This. When the US government decides to label you “terrorist organization”, it means that you are now targeted by the most potent state actor on earth, which will go as far as blowing up weddings in your neighborhood to stop you.
So unless you're willing to become a literal terrorist organization and die with a bunch of your friends in an uphill battle (not technically unwinnable, but at least lopsided and the casualties will be tremendous), the only option is to cave.
> So unless you're willing to become a literal terrorist organization and die with a bunch of your friends in an uphill battle (not technically unwinnable, but at least lopsided and the casualties will be tremendous), the only option is to cave.
Honestly, the internet has made folks so lazy. It's very ironic that the most "revolutionary" act taken recently (January 6) was actually done by the far-right. Yeah: if you believe in something, you need to actually get out of the basement, grab a gun, and storm the Capitol. And if you take it all the way, a lot of people are going to die. That's how revolution works. Unless we're all LARPing?
But Americans/Westerners (left, right, center) are way too comfortable for a revolution, so for people that are, or have been, actual dissidents (think Arab Spring, or IRA, or ETA, or whatever), this is all just a big meme.
If everyone is so comfortable, what do we need a revolution for? Wasn't that the goal of civilization? If someone doesn't like civilization, why try to bring it down? There's plenty of places on earth you can go to live without it.
Most people are comfortable, but not everyone. At least, comfortable in the sense that they are not willing to die for their country/people at the moment, and aren't personally affected by most of the bad things their government does. In the US at least, things like high food/gas prices or unemployment/healthcare issues are just one of many other issues, and aren't causing most people so much pain that they are willing to pick up a weapon and give up their lives. Or even peacefully protest.
People that had enough money that they weren't paying attention to the price of groceries before Trump, probably still don't care all that much now. I might eat out less, but that's not worth abandoning my family or dying over to me.
The kind of problems you're describing certainly don't sound like things you should "pick up a weapon and give up your life" for, so this doesn't seem to add an argument in favour of "revolution".
Or maybe people realize that revolutions, and the civil war that almost always ensue, are a very high price to pay, for a very uncertain reward.
Talking about the Arab spring, look what it lead to:
- Egypt and Tunisia are again being lead by a dictator, it's just a younger one.
- Libya is destroyed, lacks leadership and conflict could resume any day should Haftar decide he doesn't like the result of the upcoming (but long postponed) elections.
- Syria has suffered the worst civil war of the decade and the situation is still very brittle. It looks like Jolani could bring redemption to Syria, but with the Israeli playing around with fire it could also collapse any day. And that's assuming Jolani doesn't turn into a dictator himself: we're not talking about someone with a good track record of honoring his promises (which is a good thing when the promise is made to ISIS or Al Qaeda, but still).
Jan 6, didn't work, not entirely sure why you bring this up as a blueprint for anyone. It was an actual LARP and as Bruno Macaes wrote resembled a bunch of people making it to the end of a videogame, then running around confused in costumes and going for a drink.
What did work for them was pouring money into the election system and party apparatus, media, the courts and then taking control over politics
What worked was getting people stirred up to the point that some would turn to violence. Even now a majority of their party believe they were justified.
That helped them take control of politics. And so that tactic will surely turn people to violence again. The violence itself may not be effective but the level of outrage is.
> Jan 6, didn't work, not entirely sure why you bring this up as a blueprint for anyone.
Might want to let the Democrats know that. According to them the government was >this< close to being overthrown. Which is funny, because if anyone truly believes that, we don't stand a chance against pretty much any country on earth.
Then you weren't paying attention. Watch the videos of the mob inside the building. If they hadn't been led away from the senate chambers by capitol police [1], we'd be having a very different conversation right now. Did you think the American History X extras leading the pack were just there to see the sights? Come on, man.
What conversation do you think we would be having? Would we be debating the laws that January 6 attendees are passing in the chambers? What alternate outcome do you think was likely, or even possible?
I don't know a single prominent Democrat who thought they had a chance of succeeding, just that they even tried was enough for them to be unpatriotic cultists
Ya'll don't realize what the actual plan was. It wasn't to use the mob to overthrow the government, it was to use the mob to delay the certification of the vote. Which they did, but it wasn't for long enough. They were going to overthrow the Constitution by just deciding for themselves they won despite the votes. And they're in power again, so they're very likely going to do exactly that next time.
The whole plan after the judicial effort failed (using the courts to overturn the vote outcome) and the individual shakedowns failed (calling up governors and demanding they change the vote outcome) was to pressure senators to throw out the state certificates, kick them back to the states, and have the states decide that Trump won instead. They had a whole slate of fraudulent shadow certificates with Trump as the winner ready for Senators to certify. That 10000% would have worked because there are more red states than blue, so they would have just picked Trump over Biden.
But Pence refused to go along with the plan. So the mob was the last ditch effort to convince the senators. Its purpose was not to kill the senators but to delay the vote to give more time to affect the influence campaign. So that plan was also very very close to working because they did delay the vote. It only didn't work because Mitch McConnell refused to end the session and kept everyone around to complete the certification of the vote on January 7. But the fact that it happened on January 7 means that the plan very nearly worked.
You need to look at J6 as a buffer overflow attack. There are no instructions for what to do if the J6 vote is disrupted by a mob, the hope was that but putting the country in that illegal state would allow for arbitrary instructions to be executed.
> ~~2k~~ 250 unarmed people ~~broke into work~~ mysteriously allowed in are looking for you, while dozens of trained armed police officers surround you, it would probably be something you think about a whole lot
The one person who died violently was one of the rioters, an unarmed woman who was shot by Capitol Police. Four other rioters died of natural causes around the time of the riot.
An unarmed woman climbing through a smashed window with a capital police officer on the other side, sidearm drawn, warning her not to advance, in the middle of a crowd storming the capitol building while a gallows stood outside,
waiting for the crowd to bring out a member of congress or the Vice President.
> * U.S. representative Markwayne Mullin [currently head of DHS], a witness to Babbitt's attempted breach, said that Byrd "didn't have a choice" but to shoot, and that his action "saved people's lives".* [0]
The shooting was deemed “lawful and within department policy”.
>The shooting was deemed “lawful and within department policy”.
I do not disagree with this at all. I only mentioned her death as contrast to the usual rhetoric of how the mob at the Capitol "killed" Officer Sicknick and others (who are always mysteriously unnamed).
It's hard to reconcile a conspiracy theory that protestors were allowed to storm the Capitol with the fact that Ashli Babbitt was shot on video for refusing calls to stop breaching a barricade.
Police and security trying to manage a dynamic situation with minimum loss of life by not immediately gunning down quasi-violent crowd is a more reasonable conclusion.
Regardless, 100% of which is Trump's fault for incitement.
alright but the point still stands? people were yelling out names carrying zipties... they broke windows hit police officers and a woman was killed while crawling through a broken window?
if that happened to me at work it would be something I talked about all the time, there are a thousand ways it could have gotten even worse
Jan 6 was an attempt to convince the American public that the 2020 election was stolen, and to keep Trump in power. Today, more people believe the 2020 election was stolen than on January 7th, Trump is in power despite causing an insurrection, and all the J6 insurrectionists have been pardoned. They’re even setting up to pay them “restitution” out of your pocket.
You can be the judge as to whether it succeeded or victory was deferred, but violence definitely won in the end.
Or sue, or organize and protest, or win the next election. Not every government problem warrants revolution, and not needing to revolt is not a failing of the people.
> Americans/Westerners (left, right, center) are way too comfortable for a revolution
A better read is that the situation for most Americans and "Westerners" whatever that means, is that things are good enough that the people do not see value in revolution, or they are able to adjust the government's course enough through elections, redress, courts and other political feedback mechanisms.
They were terrorists. Every single participant in J6 was a terrorist and deserves the full fury of the United States of America to treat them as such. They were also attempting to assassinate the VP. 1500+ terrorist and failed assassination attempts.
It's a shame we went so light on them. Care bear punishment. Sweetheart deals, and then pardoned by a man that literally, factually, supports terrorism against the USA and supporting the attempted assassination of his VP.
> violence or the threat of violence used as a weapon of intimidation or coercion
> especially: violent or destructive acts (such as bombing) committed by groups in order to intimidate a population or government into granting their demands
Now, which actor in this story does this sound like? The webhoster exercising their speech rights or the apparatus bombing schools and weddings in order to get their way?
Not arguing in favor of banning A/I, but the US administration claims A/I email services were used to coordinate sabotage actions. I mean, that's as stupid as saying telephone networks or paper sheets were used to coordinate sabotage actions.
Furthermore, the noblogs.org platform (previously hosted by A/I) is used to host a lot of politically-motivated content, including news and statements by various resistance groups across the world, which of course is considered terrorist by the USA, but legally should fall under freedom of the press.
It sounds like that until you realize that the baseline behavior is for countries that are not in NATO to be subservient to NATO. So, as you can see, it is the governments and populations that are coercing and intimidating themselves and NATO is helpfully returning them to normalcy.
I am biased here, as somebody who grew up next to an American military base in Iceland and had a pro-communist upbringing and learned to hate NATO (as well as the American imperialist agenda as a whole) from an early age.
I don‘t see a difference. I was told this when I was a child, and as I’ve grown up and seen more of the world (including by immigrating to the USA) I am more convinced then ever. In my eyes, there is no meaningful difference between USA and NATO.
There clearly is. Because NATO isn’t getting involved in America’s idiotic war of aggression and Trump is very upset about this. They’ve spent years being very upset about every other NATO nation’s spending, too.
So even if you don’t believe it, the U.S. clearly cares about NATO member behaviour and therefore recognizes a distinction.
NATO Chief, Rutte: "Europe is a platform of power projection for the United States."
Of course, the local political cover story in Italy is that these bases are 'only used for logistics, never direct attacks', but that's just a cover story to deflect any retribution Italy may receive from Iran and its allies, for Italy's participation in the US' heinous acts, and to keep the internal messaging politically correct within Italys' current circus ...
This is just posturing to avoid retribution. Everyone in Europe knows that NATO bases have been used almost every day since April 2003 by the US to commit its crimes.
Lets also admit that NATO-aligned bases in Poland and Germany are also essential to the US' crimes.
See also, Camp Darby near Pisa, actively supporting NATO and U.S. European and African Command operations.
They have been involved in pretty much all previous USA "idiotic wars of aggression", so while it may become useful in the future to make a distinction, it's also fair to appreciate that this distinction doesn't make a lot sense to a whole bunch of people.
The one time NATO was called on to defend a member was the U.S. asking for help after 9/11. And nobody but the UK followed them into Iraq, shortly after the Afghanistan war began. So there’s certainly strong history of NATO not just doing whatever the U.S. is up to.
I recall this time as a very strong refusal of the above miscategorization of NATO. Bush and his cronies had a whole “you’re with us or against us” tantrum when NATO didn’t follow. I think Americans even did some proto-Trump trolling with “freedom fries” and other nonsense.
This is simply false history. Every NATO member went to Afghanistan with the USA. Even Iceland despite not having a traditional army participated in the invasion.
As for Iraq: UK, Poland, Spain, Portugal, and Denmark provided soldiers to partake in the illegal invasion. Even Iceland participated in the propaganda war by putting them self on the farcical “Coalition the willing” along plenty of other NATO countries.
It is very hard to see NATO as anything other then an extension of USA‘s imperial ambitions. It is as if in the year 1986 you would look at the Warsaw pact and claim this is a pact of independent nations and has nothing to do with the interest of the Soviet Union.
Afghanistan: Every NATO member went because of article 5. The Taliban explicitly refused to comply when requested to hand over Bin Laden. This is as clear cut casus belli as it gets. And then Australia, South Korea, Malaysia, Azerbaijan and even Mongolia participated. How are those NATO? How is Mongolia even aligned with the US or under their influence in any way?
Iraq: Japan, Australia, Nicaragua, Philippines, Ukraine, Georgia... And I'm leaving like a dozen non-NATO countries, aligned AND unaligned with the US, that took part in the invasion or post-invasion missions. I don't agree with it, and while there were numerous lies to sell the invasion, equally numerous countries were unhappy about UNSCR 1441 being treated like toilet paper by the UN itself. Moreover, actual major NATO countries like Germany or France were diametrically opposed to the invasion and told the US to take a hike.
When you hold a hammer everything looks like a nail.
You are basically saying that supporting American imperialism is not exclusive to NATO. And I don‘t dispute that.
I also think that history has been far too kind to France’s supposed opposition to the illegal invasion. France stood firmly inside a military alliance who’s members broke international law and disregarded human rights. If France and Germany were serious about their supposed opposition to that war they would have at least threatened to withdraw. But such actions were never even considered. France and Germany were perfectly happy to allow American Imperialist agenda to materialize, even though most other NATO countries took a more active role in the crimes.
> You are basically saying that supporting American imperialism is not exclusive to NATO. And I don‘t dispute that.
No, I'm saying that states are relatively free to agree or disagree with the US, at least until president 47. France faced no consequences, and countries like Nicaragua are on the opposite end of the geopolitcal spectrum with no particular interest in a war on the other side of the world.
Because whether Iraq or Afghanistan bear the historical hallmarks of imperialism is up to debate, especially with Afghanistan with clear casus belli, stated war objectives, and no intention to annex or directly control/govern the territory. The actual number of countries supporting either is a good metric on that; I think Afghanistan war had a much wider support for a reason. Putting both conflicts together is simplistic, if not disingenuous.
>France stood firmly inside a military alliance who’s members broke international law and disregarded human rights.
The USSR stood inside an economic and arguably military alliance with literal Hitler until 41. The USSR fed the Wehrmacht, fueled their tanks, and provided metals for their war machine. Mentioning this since you already mentioned you're on the left side of the spectrum. Can we call the USSR as subservient to Third Reich imperialism?
Breaking an alliance simply because an ally does something you don't agree with, while morally commendable, it is also simplistic. France didn't pull out, like nobody pulled out when France was committing atrocities in Algeria, or when Turkey invaded Cyprus; no Warsaw Pact countries left during Hungary 56, Albania did leave because of Prague 68 but only because of it being the last straw on their already strained relations, like CSTO countries aren't pulling out because of Russian imperialism in Ukraine, Georgia or Moldova. Armenia is trying to pull out only because the CSTO wasn't there when it was needed, that is, when the treaty doesn't address its very own points.
Alliances are born out of self-interest, not out of moral purity or consistency.
> Can we call the USSR as subservient to Third Reich imperialism?
Yes we can, we should, and we do. People on the left (aside from actual Stalinist) do admit that this alliance was bad, kind of like how liberals admit how the British government was wrong to pursue the strategy of appeasement.
What makes this different though is that both Stalin and the British government (under new leadership albeit) reversed course and fought and defeated fascism. We have not seen France nor Germany do this. To the contrary.
> Alliances are born out of self-interest.
This is the world we live in, but we don‘t have to accept it, and we can and should pressure our leaders into making the moral choice. Perhaps a better world is possible, and perhaps blaming our leaders for moral failures is our way to a better world.
I think your personal beliefs fit reality if you ignore the parts of reality that strongly refute it. That kind of mentality is getting popular these days. I'll leave you to it.
Which parts of my “personal believes” are wrong? And maybe this mentality is getting more popular because it is true. People are tired of being fed propaganda for Western imperialism and capitalism more broadly.
My last attempt to convince you: Ask your self, why did Iceland not vote in favor of a ban on nuclear weapons at the UN general assembly 2016? Why has Iceland still not signed and ratified the treaty? Why has no NATO member done so? Why are Austria and Ireland one of very few European nations to do so?
Aside from France and the UK, it is hard to find an answer here which does not include American imperialist agenda.
I think it's true that NATO is for most practical purposes an instrument of the US. But it's also true that there's a distinction between NATO and the US, and some other NATO members do have influence on NATO policy - most notably Turkey, which really complicated things for the US in relation to the Syrian civil war and the Azerbaijan - Armenia conflict.
> When the US government decides to label you “terrorist organization”
We really need laws removing the power from the President to unilaterally declare organizations terrorists. At least not long term without their ability to fight the designation in court.
(Same for tariffs. There is no case where one needs emergency power to tariff or sanction anything. If you need to conduct urgent police action, court-ordered asset freezes are plenty.)
American here. This is a non-starter. Nobody does it. And war is a domain where leading on moral authority requires firepower to back it.
We don’t agree on what does and doesn’t constitute a war crime, the term seems to cover almost all war as well as actions taken by every global and regional power in almost every military action they’ve each taken.
We need reform. But pretending we can legally ban war is silly.
Nobody is asking you to legally ban war. Just start complying with your obligations under international law to prosecute your own local war criminals.
The USA is the worlds #1 funder of terrorism and its #1 fighter of illegal, criminal wars. Until the American people start demanding justice for the crimes for which their state is responsible, we are all going down the drain with the USA and its war criminals.
You can’t do this when nobody else does, and particularly not when pretty much every act of war in the world is alleged to be a war crime by activists. In practice, all war appears to be illegal under international law. That makes the law untenable, which may be part of why it’s being ignored.
> Until the American people start demanding justice for the crimes for which their state is responsible
I agree that we need a framework limiting the U.S. military under U.S. law. But someone needs to propose something realistic.
If you're going to dance around pretending to be the only world power, you have to set the example you want to see of the other 'lesser nations' which are subject to your war criminals' purposes.
>every act of war in the world is alleged to be a war crime by activists.
So what you're really saying is that warriors should always be senior to activists.
This problem runs deep.
>I agree that we need a framework limiting the U.S. military under U.S. law.
No, I'm saying that the U.S. needs to stop being a criminal nation beholden only unto itself.
We’re in a globalized world with aircraft carriers and nuclear weapons. The fallacy of thinking a major economy (or significant nation) can decouple from any expansionist regime is a lesson I thought we learned from the first half of the last century.
The Russian weapons (at various points) were missing critical components, maintenance, fuel, etc.
The US weapons appear to have functioned as specified, but the commander-in-chief appears to know marginally less about the Iranian strategic situation than I personally do. And this is not a boast, I have zero military training and only follow the occasional commentator like Anders Puck Nielsen and read the odd Wikipedia page when something surprising comes up in the news or a comment, and pay enough attention to the news and comments to be capable of surprise, it's just that I asked someone around 20 years ago if the War On Terror would go to Iran given all the obvious threads leading there, and they told me it would go down basically as we saw it going down this year: very expensive, no real progress, strategic failure no matter what military victories happen.
> US weapons are near useless due to prolonged institutional corruption, just like Russian ones
At invading or achieving any geopolitical objective, yes (though I wouldn’t compare the American military-industrial base to Russia’s). At causing at least as much chaos as sanctions, no.
> you are now targeted by the most potent state actor on earth
Well, it is a mafia. See the international court investigating war crimes is
also targeted by the orange clown-brigade mafia.
> the only option is to cave
Objectively speaking you are correct, but I don't think this has to be the
case. For instance, why is that orange mafia so powerful? That is the thing
that has to be fixed on every level, not just by taking back what their
billionaires stole from us.
> which will go as far as blowing up weddings in your neighborhood to stop you.
And in case the wedding reference wasn't explicit enough, this isn't just Trump, it was also Obama.
It pains me to summon the specter of "both sides" because the Republicans are so much worse. But the majority of national level Democrats aren't inherently good. They are just less bad (and on some issues they can be close to equally as bad).
I don't have a scientific study at hand, but historically many revolutionaries and resistance fighters were family men and women with children who precisely cared for their children's future.
So unless you're willing to become a literal terrorist organization and die with a bunch of your friends in an uphill battle (not technically unwinnable, but at least lopsided and the casualties will be tremendous), the only option is to cave.