A few thoughts about January 6, 2021

[Bedinsis]

Holy shit, the cognitive dissonance at 2:40 when some tacticool warrior tells another guy to get out of the VP's chair: "It is not our chair. We can't be disrespectful". From some guy who stormed the Capitol alongside people chanting treason and wanting to stop the democratic process. Tagging along with people wanting to lynch Nancy Pelosi that's cool, but some guy sitting in Pence's chair in the Senate? Nah man, that's crossing the line.

The rationale they had for storming the capitol was that the election was either rigged or unfair or fraudulent or in some other way not actually representative of the electorate. From their point of view, they have not done anything wrong in storming the capitol or stop the so called democratic process, they are ostensibly doing it in the name of democracy. Taking the VP's chair would from their point of view imply that they are just a bunch of thugs out to destroy the institution.

Granted, international observers saw no problem with the election itself, and the recounts did not give any indication that fraud was going on, so the storming was based on a false belief about the election, but that makes the insurrectionists mistaken, not cognitively dissonant.

 

[deleted20220709]

DELETED

 

[Eacaraxe]

...Hence it is cognitively dissonant...

Cognitive dissonance is a feature of contemporary American society, get over it.

Fuck the idiots who took in pipe bombs, but the building and everything in it, including the staff, are paid for by American taxpayer dollars. The idea of "unlawful entry" is and should rightly be considered farcical, except for anyone but corporate spokesvermin and the ultra-wealthy who don't pay a red cent towards their maintenance and operation but rather the actual imminent, lawless, action that goes on inside the nation's capitol every day: the sale and purchase of influence, favors and votes. Those documents that were "stolen", "appropriated", or "unlawfully photographed" or whatever were -- and damn well ought be considered -- matters of public record.

Meanwhile on the other side, we got people who not six months ago were beating the ACAB drums of war, yet are now all but wearing thin blue line gear and calling for the military occupation of the nation's capitol over a handful of idiots in red hats -- a good chunk of whom were cops and damned certainly had the cops' protection on that day. Those who work forces are still the ones who burn crosses, and every inch given to them in the name of "orange man bad" is an inch that'll be turned into a mile next time anyone in this country gets a bit too uppity about cops murdering black and brown people in the streets. You can rest entirely assured every rubber bullet, tear gas grenade, and pepper ball not shot at a red hat moron is one that will be shot at a BLM protester six or twelve months down the line.

And at the top, well good gosh golly did those in power get awful squirmy in their cushy chairs at being on the receiving end of what the US government does on the regular in Latin-America and southeast Asia.

This is America, baby. Mask off and proud for the whole world to see. A sadistic, ultraviolent, idiocracy that respects violence more than democratic processes, values green paper more than human dignity, and of, by, and for fortunate sons built on a mass grave for the poor. Don't go shocked Pikachu face when the chickens come home to roost, and a generation raised on lead fumes, cocaine, and a ceaseless coprophagic torrent of jingoistic propaganda come a-calling.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

If you're with us, you're to be respected. If you don't bow down to our ways, we don't recognize you at all.

And it's easy to fall from "us" to "them". Mike Pence was their bud up until he failed to install Trump as President- then he became a "child-trafficking traitor".

 

[ObsidianJones]

Inside the fight for the Capitol: US Capitol Police officers recount being unprepared and 'betrayed'

The day before the US Capitol was attacked, Capitol Police officers were ordered to report to the department's equipment depot to pick up helmets, an officer who was there that day told CNN. They didn't know why they were needed, but when they arrived, they were told to return later. The helmets...

www.cnn.com

The officers who spoke to CNN felt betrayed by leadership. They spoke about the day's events, their feelings and observations, on condition of anonymity, citing fear of losing their jobs and a retributive command staff. Minority officers were hit with racial slurs by people attacking the building.

The US Capitol Police handle dozens of protests and demonstrations and events each year. They're as common "as stoplights in big cities," one officer said. They know how to plan, staff and work these events. They've handled mass arrest situations and they've kept the Capitol complex secure even after protesters crossed their lines -- such as when more than 70 people were arrested inside two Senate buildings during the first day of confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

"There was no planning. No pre-planning. I just don't understand. For the life of me, why not have the same precautions as we did with other demonstrations?" one officer said. "Our management was completely ... nobody knew what the hell to do. Nobody was giving direction on what to do."
"I feel betrayed," another officer said. "They didn't even put us in a position to be successful."

Steven Sund, the US Capitol Police chief, resigned after the assault. The sergeants at arms for the House and Senate resigned after Sund. They account for two of the three-member board that oversees US Capitol Police. The third, the Capitol Architect, is not involved in tactical decisions and has not been ensnared by the scandal.

It wasn't that nobody had any sense things could go wrong. Days before the planned protest, Sund asked the sergeants at arms to activate the National Guard, a request they denied, Sund told CBS' "60 Minutes." His department's intelligence section also circulated a report warning for potential violence, according to a report in The Washington Post. Sund did not respond to CNN's repeated requests for comment for this story.

Before the violence, there was a call for a possible bomb. Someone showed pictures of the device to a police officer who used their radio to alert others, and police officers and the bomb squad had to respond. A few minutes later, they found another, and again more officers had to respond to create a perimeter and evacuate people.

Police can't be in two places at once, and the officers handling the bombs couldn't help at the Capitol. That's when the fighting started on the West front of the Capitol. Investigators later determined the bombs were real, though it's not clear why they didn't detonate.

"They start throwing tear gas. Gas grenades. Flashbangs. Shooting cherry bombs, rubber bullet type guns they were shooting us with," one officer said. "We have OC spray (another term for pepper spray) but we're pleading for help, send us help."

Capitol police, once a decision is made to start mass arrests, will set up a square using bicycle rack fencing, surround it with officers and put arrestees in flex-cuffs and into the pen for holding until things calm down. Then, officers can each handle paperwork on a handful of arrestees.

That was not an option because, as the officer said, they were "getting their asses kicked."

"You couldn't have arrested anybody," one officer said. "You could not. We were surrounded. Normally in mass-arrest situation, they comply under arrest. But (the attackers had) already proven to us they wanted to beat our asses. No way arrests could have been affected at that moment. Just get these people out and survive."

Even if the officers wanted to go into the crowd to grab a single problem actor, their lines weren't sufficiently staffed to allow for a small squad of officers to wade in, grab someone and drag them back behind the line for arrest.

"Everyone was screaming for help," an officer said. "At that point, (officers) were just responding to '10-33' calls. Officer in trouble, needs help."

This is damn important.

Sund told "60 Minutes" he requested the National Guard during the siege, and the office of the Secretary of the Army delayed the request, citing the poor visuals of soldiers protecting the Capitol.

"I don't like the optics of the National Guard standing the line with the Capitol behind them," is the answer Sund says he got from a representative of the secretary of the Army. The chief of the DC Metro Police Department has confirmed Sund's account to "60 Minutes."

The Pentagon has denied Sund's optics claims and said guards were approved within about 40 minutes.

"I'm a Black officer. There was a lot of racism that day. I was called racial slurs, and in the moment, I didn't process this as traumatic," the other officer said, referring to racial epithets he received from some attackers. "I was just trying to survive. I just wanted to get home, to see my daughter again. I couldn't show weakness. I finally reached a safe place, surrounded by officers, I was able to cry. To let it out. To attempt to process it."

Can anyone look at this and not see the optics of an Inside Job?

Furthermore, If I ever going to do a documentary in my life, I want to find the handful of Black people who were apart of this protest. Especially after that last quote. Seriously, if you want to talk about cognitive dissonance...

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Inside the fight for the Capitol: US Capitol Police officers recount being unprepared and 'betrayed'

The day before the US Capitol was attacked, Capitol Police officers were ordered to report to the department's equipment depot to pick up helmets, an officer who was there that day told CNN. They didn't know why they were needed, but when they arrived, they were told to return later. The helmets...

www.cnn.com

This is damn important.





Can anyone look at this and not see the optics of an Inside Job?

Furthermore, If I ever going to do a documentary in my life, I want to find the handful of Black people who were apart of this protest. Especially after that last quote. Seriously, if you want to talk about cognitive dissonance...

For sure, this was pretty much my first assumption as soon as it kicked off. The difference in security between all protests before, and this whatever it is, cannot be shrugged away. Indeed it certainly shouldn't be either. Those resigners need to be interrogated thoroughly.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Extra content!

 

[CaitSeith]

Cognitive dissonance is a feature of contemporary American society, get over it.

No. It isn't a feature; it's a major public health crisis more severe than COVID and it must be addressed as such.

 

[happyninja42]

And on his last full day as president, The Turtle Mitch, sticks his head out ever so slightly and mutters.

Republican leader Mitch McConnell: Attack at the Capitol was ‘provoked by the president’

 

[Eacaraxe]

No. It isn't a feature; it's a major public health crisis more severe than COVID and it must be addressed as such.

The Boston tea party was literally over a tax cut, and organized by smugglers whose under-the-table businesses were getting undercut by legal EIC tea free of the Townshend Acts' punitively-high duties. And the early "patriots" were organized and led almost exclusively by men whose land grants were revoked by the Proclamation of 1763. Over a war the same damn people started. One the British empire rightly expected the colonies to pay for.

The country was born by it and not a thing has changed in the quarter-millennium since. Yeah, it's a feature.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

And on his last full day as president, The Turtle Mitch, sticks his head out ever so slightly and mutters.

Republican leader Mitch McConnell: Attack at the Capitol was ‘provoked by the president’

What a brave hero Mitch McConell is.

He's one of the few people in the world I wouldn't try to put out if he was on fire.

 

[Kwak]

Members of extremist Oath Keepers group planned attack on US Capitol, prosecutors say

Prosecutors on Tuesday filed the first significant conspiracy charge in the US Capitol attack, alleging that three members of the so-called Oath Keepers, an extremist militant group, planned and coordinated ahead of the January 6 assault.

edition.cnn.com

"Chilling messages sent between the militants during the siege that are quoted in the complaint appear to indicate they were searching for lawmakers inside the building as they sought to stop Congress from certifying the presidential election.

While at the Capitol, one alleged member of the conspiracy, Thomas Edward Caldwell, allegedly received a Facebook message reading "All members are in the tunnels under capital seal them in. Turn on gas."
In subsequent messages, an unidentified person appeared to give Caldwell directions inside the labyrinthian government building:
"Tom all legislators are down in the Tunnels 3floors down" one says. "Go through back house chamber doors facing N left down hallway down steps," says another, according to court documents."

 

[Dalisclock]

What a brave hero Mitch McConell is.

He's one of the few people in the world I wouldn't try to put out if he was on fire.

Way to go Mitch. At the very last second you show something resembling spine.

It only took your life being physically endangered by a mob to push you to that.

 

[MrCalavera]

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

And on his last full day as president, The Turtle Mitch, sticks his head out ever so slightly and mutters.

Republican leader Mitch McConnell: Attack at the Capitol was ‘provoked by the president’

Right on schedule. At the last possible moment, the quisling stands up and whimpers "enough is enough!". Why does Kentucky continue to inflict him on us?

 

[Agema]

What a brave hero Mitch McConell is.

He's one of the few people in the world I wouldn't try to put out if he was on fire.

I would, at least up until he puts down his vote for Trump's impeachment.

 

[deleted20220709]

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[Dalisclock]

You're very generous to him. My read is that it took until Trump was essentially powerless, had lost his establishment support and instigated violent crimes for McConell to seize his opportunity to stab Trump in the back. This is not McConell with a spine, this is McConell turning his coat so he can be on the winning side.

Well, it's a very light generosity. One good deed does not make up for years of being a shit, and I'm not ascribing said deed to anything but pure self interest on his part.

 

[ObsidianJones]

Worth a watch.

 

[tstorm823]

Worth a watch.

You may want to look into the source material he's pulling from.