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  1. #751
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    Quote Originally posted by Aragorn View Post
    Quote Originally posted by Aragorn View Post
    That information is not correct. Only one protester was shot, and she was declared deceased upon her arrival at the hospital. This woman was a war veteran, and she was the first of the protesters to breach the window and enter the building. The police officer who fired a shot at her was only using rubber bullets, but at close enough range and depending on which part of the body gets hit, those are of course just as lethal as normal ammunition.

    Maybe said police officer should have fired a warning shot first. Maybe he or she did. But it was obvious that the mob wasn't going to let anyone or anything stop them, and I can imagine that if I had been in that police officer's shoes, I too would have felt sufficiently threatened to pull out my gun. I'm not saying I myself would have shot anyone, but I wasn't there, so I cannot speak for what went on in that police officer's mind. I would either way certainly have fired at least one warning shot, and possibly two or three more.

    Anyway, the other three protesters who died were not shot. They died of other causes related to and/or bought about in the stampede. I don't have any details. Maybe they were overrun and they suffocated. Maybe they tried something dangerous and they made a nasty fall. Maybe they had a heart attack or a seizure. I don't know. All I know is that they weren't shot, and the official report states that they died of ─ and I quote─ "medical conditions".
    Update: One police officer has also succumbed to injuries sustained in the storming of the Capitol. This puts the shooting of one of the protesters in an entirely different light, doesn't it?

    Another update:


    • The police officer who died had been hit on the head with a fire extinguisher. He died on the way back to the police station.

    • The 35-year-old female war veteran who died was a fanatic Qanon follower and was indeed shot with a rubber bullet by a police officer when she breached the glass of a barricaded door. Of the three other protesters who died, two ─ both of them male, aged 55 and 51 ─ died of a heart attack. The 55-year-old gentleman was known to have had a heart condition and high blood pressure. The third protester who died was a 34-year-old female, and she was also known as a fanatic Trump supporter who posted all of Donald Trump's videos on her Facebook profile. Although no details have been released so far about the cause of her death, it was suggested that she may have suffocated.

    • Nancy Pelosi's laptop was stolen from her office during the event.

    • The guy wearing the bison outfit and the painted face was identified as a Qanon follower who had previously also been spotted at Trump rallies and in the vicinity of ─ but not actually partaking in ─ Antifa gatherings.
    = DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR =

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    That officer who got hit on the head with a fire extinguisher was quite young. Many officers seem to feel like they were placed in danger due to there not being enough of them for such a crowd.

    Members of the crowd had materials to take hostages and possibly execute some of them.

    Who, I wonder, was going to be cheering this madness? Who thinks this is a great thing?

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    Quote Originally posted by Wind View Post
    This is where a lot of Trumpsters come from. NO wonder they are so so angry. It takes a 'special' kind of party to manipulate that kind of pain to their own ends.

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    Quote Originally posted by Chris View Post
    A couple of thoughts on the current goings on in the US.

    Note that I'm non-partisan and a centrist, with no investment in either Trump and his fellow right-wing populists (such as the one here in Hungary) or the global Left which is largely in charge throughout society, especially in the media and academia (excepting Murdoch-run rags, but no serious person takes those seriously)

    To me, as an outsider, it finally looks like the USA is turning into a Banana republic, or as Gore Vidal famously put it, taking up its natural place in the Americas, somewhere between Brazil and Argentina. This was always slated to happen and the circumstances leading up to it have created a combustible mix that only needed a small spark to create the current explosion. Few societies are as polarised as the USA is today and I have long said that some sort of low level civil war will be inevitable. Perhaps that has now started or maybe it will yet be averted, at least for now, but the polarisation isn't going anywhere and will come to a head eventually.

    I have noted with sadness that four (as far as we know) unarmed protesters have been shot dead by the authorities. That really is the sort of thing that only happens in Banana republics or failed states and the news coverage, which basically blames the protesters themselves, rather than the ones that murdered them, is instructive. I can only imagine how different the coverage would be if these were BLM protesters, rather than Trump supporters, that were shot dead in such a manner.

    The USA isn't my country, but if you don't find the injustice of that outrageous, something is wrong with your moral compass.

    Again, I'm not taking sides here, just observing things as an anthropologist would on a remote island, where two warring tribes were at each other's throats.

    So, the USA may yet emerge from this intact, but I somehow doubt it. Long-term damage has been done to the fabric of society and the historic American Nation in particular has decided that it no longer wants to be run by those that have disdain for it. So, it seems that nearly half of the country is not going to accept Democrat rule and will use violence to overthrow what it sees (whether rightly or wrongly) as a treasonous establishment that works against the interests of the Nation as a whole.

    This was always inevitable in my view and I must note here that the Left has always used language (and still does) that indicates a complete hatred of everything that defines the historic American Nation and apparently they are now fed up with it and will not take it any more. This actually reminds me of the Hungarian revolution of 1956 a little bit, at least the general vibe of it.

    Very nice post, Chris. Thank you. One woman was shot by a rubber bullet by a police man who, if you see the footage, looked like he was about to be overrun by protesters. He was likely panicked.

    The DC police sent way too few cops to deal with the situation...and that was by design. Most of the cops just stepped aside and let the protesters have their way. Some took selfies with them. Others actually opened gates and doors for them. Another protester carrying a "don't tread on me" sign was, trampled by other protesters, ironically. A couple of other protesters died a 'death by cheeseburger' death, due to heart attacks. All of the excitement was more than their clogged arteries could handle.

    Had this been a BLM protest they would have done the full robocop, national guard, thing, maced the shit out of the protesters, way before they even hit the grounds of the capitol building. Any protesters who did manage to evade that vanguard and storm the buildings would have been so riddled with bullets, they would have looked like swiss cheese by the time it was over.

    I would take the right wing interpretation of the events not with a grain of salt but with a block big enough to use as a door stop.

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    Quote Originally posted by Octopus Garden View Post
    Any protesters who did manage to evade that vanguard and storm the buildings would have been so riddled with bullets, they would have looked like swiss cheese by the time it was over.
    Definitely and especially if they would have had a black skin color, that seems to be like a magnet for police bullets there.

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  11. #756
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    Quote Originally posted by Aragorn View Post
    Quote Originally posted by Aragorn View Post
    Quote Originally posted by Aragorn View Post
    That information is not correct. Only one protester was shot, and she was declared deceased upon her arrival at the hospital. This woman was a war veteran, and she was the first of the protesters to breach the window and enter the building. The police officer who fired a shot at her was only using rubber bullets, but at close enough range and depending on which part of the body gets hit, those are of course just as lethal as normal ammunition.

    Maybe said police officer should have fired a warning shot first. Maybe he or she did. But it was obvious that the mob wasn't going to let anyone or anything stop them, and I can imagine that if I had been in that police officer's shoes, I too would have felt sufficiently threatened to pull out my gun. I'm not saying I myself would have shot anyone, but I wasn't there, so I cannot speak for what went on in that police officer's mind. I would either way certainly have fired at least one warning shot, and possibly two or three more.

    Anyway, the other three protesters who died were not shot. They died of other causes related to and/or bought about in the stampede. I don't have any details. Maybe they were overrun and they suffocated. Maybe they tried something dangerous and they made a nasty fall. Maybe they had a heart attack or a seizure. I don't know. All I know is that they weren't shot, and the official report states that they died of ─ and I quote─ "medical conditions".
    Update: One police officer has also succumbed to injuries sustained in the storming of the Capitol. This puts the shooting of one of the protesters in an entirely different light, doesn't it?
    Another update:


    • The police officer who died had been hit on the head with a fire extinguisher. He died on the way back to the police station.

    • The 35-year-old female war veteran who died was a fanatic Qanon follower and was indeed shot with a rubber bullet by a police officer when she breached the glass of a barricaded door. Of the three other protesters who died, two ─ both of them male, aged 55 and 51 ─ died of a heart attack. The 55-year-old gentleman was known to have had a heart condition and high blood pressure. The third protester who died was a 34-year-old female, and she was also known as a fanatic Trump supporter who posted all of Donald Trump's videos on her Facebook profile. Although no details have been released so far about the cause of her death, it was suggested that she may have suffocated.

    • Nancy Pelosi's laptop was stolen from her office during the event.

    • The guy wearing the bison outfit and the painted face was identified as a Qanon follower who had previously also been spotted at Trump rallies and in the vicinity of ─ but not actually partaking in ─ Antifa gatherings.

    More news:


    • So far, three of the protesters have been arrested, namely...:

    • Jake Angeli, the guy with the bison outfit ─ he has himself contacted the FBI in order to explain what their intent was;
    • Adam Johnson, the guy who was photographed while carrying away Nancy Pelosi's pulpit; and
    • Richard Barnett, the guy who was photographed sitting at Nancy Pelosi's desk with his feet resting on her desk.


    • In the vicinity of Capitol Hill, the police discovered a parked pickup truck in which they found an assault rifle, a pistol, ammunition and eleven home-made explosive devices. The vehicle belonged to a man from Alabama, who had no license for any of the weapons in his truck. He was arrested, and upon his arrest, he was found to still be carrying two more firearms on him.


    • Yet another man was arrested, who had traveled to Washington with an assault rifle and a load of ammunition on the day before the storming of the Capitol, and he had been telling people that his intent was to either shoot Nancy Pelosi or run her over with his vehicle.


    So far, more than ten people have already been arrested, but the FBI is still investigating several others and has put out several photos in the hope that witnesses will come forward and identify the depicted individuals. The FBI is apparently now also investigating the whole Qanon LARP as a source of domestic terrorism.
    = DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR =

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    Unfortunately, I've finally figured out what was causing that end-of-the-world general malaise and ennui in me.

    Apart from what's going on in the world (and I must admit that the political situation in the US is only of marginal interest to me, so I haven't been following it closely), my IBS has been acting up and I found out I won't be getting treatment or even a proper diagnosis until the pandemic is over. I actually managed to make it all the way to the gastroenterology wing of my local hospital after a doctor's referral, but then I was effectively thrown out and was told to come back when the pandemic's over. Apparently, they must focus on covid and won't be doing all the usual tests that would be warranted in this situation.

    Things then got worse last friday, as my mum was taken to hospital. Initially, they thought it might be a stroke, as she had an epileptic attack and got temporarily paralysed on her left side. After doing a CT, it turns out it is actually a brain tumour, though probably a benign one. She was supposed to have an EEG and an MRI taken this week, but then sunday her covid test came back positive. Off she was carted to the covid ward and she will probably be stuck there for weeks, before she is even allowed anywhere near an MRI machine and a neurosurgeon. Thing is, we don't know for sure whether her tumour is benign, if it isn't, she could go any day now. I really have no idea.

    So now she has a brain tumour AND covid at the same time. We can't even visit her or talk to her in person. My dad, brother and sister-in-law live in the same household and were given a house quarantine order.

    Did I mention that I broke up with my girlfriend just before Christmas? Yep, perfect timing, but she was really getting on my nerves if I'm honest.

    It is snowing today, so if anyone could take me out into the snow and shoot me into the ditch, I'd be eternally grateful...

    Where are those (actual) Nazis, when you need them?

    Dark humour aside, this is when collapse is no longer an abstract concept affecting others, but it seeps into your own life and you can't escape it. We really are going through very collapsey times and 2021 is shaping up to be even worse than 2020.
    Last edited by Chris, 11th January 2021 at 08:16.

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  15. #758
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    Quote Originally posted by Octopus Garden View Post
    Very nice post, Chris. Thank you. One woman was shot by a rubber bullet by a police man who, if you see the footage, looked like he was about to be overrun by protesters. He was likely panicked.

    The DC police sent way too few cops to deal with the situation...and that was by design. Most of the cops just stepped aside and let the protesters have their way. Some took selfies with them. Others actually opened gates and doors for them. Another protester carrying a "don't tread on me" sign was, trampled by other protesters, ironically. A couple of other protesters died a 'death by cheeseburger' death, due to heart attacks. All of the excitement was more than their clogged arteries could handle.

    Had this been a BLM protest they would have done the full robocop, national guard, thing, maced the shit out of the protesters, way before they even hit the grounds of the capitol building. Any protesters who did manage to evade that vanguard and storm the buildings would have been so riddled with bullets, they would have looked like swiss cheese by the time it was over.

    I would take the right wing interpretation of the events not with a grain of salt but with a block big enough to use as a door stop.
    Thanks.

    It's difficult to judge things on the ground when we are oceans apart...

    I can only give an outside perspective for obvious reasons, but it seems to me that both sides, left and right, have their own biases.

    These days, I tend to be more left-leaning, but a few years ago I was fully on board with the alt-right conspiracy crowd. I live in a country where that sort of thing is pretty mainstream and my PM is Donald Trump, only better. I mean that both ironically and literally, which in itself is pretty ironic. I once heard a mainstream politician in the US referring to My Dear Leader, mr Orbán as a competent Trump, which I guess makes him even more dangerous.

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    Parler has collapsed. I can only hope that it's a trend.

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    Many folks don't even know or care what censorship is, anymore. They've turned that concept on it's head.

    They literally want a private business to be forced to do what they want. Publish words it disagrees with. Publish words that are dangerous.

    They also want to endanger people with their diseases and force private businesses to let them in without masks.

    So much for rights of businesses which were supposed to be sacrosanct.

    Of course, I always smelled the BS.

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    Quote Originally posted by Octopus Garden View Post
    This is where a lot of Trumpsters come from. NO wonder they are so so angry. It takes a 'special' kind of party to manipulate that kind of pain to their own ends.
    Actually, I just saw this ... i'm watching but I agree entirely with your observation. It's tragic ... and they have no place to go. Their benefactors (the right) have exploited them to exhaustion. They are victims of the Stockholm Syndrome, in effect, sympathising and even empathising with their captors. The analogue would be the minority people of the left. I've never been taken in by any of it ... because I knew that no one was going to help me, if i didn't help myself. My Catholic upringing and my Hispanic immigrant father taught me that in no uncertain terms.

    Personally, as might be obvious, I believe the left do try to help and feel a genuine concern for their charges, but the right is just too sinister to overcome, they are demonic, they overpower the left because the left is comprised, at least to a degree by human people, not corporate automatons. And surprise surprise, it is the AI that holds power (i.e. they look human but they're not).

    Hillbilly elegy is an inisde look at the reality of the rightist world. I have neither read the book nor seen the new movie. I feel for them...I got relatives on that side as well... I feel more for my inherited and genetic "other" brothers. That is where my spiritual, emotional, and intellectual loyalties reside.

    Quote Originally posted by Chris View Post
    Unfortunately, I've finally figured out what was causing that end-of-the-world general malaise and ennui in me.

    Apart from what's going on in the world (and I must admit that the political situation in the US is only of marginal interest to me, so I haven't been following it closely), my IBS has been acting up and I found out I won't be getting treatment or even a proper diagnosis until the pandemic is over. I actually managed to make it all the way to the gastroenterology wing of my local hospital after a doctor's referral, but then I was effectively thrown out and was told to come back when the pandemic's over. Apparently, they must focus on covid and won't be doing all the usual tests that would be warranted in this situation.

    Things then got worse last friday, as my mum was taken to hospital. Initially, they thought it might be a stroke, as she had an epileptic attack and got temporarily paralysed on her left side. After doing a CT, it turns out it is actually a brain tumour, though probably a benign one. She was supposed to have an EEG and an MRI taken this week, but then sunday her covid test came back positive. Off she was carted to the covid ward and she will probably be stuck there for weeks, before she is even allowed anywhere near an MRI machine and a neurosurgeon. Thing is, we don't know for sure whether her tumour is benign, if it isn't, she could go any day now. I really have no idea.

    So now she has a brain tumour AND covid at the same time. We can't even visit her or talk to her in person. My dad, brother and sister-in-law live in the same household and were given a house quarantine order.

    Did I mention that I broke up with my girlfriend just before Christmas? Yep, perfect timing, but she was really getting on my nerves if I'm honest.

    It is snowing today, so if anyone could take me out into the snow and shoot me into the ditch, I'd be eternally grateful...

    Where are those (actual) Nazis, when you need them?

    Dark humour aside, this is when collapse is no longer an abstract concept affecting others, but it seeps into your own life and you can't escape it. We really are going through very collapsey times and 2021 is shaping up to be even worse than 2020.
    Jesus Chris, and I thought my life was f*cked, I'm praying for your situation (even though you are a syncretic) Ain't really nothing wrong with that ... In truth, it is the only thing that makes sense. I really hope everything works out with endowed spiritual grace.
    “El revolucionario: te meteré la bota en el culo"

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    Quote Originally posted by Dreamtimer View Post
    Parler has collapsed. I can only hope that it's a trend.
    Nothing of value was lost, that was a nest of vipers.

    Sorry to hear about your situation, Chris.

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    So sorry to hear of your woes, Chris. If the charts are right, things will improve after January. I hope they do for you. Too bad about your relationship, but hopefully you'll have some peace.


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    My heart is with you Chris.

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    Thanks for the empathy guys. Appreciate the kind words.

    Yip, in my case, collapse has just become personal. Could be worse though, so I'm not actually complaining.

    Kind of puts the political shenanigans happening on the other side of the world in a different perspective. It begs the question:

    Why do people outside the US care so much about her internal politics? We don't get all worked up about what's happening in Brazil, or for that matter Hong Kong, but somehow we think US politics is also our politics. It's not like we get a vote, anyways.

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