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This video was taken yesterday on I-35 outside of Austin.“Law and order,” indeed.pic.twitter.com/HRl3nqddob— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) October 31, 2020

Yeah, what the fuck?

Edit: I went to a socially distanced goodbye party for my friend and came back to a bunch of deleted comments

  • ShoutyMcSocialism [he/him]
    1·
    4 years ago

    I still stick by my take of any large scale right wing violence mercilessly having the hammer dropped on it. Not because the U.S. military or F.B.I. disagrees with the position of right wing violence, but because any terrorism disrupts the flow of capital into the hands of Jeff Bezos and his ilk. Even this little example: right wing lunatics on road mean packages are delivered at slower speed. If it escalates they'll get the Lavoy Finicum treatment.

    • OhWell [he/him]
      2·
      4 years ago

      100% disagree.

      The FBI waged a war against right wing militias back in the 90s and they lost that war when Timothy McVeigh made his move. Ever since then, the FBI has treated those groups with the gloves on and been extremely cautious with them. Look into the Bundy ranch dispute and how that was handled a few years ago.

      Most of these militia groups are in small towns out in the rural country and far away from the big cities, as it is seen as a problem for the people living there, opposed to the majority. America already treats it's de-industrialized small towns and rural areas like they don't exist anymore and just ignores them.

      • ShoutyMcSocialism [he/him]
        1·
        4 years ago

        Eh. Waco could be considered confrontation with a right wing group. That didn't end well for them. The Malheur rebellion ended up caving and retreating. They seemed to have shot Finicum pretty much for no reason. The Michigan governor plot group did glow and was like 1/4 FBI agent but they were all arrested. I am gonna pause here though because one reply is as deep as I am going in a bizarre argument in defense? of the U.S. military or FBI lol

        • OhWell [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          Waco could be considered confrontation with a right wing group. That didn’t end well for them.

          Nor did it end well for the FBI or ATF who handled that so poorly from the beginning and resulted in all those deaths. McVeigh's bombing was a direct retaliation to how the Waco incident was handled.

    • Bread_In_Baltimore [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      A few years ago I'd say you're right but we have seen some drastic changes lately.

      The Trump movement is at it's core a conflict between two factions of Capital. Chud capital is usually from extractive and heavy industry allied with small capital. The Jeff Bezos faction, which is mainly finance, tech and service industry capital is typically represented by democrats and "moderate" republicans. The FBI, ATF and some other federal law enforcement agencies are generally behind the liberal cosmopolitan bourgeoisie while local cops and other feds like DHS goons back the provincial/national bourgeoisie. If local pigs think the chud terrorists are attacking their enemies (anti-cop activists) they will protect them, even if the FBI is sent to investigate.

      The real reason chuds are feeling as bold as they are now is because while they might not understand the class analysis of it, they intuitively know that Jeff Bezos can't have the goons stop them, because there are enough government employees with guns that are loyal to the "good" elites.

      This division isn't a new thing btw, basically the same division was present in Weimar Germany, and the Nazis called it "productive capital" and "unproductive capital".

      • OhWell [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        The real reason chuds are feeling as bold as they are now is because while they might not understand the class analysis of it, they intuitively know that Jeff Bezos can’t have the goons stop them, because there are enough government employees with guns that are loyal to the “good” elites.

        There are tech billionaires that are donating to these far right groups. Many of them are connected to Peter Thiel.

        We haven't seen the worst of what is yet to come. We are still a few years away from them being a serious problem, but we're on track to getting there.

        • Bread_In_Baltimore [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          This is true, I'd say tech is the least monolithic of these industries, especially those that specialize in surveillance like Thiel. I just wanted to point out that seeing the Bourgeoisie and state security forces as being totally aligned is a simplistic view. It used to be the case for sure, but the contradictions of capitalism have taken a crowbar to the cracks in bourgeois class solidarity and busted them wide open.

          I agree that it's going to take a while for it to get really bad, but when it does I expect a civil war. It's not going to bring about the revolution and we aren't going to be main players in it.

          • OhWell [he/him]
            ·
            4 years ago

            You and I are on the exact same page here. That's precisely my entire fear and why I think we will indeed have a civil war in the future.

            I live in the rural country and have been face to face with these militia types. They absolutely are not a joke or LARP'ers like people say online and think. Many of them have firearms training and are ex-military, and they are armed to the teeth.

            • Bread_In_Baltimore [he/him]
              ·
              4 years ago

              People claiming they're a bunch of dumbass larpers are coping hard. A lot of them are but I guarantee there are more of them that are dead serious than there are of us, and they are much better prepared. They even have the geographic advantage of being rural. They could surround the city and starve it out if they wanted.

              With that said, they can't really rise up completely without opposition from some state forces, and I think that's where the civil war will start. Cops and militias fighting feds and NG troops would be fucking wild. It sounds ridiculous now but it could happen. Shit like that happened when the USSR was collapsing.

      • ShoutyMcSocialism [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Hmmmmm. Maybe you just changed my position with that reply. I need a gun in the house. The chud capital/tech bro capital argument and their respective law enforcement alignments.