I guess all nazis have to do to get away with murder is have their teen sons pull the triggers. Given the public statements of the judge in murder boy’s case, I want nobody to act surprised by this outcome. Outraged is cool, yeah, do that. But surprise? That would just be silly.
There’s a foul stench of danger hanging over this country, that the barely concealed racist fascism of the turn of our century will go overt, will remove the last pretenses of democracy from our processes and usher in a new era of far greater horrors. I can understand people feeling hopeless – and especially turning up their noses at our supposed liberal political party – but we can’t stop until this is over.
I mention these things because stuff like the result of this court case is empowering to the fash, which will make them more motivated to turn up in numbers next election, depending on what happens in the meantime. And what’s been happening lately is a 24-7 doubt parade from corporate media on the ability of the democrats generally and Biden particularly to govern. The “people say” style of reportage is in full gear, where any nasty fucked up lie from billionaire-funded nazi-ass think tanks turns into a headline.
Protestors will be returning to the streets. Some are probably there already. And now murderers have been forearmed with precedent for how to get away with straight-up executing them in broad daylight. But people will fight on anyway, and I fucking love them for it. Long live the fighters! Black Lives Matter. Black Power Now!
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I honestly fear that the Kenosha murders verdict will start a Civil War in the USA – if we can actually say the Civil War ever stopped given the flags carried through Congress on January 6th during the attempted coup by the Trump cult mob.
Outrageous, appalling if predictable verdict that needs to be overturned as an illegitimate trial given the bias of the Judge in the murderers favour.. Would it be okay if things were reversed and a BLM person turned up with a machine gun at a Trump rally then gunned people down there? Clearly not but here. Is this the precedent they’re setting now? You don’t get to pick a fight and then claim “self-defence” and teenage kids should not be wielding military grade guns.
Furious and disheartened here and I’m the world’s biggest ocean away so can only begin to imagine how others closer to the action and more directly affected feel. I fear where this is heading and things need to be stopped now before they get much worse.
Can the White Supremacist killler* here be re-arrested and charged with terrorism and conspiracy to committ homicide or suchlike offences? If so, that should happen. Laws clearly need to be changed and Judges and maybe lawyers removed as well.
No justice. No peace.
Well, we’ve had the no justice part of that equation.. (Expletives.)
* Yes, I’m deliberately not using his name to avoid rewarding him with attenition and a sick sort of glorification and fame. He doesn’t deserve it. What he deserves, well, a lifetime in jail for starters.
PS. This cartoon :
https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1888818-2020-kyle-rittenhouse-kenosha-wisconsin-shootings
Then this one :
https://madison.com/wsj/opinion/cartoon/hands-on-wisconsin-kyle-rittenhouse-claims-self-defense-again/article_e26df37a-d0d4-597f-82a0-2e03cee94252.html
Plus / or this one :
https://www.kqed.org/news/11896945/armed-acquitted
Sum things up horribly well.
This will cause strife, it will suck, but I don’t see war. We’ve done this before, sadly seems like we’ll be doing it again.
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I’m old enough to remember the 1970s, and as far as I can tell, none of the riots we’ve had in the last few years hold a candle to what happened back then. I don’t think racial unrest and violence is likely to grow to the point of a full civil war.
Slightly more worrisome is what Trump might do if he runs again in 2024 and loses. He’ll certainly claim fraud and call vaguely for another uprising. But he has neither the wits nor the courage to be a genuine revolutionary — if he couldn’t be bothered to go along with his troops after ordering them to storm the Capitol, we can assume that he will continue to prefer playing golf to leading a revolution.
No, I’m convinced that the only thing that would actually start a war would be if one side or the other ran the table for a bit, and either Texas or California held a successful secession vote. I don’t think you can show me any country that has split in two without a fair amount of bloodshed. And of course, that is something that Ted Cruz has now endorsed.
I’d like everyone to start spreading the message now that a vote for secession is a vote for civil war. Pass it on.
It’s true. Fun to imagine a US Velvet Revolution but that would leave the red states as basically Saudi Arabia with less oil – bad for humanity on every level – and it would go bloody mighty quick.
I think things might get really ugly, but I have trouble seeing a civil war happening. The divide is less geographic and more demographic, it’s basically urban vs rural.
I think there is going to be a lot of small-scale terrorism. various subsets of nazis causing trouble, then shooting people, and claiming “self defense”
Maybe we’ll have a resurrection of the Black Panthers, or the John Brown Gun Club, the Socialist Rifle Association, Redneck Revolt, etc., start taking arms to protests and volatile situations, and… I don’t even know. That certainly won’t go over well with the cops, and I doubt anyone belonging to those organizations will get so friendly a court and outcome if they end up shooting someone, whether it’s truly self defense, or “self defense”…
^Yup, that sounds spot on.
Whether as an outcome of a conspiracy before the event or a snap judgment immediately after, Rittenhouse had immunity the U.S. typically reserves for cops and soldiers. There’s no way the courts were going to touch him.
@5 lochaber
We don’t have to imagine it; we have plenty of examples. Michael Reinoehl was executed in a hail of bullets by US Marshals in a manhunt coordinated at the highest levels (Trump and Barr), because he had the temerity to shoot a fascist at a protest in Portland. Turns out that more Good Guys With A Gun™ don’t level the playing field — they evoke a completely different, asymmetrical, and grimly efficient response from the police state.
I honestly fear that the Kenosha murders verdict will start a Civil War in the USA
One man’s civil war is another’s violent revolution.
Let me put that otherways: if the fascists start doing more organized violence, they’ll wind up with an insurgency like the Vendee in pre-revolutionary France – an insurgency which drained and distracted the monarchy and forced it to negotiate, triggering the revolution. I think the fascists who keep talking about a civil war being a good thing are just delusional: they imagine they’ll get to re-fight the last civil war (which they lost) and this time they won’t lose – but, they will. If they get the ramp-up of violence they want it’ll look more like John Brown and Nat Turner’s rebellion, but better armed and with distributed communications. And they’ll lose. It’ll be horrible but they will lose.
The US fragmenting and losing its place as planetary empire would not necessarily be a bad thing, except there’ll be tremendous damage and loss of life. But keeping the US in place has already resulted in tremendous loss of life. So maybe we should let the fascists roll the dice and see what happens.