FBI warns of plans for nationwide armed protests next week

Entirely my bad on the thread drift.
Really sorry to see @Mitlov leave and now we're a bunch of stupid brits with no skin in the game discussing a subject at arms length.
@Mitlov - apologies for my part in the thread drift and any offensive I caused, i maybe didn't Express myself well but really value your opinion if youd like to weigh in on the below? Totally understand if youre done with this thread.

I do think it's useful to understand the motives of people (not sympathise or compromise but understand).

Understanding why people thought insurrection was the right option is important for shifting those people back to normality.

Its hard to talk about the USA and not make reference to the most famous example of fascism (nazi germany and by extension the fate of Jewish people) but it's often repeated that the death camps and the country in general werent manned by monstrous people, they were regular people being monstrous and acting in monstrous ways.

To not understand what shifts regular people to do extreme things means we cut off any chance of preventing such extreme things.

But we most certainly should not sympathise.

So why did so many people buy into such madness:
- was it the status of the USA as a declining world power?
- the very real lack of strides in quality of life for many Americans for a good decade at least (which has been placated with useless consumer goods until severe economic downturn)?
- the growing economic inequality between rich and poor?
- the lack of trust in the political system?

 

Oh oh oh, I came up with another idea:
Is this an American culture problem?
It's a country founded on the settler myth and clearly the "settler" nonsense was present at the insurrection with lads in raccoon hats.

Is there something in the American cultural mythos that enchants people to "fight against tyranny" or believe in great men? To mistrust the system or try to install new ones?

To value individualism so highly that the threat of governments that want collective action causes them to revolt?

 

I don't think so, because Alan Moore wrote Watchmen and V for Vendetta and last I checked he's a full blooded Englishman.

In fact I think those two works rightly sum up the same issues in both countries, two sides of the same coin really. I think I made this argument here once before, maybe in one of the police brutality threads.

In one Nixon becomes a dictator and millions are murdered just to maintain order. In the other, Britain has a similar problem, also goes full-on fash, creating a left wing terrorist mastermind who ends up getting the entire populace to storm Parliament in masks. Creepy and somehow always uncannily relevant, but visionaries are often like that. Time to find my copies and read again.

 

I think that blaming culture can be dangerous, leading to "it can't happen here" exceptionalism. There is nothing peculiar to US culture that means the same wouldn't happen anywhere else, just as with nazi Germany, the Rwandan genocide, Mao's cultural revolution or anything else.

The culture determines the flavour of nostalgia, but nostalgia is common in authoritarian trends, from English nationalists, to Hungarian fascists, to FARC.

Conspiracy theories are also a common theme throughout history. It doesn't help that the line between reality and entertainment has been so blurred by reality television, Alex Jones and his ilk, and network news anchors who engage in theatre rather than reporting.

 

Well, they have barricaded and doubled the guard (increased police presence) at the capital of my state. Now wait and see what happens tomorrow...assuming I can get to my office tomorrow

 

So far nothing happened. But then if you are going to storm the castle, are you going to do it on a day you know they are ready for you?

 

I think the hundreds of arrests are keeping the more rational people at home, even if they still do believe in wacky made up alternate reality stuff being spewn online and on cable news. I also think it's notable that the leadership of several high profile groups is being rounded up. It's like the Mafia era all over, and given how the FBI has been dumped on the last 4 years by the President himself, I think they have probably been itching for this crackdown.

That said, I think it's concerning that as of right now Fox's headline is "left wing insurrection across the West", which is so blatantly hyperbolic (a couple of small incidents in a couple of cities like Portland, which is ongoing a year now), one has to wonder how Fox didn't get the memo on incitement, because they're part of the problem.

 

^ a lot of their more wacky viewers have gone to the more extreme OAN network and newmax, so it's just market forces making them stick to their rightwing script, perhaps they should bring the law back that news programmes have to be factual!

Warning probably some naughty language!

 

Don't forget the Sinclair news network too:

 

Damn. Took my eye off the thread just when it go interesting....

 

Pitch in! Give us your wild take