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Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook

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Re: Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook

#821

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What they can't survive is... And yet, here we are, democracy intact.

Are we? Because to me there are huge cracks opening up. Death toll isn't the important part about terrorist attacks, it's the responses that count, and the response to this seems about the same or more extreme as 9/11 to me, and I lived through that on a military base. I don't remember 25k troops being deployed into DC for 9/11.

And that was a foreign attack. 25000 national guard are in D.C. due to a domestic enemy, white nationalist American terrorists, making credible threats.

It's self-evidently anti-Democratic. The last time this nation got into a dispute over an election where the minority decided to just set it aside and not submit to the result, resulted in the bloodiest revolution to date.

Re: Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook

#822
post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fail in what way? I mean they didn’t actually overthrow the government or string up Pence, but their penetration and looting of the Capitol buildings was incredibly successful.

Qanon and friends have been talking about "the storm" for years now. January 6 was either luck and foolery or clever planning. A year ago I would have said luck but the weekend before super Tuesday last year with the centrists clearing the lane for Biden all within 36 hours convinced me there's capable skilled political actors who can orchestrate things. January 6 was perhaps the least harmful version of the storm po…

FWIW, the “storm” of QAnon is a different prophesied event, when the secret Democrat child sex trafficking ring would be exposed once and for all and the perpetrators all arrested at once, dramatically. That’s what QAnon actually believe, and if you are that deluded, storming the Capitol building in a desperate bid to ensure that Trump remains in office long enough to break up the secret Democrat child sex trafficking ring has a certain internal logic to it.

This is no joke—one of the rioters who made it to either the House or Senate floor was carrying a sign with a vague message about saving the children, while another one—the one who faced off with heroic Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman—was wearing a “Q” hoodie.

It’s very strange to consider that some 4chan troll had this impact on history.

To your point, I think it’s worth considering all the potential outcomes:

1. Harm coming to any of the elected officials in the Capitol that day 2. A bloodbath on the Capitol steps on live television 3. Chaotic scenes of men in pelts occupying the Senate floor followed by the resumption of normal business that evening 4. A large armed presence with physical barriers and riot squads surrounding the Capitol

Obviously in retrospect we would take #4, and that’s what we’ll get for the inauguration. But #3 was obviously the second best choice on the table, and potentially the best if you want #4 to look legitimate, especially after about half a year of anti-police narrative.

Re: Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook

#823

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why trump replaced his secretary of defense after he lost the election. That's why they didn't bring in requested national guard troops. (if I understand the situation, Trump never authorized the NG, as he was cheering on the coup from the WH, and the guard deployed bc Pence was pleading for it, which has its own weird constitutional issues.)

He offered to dispatch NG, but that request legally had to come from the Capitol Police (which does not report to the Administration branch in any way), just like NG can't be deployed in states without the governor specifically requesting same and declaring a formal State of Emergency. "Not just a good idea... It's the law ."

Technically, couldn’t he have invoked the Insurrection Act?

Re: Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook

#824
post #809

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I suspend my disbelief for a second, do you have a link to any interviews or similar with those protesters? Surely you are not conflating quotes from peaceful demonstrators against (alleged) election fraud, with militants trying to violently overthrow the government?

Here's a WP article on it. I remember seeing video of a woman retreating from the Capitol saying something about them being on the same side as the police and complaining why they weren't joining them, but I can't find it, sorry. One of the protesters was carrying blue lives matter flag. https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:IKWa_6...

Is this the same woman who was crying, “they pushed me down and maced me” while dabbing her face with an onion?

Re: Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook

#825
post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the police weren't shooting because they realized how overwhelmed they were. I've seen a couple of videos where they had drawn their guns and prepared to fire but they were simply surrounded.

Crowds would have dispersed pretty quickly if the cops started shooting

Or they would have stormed the cops in a blind rage, killed them, and taken their weapons.

Re: Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook

#826
post #796

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth noting the Weather Underground were well organized and sophisticated terrorists, although they were admittedly a lot less violent and long-lasting than the listed groups.

Interesting, I'd never heard of them. They certainly do seem to be pretty sophisticated and disciplined though.

There was actually a fair amount of domestic terrorism in the 60’s and 70’s that doesn’t get widely discussed for some reason. FALN was another fairly successful domestic terror group that has gone largely forgotten.

Re: Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook

#827
post #666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you come up with that conclusion? Honestly, just asking

Not the OP, but it's the reason AWS gave: In an email obtained by BuzzFeed News, an AWS Trust and Safety team told Parler Chief Policy Officer Amy Peikoff that the calls for violence propagating across the social network violated its terms of service. Amazon said it was unconvinced that the service’s plan to use volunteers to moderate calls for violence and hate speech would be effective. “Recently, we’ve seen a stea…

Even that does not say any planning was done on parler.

Re: Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook

#828
post #374
post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah "we need to break all encryption to catch people planning terrorism in Facebook groups, e-mail, and unencrypted SMS..." Most terrorists are idiots because most people who are not idiots are not terrorists.

There have been plenty of extremely well organised, sophisticated and technically competent terrorists. The IRA, the Red Amy Faction, the PLO and Black September, Al Qaeda. Aside from 9/11 none of them have operated successfully in the US and your domestic terrorism has mainly been perpetrated by individuals or very small one off groups of just 2 or 3.

> Aside from 9/11 none of them have operated successfully in the US

The Provisional IRA ran fundraising operations in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NORAID

Re: Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook

#829
post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been plenty of extremely well organised, sophisticated and technically competent terrorists. The IRA, the Red Amy Faction, the PLO and Black September, Al Qaeda. Aside from 9/11 none of them have operated successfully in the US and your domestic terrorism has mainly been perpetrated by individuals or very small one off groups of just 2 or 3.

> Aside from 9/11 none of them have operated successfully in the US The Provisional IRA ran fundraising operations in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NORAID

As did the Fenians long before. Also ran actual military operations out of the US.

Re: Capitol Attack Was Months in the Making on Facebook

#830

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fame has a direct financial value. Any US president is among the most famous and well known people on earth. trump will make more money from speaking appearances than he did from any of his businesses over the last several decades

This is what I've never understood about post presentient lives. People like Trump and Bush can barely deliver a speech or speak coherently, who is paying to hear them attempt it??

Corporate speeches are like Cameo for really rich people. People will pay for a personal message / attention from a celebrity. It doesn't matter what they say
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