This story first appeared at ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
Blah blah the violence is coming and this is evidence of it and here’s 3000 or so words rationalizing and intellectualizing it all to avoid stating that obvious and inescapable conclusion…
There seems to be an opportunity here to tie this information over to social media, especially Facebook. Where and how do these Oath Keepers and others use Facebook to disseminate misinformation/conspiracy theories with no basis as a recruiting tool, for example?
It’s likely many of the people revealed by this hack were brought into Oath Keepers, all or in part, as a result of Facebook activity–their own Facebook activity, or that of people who influence them, or by those who would sew discontent within our borders from other countries.
Remember: because Facebook has all of our data (our online searches, credit card data, demographic data, everything that data brokers have on us, which is massive), people are targeted in a granular way and fed material which not only keeps them engaged (as Facebook wants), but also which influences them. (One part of the solution is to do what Facebook executives fear most, but will not voice–they are very adept at distraction–and that is to require that our personal data be kept private by default.)
Ah, one name jumps out in that article–Stan Vaughan. I encountered him in postal chess games I played back in the 80s. He once boasted of playing 500 postal chess games at the same time…and then it came out that he used chess computers to do the playing for him. Vaughan also set up a world correspondence chess organization that let you buy titles instead of earn them.
Folks like him took all the fun out of playing postal chess.
I’d be shocked if 70-80% of NYPD beat cops aren’t diehard Trumpies. I rarely if ever see any wearing masks. They seem to take it as a source of pride. I recently had to call the police to report a minor theft and none of the beat cops who showed up wore masks, and they seemed annoyed that I called them, telling me that if I don’t want things stolen from the alley then I shouldn’t put them there. Thanks, real helpful, Officer Krupke! Enjoy that 6 figure salary you don’t really earn.
Yeah, we’re Trumpie assholes, what are you going to do about it? We’ve got the guns, batons and full backing of our corrupt unions. If the fascists ever do take over, cops will be an essential part of it.
And that’s one of the main things they all have in common, the belief that they’re entitled to certain things whether or not they’ve earned or merit them, just because of who and what they are. I would so love to crush their souls to the point that they’ve lost the will to go on let alone fight. But I fear that we’ll have to go through hell to make that happen.
Fact: The Sturmabteilung was the Nazi Party’s original paramilitary wing. It played a significant role in Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s.