Tag: police state

The Cultural Purge Is Now In Overdrive

What I expected then, after Trump would have unceremoniously lost the 2016 election,  was a type of cultural purge against anybody and everybody who enabled his run or supported him. What surprised me was that after he won the cultural purge proceeded anyway. In retrospect it seems obvious, at the time it blindsided me.

For the next four years we watched any (remaining) semblance of objectivity and impartiality wither away from the mainstream media. Even more troubling, was that it was also happening withinBig Tech. Everything polarized and all judgement calls became characteristically asymmetrical. As I noted on occasion, that compared to the post 9/11 era when the Neocons controlled the narrative and the word “liberal” was a slur, everything flipped. Now it was the word “conservative” that was unusable and being a single micron to the right of centre was equated with being “literally Hitler”.

I could list the countless examples of deplatformings, cancellations, character assassinations and careers destroyed in the intervening time. It became so ridiculous, so devoid of any attempt at a claim to due process or fairness that an entire counter-culture has formed around criticizing or ridiculing it. I wrote a book about defending from deplatform attacks, which I started giving away for free in April when Big Tech started deplatforming deviant reporting on the COVID-19 crisis. Babylon Bee sprang into existence and quickly rivalled The Onion, riffing on cancel culture and hitting headwinds on multiple occasions when their scathing satire was indistinguishable from the reality they were lampooning.

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The Government’s New ‘War on Terror’ is Coming — This Time It’s Aimed at America

After the storming of the capitol on Wednesday, mainstream media and establishment voices began throwing around a term that should make us all pay attention — “domestic terrorism.” As the group of MAGA rioters stormed the capitol to take selfies with cops, steal podiums, and hang from banisters, president-elect Joe Biden quickly took to his platform to characterize them as domestic terrorists.

“Don’t dare call them protesters,” Biden said in remarks from Wilmington, Delaware. “They were a riotous mob. Insurrectionists. Domestic terrorists. It’s that basic. It’s that simple.”

Unfortunately, during the turmoil, a police officer was killed and a protester shot to death, as well as three other individuals, who were apparently part of the MAGA protest and died from “medical emergencies.” While it was certainly terrible, this riot does not come close to the description Biden gave it, calling it “one of the darkest days in the history of our nation.”

Really Joe? Was it?

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The Many Occasions Joe Biden Took Credit For Writing The Patriot Act

If Vice President Joe Biden decides to enter the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, his past positions — including on trade bills, the Iraq War, the repeal of Glass-Steagall, and changes to welfare — are sure to draw the ire of the party’s liberal base.

Much has already been made about Biden’s instrumental role as a senator pushing through the 1994 crime bill — “a bill that made the problem worse” according to former President Bill Clinton, who signed it into law.

Another potential sticking point for liberals: Biden not only voted for the 2001 Patriot Act, he, on many occasions, claimed credit for writing it.

“I drafted a terrorism bill after the Oklahoma City bombing,” Biden was quoted as saying by the New Republic in 2001.

“And the bill John Ashcroft sent up was my bill,” Biden continued, referring to the Patriot Act. The act broadened the surveillance capabilities of U.S. law enforcement agencies as it relates to identifying potential terrorists, and many of its provisions have been opposed by liberal Democrats and civil libertarians.

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D.C. Cop Speaks Out, Says Cops Were Among Rioters Storming Capitol, Flashed Badges to Get In

As the Free Thought Project reported this week, mainstream media outlets ran with headlines that police at the Capitol building were caught off guard and didn’t expect people to breach a series of fences leading up to the building. However, these protests were planned for weeks with Trump acting as the ring leader, instructing his followers to march on the capitol, carrying out plans that were publicly available on social media for weeks. Despite many on the right claiming Antifa was behind the violence, we are now learning something far more sinister was afoot.

It is now widely known that police officers removed the barricades after video emerged showing them removing barricades and allowing the rioters in to continue to the capitol steps.

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Prosecutor’s Office Clears Maryland SWAT Officers in Fatal Shooting of Duncan Lemp

A nine-month investigation by the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office released last Thursday concluded that the March 12, 2020 police killing of Maryland resident Duncan Lemp during an early morning SWAT raid was justified.

According to the report, which differs significantly from the original police narrative of the killing, a SWAT officer standing outside of Lemp’s bedroom window shot the 21-year-old Lemp five times after he grabbed a rifle and ignored commands to drop it. The report says police recovered three rifles, two “ghost” guns, numerous magazines and boxes of ammunition, an illegal silencer, a bulletproof vest, and a shotgun shell rigged as a booby trap on Lemp’s bedroom door.

The Montgomery County Police Department (MCPD) obtained a no-knock search warrant to raid Lemp’s house on suspicion that he owned several guns despite being “red-flagged” and prohibited from possessing any due to a juvenile offense, the details of which have not been made public. Lemp’s family, through their attorney, dispute both the justification for the raid and the police narrative surrounding the shooting. Lemp’s family said the search warrant was based on flimsy evidence and that Lemp was shot while asleep in bed. The case has been clouded by the conflicting accounts and the lack of video evidence.

Since Lemp’s death, his name has been frequently invoked by “boogaloo boys,” a loose, heavily armed, and very online anti-government movement. (“Boogaloo” refers to a second civil war or armed conflict between citizens and the government.) The report also cites Lemp’s ideology and connections to the militia movement as the impetus for the violent nighttime raid.

“The reasons for the ‘no-knock’ provision was due to Lemp being ‘anti-government,’ ‘anti-police,’ currently in possession of body armor, and an active member of the Three Percenters,” the report says. “Additionally, police had viewed several videos showing Lemp handling and shooting firearms. The police felt that knocking and announcing their presence would put the officers in serious danger if Lemp decided to resist his arrest.”

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You can’t fight fascism by expanding the police state

In the coming days and weeks we are likely to see pundits and lawmakers call for things like passing a new domestic terrorism law, expanding mass surveillance programs, increasing funding for the FBI and law enforcement, installing backdoors in encrypted messaging apps, and arming police with more technology like facial recognition and social media monitoring software. We’re also likely to see renewed attempts by the government to curtail freedom of expression, including misguided attacks on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

This is the exact opposite of what we need to be doing. Expanding the U.S. government’s already bloated surveillance state will only bring more terror and harm to the same communities that Trump targeted with his racist policies and rhetoric. More money, weapons, and technology in the hands of the Department of Homeland Security—an agency complicit in human rights abuses long before Trump took office—won’t stop the rising threat of right-wing violence. Instead it will be used to suppress legitimate dissent, and disproportionately target Black and brown activists, Muslims, immigrant communities, and social movements that effectively challenge systemic injustice and corporate power.

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