A few thoughts about January 6, 2021

happyninja42

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Few pages late, but I've never understood America's fetish like obsession with veterans.
It's pretty simple, the conservative right, equates military service, with religious devotion (God and Country). They have fused their nationalism with their religion, and thus anyone that serves in the armed forces, is not just a "good little american" but a "soldier of god" and all that crap. So they prop up such service with the double layer of lionization of holy service, and country service.

The fact that many of the people actually IN the military don't see it like that, is a secondary issue to the way the party as a whole represents the service to their masses. You will often hear people, usually the family members of veterans, when confronted with criticisms about their family member, or just stuff in general, respond with "My grand daddy served in WW 2!! So you can't say that shit about my party because it's offensive to him! You spit on his service AND god!" And that's not hyperbole, I've heard statements like that all the fucking time. "You can't say I'm wrong, because god and the army! Checkmate, mic drop, I win! And if you dare to continue to criticize me, you are 1. Unamerican, and 2. A servant of satan!"
 

stroopwafel

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It's pretty simple, the conservative right, equates military service, with religious devotion (God and Country). They have fused their nationalism with their religion, and thus anyone that serves in the armed forces, is not just a "good little american" but a "soldier of god" and all that crap. So they prop up such service with the double layer of lionization of holy service, and country service.

The fact that many of the people actually IN the military don't see it like that, is a secondary issue to the way the party as a whole represents the service to their masses. You will often hear people, usually the family members of veterans, when confronted with criticisms about their family member, or just stuff in general, respond with "My grand daddy served in WW 2!! So you can't say that shit about my party because it's offensive to him! You spit on his service AND god!" And that's not hyperbole, I've heard statements like that all the fucking time. "You can't say I'm wrong, because god and the army! Checkmate, mic drop, I win! And if you dare to continue to criticize me, you are 1. Unamerican, and 2. A servant of satan!"
Wasn't it also a correction on the disgrace returning Vietnam veterans received? I mean, these were just high school kids drafted into a pointless conflict and returned heavily traumatized to a country that tried to pretend they didn't exist and that the war never happened. The pendulum seems to have swung into the opposite direction since then.
 

Baffle

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Few pages late, but I've never understood America's fetish like obsession with veterans.

Where I live, I've never heard anyone referred to as a veteran unless they served in either of the big two. Otherwise they're service members and ex service members.
In the UK they're also vets if they're homeless and someone doesn't want an immigrant to have a home. At all other times they're just tramps.
 

happyninja42

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Wasn't it also a correction on the disgrace returning Vietnam veterans received? I mean, these were just high school kids drafted into a pointless conflict and returned heavily traumatized to a country that tried to pretend they didn't exist and that the war never happened. The pendulum seems to have swung into the opposite direction since then.
It's partly that yes. I would say, the tone perpetuated by our culture, when all the shit in the middle east was starting to go off, was "don't hate the soldier, hate the war" kind of mentality. And this mutated into a "show nearly religious deference to them" to try and...I dunno, counteract the cultural guilt we were told we should feel about how bad people treated vietnam vets. So they very over compensated. I remember the various things you'd hear on the radio, and tv, and it was very much a message from the society in general. It felt very weird for me personally back then as a teenager/20s guy. And I also recall, the level of zeal that a lot of my redneck friends displayed, at the thought of going over there and "kicking Saddam's ass, because 'Murica!! We are the BEST at war!!" I remember a local radio station, back when the little conflict in Iraq in 1990 kicked off, that was "a letter to Saddam". Now, I don't know if it was something locally produced, or if it was something they were given as an affiliate of a larger radio group, but it basically was this, deep voiced, masculine sounding narrator guy, who went on, for like 3-5 minutes, monologuing to Saddam. I'm paraphrasing but it was "Dear Saddam, this is to let you know that we are coming for you. We as americans, don't want war, we hate it (fucking bullshit obviously, but hey that's what he said), but I can tell you this, we will kick your ass, all the way back to baghdad." That was the long and short of it, there was literally like 2 minutes of what basically amounted to jingo-esque saber rattling in the middle, and it was entirely designed, to stir the blood of the american public, to WANT to go over there and kick his ass. And I remember my friends reacting to it when we'd hear it (and they played it several times), with comments like "Fuck yeah!!"
 

Agema

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Wasn't it also a correction on the disgrace returning Vietnam veterans received? I mean, these were just high school kids drafted into a pointless conflict and returned heavily traumatized to a country that tried to pretend they didn't exist and that the war never happened. The pendulum seems to have swung into the opposite direction since then.
The fundamental problem is that people like to imagine their servicemen as "best of the best" - brave, square-jawed heroes who deal with all the terrible shit in a manly, tough fasion and come back with a smile on their face to play a responsible role in society, filled with good notions of public service.

To see servicemen fail to live up to this is to be reminded of weakness and failure, the frail humanity underneath. Ripping the comforting veil of patriotic pride away from people to reveal the grubbiness of pain, loss, and damage underneath: what their country's policies - policies they may have supported - have wrought on their countrymen.

Of course they don't like it. Naturally, rather than reflect on themselves, they would rather just avoid and blame the person who is making them feel bad.
 
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ObsidianJones

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The Right is left with a conundrum.


Do we trust the cops' at their word, like the Right has said always? Ok. Fine.

As the cop said in @4:19 "Some of them thought we would be fast friends because 'we supported you through the BLM stuff'"

So. There are not any good optics.

If we believe officers like we're supposed to, a lot of the right knows that BLM stands for exactly what they say they do: fair representation and treatment with police encounters.

But they ignored it. Willfully turned it around to virtue signal (the officer's words, not mine) simply to ingratiate themselves with officers while fully well knowing that the officers and the support were wrong. In hopes that when this time came, the officers would feel that the public did them a solid and help take over this country.

Ok. What's Next?

Does the Right double down and spit out more lies? We seen where that gets us. It won in the moment, but placed a black mark on their reputation so large that it's almost impossible to see anything else for a while.

Recant and admit? Lose creditability now but hopefully try to garner some good will by trying to prove they are willing to grow?

Or attempt to ignore? Which we're all frankly tired of now, which lead to groups like the BLM to form in the first place.

Nothing is really looking good for the long term creditability of the party.
 

Agema

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But they ignored it. Willfully turned it around to virtue signal (the officer's words, not mine) simply to ingratiate themselves with officers while fully well knowing that the officers and the support were wrong. In hopes that when this time came, the officers would feel that the public did them a solid and help take over this country.
As I have said, the fundamental problem with these sorts of conservatives who believe themselves the people of law and order is that they tend to believe that they have unique privilege to make the law and impose the order.

When they find themselves on the wrong side of real law and order, their assumption is only ever that the real law and order are therefore corrupt.
 

tippy2k2

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Few pages late, but I've never understood America's fetish like obsession with veterans.

Where I live, I've never heard anyone referred to as a veteran unless they served in either of the big two. Otherwise they're service members and ex service members.

Then again, America has a really weird hero worship // demonizing relationship with its services, which isn't normal.
I know you've been quoted a lot on this one but it makes an easy jumping off point so I'm going to use it too :D

I've found that the people who worship soldiers like that basically just use them as a shield.

"We should be doing more to help people struggling" WE HAVE HOMELESS VETS HELP THEM FIRST!!!!
"We should be doing more to help other countries who are starving to death" WE HAVE HOMELESS VETS HELP THEM FIRST!!!!
"We should be doing more to help with mental health issues in this country" WE HAVE HOMELESS VETS HELP THEM FIRST!!!!
"We should help homeless vets" ... *crickets*

It's all about helping our poor suffering vets when ANY kind of help or charity is discussed. Until it's time to talk about helping our poor suffering vets of course, then it's silence
 
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Silvanus

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A few additional details, provided in an interview with one of the 60 or so Capitol officers injured during the attack.

* Rioters encouraged others to "kill [the officer] with his own gun";

* Rioters attacked with metal pipes and batons (as has previously been reported), but also with bear mace and stolen tasers;

* The officer in question was tased repeatedly by rioters until he suffered a minor heart attack.
 

tstorm823

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The Right is left with a conundrum.
No, we're not. The conundrum only exists because you're taking a bunch of extreme and contradictory positions and smushing them into "the right", and then viewing it as some coordinated conspiracy. There is no conundrum in standing by exactly the same principles as ever, which conveniently enough don't align with the positions you project onto "the right".
 

happyninja42

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As I have said, the fundamental problem with these sorts of conservatives who believe themselves the people of law and order is that they tend to believe that they have unique privilege to make the law and impose the order.

When they find themselves on the wrong side of real law and order, their assumption is only ever that the real law and order are therefore corrupt.
It's mostly because they've fused their law and order ideal, with actual Divine Right theory. So it's not just uncle sam and the founding fathers backing them in their claim for 'Murica, but buddy geezus and christianity as well. There is a reason they are often called the religious right, and it's no mystery, that their various religious mouth pieces, literally demonize the left, unironically calling them minions of satan and similar things, because that further reinforces their justified, and now holy righteous stance to take us out. Couple it with their frequent rhetoric to declare anyone not them as un-american, and you've got a religiously motivated, political party, conditioned to see their opposition as demonic outsiders, who are literally stealing their 'Murica from them. So is it really any wonder they don't see us as worthy of respect and human decency? They want a fascist theocracy based on might makes right, and they are apparently quite willing to prove it at the end of a gun and a mob.
 
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Casual Shinji

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The Right is left with a conundrum.
*puts fingers in ears* 'La la la la, I'm not listening! What about Antifa and BLM? Now is the time for unity! Why would Democrats invite more aggression with this impeachment!? We're being censored on social media - we're pretty much like the jews were when they were put in the ghetto!'

I'm afraid that's all you're going to get from conservatives. They don't see a conundrum, so it doesn't exist.
 

happyninja42

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Didn't Mr. Lewis' character in that clip you added like, probably just violently kill someone or something? I mean that looks like his character from Gangs of New York. Who just casually killed people like it was his god given right to do so, because he was a 'Murican. I find that disturbingly appropriate
 

Terminal Blue

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Not that simple as there are plenty of fake AntiFa accounts about some who got in quite deep
It really is that simple.

Antifascists like to coordinate. Antifascists like to publicize their actions because the success of those actions relies on numbers. Antifascists like to get local people involved in protests because it legitimizes protest as a form of community defence. If it was difficult to find information on antifascist actions, they would not work. As a result it is not difficult, go and try it.

The very notion held by "popular" belief the Nazis lacked clear and precise economic goals nor policy is utterly laughable, and ex post facto bullshit cooked up after the war to demonize the effectiveness of Nazi economic policy held together by the duct tape and chewing gum of doublethink.
I'm going to step back from specifics and address the big picture here.

Firstly, I don't think anyone has questioned the "effectiveness" of the Nazi economic policy. It was highly effective at accomplishing its objectives, namely preparing the country for war by funnelling huge amounts of public money into war industry, a move which also immensely benefitted a small group of loyal industrialists.

Now, let's move on to the political theory, because that seems to be what this is really about.

If I'm understanding correctly, your claim is that the dichotomy of private and public interest is a misunderstanding of Nazism, and that the two can be reconciled through the collective interests of the party. To an extent, I agree. That is very much how fascism works on paper. Fascists themselves often described their hypothetical or real system in similar terms. There is certainly an theme within fascist political thought with the unification of discreet interests within the collective interests of the nation/party/state.

However, I don't think we should take that element of fascist ideology/doctrine/whatever at face value, because fascist ideology is impossible. It's utopian. It's strategically naïve to political realities which are inconvenient, and the reality is that the Nazi party consisted of millions of individuals who had their own politics, their own reasons and their own motivations for aligning themselves with it. It was not an all powerful conspiracy playing 4d chess with the political system, it was a tenuous alliance of individuals the success of which was contingent on its ability to secure the cooperation of those individuals.
 
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ObsidianJones

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"We've got a job to do! That's why we're going to kill these people, 'cause we got a job to do."
 
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TheMysteriousGX

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You know, if it weren't for everything else that's terrible about this ongoing coup, it would still be aggressively stupid.

The My Pillow guy talking about Martial Law? What hack political comic wrote this script?