I don't really have any words · 11:29pm Jan 8th, 2021
Like a lot of people, I'm sure, I'm still processing what happened on Wednesday in the US Capitol building.
(Like I literally almost had a heart attack because of watching the news that day. It was bad.)
It doesn't take a lot of processing to know that what happened was beyond "wrong", going clear into "unconscionable".
Here's some words if you want to read more of those. They're directed at the furry fandom, but they sum everything up.
Trump supporters are fascists and enemies of America. I do not want a single one of you darkening my doorstep or my fandom anymore. You do not deserve anything but the pain and misery you have enacted on other people, ten thousandfold, forevermore. Anyone who stands by and allows shit to get this bad and says nothing...
I have no words for you. Not kind ones, anyway.
In some bright news, Twitter permanently suspended his account just now. It's about damn time
Nazi Bronies, fuck off and die.
I feel the same. This really is the last straw. Anyone still supporting Trump is a traitor and should be branded as a traitor.
But, yes. I hope it is some solace to know that Trump is being banned from social media (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter), articles of impeachment against him are being drawn up and the Democrats WILL introduce them, and perhaps a lot of Republicans have finally realized what they've let themselves become.
5431658
A good step, don't get me wrong, but nice to know they draw the line at active fascist revolution.
"In 1941, with World War II raging around them and Europe in flames, twitter suspended the account of Adolf Hitler for violating their terms of service."🤷
I don't think everypony who has supported Trump in the past is a fascist or a bad person, but I agree it's hard to fathom supporting him now.
Most of his current supporters believe they're the good guys acting according to (conservative Christian)-God's plan. Denouncing them is validating, but it doesn't solve the problem of how so many Americans were radicalized so quickly over the internet. The government and tech companies both have to take responsibility for allowing clearly, objectively debunked conspiracy theories to flourish.
5431676
"Both sides"
One side is fighting for civil liberties for all people.
The other side is staging a putsch because they're upset Cheeto Mussolini lost, and that white supremacy lost. Hell, they're fuming that an unarmed white woman who tried to breach a police barricade got gunned down. While in the same breath saying people like George Floyd 'deserved it'.
Fuck off with the fence-sitting. There is no more compromising.
My advice would be to stop listening to the "news" They have yet to really publish anything of relevance lately
The only words that can be used for the rioters, who did nothing less than engage in willful insurrection, are fairly simple:
Racist - there were too many confederate flags and white power symbols to count. Not to mention the nooses.
Nazi - aside from the actual Nazi flags, I saw an Auschwitz t-shirt on someone. Throwing one’s humanity away by glorifying the death of millions is a spectacular low.
Traitor - They broke into the people’s house, with intent to take hostages and murder the representatives of the people. If you don’t believe me, just look at all the photos of the spears, zip-ties, pipes, and other makeshift weaponry.
Terrorist - they committed a violent action that was designed to instill fear in government officials, with the sole purpose being to enact policy change through force instead of dialogue. People died. They actually killed a police officer. If the capitol police had killed every last person who tried to force their way in to the building, they would have been justified in the action. When they decided to use force to attack the seat of the government itself, they became nothing more than what they claim to hate the most.
Terrorists.
At this point ,supporting Trump is akin to having your head stuck in the sand up to your shoulders.
Here's something for people that still believe that rhetoric to contemplate.
It didn't take long for these self-stylized "patriots" to try and shift the blame to other groups and play the victim card, which is their usual tool to try and take control of a conversation—by flipping the blame. Remember these people are experts at that, or at least at blaming others and trying to wrestle the narrative into something that benefits them.
I'm just glad that these rioters are losing their jobs and getting arrested. Least that they deserve.
I wonder what they'll do now that Trump publicly shivved them in the back.
They are Domestic Terrorist.
On a lighter note: Derrick Evans, an insurrectionist who happened to be a West Virginia lawmaker, was arrested today too. Seems like the FBI and Justice Department aren't fucking around with these violent insurrectionists.
What they did is an Act of Domestic Terrorist and an Act of War.
Unless all the perpetrators and instigators* of this atrocity are quickly arrested and tried for their crimes, it will send a clear signal that there will be no major consequences for insurrection, and the republic will soon fall.
------------------------------
*Including the off-duty police and military in the mob. Also including those on-duty police that gave the rioters access to the capitol through secure doors. Our cultural worship of uniforms must offer no protection in this matter. And lastly, but most importantly, Donald J. Trump.
My brother made a similar post on Facebook. Time to see how much burned bridges there will be.
5431738
Fixed that for ya
5431743
Thank ya, kindly!
Godspeed
. We shouldn't coddle terrible people.
Lots of people egging him on, in fact, and contributing to this air. Oftentimes on this very website.
i think this best sums up how the pony fandom should be reacting:
cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/386227514680410113/797272101030723634/4556232345.png
link to the thread w/ highlighted response
One of the asshole traitors who died is from Athens Alabama. That’s my city. This piece of human garbage had a taser in his pants that went off multiple times, causing cardiac arrest.
Shocking yourself in the balls until you die is a perfect microcosm for the entire Republican Party.
5431764
the leader of fucking Proud Boys Hawaii (my "state") was there, who evidentially tried to run for a republican chair in the house of representatives for us (he lost). he just got arrested in Honolulu, thank god, but his fucking twitter handle is "Dictator of Hawaii", which is an unfathomably infuriating thing to put as Hawaii was inducted into the USA through a direct coup of the monarchy and an annexation and Hawaiian land rights are some of the worst for indigenous people in the country
apparently there's a nice cabal of these frothing fucks who likely think the US is being too lenient to the locals
it's such a spit in the eye to The Islands which are already being fucked over and destroyed environmentally and culturally by the US
pbs.twimg.com/media/ErE_vDRVkAAMP_0?format=jpg&name=900x900
he's this asshole btw (the smiling one)
5431738
Never mind the off-duty police and military - the Magas were aided and abetted by the on-duty Capitol Police, who permitted them into the building by offering only token resistance compared to what they're capable of. The Magas were only eventually ejected by FBI and DC Metro police. The head of the Capitol Police was sacked almost immediately, and good riddance.
I won't be happy until these jackasses responsible for trying to stall rightful democracy are put to trial. I am tired of all the assholes handwringing over whether to call this a "coup". Does it even matter? Trump has egged them on for months with his inflammatory lies about how Democrats are stealing an election via fraud and mail ballots. Even while the Capitol was being broken into, he was still trying to overturn the election, along with several Republican senators!
Whether this attack was pre-planned is less relevant that the fact that his supporters attempted to stop the democratic process to keep this authoritarian regime in power, and he only offered token resistance. It his fault things have reached this point in the first place. He fueled the fire, and it burned out of control. He and his remaining supporters are traitors.
Even on this very site they remain, desperately trying to salvage their reasons for supporting him. Just the other day I was arguing with someone who insisted that this attack on democracy was actually just a false flag meant to make Trump supporters look bad! And this guy got upvoted too!
5431786
I honestly hate to disagree here but they weren't equipped for a protest mob. They equipped them and staffed them for an event with a zero percent chance of protest then prevented them from even sending them reinforcements until long after the building had been breached. National guard was not deployed (1 guess who had to okay it) and when it finally was who and how it was done was technically illegal.
Some of the cops outside did their jobs but some practically laid down the red carpet.
As for inside, I would have been sad it had come to it but every single person who advanced in the building should have been shot. But seeing the staff inside also equipped for nothing more than a freaking charity parade they'd probably have run out of bullets and died. It wasn't until Pence himself was in immediate risk that a single bullet (and only 1) was fired.
Compare this to BLM. But I need to get ready for work so that's another rant.
5431810
I find it hard to believe that after all the police brutality and use of force that we've seen from protests this last year that Capitol Hill would be insufficiently equipped if by any other reason than purposeful collusion by the Capitol Hill police all the way from the top to the bottom. Comparing videos of the police opening gates for people or literally turning a blind eye to the events that happened to the brutality of the same police force in other occasions shows what side they're on. Capitol Hill police knew what they were doing.
5431810
Same as Octy, I'm pretty sure every other cop, when faced with BLM and adjacent protestors, were ready to smack down people at random. Except this time, they decided to go pure defense for once in the past 2 years. If they did what they did here in the rest of the country, most of us wouldn't have such a large beef against them.
5431867 5431840
Is it perhaps worth taking a moment to consider that it is because of the (quite right and justified) backlash against police brutality throughout 2020, that the DC police were considerably more circumspect and cautious on Wednesday? Like, perhaps while keeping in mind the anger and resentment they received for their actions during BLM protests and such they accidentally ended up going too far in the other direction?
I'm generally not inclined to ascribe to malice what can be just as adequately explained by mistake.
NB, this is exclusively referring to the on-duty police. The rioters and insurrectionists? No, that can't be adequately explained by mistake. That was a coup attempt, a riot incited by Trump.
5431729
Going by how /pol/ on 4chan reacted (I admit to hanging out there when I'm waiting for thread updates on /tg/ - I'm an argumentative bastard after all and there really are few places better on the Internet to find an argument): some will call him a traitor, some will say that he's still better than the alternative, some will say that the movement is bigger than Trump, and many will claim 12D chess is being played and this was all a scheme by Trump to do...something.
All are malignant morons.
5431899
fuck i went to /pol/ as it was going down since i do literally the same thing you do, just with /mu/ (i'm so tired of how every board has been flooded with /pol/psyops since 2016, half the time you dont even have to be on /pol/ to get a dose of it) and it was truly a sight to behold
the cirque du soleil of mental gymnastics right there
they would have pulled out tanks for a BLM attempt of what happened on Wednesday (except BLM would have never done what was happening on wednesday, and they pulled out tanks and armored vehicles for far less than an attempted government insurrection for BLM)
5431924
Well, yes, but they also would have been castigated for it if they had (and for the record rightly so). I'm just asking if it's worth considering if the failure of the DC police was due to an overabundance of caution or concern about their image and their response to a protest. Not even saying that is the case, I'm just not exactly eager to immediately start blaming them. Especially the badly outnumbered officers who were actually on the ground and staring down a crowd that outnumbered them hundreds to one when the shit actually started going down.
Plus as a Washington Post article pointed out, while there was a failure on the part of police to adequately put enough boots on the ground to act against this riot, there is another side to that coin: the police should not have to consider or take into account that the President of the United States might incite a riot. It may have been literally inconceivable to them.
5431899
It's nice of you to be so optimistic, but I'm afraid not. Even during the summer of 2020, police were treating fascists with kid gloves, then turning right around and brutalizing BLM protestors.
5431899
Right. Yes. Tear gassing, shooting, and murdering unarmed protesters demonstrating outside various courthouses etc is *exactly* the same as defending the capitol building from an armed mob bent on entering it while our nation's lawmakers are in session.
Totally the same thing. Yes.
5431899
Also compare to various right-wing, white supremacist 'rallies' that have occurred over the past couple of years. Always allowed to 'protest' in peace. The kid who killed a BLM protester led away in cuffs rather than gunned down as a clear and present danger. It just looks like gross incompetence if not complicity for now.
5431947
God in Heaven why do I open my mouth, no one ever actually fucking listens to me.
I didn't say it was the same thing. I'm just saying maybe we slow down and take a breath and not immediately excoriate the entire metropolitan DC police force, especially not the officers actually on the ground at the time staring at protestors who outnumbered them hundreds to one due to the higher-ups having screwed the pooch for whatever reason.
It's easy to say "the officers should have done something" when you're watching it on TV, it's whole different thing to be an officer just wearing normal patrol gear and realize that there's only like twenty other officers nearby, and you're staring at a crowd of several thousand people.
Not to mention that I feel like focusing on the police is kind of distracting from the larger point that the President of the United States incited a riot and attempted a coup, and it failed principally due to the man being a clownish buffoon who's allergic to actually committing to anything, even his own ideas. That's the major story of the moment.
Focusing on the double standard of the DC police is like the French getting pissy at the British over the Battle of Waterloo...in 1940. There are kind of bigger fish to fry.
5431963
Well, Biden's inauguration is in 2 weeks and credible threats have been made, so I think this is a bit more like 1940 Britain asking pointed questions about officers' membership in the BUF. :(
But of course you're right, they absolutely need to impeach/remove "Mosely," too.
5431963
The Maga rabble were not capable of carrying out a coup on their own, we know this because despite being given every allowance the best they could manage was a farce worthy of the Burgerbraukeller. The problem the Capitol Police represent - the reason that their head was sacked and that inshallah a purge is coming down the pike - is that they backed the occupation with the force of state security. Combined with DC National Guard and sympathetic elements of the Army, and the Maga mob, they could have occupied the capital (yes, the "a" is intentional - I'm referring to DC as a whole, not the grand building at one end of the Mall). In the event, the DC National Guard and the Army did not support a coup with affirmative action, and the FBI and DC Metro police, along with the Virginia and Maryland National Guards, remained loyal.
This isn't about a "double standard," it's about assessing a military balance of forces. You need state security on side to pull of a coup, that's, like, coup 101. This one had some, if not enough. That should be very worrisome - it should be zero.
5432142
Sure, it is, but I still don't want to be distracted from the Main Enemy. Especially since that Main Enemy still has the constitutional authority to pardon everyone involved in the coup attempt and really no reason not to do so at this point.
I was morbidly curious as to if he could go any lower after he called a Neo-Nazis “very fine people” and withheld aid to a foreign country until they gave him dirt on a political rival. He managed to do so.
And don’t get mestarted on the police.
5431840 5431867
I'm 100% with both of you. It's absolutely disgusting. But look at them. No riot shields, no armor, no lines of officers... This wasn't a charity event, this was an event every person with a brain KNEW was going to get rough but those in charge just thought "oh my coworkers and friends will be in the crowd it won't get out of control. No need to put a strong presence on display." or were encouraged to make it easier (which I doubt but won't discount)
Also, 1 bullet. They had a woman literally try to get through the final physical obstacle to reach the vice president at the end of the hall and she was shot once. The only shots fired by the police the entire insurrection attempt as far as I'm aware. FFS if it had been a black guy with a can of ice tea they'd be picking what's left of him up off the floor with a shop vac. (really the officer was probably worried about running out of ammo but still)
The disparity in preparations and abysmal response to the literal seat of power being invaded blows my mind. Especially considering that the building was hardened after 9/11
The moment those people set foot inside the Capitol, they were no longer Americans.
5431810
Unfortunately, this post is pretty spot on. I wanted to see a better, more aggressive response to the rioters, but at the same time, doing so with the resources they had would have been more calamitous for the ones protecting the Capitol and those inside. There's a video floating around of a black officer trying to hold off a swarm of people by himself—literally 1 vs 50+—slowly backing up the stairs till help arrived. He in particular is a prime example of what was narrowly avoided by his (and very luckily the mob's) decision to not escalate. You know... beyond the whole storming the Capitol thing.
I've been seeing posts about the chief having given the direct order to the on-duty officers stand down. I don't know when that order came down the pipeline, but I'm sure that order is one of many reasons there was such lackluster resistance against the mob. I want to know more about that aspect before presuming anything more of those on duty. That said, the decision to disperse the crowd after the NG and Metro joined in rather than round everyone up is... Concerning.
5431899 I literally just saw your response for some reason. I guess I'm more tired than I thought! Thankfully, regardless of what they believe, we can boil it down to context and for that Beau has a handy video:
5432292
Beau is a treasure.
5431924
I’ll never forgive /pol/ for infecting /mlp. I used to spend every night when I was in school there.
5432292
5432320
I haven’t watched his videos at all just because he looks like a stereotypical Trump supporter. I’m sorry I’ve been making that mistake.
5432369
/mlpol/ was the second biggest mistake of the decade
Sorry if the conversation has moved on or whatever but I wanna come back to this question:
Because as it happens, there were other similar MAGA groups besides the ones at the capitol in DC. There was one in Georgia's capitol building, in fact, which necessitated the evacuation of Brad Raffensperger, Georgia's secretary of state. But there was also a Black Lives Matter protest in Atlanta the same day. In case you're curious which ones the cops went after, here's a twitter thread to help you out.
I don't really have any reason to believe that DC's capitol police have a different policing ethos to their Georgian counterparts. So... yeah. Cops, even after a summer of backlash, will always go after anti-racist protesters before laying a finger on fascist insurrectionists.
And as much as we need to focus on the people at the top of our country who provoked the coup attempt—Trump, Cruz, Hawley, and many more—I think it's just as important to point out the people in our police forces who've been facilitating fascism for years. Fixing America is going to require cleanup at every level.
It was completely unreal to watch, it's still hard to believe it happened. No kind words indeed.
I keep reporting shit like this self-described fascist-monarchist, and it keeps being ignored. That guy's still allowed to run a group dedicated to incubating alt-right bollocks in our space. Well. "Our" space. I've been out the door a while now.
The site staff know about the issue they're just never going to do anything about it. Even Wanderer - and bless him for doing this much - has to stick to doing personal blog vagueposting.
5432402
This shit is why I stopped participating in the fandom altogether. I pop in here sometimes to talk to friends, but the fact that fucking My Little Pony sites have become a safe space for racists and fucking NAZIS is just too much.
Fucking SHAME on the staff for turning a blind eye to it.
5431943
Since we have video of some Capitol Police officers removing barricades and letting the rioters into the capitol complex through secured exits and taking selfies with them, and based on the previous record of various PDs when confronted with militia and Q-anon types, I think it isn't worth serious consideration.
BTW, it wasn't the DCPD guarding the capitol, it was an entirely separate department with the sole duty of policing the capitol complex.
EDIT: I have since seen video of Capitol Police officers resisting the attackers as well as they could under the circumstances. I saw an officer screaming in pain as he was crushed by the weight of attackers attempting to breach a barricade. I want to make it clear that I think the majority of the officers in the capitol behaved correctly and did their duty in the face of appalling odds. But that doesn't absolve the rotten apples or the ones higher in the chain of command that refused to properly provide extra support against a known threat.