1145 Comments
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BradK (Afuera!)'s avatar

Everything is going according to the plan. Keep fighting one another over trivial differences so that you won't notice how your nation is being stolen out from underneath you, how utterly incompetent our so-called "leaders" are, and who might really be pulling the levers behind the curtain.

Obey. Comply.

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Janine's avatar

You miss the blatantly obvious. This is not two groups of philosophically opposed Americans fighting each other, this is Americans exercising their right to protest unlawful restrictions getting attacked by foreign and CIA funded Antifa.

It seems impossible to me that ANYONE could not understand what Antifa is at this point.

Their goal is to destabilize and assist with the locking down and restricting of liberties of Americans.

They have been used as tools in the Color Revolutions inflicted on many other countries in order to install puppet regimes under CIA/"American" control.

Puppet Regimes - a la the Biden one.

The Government of the United States right now is a rogue one- or Antifa would have been stopped.

We Americans need to get really really busy getting it back and turning it back into the benevolent one that most of us have not seem in our lifetimes.

Foreign wars=money laundering, profiteering, and crimes against humanity. We have not been a just country in decades.

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staceface72's avatar

Why are you so blind to the fact that these counterprotestors were just regular people and the ProTrump AntiMask/Vacciners were the ones going after the people that didn't agree with them??? Please cite your "Antifa" bullshit. You do know that Antifa stands for anti-fascist right? I'm pretty sure the hundreds of fringe white wing groups outnumber the so-called "antifa" apparatus. But if they didn't, why are you righties so scared of people that don't want totalitarian rule, who cares what they call themselves???

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Janine's avatar

So, rule number 1 for trolling is don't be so obvious.

Don't worry tho, you'll get better at it over time.

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staceface72's avatar

It's ok... it's normal for someone in a delusional state to think they are the ones that know all the secrets everyone else doesn't. I understand.

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Janine's avatar

...

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Phisto Sobanii's avatar

She's right. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

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Aug 23, 2021
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staceface72's avatar

ultrasensitive, OCD psychospammer

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JPG's avatar

Fail

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Phisto Sobanii's avatar

I think the real horror here is that both sides are regular people.

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staceface72's avatar

yeah, that's actually true. I should've been more specific.

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Aug 23, 2021
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Coco McShevitz's avatar

I gave this a like for its Hunter S Thompsonesque gonzoness!

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Dave's avatar

No u

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Aug 22, 2021
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Badger's avatar

I'll be honest; it wasn't easy? Took me about 6 hours and I had a Goofie and YouLube login to begin with?

Goofie is the absolute worst system to try loging into I've ever experienced, and I have a fair amount of experience. I'm serious. It's downeight horible at an epic level?

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RJ's avatar

And now the view from the rabbit hole.

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Janine's avatar

Which beats a fox hole anyday! Check out the twitter link to someone who explains it better than I have

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Phisto Sobanii's avatar

Some random neckbeard is hardly compelling evidence.

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Aug 23, 2021
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HBI's avatar

Best watch out lest you get a death threat.

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ih8edjfkjr's avatar

"...getting attacked by foreign and CIA funded Antifa."

This is non-sense. I agree that Antifa/leftists are the provocateurs and the other side is merely responsive, but you are inventing bogeymen. These are the same group of anarcho-leftist violent actors that smashed Starbucks windows in the 90s as part of anti-free-trade, anti-WTO protests. It amazes me that millennials don't see how it is rebel idolatory-related and has nothing to do with LGBTQ complaints, BLM, racism or police policies.

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Janine's avatar

"merely responsive" I challenge you to come up with a through-line to their activities. And rebel-idolatory doesn't cover what relentlessly went on in Portland Or the summer of 2020.

Their relentlessness in Portland was in response to what? The people in Portland being too nice? Honestly. They raised hell wherever they were told to go by their controllers, and wherever the government was captured and would run only perfunctory interference and not press charges.

Didn't they riot once complaining that Soros hadn't paid them on time? I believe some did.

Their behavior is right out of the Nazi handbook- the same thing was originally done in Germany by the Brown Shirts, but it's also right out of the Soros-and-company Color Revolution playbook. If the deep-state in the US was not complicit, they would not have gotten away the the relentless assaults on American citizens that they have.

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Spiderbaby's avatar

I would think Portland was favored because if they were dumb enough to go to say, Idaho, they'd get shot at. Left wingers are notoriously passive aggressive so I'm sure Portlanders say mean things about Antifa in their white privileged showers or while they're mowing their oppressed & stolen lawns.

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Postimpressionist's avatar

Now there's a platform "Lawn Oppression"!

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Rob Bird's avatar

Ahhhh, I love a good invocation of Soros. I'm sure they would know that he's signing their checks. Do you think he personally oversaw their hiring?

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Janine's avatar

This stream is filthy with Antifa smart arses. And they all think they’re smarter than the rest of us because they can spit on any protester they want to and get away with it.

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Atma's avatar

@Janine

So, how are you liking the "victim" mentality so far ? ;-D

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Rob Bird's avatar

Lol. You have zero idea who and what I am yet have no problem calling me Antifa. Think about what this says about you.

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staceface72's avatar

https://www.koin.com/news/protests/portland-protests-what-happened-in-2020-whats-next-in-2021/

Read for yourself what the Portland local news has to say about these "riots" that "burned the city down".

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Conservative Contrarian's avatar

Were Hitler’s “Brown Shirts” non-sense; or were they an anomaly on the human path to Nirvana?

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ih8edjfkjr's avatar

You can take these people seriously or you could decline to. I'm open to either interpretation, though I learn towards the latter position. But they aren't foreigners or dupes of foreigners and aren't CIA funded. they are just our disaffected leftist youth. A group that persists with ever-changing causes but non-changing behavior.

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Spiderbaby's avatar

I just have one small quibble. How do they pay for food, lodging and transportation for over a year while they tantrum in the streets? I realize that some of those who have been arrested turn out to be children of privilege, probably really acting out deep seated mommy & daddy issues, but, for the rest, are there special jobs that allow "Protesting Against The Man" leaves of absence where they still collect a pay check even though they're off in Portland spitting in some cops eye?

Personally have no skin in the Soros game, just inquiring about what appears to be a great job opportunity. Although if the job title is "Professional Whiner" I think that'd be a deal breaker.

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staceface72's avatar

How do you know these are all the same actors???? There's 330 million people in this country, what makes you think these protestors are organized like some kind of mafia, and they go out day in and day out, 24/7, have been brought in or come in on their own volition and stay in hotels? In Denver, where I live, the people protesting police violence were the residents of the city, as far as I could tell. People came out when they had days off, but there was also a huge unemployed contingent out there too, did you forget that? Three was a lot of idle time last summer

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ih8edjfkjr's avatar

Take a look at these people and tell me they look like somebody getting a paycheck from George Soros. There are undoubtedly some students, some actually employed leftists, but most of the Antifa protestors getting arrested fro violent acts appear to me be destitute, homeless, people that live on other people's couches and have bad skin from not showering.

https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1429243646705115139/photo/1

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Conservative Contrarian's avatar

Ok, how do you know that?

If they are “leftist youth”, I was one once, where do they get their funds? When I was a 1970’s “radical” most of us scoffed at being funded by anyone other than our ability to deal.

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Atma's avatar

@Conservative Contrarian

Yeah, we '70s "radicals" (anti-war protesters, et al) were never obliged to purchase full riot gear (not even available to *cops back then), and drive long distances to far-flung cities in which to be "activists".

So, your question remains a VERY penetrating inquiry, and it is complicated in MY mind by the fact that *both sides of these "demonstrations" must be funded by outside sources ! I am beginning to look at info implying that both sides are being funded by the *same sources ! I am a "show-me" kind of guy, so the evidence would have to be quite convincing, but it is NOT an "idle question", especially if this violence is escalating following the ouster of the Trump Administration.

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ih8edjfkjr's avatar

What videos are you watching that makes you ask where these people get their wealth?

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Harry Hood's avatar

Ah, Janine, Substack's resident kooky conspiracy theorist

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Boris Petrov's avatar

Thank you for explaining about that kooky troll --will just ignore in future

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Janine's avatar

Said the Antifa troll

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shallowfocus's avatar

CIA-funded Antifa? So Michael Reinoehl was a CIA agent? And since he was assassinated by the FBI, what can that possibly mean? Are the FBI and the CIA engaging in open warfare against each other on American soil? The implications are staggering! Or, you know, this all might be typical right-wing conspiratorial thinking, and Michael Reinoehl was just a guy.

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Spiderbaby's avatar

So your antifascist hero shot a Trump supporter and then fled to Oregon? Is that your anti-fascist ideal? A fucking murderer? Do you often fantasize about shooting Trump supporters?

Geez, at best you have a right wing zealot & a left wing zealot, both armed & both quite willing to murder for their zealot-like beliefs. The world is better off without both of them.

Maybe you need to shift your persona from shallow to deep & actually dig into the history of how groups like the CIA & FBI manipulate public opinion. Because, quite frankly, you just sound like another winged zealot with a personal axe to grind that you cover up with virtue signaling anti-racism.

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shallowfocus's avatar

I'm sorry, what? Which part of me calling Reinoehl "just a guy" did you manage to interpret as "anti-fascist ideal"? Is it the "just" part? Or the "guy" part? Also - how is he a murderer, fucking or otherwise? "Murderer" implies that he was tried and found guilty. Was there ever a trial? I must've missed it.

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Spiderbaby's avatar

You chose him for a reason. You also choose to believe he was "assassinated by the FBI." Were they convicted of that or is that confirmation bias spewing from your pie hole? Let me guess, he went on the run because he was completely innocent and he was afraid Trump would have him killed? You obviously find Antifa noble. I suspect that you also find this Reinoehl chappie noble whether you'll admit it or not. I don't really care. I also don't give a fucking tinker's toot about either dead motherfucker. You, on the other hand, have a side and I have no interest in being on it.

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shallowfocus's avatar

Yes, I actually do have a side. My side is the the-government-shouldn't-assassinate-private-citizens side. But I respect your choice to be on the opposite side.

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Boris Petrov's avatar

Janine, why is this statement so upsetting to you?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E1XaAZ9WQAA5YeR?format=jpg&name=small

Are you that racist?

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Janine's avatar

You seem to have replied to the wrong post (and even the wrong substack article). Your tweet has nothing to do with anything I've said, so I have no idea what you are talking about or getting at.

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Boris Petrov's avatar

You are obsessed with Anti-fascists which are "foreign financed". What have you done in your life against racism?

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Janine's avatar

Boris- incessantly trying to tweak and to make this personal. I'm afraid it isn't going to work;

The subject at hand -Antifa, are NOT anti-racism or anti-racists. They couldn't care less who they harass. So long as they can assault a bunch of people wherever they are sent, they are happy. It's just a job.

You are clearly misinformed about what they are as a groups and that suggests to me that you need to change the media you consume.

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Boris Petrov's avatar

Janine - started to drinking again ? Or listening too much to DNC/CIA and Atlantic Council brainwashing? You really need help.

Facebook's Partner: The Atlantic Council (5 Frightening Facts) (rumble.com)

https://rumble.com/vleq6v-facebooks-partner-the-atlantic-council-5-frightening-facts.html

Facebook's Partner: The Atlantic Council (5 Frightening Facts)

YouTube demonetizes Jimmy Dore for criticizing AOC -- by using her own words

YouTube Suppresses Jimmy Dore's Criticism Of AOC - YouTube

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Madjack's avatar

So very true.

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Aug 21, 2021
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Janine's avatar

Because globalists (united nations types, or the Davos set, or the Bilderburgers, or the Council on Foreign Relations, or The World Economic Forum folks- whichever you prefer) long ago infiltrated the United States' non-elected bodies (CIA and FBI and State) and have filled it's cabinet possitions (Kissinger, Kerry, Cheney, Rice, Clinton). Their goal is to pull the US into the Great Reset (you've heard the mantra- "Build Back Better" from all the worlds leaders including puppet-Biden). That's why this election was so badly rigged- they needed to get Biden in there at all costs, since Trump had set their plan back four years and the monetary system is teetering.

The Great Reset is how they intend to get us into the one world government- "New World Order that we've been hearing about since Bush Sr. (look on the back of your dollar bill- the plan has been in the works for DECADES). The second amendment (which is why that has been under attack for so long) has been one of their obstacles because it does not serve American's interest to give away our Sovereignty to be vassals of the New World order. But that's the plan.

The pLandemic was supposed to see us locked down and quarantined for YEARS (look at Australia and New Zealand right this minute). All the small businesses were to go bankrupt and Americans were to be living on handouts from the government until our government told us it was broke (it already is), we would be demoralized enough to accept the Great Reset and hand our sovereignty over to the United Nations World Government (And never eat real beef again, or own property. Remember the World Economic Forum ad "You will own nothing and you will be happy"?

Trump tripped them up first by getting elected when they were shoe-horning Hillary in (thus the abject shock) and then by pulling "vaccines" out of thin air. I don't know how he did it, but when he says they've saved millions of lives (which he says often) it's not because COVID was dangerous, it's because the lockdowns were dangerous. The vaccines undermined the scheme to keep us lockdown and broke. Which I agree they did. (I still don't like them tho- but that's another story)

The globalists/cabal control the Federal Reserve, and almost all the other Central Banks of the world- ours has been of late printing money likes it's going out of style because it is- the fiat currency is past it's expiration and needs to be replaced- the globalists want it be be an electronic currency and they want you carrying a vaccine passport because that is going to be the basis of our version of the Chinese social credit system, wherein they can shut down your freedom if you disobey. Senseless masking and mandatory shots that don't work and that are killing more people than any coronavirus EVER did, are part of acclimating you to obedience and removing your expectation of autonomy (does it make sense in any other framework?)

Neither CIA nor the FBI nor the State department are invested in saving America's autonomy- they are captured by the globalists ( and have been for a very long time). The globalists already have all of our money, since they have been stripping this country of wealth with money-laundering wars and foreign aid for DECADES, and have shipped many of our livelihoods overseas.

The globalists despise conservative Christian middle-America. I believe the opioid addictions were enabled to get rid of the factory-class. Sociopathic Big Pharma got rich while helping the corrupt US government get rid of almost an entire class of US citizens that it felt it had no more need for- white working-class middle America, aka the deplorables.

If you want to know how Big Pharma could possibly be so evil and corrupt, research Operation Paperclip and you will learn the origins of the culture that is overseeing the pharmaceutical mores of our country and the worlds people who trust us. But don't search using google: https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/

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Boris Petrov's avatar

Our poor Janine -- watching peacefully for 70+ years terror but imagining foreign influence when her countrymen protest it...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E1XaJs3XsAYIC3B?format=jpg&name=small

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Janine's avatar

Maybe your message is being lost in translation Boris. Maybe you can find someone who can explain your point for you.

To pick at some of what you might be getting at, the American protests were perfectly fine- as I stated. It was the globalists paid henchmen attacking them that is my complaint.

You also seem to confuse America with Americans. Maybe that's another reason you are having trouble with trying to communicate a cogent argument here. None-the-less, it seems to be a language issue that I can't help you with.

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shallowfocus's avatar

Wait. But which side is the "Americans" and which side are the "paid henchmen"? I guess you're arguing that the right-wingers are the Americans and the leftists are the paid henchmen. But what if it's the other way around? Or could it possibly be - gasp! - that both sides are paid henchmen?

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Atma's avatar

@Janine

Personally, Senator Green and I suspect all of those "Space Based Laser Beams" built and paid for by the Jews. But then, as a matter of fashion, Senator Green and I heavily favor the classic tinfoil hat, as well.

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Janine's avatar

Antifa, back with the tropes........

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Phisto Sobanii's avatar

I predict "Build Back Better" and "The Great Reset" will end up in history's dustbin next to Perestroika and Glasnost.

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hierochloe's avatar

right down there with 'maga'

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Don Bell's avatar

Who are you going to get for the Arnold Schwarzenegger part in this upcoming block buster? Has Thomas Pynchon done the screenplay?

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Postimpressionist's avatar

The lockdowns and masks also kept US from Herd Immunity:

Some 80% to 85% of American adults are immune to the virus: More than 64% have received at least one vaccine dose and, of those who haven’t, roughly half have natural immunity from prior infection. There’s ample scientific evidence that natural immunity is effective and durable, and public-health leaders should pay it heed.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-power-of-natural-immunity-11623171303

It was planned this far back:

“We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications (Biden's FREE advertisers) whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost 40 years… (censorship)

…It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government.

The supernational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination (VOTING) practiced in past centuries.”

David Rockefeller

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJDFYNkWr8I

We are too stupid to determine our own destiny. Democrats are showing US that.

World over population is the Number 1 problem. That's what the NWO is all about..... population control. Sometimes I can see it from both sides.

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CA's avatar

Do you honestly believe ppl & the institutions they represent are that smart? Please.

Greedy yes - & therefore will not ‘globally’ share it with the UN or anyone or any institution. It will be in outer space. Good fking riddance.

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User's avatar
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Aug 22, 2021
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Janine's avatar

I hear ya. Condensed best I could.

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Madjack's avatar

Ummm power and money for starters

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Zenitram's avatar

Cop out answer.

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Phisto Sobanii's avatar

Where's the lie, though?

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Aug 21, 2021
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IndependentThinker's avatar

The CIA is not overseen by any government agency or branch. They are accountable to no one. There are parts of it that have gone anti-American and rogue. Source: CIA whistleblowers, who can be found through a search on an UNcensored Internet browser.

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Atma's avatar

@IndependentThinker

Yup, just like Global Warming. Nothing to see here, folks, *NOTHING you can do about *ANYTHING. Time for y'all to just sit back and think about *dyin' !

Man, I gotta wonder where all that "Independent Thinking" *takes this commenter ! ;-D

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Atma's avatar

@Mango M3 Huffy

It may be a *bitch to find, but Max Props to you for asking !

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Badger's avatar

This, coming from a woman who never provides a shred of evidence supporting her own assertions? Heaven forbid! :)

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Postimpressionist's avatar

She is suffering from Main Stream Media Syndrome!

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Badger's avatar

They're the CIA for gosh sake! Whatever you find, it's something they want you to find! Like discovering the whichnes of why?

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Janine's avatar

Please see my reply to the previous message in this post.

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User's avatar
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Aug 21, 2021
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RJ's avatar

Antifa?

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User's avatar
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Aug 22, 2021
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Badger's avatar

I, for one, would like your opinion on that?

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Douglas Marolla's avatar

Yes, perfectly put.

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Tom Worster's avatar

Maybe some people just like fighting. I grew up in Glasgow in the 70s and some people took any excuse for a fight. At an Old Firm match even the cops joined in.

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Aug 23, 2021
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Tom Worster's avatar

Sorta. I'm inclined to think of those hat types as pretty soft and the fighting types to have a whole costume, black or camo. But what do I know?

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Aug 24, 2021
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Tom Worster's avatar

That, of course, is why Corbyn and Sanders were eliminated with maximum prejudice. They identified an enemy that the peasants and proles could unify against with hostility resulting in emotional bonding and social cooperation.

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Polly Frost's avatar

I agree with you about the divide and conquer thing, but here's where I disagree with you. Many of the people I see in my state trying to peacefully have their voices hear by our idiotic, entitled, overly hair-gelled globalist-owned governor Newsom are small business owners. Or female spa attendees who don't want to see a man expise his penis in their lockerroom just because he identifies as a trans female, or parents who are fed up with their children being taught CRT our tax payer money funds (in my small city that's to the tune of 300,000 a year while the police budget has been drastically cut), middle-class landlords who are often immigrants who're being forced into foreclosure by Newsom's support of eviction moratoriums, people who are tired of more and more homeless people being asked to come to CA to defecate on their sidewalks they pay for, or normal people who just want to go about their lives and attend cultural events or shop and find having to get a vaccine passport (whether or not they have been double jabbed) unconstitutional. These people try to peacefully protest and get attacked by the far left like Antifa. Please explain to me how they are standing up for trivial things - their lives and homes and freedom. These are not “trivial differences.”

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Aug 22, 2021
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Polly Frost's avatar

Mango, I respect your right to respond the way you do, but I find you very difficult to converse with because you want everyone to stop and spend hours proving their points - to you - as some sort of judge. I love reading Matt Taibbi and love the comments. And I find it interesting to be disagreed with. But I'm here for general discussion not focusing on convincing you.

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Atma's avatar

@BradK

GREAT post ! Thank you *so much for exposing all of this *painful ignorance. Another observation can be gleaned from this video. These civilian pinheads on *both sides could *greatly benefit from some training in martial arts. What we see depicted here, looks like kindegarteners tussling in a sandbox. More interested in avoiding contact than in anything else. Backing up, while handy, is not the *most well-used tactic in martial arts.

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Chris Lenny's avatar

it's seems similar what the US government has done around the globe

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Readersaurus's avatar

"Everything is going according to the plan."

Brad, where, what, is this "plan" and what's the basis of your observation that "everything" is unfolding according to it?--granting you _very_ generous leeway in whatever you mean by "everything."

Have you seen the plan? Read it? May I look at a copy? When, as far as you can tell did it begin?--for our own purposes, that is. How many human lifetimes has it spanned --so far--and who are its present-day planner/managers? Surely North American civilization's "course" wasn't part of it until, by chance?, North America came to attention of planners, right?

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vj's avatar

Who is the man behind the curtain? Divide and conquer. Now who would want that?

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Readersaurus's avatar

Yes, who? I'm afraid the suspect-list is a rather long one. It's one of the most tried-and-true strategic forms, used, with varying degrees of competence and success, by many, many people over generations for different and often competing and conflicting motives and objectives.

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Aug 21, 2021
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minitiger's avatar

I don’t think it’s that they’re given “extensive media attention” as much as it’s that they’re paying way too much attention to the media. Or maybe it’s a chicken/egg thing, I don’t know. But motherfuckers need to turn the internet off and just go for a walk or something…

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Atma's avatar

@Wally

Incredible POST ! Yes.

Your entire analysis is a *huge advantage to understanding the vagaries of humankind in general.

I have but one question regarding the relative age of your students. Simply on the basis of *normal brain development, High Schoolers, and those of early College age are still without a fully developed Adult Judgement Center. Emotions are their *only way of comprehending and interacting with their world.

The Adult Judgement Center is called the Pre-Frontal Cortex, and is physically located just behind the forehead. fMRIs will show this area in teenagers to be completely "dark". No synaptic activity to speak of. As we all know, the Emotional areas of the brain are lit up like Vegas in the human teenager.

Research since the '90s shows us that the human female (always developmentally about two years *ahead of the human male her same age) can develop a fully formed Adult Judgement Center as *late as, age 22. Some will develop earlier, but not by much. The human male can develop a fully formed Adult Judgement Center as *late as age 24. Ask any auto insurer *why the rates for males between 16 and 26 are *stratospheric. Sadly, because that cohort *is committing a huge percentage of the slaughter out there on U.S. roads and highways.

SO, testing students *before they have that fully formed Adult Judgement Center is guaranteed to result almost *exclusively in emotionally based answers. That is the only part of the brain fully "plugged in" for them.

As for those *past the age of having a fully formed Adult Judgement Center, who STILL respond on the primitive and emotional Lizard Brain level (brain stem and base brain) we can look to the opinion of an adult from circa 2,400 years ago.

“Youth ages, immaturity is outgrown, ignorance can be educated, and drunkenness sobered, but stupid lasts forever.” ~ Aristophanes , Playwright of Ancient Athens

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HBI's avatar

OK i'm sure what you are saying is accurate, but why was I able to test well in those age brackets? I did some fairly retarded stuff when I wasn't taking tests, also. Took some mescaline, broke into a church, stole fire extinguishers, blew them off on a beach. Had sex in a van in someone I didn't know's driveway while they were home. When my then-girlfriend pissed herself, made her get out in the driveway naked and hang the clothes off the back bumper of the van so they stopped stinking up the interior, then went back to it....Got busted by cops doing such stupid things. I mean, I could go on...

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Atma's avatar

HBI

See ? FULLY age-appropriate *teenage behavior ! ;-D As to testing well, I am going to guess that you refer to *intellectually testing well. That was not a problem for me at the time either. But I look back now on some *harrowing stunts I pulled that, at the time, seemed *perfectly SANE to *me ! Especially in view of some other stunts that I knew were *insane behavior even *AS I engaged in it !

For instance, a teenage driver acts like an asshole (well, O.K., mostly the males) because he erroneously BELIEVES that *all of the *other cars will follow the LAW to the LETTER ! We used to do insane shit like playing "Ditch-um" (Car chases in those *land-barge cars from the '50s) in no-kidding *residential neighborhoods ! Not thinking for a second how we could *possibly STOP those racing tanks in the event that a kid might pop out from between two parked cars ! )

AND we were not "intellectually" stupid teenagers, we were just TYPICALLY stupid teenagers ! DAMN ! I had toddler-aged little brothers at HOME ! It is not like I had never *encountered the species ! I kid you not, had I been a grown man, father to toddlers, and seen an *asshole like ME driving like that in HIS neighborhood, I would *cheerfully shotgun MY own teenage ass right OUT of that '56 Mercury with the 383 c.i. V8 !

To the skitzy belief that all *other driver will scrupulously obey the law, we also (playing car chase) would blast right THRU a four-way stop, even when we could not SEE down the other two streets ! We had the naive idea that other cars HAD to stop. We never considered a drunk, distracted, or otherwise distressed driver who might *also "blow" the stop sign ! Many of today's State Driver's Manuals will advise you of *just that kind of behavior among teenagers. It IS the absence of the Adult Judgment Center that reinforces that kind of *INSANE thinking ! SHeeee-*IT ! :-O

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c.m.s's avatar

Yes my greatest fear in those days was that I would meet myself going the other way.

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Badger's avatar

"I would *cheerfully shotgun MY own teenage ass right OUT of that '56 Mercury with the 383 c.i. V8 !"

Pardon me for noting it, but I think you've wandered off topic? The storyline verges on braging?

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HBI's avatar

The obsession with topic-safety harms discourse. Some of the most entertaining things i've read on Substack were completely off-topic. I mean, what the hell are we going to do about Afghanistan individually anyway?

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Kelly Green's avatar

So, let me boil down your question in order to answer it. "Why did so many people have emotional reactions to fake people, when someone who didn't care one whit about other people's opinions, property rights, or sense of propriety at all didn't get caught up in emotion in the same situation?"

Point being - young you didn't care about people much, as evidenced by the very actions you cite. The people making the mistake of too much engagement on the test probably went too far the other way on the spectrum of caring about people.

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HBI's avatar

I'm with your conclusion. I don't think my friends cared much about other people either, though. We were all irresponsible.

I'm thinking if there was some secret population of teenagers who cared in 1987 and I don't remember them.

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Kelly Green's avatar

I knew plenty. Most of them were not male, of course. Male teenagers are the reason the internet sucks, among other things. Having been one, I begrudge them absolutely nothing and I encourage society's understanding.

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Atma's avatar

@HBI

Teenagers, driven almost entirely by emotion, represent the most self-referential, self-involved, and emotionally insecure phases of brain development. This is why some today have actually committed suicide, essentially over the number of "likes" that they did (or did not) receive on various platforms of social media.

Again fMRI photos showing teenage emotional activities, located mid-brain, are lit up like Saturday night in Vegas. Teenage fMRI photo activity in the pre-frontal cortex, the adult judgement center, is pretty much dark as a tomb.

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Atma's avatar

@Substack Commenter 34

Your point is well taken. Teenage brain activity is almost exclusively self-referential. They do not "care", because they do not yet fully understand. This is why, from driving to drinking in Public society limits the freedom of teenagers to act. Or to "act out", as the case may be.

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BradK (Afuera!)'s avatar

"As for those *past the age of having a fully formed Adult Judgement Center, who STILL respond on the primitive and emotional Lizard Brain level..."

Also on Twitter.

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Atma's avatar

@BradK

Sorry, the above would look as if half of my message to Wally was cut off and run under your online handle. Substack Software is frustratingly inadequate.

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Thom Williams's avatar

@ Atma👍

Having just discovered this elucidating perspective on "PreFrontal Cortex" brain development, gender superiority, and auto liability insurance; not-to-mention a "circa 2,400 years"old tasty sampling of an Ancient Athenian playwrights' philosophical prose, on top of being in the midst of my third phase of childhood, I'm feeling very emotional right now.🎭

EA

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Atma's avatar

@Ethan Allen

I am not certain where you got the concept of "gender superiority". Differences in genders in *no way equate to "gender superiority" and my statement does not imply that it might. As in the case with science, if you have interest, there is plenty of explanatory data on scientific sites. I encourage you to prove it to yourself if you feel inclined to do so.

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Atma's avatar

@The Strongest

Not even. It is the NATURAL development arc of Homo Sapiens, period.

200,000 years of development. It is not caused by Social media.

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Karl Humungus's avatar

Yup. "Here's a club kid, defend the tribe. That big guy in the middle called you a simp."

There's a reason balls develop before brains.

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Atma's avatar

@Karl Hungus

Indeed there *is. The brain can be assumed to be fully formed in males between ages 24-25. Recent brain research shows that female brains will fully develop at least two years before that.

And, to your point re: balls and brains, we know that the military wants our boys at age 18. As you indicate above, there *IS a reason for that ! ;-D

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Readersaurus's avatar

Yes, there is: brains are vastly more complicated and require far more time to develop and grow.

an infant's testicles develop _sooner_ _physically_ , yes, to a state more advanced than the brain at the same time--the latter being, of course, vastly more complicated. But testes don't have the hormone testosterone before the brain reaches an advanced state of development. Infant boys are physically helpless and depend on their parents for nurture and protection. They're no physical threat to anyone--whatever the development of their new-born testes.

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Atma's avatar

Teens have always performed Adult functions, yes. But they have never performed them with adult adequacy, because, they are *not adults. If you can't wrap your mind around this concept, look it up. It is not my responsibility to educate you, though, quite obviously someone should.

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j l's avatar

"adult adequacy"... "never"... This is not a binary issue, but just degrees of development through parental guidance given each "teen" is different. Parental guidance varies in quality as well, and unfortunately inadequacies can be compounded from their own "parental" experience.

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Badger's avatar

I have to argue this a little Atma, you mention Aristophanes above in support of intelligence playing a role in developing mature brain function, then disregard the effect of intelligence on early maturation of those same functions? Intelligence works both way, does it not? A teenager with, for example, an IQ of 170 is going to display the ability to make more adult judgements than, for example, another with an IQ of 90 at the same age?

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Atma's avatar

@Wally

Thank you. Then you will have about half/half of students *with a fully formed (but not yet experienced) Adult Judgement Center, and others without.

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Jade H.'s avatar

STAGED SOCIAL MEDIA EVENTS!

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Gnomon Pillar's avatar

Who is funding both these groups?

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flipshod's avatar

Are you talking about students getting upset about the characters in word problems?

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Atma's avatar

@flipshod

Insofar as it relates to their inability to get out of their emotions, and to see the characters as being unrelated to them, yes. Commenter Wally contributed a *great comment relative to his teaching of teenagers and young adults.

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staceface72's avatar

sounds like it. I'm not familiar with that type of shit, myself. But I can imagine young adults in college, who are possibly feeling all smart and objective because they are learning stuff, might get offended at some weird word problem character, only to make themselves look upstanding and objective??

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Atma's avatar

@staceface72

As we so frequently see 18 yr-olds go directly into college, yes. They are obliged to react from the emotional levels of the mid-brain. As college students approach the age(s) in the early to mid-twenties, of having fully developed Adult Judgement Centers, much less so.

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Nobody's avatar

There is also a sizable contingent deliberately burying their head in the sand rather than deal with cognitive dissonance. They can on an intellectual level admit that the left/right conflict is fake, but are not able to dissociate themselves from the side which they identify with. The number of times I've heard things like "yeah both sides are bad, but the other side deserves most the blame..." makes me sad.

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Tom Worster's avatar

Excellent, concise summary.

It's curious how a fair number of commenters here go so far as to say that the culture warriors are doing the work of protecting the status quo but that Matt never does.

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Tom Worster's avatar

To be fair, Adolph Reed has been on Useful Idiots Podcast a couple of times and he said it.

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Gnomon Pillar's avatar

If we were all spoon-fed facts presumably there would be far less vitriolic debate amongst us. It's all the feeding at the propaganda trough that induces cognitive myopia and fuels the dyspepsia.

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Tom Worster's avatar

But facts are mostly what propaganda are made of. It's the spoon-feeding that's so powerful. Use the spoon carefully to select the facts that will convey the message you want and ignore others.

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norstadt's avatar

Some of us choose to take things at face value unless there is strong evidence that they are not what they seem. Humans don't actually need "elites" to find reasons to fight each other.

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staceface72's avatar

the sickness is mass psychosis.

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Tom Worster's avatar

Yeah, well Matt kinda encourages it with his why oh why must the media always get the story wrong hot takes.

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Spiderbaby's avatar

I know I'll regret this but...I'm currently reading Tom O'Neil's book about Chuckie Manson. O'Neil discovered that, after a point, it appeared that Manson was protected by someone. Since Manson was a parolee, there were a number of times he violated that parole & should have been sent back but the cops consistently kicked him loose.

He discovered that Bugliosi's Helter Skelter theory was more marketing than anything else. That Bugliosi suborned perjury from Terry Melcher in order to make that story palatable to a jury.

He found the ubiquitous mob ties to Jay Sebring. Evidently Sebring had fallen out of favor.

He found out that many of Hollywood's grooviest movers & shakers had ties to Chuckie Cheese & his family of creepy crawlies. Neil Young was the only one who would go on the record as knowing Chuck, saying that many people in Hollywood knew Chuck but probably wouldn't admit it. Evidently Manson was dealing drugs to them &, most likely, pimping out all of those young girls.

He also found an apparent CIA agent involved in the whole affair. Evidently the CIA, like the FBI & COINTELPRO, was running an infiltration program called Operation Chaos. He discovered evidence that this agent was at the Polanski residence immediately after the Family left but before the maid discovered the bodies. He also discovered the presence of Dr. Jolyon West hovering behind the scenes.

He found copious amounts of testimony that Polanski wasn't the innocent victim he was portrayed as in the media. That he was abusive towards Tate and ran some pretty freaky parties where he liked to film freaky things. Bugliosi, long before O'Neil found evidence of his prosecutorial misconduct, told O'Neil of a confiscated videotape from the Tate residence that was filmed by Polanski showing 2 men forcing Tate to have sex with them. I think that's otherwise known as rape.

So, I really don't put anything passed the Deep State. I don't think it would be much of a stretch to say that identity politics, Antifa & race relations are encouraged because they are things that do not affect the wealthy in any way. But they do keep the rabble occupied and away from discussing anything like economic justice, corporate malfeasance and the wealth chasm.

If nothing else, the speed with which corporate America jumped on the identity politics/BLM train should be a good indicator that the public story of noble lefties battling the man is as much fiction as fact. Because if someone truly believes that super rich white people truly care about black people & transgenders I'd say that they are pretty goddamn gullible.

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Koshmarov's avatar

"Neil Young was the only one who would go on the record as knowing Chuck, saying that many people in Hollywood knew Chuck but probably wouldn't admit it."

Neil Young is a golden god. We don't deserve him.

Revolution Blues: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yK504X_wvs

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Brad's avatar

Best avatar on substack.

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ih8edjfkjr's avatar

I'll take the other side of that bet. People with money barely know either side.

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Jeff Dewey's avatar

The point being made is that people with money bankroll the people without money. The media on both sides, very much aligned with the power structure ferment the divisions by their coverage. All of this is a useful distraction to maintain the status quo for the elite. This is true of the right and left both: they need one another..

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Janine's avatar

That would be true if "the left" were fighting with "the right". Most all of the conflicts like the one in this video involve Americans who protests just about anything (in this case medical mandates) getting attacked by the paid thugs of Antifa, who actually don't care about anything but getting bailed out and collecting their pay checks when the jobs done.

Yes, Antifa is a tool of some rich folks, but they are specifically the elite who are trying to force the Great Reset on America (whether the dopes on the street are smart enough to realize that or not).

These are NOT American factions battling out ideologies, despite the horrendously "argued" points up and down this post- (most of which constitute nothing more than verbal attacks on anyone remotely calling them out, and attempts to attributing their own tactics to MAGA.

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PalmsFour's avatar

The only problem with the footage is it’s kind of bullshit to present the two sides as equally atrocious. Anyone who’s been to these protests knows full well that 95% of the time Antifa type lunatics are physically assaulting the other side.

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Wilbur Nelson's avatar

Yes -- somehow last summer's $2 billion BLM/Antifa price tag gets overlooked. The FBI has to juke things like the Whitmer case to get the WS threat above background noise.

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Eli's avatar

True, I've been to antifa rallies and they often instigate the violence.

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PalmsFour's avatar

Always. Every time. That’s why I’m confused by the video because it presents a “both sides” narrative that’s just false and usually Matt doesn’t promote that sort of stuff.

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Steve's avatar

"Always. Every time."

This is why this type of reporting is important. It is video evidence of you being wrong.

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PalmsFour's avatar

That’s the point: the video shows people on the right being attacked and assaulted by these idiots. Some cases, yes, you see them fighting back that’s true.

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Steve's avatar

* "The only problem with the footage is it’s kind of bullshit to present the two sides as equally atrocious."

* "the video shows people on the right being attacked and assaulted by these idiots. Some cases, yes, you see them fighting back that’s true."

Pick one.

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PalmsFour's avatar

No I stand by them both.

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elaine's avatar

The two sentences don't contradict each other. The two sides are not equally atrocious. And sometimes people on the right fight back.

In northern Florida there's a small town with a memorial statue of a Rebel soldier. That made Antifa and BLM mad. They let it be known that they were going to go and topple the statue. So the local sheriff put out a call for local men who might be willing to be deputized and join him at the statue, to greet their peacefully protesting guests.

The guests never showed up.

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Janine's avatar

PhdChief- This conversation is PACKED with Antifa antagonists. Don't bother engaging- they are merely trying to antagonize anyone who sees through their very thin veneer of real protest to the paid thuggery.

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Janine's avatar

You Antifa's really need to ask your leaders to run some focus groups for you.

"people who live in a particular city dress up in black and act like assholes to outsiders who decide to convene"

Nobody thinks that's who you are- NOBODY. If that equates to a fail in your program, own it.

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Eli's avatar

I mean sometimes antifa is against people who truly cause problems, like Proud Boys and other fascistic groups. PBs may be ethnically diverse, but they're chauvinistic and threatening.

But most antifa targets are peaceful like the women protesting Spas, black Trump supporter in SF, and Bernie supporter who carried a flag.

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PalmsFour's avatar

Honestly, I’ve never seen videos of Proud Boys attacking people unprovoked or looting or smashing windows, etc. It’s always them reacting. I get that people don’t like to hear that.

If there’s video that shows otherwise I’ll stand corrected.

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staceface72's avatar

Then you didn't just watch the video attached to this post.

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PalmsFour's avatar

Yep, I did. It’s mostly footage that’s been out there, including from the W la spa. Antifa thugs came there with the intent to assault people.

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Turd_Ferguson's avatar

The irony of this post is that AntiFa is extremely fascist in their tactics.

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minitiger's avatar

What “antifa rallies” did you go to? Where were they? What date, specifically? Fuck it, what month? Because I think you’re lying. I don’t think you’ve ever been to an “antifa rally.”

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Madjack's avatar

Yep antifa are the true fascists

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Stxbuck's avatar

Red Guards circa 1968…

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Matt330's avatar

I just hate authoritarians and statists. Just remember during the Spanish Civil War, both the Republicans (communists) and Fascists would line Liberals (the classical kind) up against the wall and shoot them.

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Matt330's avatar

I will give it a read.

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RRDRRD's avatar

No. Fascism is predominantly represented in left wing movements but academics widely accept that fascism can manifest on either side of the aisle

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RRDRRD's avatar

Not a lot to contradict in your post but you neglect to consider that classical liberalism has not been left wing for a century or so. When you define fascism as anti-leftist, you are missing the inherent revolutionary element ascribed to the left in the origins of the use of a left/right dichotomy for politics.

Fascism has had to foment rebellion against existing governments in almost all places it has gained power ( a few exceptions in central and south America grew within existing governments) which most frequently places them firmly on the left. Moreover, classic liberalism has become the established norm in most of the western world, making it a conservative/right wing philosophy. To make the statement that fascists are opposed to the left is generally not valid and in the US they are leftist.

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Atma's avatar

@ PhdChief

Aw, DAMN ! Those poor picked on Proud Boys and Trump thugs in full battle gear, but with no identifying marks on their uniforms. Even the Nazis were not *that cowardly. You *knew who they were ! ;-D

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Andrew Eden-Balfour's avatar

Actually, it's the other way around.

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Matt330's avatar

Cut the bullshit, I remember back when you idiots were hitting people with bike locks on university campuses.

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PalmsFour's avatar

The bike lock assault was in San Jose by a Left wing activist I think he may have even been teaching at the school at the time he committed the attack.

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Matt330's avatar

He taught ethics and moral philosophy at San Francisco State University.

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PalmsFour's avatar

Anyone know what happened to that dude? Hope he at least did some time- could have killed that guy. And there was almost nil mainstream reporting on the incident. Pathetic story.

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David's avatar

Eric Clanton got 3 years probation. Attacked like 10 people. His probation ended earlier this month.

https://www.berkeleyside.org/2018/08/08/eric-clanton-takes-3-year-probation-deal-in-berkeley-rally-bike-lock-assault-case

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Matt330's avatar

I do not think any legal trouble actually came to him but the university quietly fired him. Who knows where he is or what he is doing now?

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Matt330's avatar

The guy I was talking about was the Berkeley one. It gets hard to keep track these days.

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Atma's avatar

@Matt330

Isn't that just *precious, the way that one jerk wad becomes "you people" !

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Aug 21, 2021
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Matt330's avatar

Oh look the whiny little bitch is losing the argument so he calls someone a racist and references events decades before the events in question. You are not doing a damn thing to damage me, but are making yourself look bad in front of everyone else.

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Gnomon Pillar's avatar

Speaking of whiny little bitches and bike locks....

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Matt330's avatar

2017

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Russel's avatar

Looks like we brought the fight to sub stack

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Atma's avatar

@Mango M3 Huffy

The commenter has OCD ? Or, opposite, senile dementia ? ;-D

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publius_x's avatar

Yes. it was a very long time after the National Guard had to desegregate the University of Alabama. Around the time of the Seattle protests against the G7, the supposed "liberals" became the brownshirts doing Kristallnacht LARPing. Look at you with your snark.

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Atma's avatar

@publius-x

It happened *well within the span of my living experience. In terms of the big picture, that was an eye blink away in the past.

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publius_x's avatar

I guess you are right. Mango M3 Huffy is a meaningless speck of dust in the big picture of history. Checks out.

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Zenitram's avatar

See, I knew you were a disingenuous fucktard.

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Aug 22, 2021
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Adam's avatar

The irony of this response is off the charts.

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Madjack's avatar

What??

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Atma's avatar

@Madjack

A possible "call back" to the Civil Rights Movement, apparently back before your time.

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PalmsFour's avatar

You’re not making any sense.

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Atma's avatar

@Mango M3 Huffy

Looks like some of your *most adoring fans were *deleted just above. Couldn't have happened to a *more well reasoned and

sophisticated /snark/ bunch.

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PalmsFour's avatar

Nonsense. I know Matt knows better too

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Atma's avatar

@PhdChief

Certainly makes *sense that it would ALL be the fault of the "doo-doo heads" on the *opposite side ! I see !

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Wilbur Nelson's avatar

Meh -- it's just the scale/proportion. And with the president of the PB being an FBI informant...

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Mark Konty's avatar

Hmm, it always looks to me like PB et al. are kicking the anarchist's ass. Then there's the right-wing violence in West Virginia way back five years ago. Here in Louisville, nobody claiming affiliation with anarchist/antifascist groups showed up until three dozen heavily armed right-wing militia marched downtown to "help" the police. I literally couldn't believe it when I read in this thread that the right-wing loonies are just peacefully protesting with their arms and armor when a bunch of skinny white punks just show up and attack them. Sometimes I can't tell if we all live on the same planet.

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Sue's avatar

Both Martin Luther King and Lyndon Johnson would be horrified if they were alive to see how the people in power have resurrected racism. Media has a nasty part in all of it, just loving the drama that they use for better ratings. Picking a scab that had mostly healed makes no sense. The USA is not a racist country. Our worst war ever was fought to get rid of slavery, and affirmative action laws were passed with hope of opportunity and equality. We elected a black President twice. Blacks in the USA are the most prosperous blacks on earth and East Asian and Indian Americans are more prosperous than white Americans. Young kids just don’t care about color. They date eachother, they marry eachother, they just don’t care about skin color. Kids are over it.

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Bob Newby's avatar

you know lyndon johnson was famously racist, right? he may have done the right thing for people but it’s be a stretch to say he’s be rolling in his grave knowing we’ve resurrected racism.

"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

-LBJ

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Sue's avatar

Lyndon Johnson certainly did pick white man’s pocket. When Lyndon was growing up his father hated the KKK. When Lyndon got to Congress there were still former KKK members in Congress. Jackie Kennedy asked Lyndon if he would continue JFK’s legacy of helping MLK. Lyndon promised he would and he kept his word. Equal Rights Amendment finally happened because Johnson fought for it.

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Atma's avatar

@Sue

Great post until you get to "The USA is not a racist country." Yeah, our present and our entire history begs to differ with you. Going all "Three monkeys" on obvious facts does vanishingly little to promote your premise.

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staceface72's avatar

The fact that that stupid comment got 29 likes is what I'm talking about when I say, 'this comment section is full of right-wing crazies... and it's surprising.'

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SH's avatar

Are you surprised? I'm not, this "conversation" seems fairly typical for this site - have been following it for awhile .....

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Janine's avatar

It it's not outright leftist dogma staceface72 is offended. She's not here to compare perspectives, she's here to call everyone who isn't an extreme leftist, a right-wing extremist and possible terrorist.

Which is what Antifa does. Create division and violence and hatred anywhere they go. If you don't get extremely angry at her response, then she's not done her job.

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staceface72's avatar

oh i get it now! You're just pissed cuz I said this comment section was full of right-wing crazies!! talk about triggered!! LMAO And only people that are caught up in the mass psychosis of Trump-mania think protestors only get attacked by Antifa, that's a bunch of bullshit and EVERYONE. KNOWS. IT. 😁

Today a bunch of right wing crazies are meeting in Portland to start shit. The cops aren't going to be "breaking up any fights"... why is that?? what the fuck is that? yet when BLM is out there the cops go full military on THEIR asses and brutalize anyone associated with it.

Go back to your Q sites and do your blithering there, where others will cheer you on and crown you the queen of conspiracy.

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Gnomon Pillar's avatar

Forget about Janine. Heard of the Manchurian candidate? Janine won the election.

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Janine's avatar

Trump? Q?

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staceface72's avatar

like I said: You're delusional, honey. Runnin' around here like she owns the place, telling everyone to stop engaging on a comment because she doesn't like that person said. It's like being surrounded by a bunch of 3rd graders, pointing at others, calling them names and running for the teacher to "tell on them".

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Janine's avatar

Protesters getting attacked means Antifa. Everyone in America knows that.

EVERY. ONE.

People trying to have conversations in message boards getting attacked, called names, and accused of extremism- ANTIFA yet again.

You must be making of millions of dollars agreeing to tear down your own country for the globalists. I'd ask what you will tell your kids one day, but from the mugshots I've seen online, it doesn't appear that it will be going that way anyway.

Nihilists be Nil.

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Gnomon Pillar's avatar

Shouldn't you be out in Laredo unstuffing ballot boxes?

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SH's avatar

Gee, how do you know it wasn't Proud Boys dressed up as Antifa? There's a lot of cross dressing going on these days :)

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Janine's avatar

Sue- Don't engage with the Antifa Trolls (Ataceface72, Atma and Boris) They are harassing everyone.

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Gnomon Pillar's avatar

Don't forget aunt martha, honey. I'm a little slow these days what with my arrthur- rittis and I'm also real slowed down by a bad case of the piles....

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Janine's avatar

Oh, And none of us notices the Antifa folks on this threat tag-teaming each other.

An nobody knows Antifa idiots are being paid to beat up protesters and call them the usual names. Even parents who just don't want their children to get sick from wearing masks for 8 hours a day.

You guys are completely undercover- we can't see you at all.

You have sold out your own humanity.

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SH's avatar

Good grief!

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SH's avatar

Oh dear ... sorry, this country is pretty racist, both here and abroad - the idea that Obama being elected "proved" that we were "post racial was pretty silly from the get-go, IMO ...

I think you are right that young kids don't care about color - but as they grow up they are taught to ....

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Janine's avatar

This is propaganda. You should become aware that the MSM is pushing lies in order to divide the country. You need to get better media.

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SH's avatar

Naw, just plain observation - not into MSM ....

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Madjack's avatar

LBJ was a corrupt racist scum. He’d be perfectly happy to promote racism if it helped him “win”

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Stxbuck's avatar

Congressman Larry McDonald, the head of the John Birch Society was a D at the time of his death aboard Korea 007!

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Stxbuck's avatar

Byrd was an ex-KKK member, but he wasn’t a Dixiecrat type D, imo. He was the king of pork barrel politics, bringing all kinds of federal projects to WV.

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staceface72's avatar

i gotta say, if you'd just come out of that "left vs right" ideology, you'd probably be better received, as well as on the right track. The Maud Maron case is fascinating. I think it's all done by the corporate owned politicians and organizations. You've heard of the head of "The Human Rights Campaign" that supposedly fights for the LGBTQ population was an advisor/lawyer for Cuomo and fought to keep his accusers quiet? The workers in that group went nuts over this revelation, went to the board and the board were fine with the guy staying in his position. The NGO's are almost all corrupted by the corporations that donate to them and pay their salaries. But it's all over both sides. talk about totalitarianism on the left but not the right? SMH

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staceface72's avatar

or you can just keep believing your own shit. That works, too.

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Sue's avatar

Maud and Bari give me hope, too. I wish we had more of them.

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Aug 22, 2021
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Nobody's avatar

Astroturfing.

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A Stranger in a Strange Land's avatar

Adolf keep ignoring Jews

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Debsisdead's avatar

More total 100% bulldust from e.pierce who constantly reveals he has no clue what marxism is.

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Aug 22, 2021
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Debsisdead's avatar

Oh well I shall just hafta suss it out.

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Sue's avatar

Ask Hillary about that. She talked Gaddhafi out of his nukes and then she took him out.

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Ron Warrick's avatar

Hillary was in the Senate when Gaddafi gave up his nukes. Doubt she had much to do with it.

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Atma's avatar

@Ron Warrick

That, and the fact that Libya never *had any actual "nukes". What they did have, was a uranium enrichment program, with centrifuges and illegally purchased uranium, in *hopes of someday *becoming a Nuclear Power.

Libya never had the technical expertise to actually develop a nuke. They tried to purchase a nuke, flat out, from Pakistan, and other Nuclear Powers, but they were refused in every attempt. (Even Pakistan did not want to see Libya as a nuclear power.) ;-D

After the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Qaddafi spooked, and gave up his *entire uranium enrichment program to the U.S. Actual nuclear weapons never became anything more than a pipe dream to the Desert Desperado.

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Sue's avatar

Hillary formed a strange trust with him. She charmed him with stories of being accepted by major countries if he cooperated in denuclearization. He bought it hook, line, and sinker.

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HBI's avatar

I doubt a nuke would have stopped him from being stabbed up the ass.

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Sue's avatar

I still don’t understand why they felt he had to be taken out. He gave up his nukes willingly, so why was he a threat?

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Atma's avatar

Well analyzed. The man never had more than a uranium enrichment program with centrifuges and illegally obtained uranium. He never came within a desert mile of an actual nuclear weapon in Libya. And even *that fact did not stop him from being stabbed up the ass, as some so colorfully put it ! ;-D

Y .etzme pbtainerengh

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Sue's avatar

Hillary has always been a hawk. Madiline Allbright told her she would not have a future in politics unless she sucked up to the Joint Chiefs, so she did.

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SH's avatar

Sexist epithet really necessary?

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Sue's avatar

US ricochet diplomacy.🤷‍♀️

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Atma's avatar

@Mango M3 Huffy

IDK where your quote above came from, but certainly not from the *millions of blacks

in American cities, and rural areas North *and South, living perpetually below the poverty line.

This crap and the "The US is not a racist country" is simply kindergarten level magical thinking not worth the breath it takes to speak it in actual Adult American society.

I may, perhaps, overuse this quote, but it is a veritable *work horse these days :

"It is better to remain silent, and be thought a fool, than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt." ~ Abraham Lincoln

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Ron Warrick's avatar

Find me a white person that does not want black people to be happy and successful.

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Phisto Sobanii's avatar

I'll do one better. I'll find you a black person that doesn't want black people to be happy and successful: Barack Obama.

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Atma's avatar

@Ron Warrick

OMG, my precious ! Have you never been to the South ?

Do you permanently live *under your bed ?

Do you live on the North American continent?

Have you ever read a book by a Black Author ?

There's a whole new WORLD waiting for you out

there, and *you, my precious, are going to find it

*terrifying !

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Ron Warrick's avatar

People that fail to have the goods always seem to resort to ad hominem.

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Atma's avatar

@Ron Warrick

Did someone tell you that ad hominem comes in the form of questions to be answered by yourself ? Get a good book on Rhetoric.

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ih8edjfkjr's avatar

Black Americans are substantially more prosperous than Libyans. Now. Then. Whenever. And also...and I kinda sorta hate to make this comment...but are Arab Africans black?

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ih8edjfkjr's avatar

That question was super rhetorical.

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Andrew Eden-Balfour's avatar

Dah fuck does Libya have to do with this? Since it's primarily Berbers and Arabs.

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Sue's avatar

😂🤣

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Aug 21, 2021
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Nobody's avatar

That may or may not be true but the reason Libya was destroyed had nothing to do with race. Wars are always about money.

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Sue's avatar

I have seen a film of Hillary bragging about using the CIA to kill Gaddhafi. It might still be on YouTube if it has not been cancelled. Try to keep up.

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Sue's avatar

I references your quote in my answer to you. Are you slow?

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Atma's avatar

@Mango M3 Huffy

Both above and below, you are being treated to some of e. pierce's more sophisticated and fully adult comments. You should see what happens when he goes incoherent ! ;-D

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Polly Frost's avatar

Thanks, Matt. I may see this differently than a lot of people. I see people who are fed up with the free pass Antifa and BLM are getting while “domestic terrorism” is defined as anyone who supported Trump and would like to question the election results or questions Covid measures or god forbid lost someone in 9/11 and wants to honor them or have a religious holiday. I see Antifa and BLM as funded and urged on by Soros and company, by the Democratic Party. I see what's described as “people on the right” as people who may be quite centrist but who are sick and tired of being crapped on and told their awful by Leftists who've done nothing but make money off their suffering and loss in the last year. So, no, I don't see it as anything one can equate the way I believe you are - perhaps I'm wrong, but I read you as saying there is this right wing as much to blame for this violence as the far left. And if that's the case, I completely disagree.

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IndependentThinker's avatar

You are spot-on, Polly!

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craazyman's avatar

They may find out in November 2022 that nobody elected them and their 15 minutes of fame are over. The growing multi racial pushback against CRT in schools and low TV ratings for wokeness in sports might be followed by consumer antipathy to products of too-woke corporations. Money talks.

It could be a whole new political ballgame a year from now. I doubt the cultural left clerisy’s rigid dogmas have the support of even 1 in 10 Americans. But the fawning news coverage and commentary they get makes it seem more.

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DarkSkyBest's avatar

November 2022 should be a wipe out of this BS by people who just want their lives back. But didn't I read somewhere where Eric Holder has some group busily working on influencing the Congressional redistricting maps being redrawn in the states? Not to mention the "voting rights" bill pending in Congress which may be voted on next week while the rest of us are watching dispatches out of Kabul. Stay tuned.

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DarkSkyBest's avatar

You are correct. We live a distance south of Springfield, Illinois. Years back, I think it was the 90s, we lived in what was recognized as one of the most gerrymandered districts in the nation. Our Democratic Congressman was from Rock Island --- ROCK ISLAND! That district had the blessing of both parties. Towns were split up giving reliably D precincts (not towns, precincts) to the D incumbent, and the reliably R precincts to the congressional district with the R incumbent.

What I see going on now is not so much a desire to protect the incumbents as it is to federalize the whole election process, benefiting only the Ds. Not good.

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Atma's avatar

@Mango M3 Huffy

Damned good URL, but you *are running the risk of confusing our more rabid right wingers with *facts, you know !

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SH's avatar

OMG! Not another one! Good grief!

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SimulationCommander's avatar

Then why are they rioting for 100+ straight days? That's getting a free pass.

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staceface72's avatar

They were protesting because the police were arresting them for exercising their first amendment rights. If you go out to protest the murder of an unarmed black man and the cops shoot you with rubber bullets, inundate the area with tear gas and arrest hundreds a day, I'd be surprised if you weren't pissed. These "Antifa groupies" were out causing some destruction and terror because of the system that has kept us all down for at least the last 40 years, and in the instance of Black people for hundreds of years. Quit calling them riots. Cops cause riots way more often than not.

https://www.koin.com/news/protests/portland-protests-what-happened-in-2020-whats-next-in-2021/

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SimulationCommander's avatar

LOL trying to tell me what happened in Portland.

People who were actively rioting had their cases dropped and were right back out on the street the next day.

And if you knew anything at all about me, you would know that if you've lost ME on the issue of the police, you've lost nearly everybody. Until last summer we had a REAL chance at reform. Body cams and QI reform, hell, even public police unions were coming under fire. All that has completely evaporated and set reform back decades.

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staceface72's avatar

another projection? I took you for a dude. hmph. I stand corrected.

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Janine's avatar

Protesters getting attacked means Antifa. Everyone in America knows that.

EVERY. ONE.

People trying to have conversations in message boards getting attacked, called names, and accused of extremism- ANTIFA yet again.

You must be making of millions of dollars agreeing to tear down your own country for the globalists. I'd ask what you will tell your kids one day, but from the mugshots I've seen online, it doesn't appear that it will be going that way anyway.

Nihilists be Nil.

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SH's avatar

"Riots" are in the eye of the beholder - one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist ...

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staceface72's avatar

oh shut it already. you obviously aren't checking the links or listening to what anyone else has to say. keep that division going strong!

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Zenitram's avatar

Yea, "white groups" got a pass during the Trump admin. Could you be more disconnected from reality?

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hierochloe's avatar

this little gem made dipping my toe into the comment shitshow worth it

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Matt330's avatar

Okay, THAT was funny.

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staceface72's avatar

Yet the "black bloc" were severely injured... if they were armed with clubs and knives don't you think more than ONE person on the white wings side would've been injured???

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N.'s avatar

The Venn diagram of people who adopt the label "activist" and people who are eye-rollingly insufferable is nearly a perfect circle.

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PalmsFour's avatar

Why is it that the people most vocal about racism and transgender rights etc. seem to be the most violent and generally vile and unhappy people? Why?

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Atma's avatar

@PhdChief

Invalid premise, Chief, which a *real Phd holder would know. Even *with the wiggle words :"seem to be".

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SH's avatar

Hmm, wonder what % of white "conservative" men under 30 have a mental health condition ...

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Jonathan's avatar

I haven't read through any of e.pierce's links above, but I can already tell you they'll support the same conclusion.

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Jonathan's avatar

Significantly less. The data indicate that the more left-leaning a person is, the more likely they're mentally ill.

And this makes intuitive sense, doesn't it? The main focus of conservatism is to focus on those things that make for happy, healthy families. The main focus of leftism is to demand radical changes to society. Setting aside the question of whether those radical would actually improve things, a person who thinks radical changes are needed is bound to be miserable with the current status quo, right?

Here's a link to some published research.

https://osf.io/vum67/download

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Janine's avatar

Because Soros is paying them the create violent protests in order to destabilize. They don't really care about the social issues they hide behind.

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Janine's avatar

Agreed!

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SH's avatar

Takes one to know one ....

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Atma's avatar

@TD

Hear, HEAR !

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Phisto Sobanii's avatar

Speak for yourself.

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Phisto Sobanii's avatar

I’m just saying it’s not everyone.

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Atma's avatar

@TD

Not at all an *unfounded feeling !

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CTE's avatar

“ fights over transgender rights” is completely based on the left framing of the situation. No wonder why this keeps getting harder and harder to come to agreement when we can’t even describe these issues without using a neutral frame.

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Atma's avatar

@CTE

Full truth in *that observation.

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Atma's avatar

@CTE

p.s. Full disclosure. I am neither "right" nor "left". What I *am is simply rabidly anti-stupid !

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madaboutmd's avatar

What's with all of the asterisks? Bizarre.

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Atma's avatar

They are just there to confuse and annoy you. How'm I doin' ? :-D

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madaboutmd's avatar

Interesting choice for participation! I'm pretty decent at finding a way to annoy you back.

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David Gosselin's avatar

Our public discourse has been so poisoned and flooded with false binaries and artificial ideas. It has become difficult to point out the very obvious parallels between antifa and the rise of Nazi Germany and its Hitler youth. The more our current society seems to drift towards outright fascism with forced medical interventions on the entire population, and street thugs in every neighborhood sent to intimidate those opposing the state's Orwellian program, the more people are attacked for making the comparison with Nazi Germany.

That's how we know something is up...

The economic and security situation has not even fully unraveled yet. The Too Big Too Fail Banks are still on QE life support thanks the Federal Reserve, repo-loans and "liquidity injections." What will happen once this thing actually starts to unravel and the economic situation dramatically deteriorates? What will be the role of these gangs in enforcing the fascist policies from city to city, neighborhood to neighborhood?

These kind of street thugs will be the controlled foot soldiers of the fascist apparatus that takes over the USA, unless it's stopped. The Nazis started off as a minority, but if you have 100 people, and even only 2 of them go around with guns and knives knocking on everyone else's door and threatening to burn their houses down or kill their family if they don`t shut their mouths and do as they are told, those two thugs are enough to create a reign of terror. It doesn't matter that they are relatively few, this is how the Nazis came to power as well. They had their thugs in every neighborhood who were so drunk on ideology that they had no problem killing those who they were convinced posed an existential threat.

Have we been subjected to so much astroturfing and so many psy-ops that people are now even afraid to talk about the parallels with what`s happening today and the Nazi takeover of Germany?

The intel agencies spy on everybody. We all know this. So does anyone really think they're not aware of what antifa does and how it operates? How many antifa members are FBI informants, or manipulated by shadowy intel operatives that we're not supposed to mention, lest we be labeled ''conspiracy theorists?''

The system has not spun into total chaos yet. I think people need to keep that in mind. What will be the role of these kind of groups as things really start to spiral out of control?

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Gnomon Pillar's avatar

"It has become difficult to point out the very obvious parallels between antifa and the rise of Nazi Germany and its Hitler youth..."

If the parallels are so obvious, why are they so difficult to point out? It has become difficult to point out the very obvious parallels between Bob's Hamburger Stand and the rise of McDonalds and Ronald McDonald. However, it's not that difficult to play pretend Rand Corporation Senior Analyst and reduce U.S. domestic issues to an Ian Fleming scenario.

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hierochloe's avatar

"street thugs in every neighborhood" I stopped reading here, since I definitely live in a different universe than wherever this is

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David Gosselin's avatar

I think you're overthinking what I wrote. There does not literally have to be "street thugs on every corner." It's a figure of speech. In reality, you really don't need street thugs on every corner, you just need coordinated operations in targeted areas.

When the Ukrainian Nazis took over Ukraine in 2014 and forced the president into hiding, they were not on every corner, but they were showing up at the offices of media personalities, elected officials, showing up at their houses, threatening to kill them and burn their houses down. That's how it works. You don't need that many people to do accomplish that. As economic conditions deteriorate and desperation increases, it becomes easier to radicalize and recruit people.

Antifa is not operating in a vacuum, it's part of an entire dynamic. The question is how will groups like this metastasize, splinter off into more radical cells, become more organized in certain regions etc...

Someone commented earlier that they feel real safe because Antifa isn't going to charge into their rural community... As if the entire country has to be occupied. It'a

silly and very shortsighted way to think. That's not how these things wors. If the entire fabric of a country starts coming apart, as it is in the USA, and key voices are silenced, and people are genuinely scared, who cares if you're tucked away into your little community?

That won't stop the country from falling apart. In fact, the chaos ends up only encouraging people to go into survival mode, which results in people no longer thinking about things on a macro level. This is how countries are balkanized and torn apart. Different groups and tribes just start fighting over guarding their small communities or isolated regions.

This is what Europe was before the Renaissance. There were no nations, it was a Europe of regions controlled by a small hereditary ruling class.

As I said earlier, historically, imperial powers and their intel apparatus always spawn a whole spectrum of anarchist movements, death cults, hedonists, and everything in between. Some end up being used for targeted assassinations or terrorist incidents, others just spread general fear and chaos, but it all plays into an overall dynamic.

Antifa is just one of the many Frankenstein groups created in this dynamic.

Hope that helps.

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hierochloe's avatar

"There does not literally have to be" XYZ. I'm not overthinking, just saying don't write over the top if you want more people to read a 500 word comment, especially not right at the beginning since it sets the stage for the rest of what you have to say. I'm sure we may agree on many points you made, but I'm not reading a 500 word essay of hyperbole or 'figures of speech', especially on this topic.

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Atma's avatar

@David Gosselin

Meticulously analyzed, and *beautifully written contribution ! I would counter a few points in person, but for the queue, this is near *PERFECTION ! Your well-balanced and trenchant writing is a breath of *fresh air in this milieu, not to mention a champion illustration for your "Age of Muses" endeavor !

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Thom Williams's avatar

🤔😜👏✌

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David Gosselin's avatar

I've posted this before, but this seems like a must read at this point.

''How the FBI Created Domestic Terrorism: 80 Years of Psychological Warfare Revealed'':

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/01/25/how-the-fbi-created-domestic-terrorism-80-years-of-psychological-warfare-revealed/

The FBI has a long history of supporting domestic terrorism. It would be out of the norm for them not to be in some way manipulating or infiltrating antifa in order to direct it towards their political targets.

A very bright light has to be shined on the relationship between Antifa and the intel agencies. All the history is there for those who care to know it.

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Gnomon Pillar's avatar

I've posted something similar to this previously, but at this point I must post it again:

"...The FBI has a long history of supporting domestic terrorism. It would be out of the norm for them not to be in some way manipulating or infiltrating antifa in order to direct it towards their political targets..."

Please jettison these whispy, Sherlock Holmes-like innuendo-ish declarations and why not replace them with some documented facts. Or Christ, just finding other sources than those loopy Canuck 'zines...

"...It would be out of the norm for them not to be in some way..." Clever, if irritating, grammatical construction (double-negative). Why not: It would not be out of the norm for them to be in some way...." Like Celia, “I cannot go no further" with you.

And please give the interrogatives a much earned rest:

The FBI has a long history of dropping houses on wicked witches. It would be out of the norm for them not to be in some way manipulating and infiltrating covens of wicked witches. The last witch to go after the FBI got a bucket of cold water thrown on her. Isn't it time we stopped asking if the FBI is a good witch or a bad witch?

You're language, though inelegant, is not ungrammatical....

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Thom Williams's avatar

🤦‍♀️💡👍😉

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Atma's avatar

@EA

Well said, Ethan. ;-D

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Thom Williams's avatar

✔🤷‍♂️👴

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Boris Petrov's avatar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9DbTimhVJc

DNC and YouTube protecting AOC-fraud

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David Gosselin's avatar

The only question I have is who do you think is actually coordinating/manipulating these kinds of movements? Or do you believe these are simply manifestations of organic sociological phenomena spawned by crazy intellectual debates?

The very organized and constant media amplification of very specific messages makes the latter sound like a pretty tenuous claim. Without the media amplification, we wouldn’t be having any of the debates we’re having, or they would be of a fundamentally different nature.

So who do you think is organizing and manipulating these debates and movements?

In the Frances Stonor Saunders book “The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters: The Cultural Cold War,” Saunders paints a very detailed picture of how involved the CIA and intel establishment was in the promotion of culture, aesthetic debates and the arts in the post war period. From Salon, The Paris Review, Encounter Magazine, and many many more, most of the major culture and art publications were in some way propaganda organs for the intel establishment’s ostensible fight against communism.

Ben Norton went through a good deal of this in his Moderate Rebels podcast a while back, “ How the CIA cultivates a fake left: From the cultural cold war to intersectional imperialism”:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rMap-6KxQJI

Those intellectuals and artists whose ideas were seen as useful for promoting a Cold War Capitalism vs. Communism narrative were funded, given a platform, published, brought to international art exhibitions etc…

This cultural warfare operation was coordinated using dozens of private family foundations, publishers and all sorts of corporate tools who were all to willing to be collaborators with the CIA.

The point is that very little of what we know as modern entertainment or contemporary culture is really organic at all. And there is plenty of evidence to suggest that today a lot of these operations are focussed on Hollywood, Netflix, Amazon Prime and the whole entertainment industry.

There are very specific narratives and messages being churned out through all these films and series which people “binge watch.”

My contention is that the same way Modernism and related intellectuals were promoted through covert intel operations (often without the artist or intellectual’s knowledge) back then, so too are much of the CRT and related useful idiots either witting or unwitting tools. The ideas are crazy, but the way the manner and sped with which they have managed to penetrate the boardrooms of the largest corporations, most established educational institutions, and corridors of government power indicates something very coordinated and sophisticated. It’s definitely not something that the Di Angelos and Kendi’s of the world would know how to coordinate and organize. People should play less mins to the ideas as such and more attention to how they are actually spread and coordinated.

Those who run psychological warfare at the top understand very well that if they are to remake America and the rest of the Western countries into the image of their brave new world, they have to erase history, they have to change how people see themselves and the narratives they live their lives by.

Film, television, literature are all seen as key battle grounds for advancing these kinds of agendas.

Culture, history, and art are all understood as key aspects that shape human identity on a societal and civilizations level. If you want to change how people think and act on a fundamental level, change their art, change their culture, rewrite their history. Then you won’t have to tell them what to do or what to think.

This isn’t new. This has been going on for decades. There is no reason to believe any of these kinds of mass culture psyops, going back to MK-Uktra stuff, ever stopped.

The current world of culture and entertainment suggests that all these operations have continued to this very day, and only intensified.

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Gnomon Pillar's avatar

This CIA/Cultural Arts shit was well-documented more than 50 years ago when people drove Ford Pintos and prepared cheese fondue for dinner. And is about as intellectually scintillating and politically alarming as 15 minutes of illegal backyard 4th-of-July fireworks. Spooks pushing Rothko and Rauschenberg on Latvian peasants is cute, but hardly breaking news. How about something fresh? You bloviated on this same theme in the same manner a few weeks ago. We all gave you a passing grade on that essay so let's try something new. Also, your persistent linking to your buddy Ehret's site constitutes excessive logrolling. Demerit issued. If it happens again, I'm afraid we'll have to ask you to pound the chalk out of the erasers on the brick wall outside on the playground.

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SH's avatar

I suggest that the first thing you do is change their language ....

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SH's avatar

Ha! Spiked magazine! Now we know where the Coronavirus came from! :D

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David Gosselin's avatar

You're right.

I think that's the point though: if we're talking about the trajectory, rather than just talking about what things look like in the present, the increased violence on one side will lead to an increasingly aggressive response on the other side. That's the point. That's how these kind of counter-intelligence operations work.

If you're an intelligence operative running psy-ops and trying to get the nation's institutions to collapse (why or who exactly is trying to do that is of course a longer story), then you're going to try to create just that kind of clash between various opposed groups. This is Venetian-style intelligence warfare. You get various sides to fight, sow different and contradictory ideologies, create total chaos, and then watch the thing collapse. Then you take control and move on to the "normalization" phase.

The Fives Eyes, of which the CIA is merely one node, is essentially the intelligence arm for the City of London and Wall Street merchant banking system. This is the same system that controls all the opium production and international drug trade, an operation that has essentially remained the same since the time of the British East India Company's opium trade, only now they have more legitimate outfits like HSBC and Wall Street banks to run the financial side of things.... It's essentially the same system going back to the time of Venice. It just happens to be the Anglo-American Five Eyes apparatus running the intel operations today. But these agencies remain in the service of the City of London and Wall Street. They do not represent any sovereign nation.

Anyone who believes they do is a damned fool.

Kennedy tried to disband and breakup these agencies because he saw what had taken them over. He got his head blown off. These are the same networks today. The US has largely been taken over by these interests, but it should be emphasized that the US is not actually any of these things, and was actually founded to oppose precisely the kind of system being run today.

The imperial financial and intelligence apparatus is essentially a slime mold, which operates through the world of finance, trade, intel, academia etc... Wall Street is in many ways not even American, but was run by the tory faction and loyalists who stayed behind after the British Empire lost the American revolution. These were the families running the drug trade, finance etc... Those pro-imperial families from that time constitute what may rightly be called the Anglo-American intelligence apparatus.

Kennedy was really the last one who really attempted to take these guys down.

If one really wants to get into the thick of what the history of this slime mold is, and how it operates to this day, the Montreal connection to the JFK assassination and the Permindex assassination bureaus paints a very different and very compelling picture of how these organizations are actually constituted, the mechanisms of action and control. It's nothing like what the dumb Hollywood movies portray. It involves private corporate outfits, law firms, academia, and a genuinely incestuous relationship with all sorts of key institutions and "think tanks."

"Montreal’s Permindex and the Deep State Plot to Kill Kennedy":

https://canadianpatriot.org/2019/11/22/montreals-permindex-and-the-deep-state-plot-to-kill-kennedy/

Long story short: I don't think we can really talk about antifa or any of these control opposition gangs, local control thus and anarchist cells without having a sense of the broader stage on which this is all unfolding.

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Boris Petrov's avatar

Facebook's Partner: The Atlantic Council (5 Frightening Facts) (rumble.com)

https://rumble.com/vleq6v-facebooks-partner-the-atlantic-council-5-frightening-facts.html

Facebook's Partner: The Atlantic Council (5 Frightening Facts)

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staceface72's avatar

Thank you, David, for your amazing contribution to this ridiculous comment section. You are a beacon of truth in this otherwise dark framework of delusions.

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Gnomon Pillar's avatar

Gosselin is one of the more ridiculous "parts" of "this ridiculous comment section," which should be thought of, really, as more of a theatre of the absurd. Trenchantly absurd. Gosselin goes the extra mile, though, providing hot winds of grandiosity with a thick lathering of absurd profundity that would be comfortably at home flowing from one of Pinter's more technicolor satires. Goldberg, perhaps, in "The Birthday Party."

"...All my life I’ve said the same. Play up, play up, and play the game. Honour thy father and thy Mother. All along the line. Follow the line, the line, McCann, and you can’t go wrong. What do you think, I’m a self-made man? No! I sat where I was told to sit. I kept my eye on the ball. School? Don’t talk to me about school. Top in all subjects. And for why? Because I’m telling you, I’m telling you, follow my line? Follow my mental? Learn by heart. Never write down a thing. No. And don’t go too near the water. And you’ll find—that what I say is true. Because I believe that the world…(Vacant.) … Because I believe that the world…(Desperate.) … BECAUSE I BELIEVE THAT THE WORLD…(Lost. He sits in armchair.)..."

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Atma's avatar

@aunt martha

Damn, "old girl", sit down and take a *load off !

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SH's avatar

@David

Who, precisely, takes control? Of what? and what does "normalization" look like?

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David Gosselin's avatar

Ah yes, the art of gaslighting!

Thank you for showing everyone how that works ;)

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hierochloe's avatar

"Calling increasingly totalitarian "anti-fascists" "Fascist" is super dumb, if not blatantly incompetent." so true, yet it seems to get deployed everywhere. I can barely converse with people that are this confused.

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SH's avatar

"People with subjective, mythic/spiritual values are hostile to objective, rational science and vice versa, ...."

Speak for yourself ....

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Atma's avatar

@SH

Yeah, sorry, *that particular pile of horse pucky stinks to clear out here !

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Atma's avatar

@e.pierce

Sure ! Why not ? At least I am in *great company, just in this country alone !

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Matt330's avatar

The one thing I would add was it did not just happen in Germany. Austria, Spain, Italy, and many countries of what would once become Yugoslavia had similar street fighting.

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Matt330's avatar

It was leftists, rightists, monarchists, anarchists, nationalists, separatists, liberals, and just about everyone else going at it. If you get the chance, I would recommend watching Time Ghost History's "Between the Two Wars." Now this may come as a shock to you, but most people who like to make parallels to early 20th century do not know a damn thing about it.

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Matt330's avatar

It is easy to forget now, but before the First World War most of Europe was controlled by monarchies and a lot of them we not even constitutional monarchies. Hell, pretty much all the sovereigns of the First World War were cousins.

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SH's avatar

"The paradigm shift from medieval mythic civilization to modern rational civilization broken all sorts of stuff, ..."

Indeed - much of which needs to be repaired .....

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David Gosselin's avatar

I'll keep saying the same thing. The FBI's role in controlling domestic terror cells and violent ideological groups is very well documented.

How the FBI Created Domestic Terrorism: 80 Years of Psychological Warfare Revealed'':

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/01/25/how-the-fbi-created-domestic-terrorism-80-years-of-psychological-warfare-revealed/

Anyone who still believes the FBI does more good than bad has been drinking a lot of Koolaid... A LOT.

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c.m.s's avatar

Familiarize yourself with J. Edgar Hoover's history of blackmail and manipulation and subversion of leftist groups including the raid on and death of Fred Hampton. This did not stop with him. https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/how-the-fbi-illegally-targeted-leftist-groups-in-dallas-11919822

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Thom Williams's avatar

@ e.pierce👍

Although I've done unauthorized "marginal" surgical editing, in most part your prose is pristine. "Familiarize yourself with the research on how mental illness closely corresponds to ideological radicalism and extremism.

Any anti-establishment "reform" movement that allows a bunch of socially marginal nut jobs to define its worldview is doomed, and that is mostly what the "left" has become, but the problem is not limited to the left."

However, there is an element of self degradation that seems to be presently "under development" within the Democrat left; cogently summarized in an Email from a friend.

"Today, in this time of biological and ecological emergency, the Democrats’ scientific brand has taken center stage again, reflected in an assertion that has become something of a mantra: “I believe in science.” The line is recited by political candidates and printed on face masks. It was said by the first American to receive the Covid vaccine after FDA emergency use authorization. It’s enshrined in the text of the “In This Household We Believe” lawn sign.

To political fellow travelers, its message is unmistakable: it’s a declaration of the intellectual maturity and independence from groupthink of the left-of-center. Yet in reality, it now portrays the opposite. The Democratic Party

has become the party not of science, but of fealty to the clerics of science. “I believe in science” has come to mean, “I do not question expert authority,” which is as antithetical to the scientific spirit as you can get. The more gravely the line is intoned,the more Orwellian it becomes."✔

EA

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c.m.s's avatar

As a graduate student many years ago, I did just that writing a doctoral dissertation in Social Psychology on the subject. The question is not whether they are nut jobs, but how this ideology became so pervasive and powerful. Cannot analyze that if you dismiss the participants as mere "nut jobs".

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SH's avatar

As Trump would say - "stand back and stand by"

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David Gosselin's avatar

You're right, but I think the idea should be to avoid a civil war type scenario like that. Arguably, the discussion should focus less on trying to critique and refute things like Critical Theory and all these insane ideologies and instead focus on whose actually pushing these ideologies from the top.

They are not grass roots in the same way most terrorist incidents in the USA are not the result of "lone wolf" attacks.

There have always been crazy CRT-type academics musing about how many angels dance on the head of a pin, but what agencies and by what means are the crazy ideologies propped up, promulgated, and amplified in the media?

The ideas themselves are not the enemy. There are and have always been crazy and radical ideas. The question is whose actually promoting them and how are they doing it?

The current CRT media narratives are literally play for play the kind of ideological subversion campaigns described by a former KGB defector, Yuri Besmenov. I don't for one moment think any of the CRT stuff is some weird Chinese or Russian psyop (The Five Eyes are a much more coordinated Western operation), but what this former agent does is lay out a basic formula, which will always be used in some variation by nefarious actors who are trying to undermine the intellectual and cultural foundations of a nation or people. He starts his presentation by simply laying out the basic tactics: portraying the cops as pigs, the criminals as heroes; discouraging studies in the hard sciences and practical subjects and instead getting people to study useless worthless subjects; undermining the faith foundations of a society and promoting alternative synthetic belief systems and ideologies.

https://youtu.be/Y9TviIuXPSE?t=0

Sound familiar? It's because it's a formula, which makes it easy to see once one can put a name on it.

With that said, I do think it's better to not get caught in the radical left vs. radical right, Antifa, Proud Boys, etc... The reality is that historically, imperial powers and their intel apparatus always spawn a whole spectrum of anarchists movements, death cults, hedonists, and everything in between.

Antifa is just one of the many Frankenstein groups created.

It helps to remember that the FBI not only has Antifa informants and Proud Boy informants, but has also had many terrorist informants, including individuals who were part of the terrorist cells from the time of 9/11.

If people can point these kinds or ironies out, the game is up for the masters of the universe lol. So yeah, the left/right thing is pretty dated. Antifa is just one of the many singularities that emerges as the Anglo-American slime mold tries to sow chaos and manage the collapse of their system, all the while trying to "contain" Russia and China.

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Atma's avatar

Yeah, but like the 1-6 mob, even *with their guns, we encounter a bunch of people who bought a gun, but almost none who ever faced an armed assailant willing to *shoot back. Plinking at paper targets may be the poor man's ego booster, but paper targets *are those "bad guys" that do *not shoot back.

And for the "former military" alleged to have been present for 1-6, remember that "former military" counts military potato peelers in chow hall, supply clerks, barracks cleaners, truck drivers who work behind the lines, etc.

MOST of the military never sees combat, even in wartime. By a generous estimate, if you have 20% combat troops, you have 80% "support troops" backing the 20% combat troops. So most of what we see in these riots are overgrown boys playing soldier. They use a gun as a substitute for manhood,

regardless of their age.

I can't wait to see them face off with active duty troops, of even just National Guard levels of training and experience. Then does bluster turn even further into dust. Owning a gun, and knowing how to *use it in combat, are two *very different skill sets !

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Atma's avatar

@M.AirR.

I see that you hew as tightly to the perceived point as to make the unkind reader mistake *you for "narrow minded".

Even though it was not *echoed in *precisely YOUR own words, I was ALSO talking about the "recreational" shooters who falsely believe that shooting at paper targets makes them "bad-ass" combat trained and experienced *troops !

My family owns a large ranch up in Wyoming. I have been obliged to "dis-invite" a LOT of poachers from our land at the point of a 12 gauge. But I was *never required to engage *any of them in *combat.

So, I say once *again, that *owning a gun, plinking at paper targets that *do not shoot back, and engaging in actual *combat with an enemy *slavering to shoot back and to kill you by any means possible ARE two VERY different skill sets.

Therefore, when the "bad ass" rural gun owner decides to "whip out" that impressive paper target gun, be *DAMNED careful of the KIND of people trespassing on your LAND ! I am warning against the FULLY mistaken faux confidence of the average paper target shooting gun owner against what *might be a combat trained trespasser. "Cuz I have myself have been *both at one time or another in my life. (Think SE Asia)

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David Gosselin's avatar

People need to know how incestuous the relationship between the FBI, intel agencies, and domestic terror really is.

The history is all there. We don't need to act like we don't know where this is going.

'

"How the FBI Created Domestic Terrorism: 80 Years of Psychological Warfare Revealed"

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/01/25/how-the-fbi-created-domestic-terrorism-80-years-of-psychological-warfare-revealed/

There are more than enough people opposed to this, but the light needs to be shined on the right places and with the right focus. The counter-intelligence response will always be to confuse the discussion and direct it into countless other less relevant issues.

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Dana Jumper's avatar

So, I'm a very much tired of commenters high-jacking Matt's writing. The same ones, the same comments, the same opinions, the same-old-same-old. Please, start your own Substack instead of stealing someone else's. But, I read thru the comments anyway, skip the commenters who add something to every other person's comment, as if they are the Matt Taibbi comment police, and look for the original real person who has something to say. And, you, real person, thanks! I like to hear what you have to say.

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Jonathan's avatar

A "block/hide user" feature would be an excellent enhancement.

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Atma's avatar

@Jonathan

That requires actual sophisticated programming. You're new, but you *do know you landed on Substack, yeah ? ;-D

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Antoine Doinel's avatar

The fault doesn’t lie with the trolls. They are what they are, they’ve been what they are for almost 20 years, and nothing is going to silence them or change them. They can’t help themselves.

The fault lies with Substack’s commenting system, which doesn’t allow us to block or mute them, and which nests hundreds of garbage comments underneath whatever comment has the most upvotes. It reminds me of the way the Washington Post comment sections were in 2002 (when I was a sweet summer child who still read mainstream newspapers).

I share your frustration, though. It’s clear that the comment section could be great here—there are smart and reflective people in every thread. But Substack does the standard internet thing, and drowns out every conversation with awful noise.

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Atma's avatar

@Antoine Doinel

And SOME commenters phase back and forth from absolute logorrhea, to *sublimely interesting commentary ! Most of us know to whom I refer ! One-size-fits-all "fixes", are rarely *either. Thanks for your post.

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SH's avatar

One man's troll is another man's delight :)

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SH's avatar

Hmmm - so how do you decide who the "smart and reflective" people are? And would you "block or mute" anyone you decide is not "smart and reflective", does it have to be both? And is any comment made by someone you don't consider "smart and reflective" not worth reading? Or vice-versa?

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Atma's avatar

@Mybrid

As you indicate, it is barely up to the bottom level of coding for this kind of an app. It allows for "message creep" such that a comment to one user quickly drifts down queue and appears to apply to another user. My small effort at combatting that problem is to address my comments as you see above. This will not stop the drift, and the originally intended target of the comment may *never see it, but it helps a bit when some other unsuspecting commenter sees my scrap under *their last entry. With the labeler, then, they have half a chance of suspecting that the "floater" comment was not originally intended for them.

This is clearly not satisfactory. Substack takes the cheapest possible software, apparently maintains it, but only on an "as needed" basis (no upgrades or improvements) and then just allows subscribers to "deal with it". Keeps overhead down, but makes users feel as if they are in a supremely sticky and grimy comment room somewhere beneath a big city subway.

With the number of worthy writers here on Substack, the software is an insult to *all involved in the Substack "service".

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SH's avatar

I agree on the dysfunctionality of this comment format which may be a major reason I eventually give up on Substack, as well ....

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Atma's avatar

@SH

Sad to say, but I completely concur. I don't need to waste my time wrestling with substandard, Substack software !

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Atma's avatar

@SH

Now, you *know that this comment was not issued to the last comment from e.pierce, yes ? ;-D ;-D

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SH's avatar

Oh, but I would miss you terribly - seldom have I had someone spend so much time responding to my "drivel" ...

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Atma's avatar

@Dana Jumper

So, on behalf of Matt, allow me to abjectly apologize for the fact that apparently *someone tied you down and *forced you to read the comment section. Else, you could have just *skipped the entire thing. But, victims are going whine. If you have problems with *this comment queue (and it *is mostly trash), I would not recommend the *second most well known contributor to Substack. I still enjoy GG's writing, but his comment queue caused me to just abandon his site. See ? Action over whining. If you are still *here, you are still finding *some value in exchange for your $50+ per year.

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Phil's avatar

GG's site has been ruined mainly by two people, but also the unwillingness of any "admin" to be the adult in the room.

I'm giving it until the end of this month, then I'm cancelling my subscription. I'm not going to continue to pay so spam bombers can ruin my experience.

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Atma's avatar

@Phil

Totally "get it". Yeah, kind of sad too, but that is where I found myself as well.

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Thom Williams's avatar

@ Atma - e.pierce - Phil - et al👍

I've been a fan of Glenn Greenwald's writing for over a decade, and Matt Taibbi as well, but it has recently been unclear WTF is going on in GG's media world lately. The last two video discussions he broadcast, from his new home-studio in Brazil, of him having basically hapless discussions with Tucker Carlson in the Fox studios, were posted on Rumble. The audio quality sucked, and Rumble does not provide closed captions. If y'all think the quality of the comments on SubStack are becoming a troll zone, try making it thru a Rumble comment queue; its all insanity. What if we formed a

Sub Stack Subscribers 💤 union and petitioned for a better format, to sort of test our activist bonifides?🤔

EA

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Atma's avatar

@EA

I was *totally "down" with GG even before his *very courageous work with Edward Snowden. Lately, however, I am really at a *loss to know why he now seems *such a changed person ! I mean, we are all older, but *yikes ! His Comment Q is just one endless swamp of *hard core Trump Acolytes, and, as we have discussed, nothing seems likely to be done to balance *that out a bit. The only thing preventing *this Q from getting *just as impossible to deal with, is the relative *positive quality of the membership ! I know people will perceive me to be joking, but I mean that sincerely. As "iffy" as THIS Q gets, it is *still infinitely preferable to GG's.

That is also a very precarious position to hope to maintain into the future. All we need is just a handful or *less of TOTAL jerkwads to ruin the overall experience. To spend my day constantly *confronting voluntary ignorance, writers with a room-temperature IQ, and *proud to be ignorant, gets *very old, *very quickly. To attempt to communicate with actual humans UNDER the constant din of the logorrhea such as I experienced over at GG's, it just does not take *long to "tank" these Substack queues altogether in the absence of any *kind of a "referee".

As mentioned, there remains the option of just reading Matt's essays, and avoiding the Q altogether, but I miss having the "total" experience too. So, we *could petition Substack as a business entity, and see how far *that goes. I hate to bother the authors with this kind of "nuts and bolts" maintenance that SHOULD come automatically from Substack, *especially looking at their robustly growing list of subscribers.

Just today I found one of my own comments, luckily brief, something like "nineteen miles" from the place at which I originally aimed it. I will agree with you to do this. I will *not just "bail" without finding a way to ensure that Matt at least gets wind of our concerns. But, if no one seems to care, then of course, *I am not "feelin' the Love" either !

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Thom Williams's avatar

@ Atma - e.pierce - Phil - et al👮‍♀️👨‍🦳👵👳‍♂️

Well folks, about 8 hours ago I thought I had properly replied to Atma's thoughtful insights above💡; and additionally concocted an unusually brilliant response to this omnipresent sidebar discussion regarding a sort of "SubStack suggestion box", form of subscriber activism. However, when I returned to home base just now from today's errands, and carefully threading my way thru both the masked and unmasked public, I made an ironically disappointing discovery; there was no remaining evidence of my brilliant prose.

So, as one of our silver-tongued Commander-in-Chiefs once said; "I'm fired up!"

As SubStack "PAID" subscribers we deserve to be provided normal

up-to-date posting tools and functions on this platform. An automatic 5 minute editing delay when posting comments, ideally with an automated spell-check, would be an excellent addition. There needs to be an "IGNORE" option button located on the subject line of every comment, to allow every paid subscriber to choose the substantive quality of the experience according to their own interests. This not a "DELETE", "CANCEL", "CENSOR" OR "HATE" systemic function, it is an individual quality of experience option. Like most other such tools, the choice to ignore can be easily reversed.

Standard composition buttons would also facilitate "underlining", "bold print", "italics" etc.🤔

💤🕉 Now, wouldn't that IGNORE button come in handy now?🤣

EA

p.s. If you still feel like reading something worth your time, try this.

https://thegrayzone.com/2021/08/24/propaganda-today-ben-norton-afghanistan-war/

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Thom Williams's avatar

@ e.pierce 👍

Evidently while I was banging out my 2nd attempt @ replying to Atma, you were posting this very informative comment. I wasn't aware of Tom Worster or his efforts to effect change, but your observations seem realistic to me,👴 a virtual Dinosaurian human clade who knows very little about arranging the 1's and 0's. I'm a complete disappointment to all three generations of my progeny where computing and its various appliances are concerned. It's probably an old acid flash-back from SDS days at the Quicksilver Times that got me excited about some Substack Subscriber activism; especially after the SS platform poignantly disappeared my artfully crafted comment. Anyway, it appears we agree about Rumble, so on that good note I will peruse your how-to-identify-bots-trolls citation. 💡By the way check out my citing of Ben Norton's new offering.

EA

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Atma's avatar

@e.pierce

Thanks for that input, yes !

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Dana Jumper's avatar

What??? Go away.

I guess you felt the need to call someone out...

"*someone tied you down and *forced you to read the comment section. Else, you could have just *skipped the entire thing. But, victims are going whine."

Additionally, please allow Matt to speak for himself if he chooses. I know you think you're clever enough to speak for him..."So, on behalf of Matt,..." but you're not.

I'm not your victim. You seem to complain as much as me about your loss of GG's column, so what is your problem.

Add you to the troll list. Still, I agree, Substack should do something about the comment section to allow us to collapse or mute people like you.

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Atma's avatar

@Dana Jumper

Perhaps a bit of a "refresher" on the way a comment queue works ? It is NOT a vehicle intended to allow you private and dedicated communication with Matt.

And, if it *were, perhaps you know that Matt is on vacation. So, either getting Matt's private URL, or writing to him "snail mail" style is the way to secure the "individual communication" with Matt that you seem to be under the illusion exists via the standard comment queue. TTFN !

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Dana Jumper's avatar

@Atma (h/t @SH) I am not the one that had any special communication for Matt Taibbi. My original comment was not addressed to anyone in particular; it was a general comment of how full of trolling Matt Taibbi's Substack has become, even though there are so many original comments that deserve consideration.

YOU are the one who chose to speak for him, and your quote is-- "on behalf of Matt..." Now you're gaslighting. As if I wouldn't notice.

I've seen your numerous comments on so many other peoples' comments. You clearly think you have relevance or special insight. Frankly, you don't.

My original comment was in no way a --your words "private and dedicated communication with Matt" it was a general comment on trolls like you.

My second comment was intended to send you a very strong signal that you are a troll, someone who feels qualified to call someone else out by your comments--your quote ""*someone tied you down and *forced you to read the comment section. Else, you could have just *skipped the entire thing. But, victims are going whine."

Thanks for your lessons on how comment threads work. Thanks for your glorious insight that I must be a victim. Thanks for your dozens of comments on everybody elses' comments. You are spectacularly insightful.

You clearly must be. You have so much to add to every comment.

My original response to you applies, and @SH, I can only hope you see why. @Atma, go away. You are a troll, and yes, I'm calling you out right here, right now, go away.

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Atma's avatar

@Dana Jumper

Good gawd, Ma'am my comment : "On behalf of Matt....." was *JOKING ! How freakin' resting face TENSE *are people today ? And, not to be *excessively rude, but I don't *care enough about a stranger on a comment Q to *bother spending my time "gaslighting" them. A good gaslighting takes some truly concentrated *effort ! ;-D

So, if you are cleverly "noticing" something that is not happening, that is just as likely *projection on your part as it is "gaslighting" on behalf of another.

All I want from *you, Ma'am is *AWAY ! Let's make *that happen !

Cheers !

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Atma's avatar

@e.pierce

Not to my certain knowledge, no. I was merely suggesting alternatives in "general".

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SH's avatar

Guess you, too " ... felt the need to call someone out ...."

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Dana Jumper's avatar

@SH (HT to you for teaching me that!), but I didn't. I specifically left my original comment that started this thread general, so as not to attack anyone. But, when I was called out, labelled a victim, I did respond, and maybe not my finest hour. Thanks to you for your thoughts on what was an interesting comment group from which I learned quite a bit, despite the unpleasant one.

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SH's avatar

@Dan Jumper - I learned that "trick" from Atma :) Amazing what one can learn from folks :)

The reason I posted that comment to which you are here responding is that, it seems to me, "Go away" is another way to stifle speech - I suspect, but don't know if, or how many (having no "citations" to back me up), there are folks out there that may be reading this stuff that have something they would like to say but don't because the "price" is too high for them - either money wise or because they figure they, too, will be told to "go away"

I am a rather persistent (fill in the blank with favorite epithet) - telling me to go away, or insulting me, doesn't usually work - as folks may have noticed :) - but for a lot of folks it may well - and I think maybe we need to hear from those folks, like 'em or not, agree with 'em or not ... it is surprising how often folks we may think of as "broken clocks" are right "twice a day" :D

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Dana Jumper's avatar

@SH, some speech can be stifled. This isn't a question of stifling dissent, or discussion, or insight, or knowledge, or understanding, or thoughtfulness, or even wondering, it is a matter of letting a troll know it is a troll. Do we even need to hear from trolls, endlessly, on almost every commenter's note, regardless of the troll's validity?

My newfound Substack friend, you ask too much of me! :-)

P.S. it's @Dana Jumper, not Dan, and it's my real name, and I'm a real person. Believe it or not, even on a social media type of platform.

Thanks, see you in the next episode.

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SH's avatar

Have discovered that starting a comment with "@ so and so" helps - especially in this very dysfunctional comment format - I was curious as to which "real person" you refer, but I couldn't figure it out :)

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Phil's avatar

"Please, start your own Substack instead of stealing someone else's"

ITA! Some of them do start their own sites, but since they suck ass they have no followers. Besides, it's so much more fun and easy to destroy someone else's.

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mkp's avatar

same old tired tactics. They use slogans and slurs to reinforce. Its boring,

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Jonathan's avatar

Unmoderated comment sections always veer right e.g. 4chan. Heavily moderated comment sections always veer left e.g. Reddit.

It's a ripe area for post-grad research. The how and the why are both interesting.

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Atma's avatar

@Jonathan

Of course, one obvious solution could be had by simply reading Matt's work, and skipping the comment queue altogether. To each their own. If one is *going to read the comment queue, however, it is good to remember that a trip in the pouring rain down a dusty, dirt country road does *not guarantee the traveler any complete guarantee as to complete absence of mud. If one cannot take the mud, avoid the country road in the rain.

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Jonathan's avatar

I quite enjoy the mud, when I have time for it! :)

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SH's avatar

Shucks, I consider going out in the rain my "wicked witch test" If i don't melt, I am probably not a "wicked witch", though some may well disagree :D

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Atma's avatar

Hello, e.pierce !

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Phil's avatar

GG's site suffers from the same malady, but to a much greater degree. With some rare exceptions it's become a collection of spam bombers and smooth-brained Fox News Fappers. I'm giving them both until the end of the month, then I'm gone. The $10 is better spent elsewhere.

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Thom Williams's avatar

@ Mybrid Wonderful😒

So, in your world, you're not really here commenting on the aforementioned "The noise to bandwidth ratio is not with the time."

Today's Useful Idiots was excellent.😜

EA

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mkp's avatar

He is all for not saying anything. He is all for not censoring, thats why these people do it. A verbal version of the video.

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Phil's avatar

Sorry, but that video didn't demonstrate much of anything to me other than watching what was, for the main, a bunch of disenfranchised miscreants amped up on Red Bull and social media.

If anything, the takeaway is that the Establishment loves to see this kind of wasted energy, since it successfully deflects most people's attentions from them, away from the actual cause of their misery.

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Boris Petrov's avatar

I agree -- more important is below:

Facebook's Partner: The Atlantic Council (5 Frightening Facts) (rumble.com)

https://rumble.com/vleq6v-facebooks-partner-the-atlantic-council-5-frightening-facts.html

Facebook's Partner: The Atlantic Council (5 Frightening Facts)

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Jonathan Epps's avatar

Is it any worse than the 60s? Far less worse for the lack of assassinations, fortunately. When I see videos of this violence, it looks like theater kids who no longer have an outlet, whose cosplay conventions have stopped because of covid met by young men who are frustrated with life, the culture, a lack of opportunities, etc. I don't mean to downplay our cultural struggles. There are many, some of which are quite threatening, but the violence, while in some cases bad, doesn't seem too pervasive.

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S.'s avatar

I was saying this to a friend yesterday who rolled their eyes at me, but I think there’s some truth to it. The pandemic and even to some extent the pre-pandemic political turmoil ended a lot of music scenes, arts organizations, amateur sports leagues. And it shut down the coffee shops, restaurants and bars where a lot of them earn their livelihoods. If I’m going to psychoanalyze a few of my friends and acquaintances, it’s easy to see so much of the violent energy among leftists as pent-up frustration due to personal failures, never hacking it in their art scene, aging out of it or being shunned due to the intense inner hostility of ‘left spaces’. From outside, the actual activities don’t look functionally different from the secret noise and punk shows they were organizing a few years ago, whether it’s wheatpasting posters, forming exclusionary cliques, making zines and other cultural artifacts, but where that other stuff was almost free of content, now it has a purpose, a politically righteous religious fervor to it.

Many of the most fervent of these people, at least the handful I know personally, forfeited a conventional path in their twenties and thirties to devote themselves to an artistic pursuit, or at least social status inside an art scene, only to see the importance or even existence of that scene evaporate fairly quickly.

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Jonathan Epps's avatar

It's a shame they lost those outlets. Young people need that sort of unhinged freedom to let out the demons--the pent-up frustrations of childhood--and become something new, then hopefully mature out of it. I have a lot of sympathy for the suffering of young people, but I have zero sympathy for their pathologies, for the social antagonism and hostility, as you said. They should be self-regulated enough to know better than to behave like mindless barbarians. Sadly, many of them do not. They do not seem to think about anything but their tragic little selves. They are self-immolating monsters, having none of the romance of the 1960s, none of the spirit (to say nothing of music and art), just all the grief and petty resentments. They do not flirt with nihilism; they are its very personification. For that, I fear for the future of the country, not this silly violence.

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Fiery Hunt's avatar

I'm VERY leery of the self-aggrandizing Boomers who think the 60's was some high point of music and art, let alone a clear-eyed peak of moral clarity.

It wasn't.

I'll go to my grave saying the goddamned self-involved Boomers started all this..... "We were ACTIVISTS who MARCHED!" who then became "Let's embrace the Stock Market and buy Mortgage-backed Securities and treat houses as investments!"

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c.m.s's avatar

Much of what happens today is a direct outgrowth of the movements of the 60s, from anti war, environmentalism, feminism, anti racist, sexual liberation, etc. Perhaps the biggest difference was that the 60s were about attacking the establishment which included the Democratic party and their war, the universities, businesses police and judicial systems, etc. The establishment responses were not tolerant, they turned to assassinations, jail, police beatings, banishment, economic and social ostracism, etc.. The Universities frequently called the police and, at times, the military to intimidate and physically attack those activists. However, the few academic radicals were mostly protected by an atmosphere which embraced the ideal of a full spectrum of opinions. The gamut ran from Jesuit Thomist philosophers to avowed Marxists. The diversity of opinion was protected, celebrated and mandated by academic norms. This variety of opinions was reflected among the student organizations and their open proselytizing. Now embassies fly LGBT+ flags and universities promote only leftist policies to the active exclusion of others. The 60s left ultimately failed because 19th century communes are not a true alternative to a modern economic system. While there were a few fledgling attempts at attempting to develop an economy based on a socialist model, that failure forced them to reenter and be subsumed by the Capitalist system in order to partake of modern necessities. The activists of today are much more immersed in a virtual world where the constraints of physical realities seem much less salient. But those constraints are still there and just as real.

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SH's avatar

"...in order to partake of modern necessities."

Aye, there's the rub "how did all these things become "necessities" - seems to me the only "necessities" for life are good food, water, clothes (where the elements require them) and shelter - the rest are, when all is said and done, superfluous - the triumph of the market economy, making wants into needs ...

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Jonathan Epps's avatar

The constraints are just as real, more potent too for the lack of their knowledge of them!

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Atma's avatar

@Mike

VERY elegantly, and accurately analyzed. Thank you.

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Fiery Hunt's avatar

Yep. Gonna agree with that historical readings...but it shortchanges the impact of the "just trying to give my kids every advantage my new-found stock market wealth can give!"

The PMC loves them some tax advantages.

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Jonathan Epps's avatar

I'm not a Boomer but late GenX, almost a millennial. I appreciate the spirituality and music of the 60s, especially when compared to this art-vacant era.

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Fiery Hunt's avatar

Gotcha...I personally find the vacuous "spirituality" of the 1960's to be the beginnings of this "reality is subjective" nonsensical time we're enduring.

PS Art died in the sixties... Post-modernists were the WORST hucksters. See Warhol, Johns, Rauschenberg and their offspring like Koons and Chihuly.

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Jonathan Epps's avatar

The far eastern spirituality became vapid in the hands of Hollywood stars, no doubt, but there was a longing for soul in the youth movement of that time, a real yearning for transcendence not seen since the American Romantic period of the 1830s-40s. That was real, and it came out in the music especially. I would agree a lot of the visual art is crap, and the literature was often a perversion of traditional form and voice, leading to nowhere, but there were some who were already on the scene before the 60s, especially de Kooning for visual arts.

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Atma's avatar

@Fiery Hunt

Full and total agreement there, but just because modern art and music (generally, not always) sux, is no reason to beat on the Boomers who knew how to *produce art and music. AND were blessed to DO so even *before we had Big Brother music corporations to tie us down, and screw us over. BB Corporations

are most likely WHY modern music *tends to the bland and the corporate.

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Atma's avatar

@Jonathan Epps

So, a member of the "youth" generations who is not merely indulging in knee-jerk, solipsistic, uninformed, and therefore risible judgement.

Kudos, Mr. Epps.

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Atma's avatar

@Fiery Hunt

Well, you could very comfortably go to your grave, or you could hope that you have *one unencumbered original thought waft thru your brain between now and that appointment with a dirt nap.

Failing that, you could locate and meet the MILLIONS of boomers who do NOT even remotely resemble the very trite and limited stereotype you present.

Best bet, tho is that little happens beyond airing misconstrued grievances, the main value of which is to allow one to feel like a martyr in life.

So, maybe that *is the apotheosis of accomplishment in life for some.

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Fiery Hunt's avatar

Oh, go fuck yourself, you grey twatted failure.

You can hold yourself in high esteem but history, nay present perspective finds

you and your generation guilty of blatant disregard of the future of humanity and generally wanting of any moral compass.

Die easy knowing you fucked up the world.

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Atma's avatar

@Fiery Hunt

Stay classy, firey, and just as TOTALLY incoherent as you are right now ! ;-D

Damn, dear, I think you spit on yourself !

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SH's avatar

Gotta agree - we turned from hippies to yuppies and fell in love with tech ...

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memento mori's avatar

Except that small bit about the draft and a mindless war they were forced to die for.

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SH's avatar

Ah the pluses and minuses of hormones ...

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Aug 21, 2021
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Jonathan Epps's avatar

Irony is its fruits are being plucked in a period and from a culture far removed from the suburban one that spawned it. You'd think we'd be laughing at it today. We should be anyway.

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HBI's avatar

Utterly agree. I don't understand why public policy thinkers haven't latched onto the destruction of this and a zillion other micro-communities via public policy as something that needs to be fought, if possible, more vigorously than COVID itself.

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HBI's avatar

Learning to lead is the other option, but I got lucky being the age I am and having better examples to follow in relative abundance. Wouldn’t want to try what I did today. Coding and leadership in combination has made for a fairly easy time of it.

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Aug 22, 2021
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Atma's avatar

Learning to code was an absolute *gut before Universities got their teeth into THAT, requiring four year CS degrees that were a PATENT waste of time. Two years tops, and even some of that would have been gratuitous "padding?" !

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HBI's avatar

Embedding CS in the math department was half the problem. I understand O(n) and that kind of thing as worthwhile to know, and boolean algebra and the like is interesting and useful, but mathematical proofs of algorithms are mostly a waste of time, mental masturbation. Some of the things they waste time with in CS programs are laughable.

And yes, I did the degree and did all the work, jumped all the hoops, and I still think it's partially useless.

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SimulationCommander's avatar

Now imagine how bad it will get when the free money stops and the rent starts being due again.

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Jonathan Epps's avatar

Yes. It could easily spiral and spread.

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Atma's avatar

@Johnathan Epps

I *fully hear you ! And, as for violence, there is not a participant IN the video who appears to have *ever been involved in an actual fistfight ! All that backing up and running away evokes second-graders in a sandbox.

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memento mori's avatar

I agree. The 60s culminating in the late 60s were far more violent. We're not even close yet in terms of the violence perpetrated during a lot of that decade.

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craazyman's avatar

True, but today’s society is so much more controlled through high tech surveillance, policing, security for prominent people — no JFK-style convertible rides — and even media/social media propaganda. The 1960s America had no fences anywhere. I think the energies now are slowly boiling but in a very different pot with a tight lid on it, and its probably much harder to predict the nature of the breaking points — should they occur. The mid-term elections could be a lightening rod for all this and we’ll have to see if it works as designed. Assuming there’s even confidence in accurate voting results.

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Jonathan Epps's avatar

Far more is less certain than it was or seemed then, agreed.

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Atma's avatar

@craazyman

Hard to believe that *many, if not *most people today, cannot *remember a time when the Globe was NOT smothered in a blanket of *overlapping, not to mention, overwhelming, Surveillance operations !

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c.m.s's avatar

The 60s violence of the left was aimed at property. Buildings when they were unoccupied or the occupants were warned to get out. The establishment's weapons were guns.

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Matthew's avatar

I’m not trying to be a Grumpy Gus, but is there any value in watching/spreading a streetfight between a couple idiots in some random town? It feels like this kind of shit tickles the same sordid parts of our psyche as watching Jerry Springer in the 90s did, only now people justify it by thinking it’s crucial to staying “informed”.

Is there any actual benefit to people’s lives to watch strangers fight like this? Do we even learn something valuable about how to treat our fellow Man because of this? This kind of stuff can only provoke hatred and meat-headed tribalism, IMO. The sooner people stop filming this shit and spreading it, the better. Christ, I miss the pre-social media days when I wasn’t being bombarded with “viral” videos of some bumpkin finally getting his comeuppance for being a dick for 3 minutes of his life on camera. Now everybody has to spread this shit and “create awareness” in tying sordid shit to whatever political/cultural point they want to make.

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John Corso's avatar

My favorite genre is fights between large people over gigantic televisions in Walmart and Target. It never seems to be Costco.

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Stxbuck's avatar

Costco are usually located in slightly more upscale burbs than Walmart or Target, imo.

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staceface72's avatar

I think there's a lot to be said for spreading awareness, but I also agree that it promotes tribalism to some extent. Back in Selma, the rest of country learned of the way Black people were treated because of photography. If people can't think critically about what they are seeing, that's their own damn faults and we shouldn't be censoring or keeping quiet all that is going on in this country.

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Thom Williams's avatar

@ staceface72

Where does @Matthew advocate "censoring" anyone or anything, or being opposed to "spreading awareness"? It read to me like he is suggesting that those who post pictures/photos and videos might try to "think critically" about what they are posting.

EA

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Janine's avatar

"She"'s an Antifa troll. Don't bother. She's picking fights up and down this conversation.

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Thom Williams's avatar

@ Janine🤣

Well, it appears that you nailed that call.✔

What tribe are you trolling for?

This grade "D" video could use a stupido Cat Fight.🐱‍👤

EA

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staceface72's avatar

'The sooner people stop filming this shit and spreading it, the better.'

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staceface72's avatar

And because of Matthew's contempt of all this "awareness", I'd say him saying that people should stop filming this means keeping what's happening hidden. i.e. censored. 'it read to you....' while it said to me, 'Enough with all this "creating awareness" because people who see it get all fired up about it.' People should be fired up about it. What I saw was a bunch of MAGAts threatening then beating counter-protestors who were backing away from them. How everyone sees "Antifa!!!!!!" is fucking beyond me. Mass Psychosis is tearing this country apart.

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Thom Williams's avatar

@ Duff

I'm trying to organize a Cat Fight. I think you would be the perfect referee. Everything goes but running around the pool...and biting.🐱‍💻

EA

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Matthew's avatar

I think everybody has a different idea of “what’s going on in this country” though and ultimately it leads to:

1) Warped perceptions (ACAB, the South is just a bunch of racists, Chicago is a gang warzone, etc)

2) An accumulation of noise that pollutes people’s minds and even if you’re watching with a critical eye, this kind of stuff gets to you in one way or another.

From that noise of competing views, people can freely & conveniently find examples for whatever grand argument they want to make in favor of political movements that (IMO) end up having very grotesque ends (not to mention the means by which they’re achieved).

Lastly responding to your point about Selma, I think it’s important to think about what *actual* good it does for somebody in some other state/country/continent to be hooked into the pain and suffering in the South when they have zero control over what goes on there? This week has been an all out barrage from people trying to drum up precious awareness for the plight of girls/women in Afghanistan. This manufactures consent for wars and corporate expeditions in the name of Civilization and all this suffering being beamed directly into people’s heads just makes people feel more sick and powerless (except for authorizing wars and other forms of aggression). I think too many people have gotten it in their heads that if you avoid the daily tragedy & injustice dump the News has become, that you’re just selfish or something, and that’s such a corrosive line of thinking that only leads to everybody blaring out their traumas every waking moment.

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Atma's avatar

@Matthew

While I soundly agree that *most people are spending too much time *reinforcing their own terror and personal paranoia *daily watching the daily Bad News dump, I think you must be young, or just stunningly naive to ask the rhetorical question:

"Lastly responding to your point about Selma, I think it’s important to think about what *actual* good it does for somebody in some other state/country/continent to be hooked into the pain and suffering in the South when they have zero control over what goes on there?"

So, believe it or not, I DID do a bit of cogitatin' on *JUST that subject.

Had it *NOT been for the footage of that Caliban-level human Bull Connor setting attack dogs and fire hoses on Blacks in the South, people in the North would *NEVER have believed that such shit actually went ON *ANYWHERE in the USA!

What you now seem to be recommending is to allow that 'velvet veil of secrecy' to once again descend upon the horrors of the South. If that footage had *NOT made it up North, the entire Civil Rights Movement would have died at the end of a lynching noose ! People in the North were not, and ARE not free from racism, but I don't EVER recall being invited to a "good ol' lynchin' on Main Street" as a matter of community bonding, and just one *helluva good ol' time ! "We'll take pitchurs ! Make 'um into *postcards ! Don' be late !"

So, what people would *actually benefit from, rather than MORE censorship,

even in the form of SELF-censorship, would be self-control and sensible balance. They NEED to know what is going on, to the best of their ability to *determine what *that can possibly be, thus my example above. One can learn to "read between the lines" of this prevailing propaganda with some practice. The Russia people have been doing it forever. Once done, however, the next most healthy move is to turn the propaganda machines OFF and to go about one's day.

It promotes only ignorance to just hide under the bed. I might point to the fact that burying one's head in the sand does not even truly "work out" as a survival strategy for the Ostrich !

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Thom Williams's avatar

@ Atma👍

Hmmmm, waxing Shakespearean are we🎭, comparing the mega racist/segregationist Bull Connor to Shakespeare's Caliban; an apt poetic equating, even considering the additionally immoral *connotations to Connor's being the Birmingham Commissioner of Public Safety while "setting attack dogs and fire hoses on Blacks" during the time of the marches in 1962-63.

However, these events precluded the march on "Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965, some 600 civil rights marchers headed east out of Selma on U.S. Route 80. They got only as far as the Edmund Pettus Bridge six blocks away, where state and local lawmen attacked them with billy clubs and tear gas and drove them back into Selma."

My point earlier, replying to staceface72, was in the context of the current (2021) *selfy-oriented cyber/social media, and commercial media mindless wild west shit-show, there is very seldom ever any reason or wisdom evident in what is publicly presented; it is mostly just useless "clickbait".

Her contextually conflating the historically important documenting of an event that occurred almost six decades ago, long before the advent of the internet, cell phones, personal computers, *etc., and trying to employ such an absurdly out-of-context example/ploy to support an equally absurd claim that I, or the commenter I had replied to, "Mathew", was advocating censorship. Of course, neither of us were. The mutual thought we were trying to convey was for people to actually employ the human power of reason to thoughtfully decide what to depict and display and print and say on any public venue. That to me, is the best way to put an end to the "SHIT SHOW" that modern audio/visual media has predominately become.

Regarding "The South" my little hometown, on the gulf coast of northern Florida, is ~200 miles from Selma, Montgomery, and Birmingham, Alabama. I am intimately aware of the historic and human importance of what John Lewis, Martin Luther King, and the other of the 600 marchers did on the Edmund Pettus Bridge March 7,1965; they are the human faces of this monumental human accomplishment.

"Work is love made visible."KG

EA😎

`

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Atma's avatar

@Ethan Allen

Beautifully rendered, and impeccably well-thought-out post as usual.

You are correct regarding Shakespeare's character Caliban, mostly in the connotation that Caliban was half-man, half beast.

What I was attempting to communicate to Matthew is that his query regarding (to paraphrase) who *really needs to know what goes on in the South, made sense in the context of his use. Just like who *really needs to know about Earthquakes in other parts of the Earth, IF that knowledge is going to make the media viewer go into *personal anxiety. I agree with that.

What I was attempting to illustrate for Matthew, however, is that such "one size fits all" observations frequently do *not "fit all", and that a comment made in context and in kindness can be *easily misconstrued and abused in *another context.

This is why many students of Logic also benefit from classes in *Rhetoric. It is wise to have some idea of the way one's comments are *likely to affect an entire audience. If one is speaking to a small church gathering, that problem is not a heavy consideration. Conversely, if one is addressing a National audience made up of all ages and walks of life, such as represent Matt's queue, then a writer often benefits from widening the "scope" of how comments are going to "fall upon" his general audience.

Just a general "heads up" for Matthew.

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SH's avatar

Problem I see is that if one attempts to tailor one's comments based on what is "likely to affect" an audience "made up of all ages and walks of life" - it seems to me one winds up - pablum ....

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Thom Williams's avatar

@ Atma🤔

My academic, and resulting life-long pursuits, were a major in Cultural Anthropology and minors in Archaeology, Philosophy and Sociology. Presently, I pursue that which I remember to do,

loyally assuming that Tom Robbins, declaring at the end of his novel "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" that; "There are two important parts of life, everything is part of it , and it is never too late to have a happy childhood."

If more people, at the beginning of their quest for knowledge, devoted some early focus on the understanding and use of the natural power of human reason, much of the sadness, kaos, and disappointment in life could be avoided.

"Work is love made visible." KG

😎

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Atma's avatar

@EA

BTW, Ethan, I *watched the march over the Edmund Pettis bridge on B&W TV when I was in High School. I also watched the *endless LOOP of the Kennedy Assassination on *color TV as a high school sophomore. I watched the straight-up *murder of Oswald by Jack Ruby at home on B&W TV with my toddler brothers playing on the living room. At the time, Ethan, I was of the *solid opinion that "your South" had some freakin' 'splainin' to do !" :-O :-O

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norstadt's avatar

I learned that the black block "fighters" tend to wear helmets, which is pretty lame if you understand hockey brawls. I'm also pretty sure the anti-penis-in-a-girl's-changing-room and anti-mask people would have been content to just chant their slogans and wave their signs, but that wasn't allowed. So yeah, I did learn something.

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Matthew's avatar

I get that, it feels like a “know your enemy” or at least “know what you’re up against” learning experience, but it also feeds into rapid escalation of conflict based on a situation that *may* be a reality in Portland (or wherever) but is it actually relevant to the situation where you live? It feels like this shit just only leads people in one direction and it’s the path of drawing lines and then militancy... I’ve seen so many friends get consumed with their causes and lines in the sand based on what’s been forced onto them and into their heads from media, I just can’t help but feel like things would be better if people just tuned all that shit out and stopped looking at this shit.

I know it sounds like I just want everybody to stick their heads in the sand but I don’t think people were meant to ingest all the awful shit being perpetrated globally on a daily basis and the digital age is what’s made that come to pass even far beyond what TV did. I don’t think there’s any shame in living in the present, tangible reality and shunning all else as noise. (*He says, on a comment underneath a globe-reaching platform* hahaha)

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norstadt's avatar

The dynamics of protests, how they grow or are shut down, are enormous forces throughout history. It's certainly more interesting than a lot of news.

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Atma's avatar

@Matthew

Yeah ! So remain ignorant of developments in Portland, and just RELAX ! Especially if you live in, say, *SEATTLE ! Great strategy, Matthew. I get your basic point, and it is KIND, but just *pathetically naive ! Give advice for people living in the actual 3-D world, or just hang up your "spurs" as a self-appointed counselor.

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Matthew's avatar

I think it’s a weak cop out to just dismiss counter arguments as “naïve”, as if only I had as much wisdom as you then I’d agree with you.

I think calling somebody naïve for remembering how daily life was far LESS shaped by remote world events for all of human history pre-digital age & pre-TV is also stupid.

I think calling people ignorant is a way to justify your own obsession and addiction to up-to-the-minute global news updates for things that don’t actually matter or affect you other than how you’re being told they should affect you. I recommend getting a real hobby like writing poetry or woodworking.

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Atma's avatar

@Matthew

You make many good points with which I fully agree. What strikes me as *naive, is that, as much as we ALL might like to, there is NO going back to the way the world was *prior to "XYZ". The *world is *not going to reverse into a previous time to please the inhabitants of the planet. Just not the way things physically work.

The human is obliged either to adapt or die. Harsh, but Darwin was not attempting to coddle emotions, he was simply spelling out the "mechanisms" regarding the way a species either continues, or does not.

FYI, all of your protesting about being called "stupid" "ignorant" etc. is clearly a matter of your own projection. I *used the word "ignorance", but it was not directed at you. If you chose to read it that way, that is your own reading bias.

The use of the word "naive" (which, BTW, does *not mean "stupid") is one that I will stand by. Closing our eyes "real tight" never has been a way to change the world.

And thank you for your concern, I have been writing poetry for decades now. Hasn't changed the Laws of Physics one scintilla.

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SH's avatar

@Atma (btw, I think it is a good idea to put the @ so and so at the beginning of a comment - I think, in addition, it would be good to give each comment a # so that we could say @so and so #)

Anyway " ...there is NO going back to the way the world was *prior to "XYZ". The *world is *not going to reverse into a previous time to please the inhabitants of the planet. Just not the way things physically work. ..."

Not so sure that i agree - perhaps it's true in a point by point, second by second, sense, but, as they say, though history doesn't repeat itself, it rhymes, something i suspect a poet like yourself would appreciate :) As for "time" - considering that, like so many other things, it appears to be a "social construct", and that the past, present and future contain each other - that it is not "linear" (I think NA consider the circle, to be the appropriate metaphor, where the perimeter is everywhere and the center is nowhere - did i get that right?) but circular or cyclical - As to the way things "physically work" I think that quantum mechanics is throwing a monkey wrench into the current conception of how they do ...

I suspect that the world has gone back to the way it was a number of times, and will continue to do so - forever and ever, alleluiah, alleluiah, Amen! - until our sun goes all ka blooey in a few billion years - and even then there will be other worlds ....

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Atma's avatar

So, hockey players do not *also brawl in helmets ? Girls should *not be required to put up with dongs in their changing rooms. Got any daughters ? That is not even a question of "politics", that is a question of "class", decorum and common sense.

Girls, like *regular humans, have a basic RIGHT to personal *privacy !

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Aug 24, 2021
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Atma's avatar

@e.pierce

Know by now, Sir, that I do not give a "care" what ignorant bastards have to say. This is just a matter of COMMON sense and COMMON courtesy. These new-grown foundlings cannot even *spell "MANNERS", much less define the word, and they think that "courtesy" means a bow that a female makes in front of the QUEEN! ;-D

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Aug 25, 2021
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Atma's avatar

@e.pierce

Well, that which cannot be avoided, yet *will come, yes. Life itself is a dangerous undertaking, and *not for the faint of heart ! ;-D Speaking for myself, we would not *want a life spent hiding under the bed, or living in a "bubble". So, what *will come, *let it come ! Yes.

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SH's avatar

Amen ...

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Douglas Marolla's avatar

Our elites, who love this stuff, have obviously read "The Gallic Wars" by J. Caesar. In that book, written by a dead white man, he gives you chapter and verse on how to divide and conquer.

The proles had that book taken out of the curriculum decades ago (dead white men, CRT, you know the drill). At the top, they still read it, as you can see in the video.

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Boris Petrov's avatar

Roaming Charges: When the Empire of Graveyards Falls in the Graveyard of Empires

Roaming Charges: When the Empire of Graveyards Falls in the Graveyard of Empires - CounterPunch.org

https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/08/20/roaming-charges-23/

BY Jeffrey St, Clair – Aug. 20, 2021 – IMPORTANT: This is incredibly well written !!!

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HBI's avatar

So I watch this video and my viewpoint is this:

This is the same crap that happened in Russia in 1917 and Germany in the early 1930s.

It's exacerbated by the COVID thing; people are unemployed or underemployed, have no social lives and instead are doing this crap. That doesn't make it not dangerous, it's just the explanation for it. In the past events, people were unemployed or underemployed because of war or economic depression and the situation was exacerbated by hunger and famine. Goes to show that government transfer payments aren't fixing the problem and the yawning social gap is having real, appreciable harm.

About who is engaged in this, who cares really. The Antifa types existed in both of the above; as did right wing opponents. Who won varied based upon their leadership. Put a Lenin or a Goebbels in place, either side could 'win' and impose their own totalitarian solution.

My response: arm myself (already done) and hope that this is over soon. The real problem is the non or sub-par functional society. Fix that and this recedes into the background.

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Thom Williams's avatar

@ HBI💡 & MM3H👍

It tweaked my interest when I came across HBI's observation that>>

"The real problem is the non or sub-par functional society. Fix that and this recedes into the background."

To me, the current conflict, depicted in the topical video and accompanying text, between two minor almalgamated fringe elements, does not represent anything close to a majority of our population. They are both, to differing degrees, extremist in both their beliefs and actions; which can and do, on occasion, illegally employ violence, destroy property, and disrupt lawful peace and order. Herein, possibly somewhat narcissistically, it is often speculatively assumed that these fringe factions are far more reflective of our society writ large than could ever be factually established; this is, of course, because such idle tormented assumptions are mere products of magical imagination.

Like MM3H I was enticed by the statement>>>

"The real problem is the non or sub-par functional society." While the dysfunctional elements within our society are many, and some do require urgent attention, the required solutions to any of these societal problems is not going to be aided or abetted by any of the very dysfunctional fringe elements that represent only a small part of those very societal problems. One of the many advantages we have in our society is that even the extremist fringes can give voice to their wildest and arcane fantasies, in the name of their Constitutional rights to address their grievances; and the rest of us, thus, have the advantage of being made aware of just how unhinged some of our fellow citizens are becoming, and can therefore try to prevent them from harming themselves or anyone else.

Regarding HBI's closing thought>>

"Fix that and this recedes into the background."

Considering the ongoing disruption the pandemic is causing in almost every function of ours and the global society, I suspect that it and much else will require a "Fix" (no pun intended😉) before the tide of fringe discontent "recedes into the background."

{Sorry folks if this screed is a tad scattered, I've been looking after my great granddaughter💖 for the past few hours, while trying to piece some thoughts together.🤞}

EA🐱‍👓

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HBI's avatar

So I take it you don't think encouraging people to act as they did pre-pandemic will be enough. Perhaps. But something along those lines is going to be required here. "Outreach", though I dislike the word in its usual contexts, is going to be something we will have to do.

Unifying bread and circuses will be another thing. I also dislike that under normal circumstances but watching this pandemic in action convinces me that there is a great deal of wisdom in the old sayings. People are just not prepared to consume their own time efficiently. A trail of breadcrumbs is required.

Anecdotally, my wife and mother in law are upstairs watching a Trump rally. Just as divisive as the mass media is, and dispensing an equal quantity of untruth. These fever swamps aren't going away without unified action, though.

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Boris Petrov's avatar

Facebook's Partner: The Atlantic Council (5 Frightening Facts) (rumble.com)

https://rumble.com/vleq6v-facebooks-partner-the-atlantic-council-5-frightening-facts.html

Facebook's Partner: The Atlantic Council (5 Frightening Facts)

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Aug 21, 2021
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HBI's avatar

Most people aren't doing the social things they would do sans COVID. That's what I mean.

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Aug 21, 2021
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HBI's avatar

We had a problem of polarization before COVID, but that's not amenable to being fixed right now. It'll take years. I'd ban social media (for creating echo chambers) but i'm very black and white in my solutions.

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Dave5017's avatar

Amen. I’m pretty much opposed to governments banning anything, but social media is an exception for me. It’s unique combination of disgusting surveillance capitalism, addiction algorithms, and propaganda dissemination is one of the most unsavory and dangerous things in society today.

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HBI's avatar

I'm not a huge fan of government bans either. In fact, I think this is the first one i've advocated in a long time, 30+ years at least. But it's everything you say and harmful to society in all timeframes.

Wouldn't it be ironic if Trump's (mis)use of Twitter turns out to be instructive (perhaps even helpful) in getting rid of this? One can hope.

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Aug 21, 2021
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HBI's avatar

You have to admit that Facebook isn't exactly concentrating on dividing Myanmar/Burma. They're probably just making sure they aren't banned there. The number of people working there (using them as a stand in for the rest of the social media companies) who understand the fault lines of politics in that country are minimal. Not the same for the US.

Imagine the Chinese response if a social media provider tried to divide their populace? You hardly need to imagine, Facebook and Twitter are blocked there. Russia?

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Aug 21, 2021
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HBI's avatar

Sold. They are too powerful anyway.

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Dave's avatar

I moved to Asia shortly before Trump took office and have been here ever since. I largely ignored news coverage during all the Russiagate nonsense and endless hyperventilating over Trump's tweets. Then I tuned back in during COVID in what turned out to be a fruitless attempt to figure out what was going on. Then Floyd got killed.

And I realized pretty quickly that, while I was away, you all had completely lost your damn minds. At this point, I don't see a path towards restoration of any semblance of sanity. It's just going to keep getting worse. These street battles are going to grow. The homeless population is going to continue to balloon. I don't know what the endgame here is other than civilizational collapse. It's just a question of what that collapse is going to look like.

We keep looking for technical and policy solutions to problems that are in fact psychological and spiritual. America's collapse is a psycho-social phenomenon.

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Nicolas Léonard's avatar

How about technology is inducing psychological and spiritual problems, but we're all completely addicted to the technology so we can no more quit than a junkie?

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Atma's avatar

@Nicolas Leonard

POWERFUL post. Your point is excellently taken, from cell phones pressed up directly to the human brain, often for hours at a time. Even worse now, this insane 5G vibrating in the range of no-kidding *microwaves, and *also being aimed directly into the human brain.

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Aug 23, 2021
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Atma's avatar

thanks, e.pierce !

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Jim Trageser's avatar

Pretty sure if you're wearing all-black outfits with jackboots, carrying weapons, and trying to attack other people for disagreeing with you, you're only half-right in claiming to be "anti-fascist" ...

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Running Burning Man's avatar

For all the macho bluster of folks on both sides, they fight like pansies. Seriously.

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