal LEOs for "his own safety". From TFA:
As the 3 p.m. start time for the planned flag burning approached, there was no sign of Alan Jeffs or of busloads of antifa members.
Suddenly, by the statue of Lee, a biker shouted that he had gotten an alarming call. Someone was preparing to burn a flag, after all, he said. Scores of people jumped on their bikes and roared toward the cemetery.
There, they learned it was not the threat they imagined.
A man had entered the cemetery wearing a Black Lives Matter T-shirt. The man, Trent Somes, later told The Post he was visiting the grave of an ancestor, not protesting. A seminarian and associate pastor at First United Methodist Church in Hanover, Pa., Somes said a crowd of about 50 people surrounded him and aggressively questioned him about his shirt.
“I didn’t do anything to them,” he said.
Police arrived and encouraged Somes to leave.
“For his own safety, federal law enforcement made the decision to remove him, and he was escorted out of the cemetery,” Jason Martz, acting public affairs officer for Gettysburg National Military Park, later said.
(sigh)
Re:Wrong person escorted out ... (Score:4, Insightful)
You know, you types always mouth off like that but you have a lot of trouble actually identifying people killed by either antifa or BLM. Not too hard to find people killed by alt-right and milita groups, huh?
Violent people wanna be violent. (Score:3)
It's pretty simple, and is seen across political spectrums. There are people who are inherently violent, and want to commit violence, but they also abide by some of the moral/legal boundaries...and even exploit these as ways to justify their violent actions.
Be it on the left, we see people who claim to be in the Animal Liberation Front, Earth Liberation Front (both who have 'blown shit up'), to more recently examples of a very small number of people claiming to be in BLM, and then these gonzos on the far right that we see.
They all have one thing in common: they really, really like the idea of being violent. And will cling to a cause that might allow them to perpetrate it. Even at the expense of all logic and reason.
On some levels I appreciate whoever triggered this, fabricating up a 'left wing action', and putting on display what nutjobs turn up. Reminds me of that pizza shop basement thing. That also made ZERO sense and was quite easy to invalidate, yet look at what happened.. (But if a little effort were put into researching many of these 'issues', there'd really be very little to get upset about. I bet these same dopes opposed to burning flags believe they're proponents of free speech. Doh.)
So intead of a fight (Score:2)
I was going to say this story doesn't belong here (Score:2)
Validating FB Account Owners... (Score:2)
Are people actually deciding whether a Facebook account is valid or not based on the profile photo? Some people have their cat or dog as their account photo. I'd been known to use the Doom guy as my FB account photo. I guess that makes/made us all "shadowy" figures.
KKKosplay idiots (Score:2)
There are an increasing number of these idiots that spend huge amounts of money on weapons/costumes and collectively fantasizing about killing Americans. When Obama was president they fantasized about killing government employees... with Trump in office they fantasize about killing "Antifa' or BLM or whatever they work themselves up about.
"Free speech! Free speech!" (Score:2)
"Free speech! ...no, what are you doing? Not *that* speech! Try to do that and I'll shoot you!"
Well, they're nothing if not predictable, at least.
LOL... Continuing a fine ANTIFA tradition! (Score:3)
Operation Fortitude [wikipedia.org]
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Antifa is a thing that doesn't really exist, but Trump has hyped it so much in the last couple months he's essentially creating a job opening for somebody to come along and collect on that cachet - which of course is exactly the goal of hyping it. Wedg
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It's fortunate the people who showed up didn't go looking for the missing antifa.
There was that family last month who rented a bus to go camping and had to flee their campsite because of a rumor they were driving an antifa bus. The conspiracy theorists had actually felled trees to block the road, but fortunately some local kids cleared the road and called the police.
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I've also got facebook posts going on and on about how Black Lives Matter is a socialist plot. The propaganda machine is churning it out full time.
Meanwhile, China cracks down on Hong Kong, actual freedoms being erased outright, and I haven't heard much from Trump, though he signed the bill he had to butt in that it was going to hurt a trade deal. His priorities are so messed up.
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I've also got facebook posts going on and on about how Black Lives Matter is a socialist plot. The propaganda machine is churning it out full time.
Well, when the co-founder of BLM proudly calls herself a Marxist [nypost.com] and wants to push Marxist/socialist ideas, there's really not much propaganda to create.
Meanwhile, China cracks down on Hong Kong, actual freedoms being erased outright, and I haven't heard much from Trump, though he signed the bill he had to butt in that it was going to hurt a trade deal. His priorities are so messed up.
The WaPo is certainly no friend of President Trump, even they said he hammered China over HK [washingtonpost.com] and of course he's revoked HK's special trade and economic privilege with the US [npr.org]. So I guess you just choose not to listen?
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My understanding has been that antifa activities are inherently reactionary, they don't start events. They just show up at far-right protests or counterprotests. As soon as they heard "antifa protest", they knew it wasn't real antifa people calling for it.
I mean, it's not that only a few showed up, none showed up. They all got it. That's why the motorcycle gangs and militias look particularly dumb on this one.
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I did look at his video from last night's "riot" where people had the audacity to calmly walk down the street chanting protest phrases. How unruly!
There was a second video of Portland Police Bureau uniformed cops in riot gear threatening using crowd control weapons on loudspeakers and chasing people away.
Yes, there has been vandalism and bullshit from people in the crowds, but it's Portland - even in the best of times people are looking to vandalize and kick in windows for some "cause" like increasing bike
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Re:"Q" (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's the inevitable result of systems that cater to your information preferences. They wrap you in a bubble of confirmation by like-minded people and keep out those annoying people who don't fit in. People end up so cut off from sources of contradiction they can be made to believe anything is reasonable.
Old time daily newspapers were never quite as good at objectivity as they thought they were; views outside the mainstream seldom got a fair hearing. But they were a hell of a lot better than anything we have now, because they had to sell themselves to a large and diverse reader base.
Re: If you cancel something is it a hoax? (Score:2, Interesting)
Have proof of a bunch of Antifa protests being set up and then subsequently canceled? Thought so.
Re: If you cancel something is it a hoax? (Score:4, Funny)
Did you miss the official announcement by the "Antifa CEO" twitter account?
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https://krock1017fm.com/texas-... [krock1017fm.com] After protectors showup the local antifa group said it was hoax and delete the facebook sites.
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Yes, the no true scotsman defense.
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I have this rock here that keeps tigers away, would you be interested in buying it?
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LOL... you a really do believe stupid shit.
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Antifa isn't really as organized or large of a group as right wing "media" sources would have you believe. Sure there were a couple instances of people identifying as "antifa" out in Oregon, but it's not like a big movement
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Antifa has done this in a bunch of places from Texas to Oregon. They post on the various social media that they are going to have an event, then if people show up to stop their destructive and totalitarian events they call it a hoax and post on social media how stupid all those people protesting them are for believing the social media message.
Weird. So there should be a bunch of cases where the event went on as planned because nobody showed up to stop them, right? But I'm sure the mainstream media and George Soros probably just suppressed that reporting (because that makes sense, have a big event to raise awareness and then suppress awareness of your own event, uh huh, yep).
Re: Quit Escalating (Score:2)
Yeah......all those wannabe weekend warriors won't go anywhere near a group that is armed like the Stone Mountain protestors. They want to scare people, not actually fight them. Like someone else said, they are basically LARPers. If there were a real, actual, shooting Civil War they would high tail it out pretty fast.
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Yeah......all those wannabe weekend warriors won't go anywhere near a group that is armed like the Stone Mountain protestors. They want to scare people, not actually fight them. Like someone else said, they are basically LARPers. If there were a real, actual, shooting Civil War they would high tail it out pretty fast.
Wow, I expected some right wing chest thumping here and you switched it up with some left wing chest thumping instead. Well played...unlikely but well played. Maybe you should show up to the next hoax and tell the bikers that. Just make sure to have your live feed going when you do...
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Do you know what a Civil War is?
Unfortunately, all those who lived through the first civil war, the ones who, you know, would never ever want to live through that again in a million years, are all dead.
The human brain evolved precisely to learn, to build knowledge on top of the knowledge and experience of those who came before us, to "see farther than our fathers, but only because we're standing on their shoulders" as Carl Sagan once said.
It seems that, as a species, we fail miserably at not repeating the errors of the past.