The worst takes on the Nashville bombing remind us how awful some people can be..
"Nashville's run by Democrats!"
???
Who was Mayor of NY when 9/11 happened? Oh yeah.
Bombings happen in cities bc it gets more attention than bombing a barn, dumbass...
2/ Or how about...
"The bomb exploded outside the AT&T data center" (true)...
"And that's because they had data proving the election was stolen" (and there's the shark...make sure to jump)...
To be clear it also exploded right outside the Melting Pot, so...
3/ Or "it was antifa or BLM"...neither of which have ever bombed anything, anywhere, even once, as opposed to right wingers (who may not have done this either -- it might not have been ideological per se), but who have done literally dozens of bombings in the past 25 years...
4/ There's no logic to leftists doing this. This can only even theoretically benefit the right & Trump forces who want an excuse for martial law, or using the insurrection act to void the election. Not saying that's what it is...we don't know, but it makes more sense...
5/ Accelerationism (the idea that provoking chaos and violence will hasten the collapse of the system and its replacement by something else) is almost exclusively a right wing, white nationalist and fascist idea. No one in BLM believes in it...
6/ And anti-fascists also reject it bc we know that such violence and chaos almost always play to the whims of the right and their calls for "law and order" crackdowns on dissent. But accelerationism is preached all day every day on right wing chat boards...
7/ Again, I am NOT saying that's what this is. Frankly, for all we know, this could be someone who owns a business on 2nd avenue and has lost money due to COVID and is trying to collect on insurance but didn't want to kill people, thus the recorded warnings...
8/ It could be someone who wanted to commit suicide in a dramatic fashion (thus, the remains that were found who might have been from the person in the RV), but who also didn't want to kill others, thus the recorded warnings...
9/ Or it could have been political. But we should let the investigators do their jobs, and not spin a bunch of conspiratorial bullshit that serves a pre-existing political narrative. The fact that is doesn't make sense for leftists to have done it, doesn't mean right wingers did.
10/ And it's at moments like this -- when assholes w/a desire to be important and "in the know" (bc their lives are so pathetic) spin conspiracy tales -- that one really wonders whether the world is better or worse off due to social media, and comes down on the side of "worse."
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1/ Conspiracy theories are for those who don't understand how systems function, so they cling to the idea of evil forces behind the scenes, when in fact, most awful things that happen happen because the social structures within which we operate contribute to various outcomes...
2/ Sadly, American culture is so hyper-individualistic, it is easier to think of everything (good and bad) as flowing from either good or bad people, rather than social systems and structures that are far more complex...
3/ And unfortunately our schools don't really teach systemic thinking, or encourage people to have a sociological imagination. So it's easier to blame false flags and a "pending gun grab" for mass shootings, rather than look at the mental health system or violent culture...
1/ Seeing the clip of Mike Pence today complaining that Democrats want to make poor people more comfortable (as if that’s a bad thing) reminded me how powerful anti-poor folks stereotypes are in this country, especially about poor folks of color and Black folks in particular...
2/ A common claim is that poor people (especially if Black) are sitting around collecting checks from the government. Bullshit. The most recent data shows only 2 million people in the entire U.S. getting “welfare checks.” Cash aid has been basically ended since the mid 90s...
3/ Of the 2m receiving cash aid under TANF (formerly AFDC), 29% are Black. So, 580k Black folks receiving cash aid out of 40m Black folk in all, and 7.5m Black folk in poverty. That’s 1.5% of Black folk and <8% of the Black poor receiving cash aid. acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/…...
Does anyone doubt which side the MAGA faithful of today would have been on at the time of this Jackson sit-in picture? Of course not. And that is why it is fair to call them evil. Anyone who was not supportive of the movement then, or wouldn't have been, is a moral monster
...and yes, please, I know the bigots in this picture were likely Democrats. I know. I also know the people they were attacking were well to their left politically, and NO movement conservatives were part of the civil rights struggle. So miss me w/ "they were Dems" BS
Oh and yes, all these white folks pouring drinks on protesters heads and verbally assaulting them deserved to be canceled: professionally, personally, whatever, until and unless they had a complete come to Jesus turn around and proved that to the satisfaction of those they abused
1/ No matter your views on student debt forgiveness, these folks who oppose it bc "I had to pay MY loans off, so they should too," are really awful people. Wanting others to experience the pain and stress you did (supposedly to build character) is sadistic...
2/ Imagine parallels: If you were physically or sexually abused ('my kids should experience that too so they won't have life too easy!'). If you experienced medical bankruptcy ('we shouldn't make health care more affordable or have M4A bc going broke for meds made me stronger!)..
3/ I mean it's just bizarre. Being burdened with heavy student debt -- bc colleges have become big businesses where hiking tuition is seen as a proxy for status/quality, and bc states have cut back on direct financing of higher ed -- is bad for everyone, not just the debtor...
Y'all can scream and yell about Antifa all you like but between people who will actually confront fascists and stand up to them and those who think they can be reasoned with, converted to prog/left class analysis, or need to be "understood," I'll take the former every time.
That doesn't mean there isn't a valid critique of certain tactics, strategies & particular actions. As is true in ANY political formation. The question is, should we respond to fascists with kindness and ecumenism or militant self-defense? No evidence the first of these works
I feel like those who critique Antifa but are on the progressive/left of the spectrum really believe you can reason with fascists, or turn them on to Gramsci if given enough time, or some such shit...
1/ The goal of GOP election fraud claims (before & after 2020) is to limit voting by folk of color & the poor. We know this bc before COVID, when mail-in & absentee was overwhelmingly whiter & upper middle class, NO right wingers focused on tighter safeguards on those votes...
2/ Rather they focused on limiting in-person early voting (disproportionately POC) and photo ID, bc even though there was almost no evidence of in person fraud, they knew POC and the poor are statistically less likely to have photo ID...
3/ In close elections, if such efforts result in even a slight decrease in turnout by such groups, the right benefits. NOW because of COVID, as POC and lower income folks availed themselves more of mail in and absentee (to stay safe), the same folks scream about absentee fraud..