Live data from Hacker News

U.S. insurrectionists received $500k in bitcoins from French donor

blog.chainalysis.com

191–200 of 243 posts

Re: U.S. insurrectionists received $500k in bitcoins from French donor

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spend time on gab and parler (I'm not a believer, I'm just curious). It really looks like it's people who genuinely feel Joe Biden will be the end of america. They think the stock market will crash and dollars will be useless as Biden ushers in some kind of communism. From the volume of comments on the posts, there's quite many of them. This run will probably last as long as their finances allow. I don't think it'l…

It really looks like it's people who genuinely feel Joe Biden will be the end of america. To look at it another way, they really expect the end of American and Joe Biden and/or Kamala Harris are just the right wing villains of the moment. You could pick anyone else from the field of Democratic politicians and they would equally be treated as the harbinger of the apocalypse. The underlying anxiety of the alt-right (th…

I think you are off base on this, I think there is a small contingent of the far right that are white identity adherents. The rest get labeled in with them, because they have not been vocal in their distancing themselves from that contingent, thus groups like the Proud Boys get lumped in with the white supremacist's and white identity adherents. While the Proud Boy's are a radical alt-right group, white identify is not their binding fabric. The embracing of masculinity is, they have member from all races and explicitly call out that they are not a white nationalist organization. The alt-right is a coalition, of the fringe just like the far-left. Most tolerate each other under enemy-of-my-enemy mentality.

Re: U.S. insurrectionists received $500k in bitcoins from French donor

#192
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, "business as usual" has led working class (and middle class) america to wage stagnation, increasingly worse jobs, de-industrialization, decline of small towns, meth/heroin rise, and such, plus wars mainly using poor rural people as fodder, and other such niceties. Plus coastal elites (including non-elites who still identify as hollier-than the plebs in the fly-over country) sneering at them. The glorious march…

None of this is Democrats or liberal's fault. Their party has been yelling about getting off fossil fuels for the last 20 years. Obama encouraged organizations that were re-training coal miners and others in dead industries to join the digital workforce. It's the alt-right who have been promising to go back to 'normal' and that coal is the future. The economics aren't there, fossil fuels is a dying industry. Even if…

>None of this is Democrats or liberal's fault. Their party has been yelling about getting off fossil fuels for the last 20 years.

What a wrote wasn't just about coal. Heck, I didn't ever had coal in mind when I wrote it. It's a general situation with working class jobs and middle class prospects, that's way beyond coal shutting down.

And the "encouraged organizations that were re-training coal miners and others in dead industries to join the digital workforce" part shows how out of touch those running the "business as usual" part were.

This is the advice/career path famously summarized as "learn to code", as if 40-50 year old coal miners (and millions of people in other working class jobs) are suddenly going to be able to complete those programs and join some "digital workforce" (in any capacity other than POS operators). And as if the market eagerly awaits for those people to join the digital workforce and will jump at the chance to hire them.

Re: U.S. insurrectionists received $500k in bitcoins from French donor

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's disgusting how such primitive people can still exist in our modern world. Yes, we have many people doing horrible things all over the world, but people being vile because their ancestors had less sun than others is a special kind of pointless stupidity.

I present to you the words of Kristen Clarke, Biden’s future head of the DoJ’s Civil Rights division: “Melanin endows blacks with greater mental, physical, and spiritual abilities — something which cannot be measured by Eurocentric standards.” This is just one quote from her letter, which goes on at length about black superiority. I think the problem we have right now is we have two sets of standards. People that hav…

I really wonder why you opted to link to a secondary source (a condemnation of her letter) rather than primary source of the letter itself.

Re: U.S. insurrectionists received $500k in bitcoins from French donor

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's disgusting how such primitive people can still exist in our modern world. What a snobbish and elitist thing to say. Try saying that to the Sentinelese or Amazonian tribes that still don't have contact with our messed up globalist world. One of the reasons we are living in this chaotic time is because of a growing middle class elite living in metropolitan areas who are either unwilling or incapable of understand…

I don't think the parent meant any disparagement to actual primitive tribes. Why did you assume that?

"I don't think the parent meant any disparagement to actual primitive tribes. Why did you assume that?"

Because all of these statements of ethnicity have to be contextualized.

You can't just say 'Well White this, Black that' - other than in a very American context.

I live in Quebec and they are essentially the only classical, coherent 'ethnic group' (i.e. language, governance) in North America aside from Aboriginals - and due to the fact they are surrounded by the 'Angloshphere' there is a very legit concern about the erosion of their culture.

New migrants basically don't want to learn French, and more and more English language 'everything' encroaches on the culture.

Now - some Pro-Quebec sentiment is really ridiculous, racist, over the top and frankly dumb (they want to ban 'Staples' from being called 'Staples' because it's English) but there is an underlying legitimacy.

Unspoken in all of this is that Quebec culture is defacto European and essentially (though not technically) White.

Also of interesting note that intellectually it's super-secular (they don't like their Catholic past) at the same time, culturally, kind of super Catholic.

Point being: there are calls for the 'saving of our culture' basically daily. It's part of the program here and it's not overtly racist or radical.

My MP (like Congressperson) is form 'Quebec Solidaire' and it's the very farthest Left group in North America it actually has roots in a former Communist part. (I didn't vote for them!) - but - they are equally Nationalist! They walk a tight intellectual line with justifying their Nationalism on a 'racially inclusive' basis, even though their ideology is at the same time very exclusive to outsiders, who happen to be Anglophones ... and people of colour.

In the face of Globalism 'We Are All Aboriginals' - which is to say every single culture save maybe Han Chinese is under the threat of being 'globalized' in a kind of Anglo-American hot-mess of commercialism.

So yes, it's not the same thing for some French guy to be saying such things as it is for someone from the disappearing Tribes of the Amazon, but this isn't the 20th century anymore, the fault lines are changing quickly and context is really important.

Re: U.S. insurrectionists received $500k in bitcoins from French donor

#195

French far-right and alt-right have been commenting the aftermath of the Capitol events with absolutely no distance, just as if it was a domestic affair. That is of course a distortion enabled by social media. I find it so troubling in ways I cannot explain with words. Their audience obviously makes no difference between what occurs in their neighborhood and what happens on another continent, as evidenced by the lett…

Right-wing politics are in an internationalist phase thanks to the rise of the internet, not unlike internationalist phases of the past brought about by wireless telegraphy or moveable type. After we get through this political spasm perhaps there will be another in a few decades as telepathic augmentation becomes common and people's inner monologues become even easier to share.

Re: U.S. insurrectionists received $500k in bitcoins from French donor

#196
post #122

Tens of millions of dollars were raised for "bail funds" across the country to bail out people arrested at the riots over the summer. Once the groups paid the bail on behalf of someone, the money was returned to the person bailed out not the group that paid it. The district attorney in Portland, Oregon, and other DA's in larger cities, was not prosecuting the majority of people arrested, except for the most egregious…

The article says a single fund spent $100,000. Where are you getting "tens of millions" from exactly?

Re: U.S. insurrectionists received $500k in bitcoins from French donor

#197
Isn't it odd that a french computer programmer wrote their suicide note in english?

Aren't suicide notes generally for friends and family? Aren't the french typically very protective of their language and culture?

The note seems intended for USA readership. It's all very strange.

Re: U.S. insurrectionists received $500k in bitcoins from French donor

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, that source also mentions coal, but oil is the part of that statement that really set people off. Since Obama took office to just before Covid, US oil production nearly tripled. The decline of coal is economically priced in, but shutting down domestic oil and gas production anytime soon would take a shotgun to the economy.

> but shutting down domestic oil and gas production anytime soon would take a shotgun to the economy. You should watch the relevant answer from Biden[0], the Brietbart article is heavily biased and misleading. His position is simple and data driven, it is no longer economically viable and the market will no longer create any new coal or oil fire plants in America. To fact check Biden: "Under the 25-year contract ...…

Biden said:

> Here’s what he said: "During our administration in the recovery act, I was...able to bring down the cost of renewable energy to cheaper than or as cheap as coal, and gas, and oil. Nobody’s going to build another coal-fired power plant in America. No one’s going to build another oil-fired plant in America. They’re going to move to renewable energy."

If Biden promises to increase subsidies for renewables (which, as I understand, he plans to do), and that causes disinvestment away from say gas-fired plants, isn't it reasonable for folks in places like Pennsylvania and Texas where fracking is a huge part of the economy to oppose such measures?

If "the market" is going to make it so nobody builds new gas-fired plants (I agree the market won't build new coal or oil plants) why is Biden proposing $2 trillion in subsidies for renewables?

To be clear, I think Biden's renewables plan is basically the correct one, but its going to be bad for currently prosperous middle class parts of Pennsylvania, Texas, etc., that rely heavily on gas extraction.

Re: U.S. insurrectionists received $500k in bitcoins from French donor

#199
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, "business as usual" has led working class (and middle class) america to wage stagnation, increasingly worse jobs, de-industrialization, decline of small towns, meth/heroin rise, and such, plus wars mainly using poor rural people as fodder, and other such niceties. Plus coastal elites (including non-elites who still identify as hollier-than the plebs in the fly-over country) sneering at them. The glorious march…

Kind of a good take, but these points actually makes their attitude even stranger: they are not afraid of neoliberalism, which is the defacto economic position of both the left and the right, but of "communism." Biden is a "communist," or "godless," or "anti-American." What do these statements actually mean? You can argue that their feelings of economic greivance make sense--but their voting habits are a rejection of…

>Kind of a good take, but these points actually makes their attitude even stranger: they are not afraid of neoliberalism, which is the defacto economic position of both the left and the right, but of "communism." Biden is a "communist," or "godless," or "anti-American." What do these statements actually mean?

Since the elites that push them over and throw them to the dustbins of history as deplorables are mostly Democratic, and the elites that hypocrically placate to them as lip service are mostly Republican (hypocritically since both serve the same neoliberal agenda), those masses confuse their liberalism (left-leaning-ness) as a reason that they hurt them.

That the Democrat elites and coastal pundits also hate their (the fly-over peoples) guts and everything they stand for culturally (e.g. them being more conservative wrt tradition, family, etc.), and diss them from a left/socialist point of view is also another reason for those masses to consider that "socialism" is their enemy.

Because for them socialism is not some benevolent Swedish style state socialism that caters to their needs, or old-style workers-first aid, but superficial cultural "socialism" with "fuck these backwards people" at its mast flag combined with neoliberal policies.

If the Democrats actually catered to their needs (rural growth, working/middle class jobs, wage stagnation, skyrocketing college, health costs, etc) and also had a sincere dialogue about those people's values (instead of pushing the latest SJW cause as if it's something everybody should get on with pronto or they are Hitler -- when in reality it's things not even the foremost leftists in the US championed just 20 or 30 years ago, never mind the Democrats themselves. Heck, Obama himself was publicly against something as inoffensive as gay marriage back in the day iirc, never mind other modern causes) and didn't consider them all backwards rednecks that should be put into re-education camps, the same people would change their mind about "socialism" and such.

But instead the Democrats publicly deplore them, and use those social justice causes as a substitute for real progressive policies (economic, for peace, for curbing big tech, etc.).

>You can argue that their feelings of economic greivance make sense--but their voting habits are a rejection of policies like universal healthcare (which would benefit the vast majority of them) because "socialism."

From what I've read and discussed with some people there - haven't delved much into it to read the details - the ACA mostly benefited the very poor and welfare, while did two things for working class and middle class people: it increased their healthcare costs and also (I see mentioned) make them not able to keep the doctors they used to see.

If true, this is not a case of those masses "voting against their interests", but the other side confusing the very poor/welfare recipients etc (who assumedly did benefit from ACA) with the working/lower middle class (who was hurt by it), and wondering why the latter don't jump with joy about ACA.

>What will four more years of Republican tax cuts coupled with absurd austerity politics get them? Biden is worse than this because...?

To my eyes both parties are neoliberal and thus bad.

That said, Trump (not the GOP) term was marked by less (no?) wars and hawkish behavior (good for the globe at large) and a promise to scale-back American "democracy export business" (e.g. war).

That alone, and thus hundreds of thousands not impacted by that, is better than anything we could see coming from legendarily hawkish Hillary, in my book. With regards to Biden, let's see.

Trump also spoke against outsourcing everything and about rampant globalism, which, last time I checked (I'm old) it was one of the concerns of our side (the leftists), people fought in Seattle protests, Genova protests, etc. Suddenly, people on the left seem to consider this to have gone out of style, just out of partisanship to the Democrats against Trump.

As for domestically, all the numbers I've seen put the number of e.g. blacks shot by cops as the same during the Obama years, and the numbers of migrants deported roughly the same as well. So on that front, I see more partisanship and cant, than actual difference.

Re: U.S. insurrectionists received $500k in bitcoins from French donor

#200

Isn't it odd that a french computer programmer wrote their suicide note in english? Aren't suicide notes generally for friends and family? Aren't the french typically very protective of their language and culture? The note seems intended for USA readership. It's all very strange.

Very suspicious, indeed.
Post reply on HN