It can be dangerous to be black and a legal gun owner in America

lithy said:

Fuck a multiquote.

One man's riot is another man's revolution. I think the targets are important though if you intend a revolution. I don't think looting and burning area Target stores sends a message to the police.

Which is somewhat why I asked about leadership. I'm not attempting to associate all protesters with looting, I know that is not the case, but I would like to know what leadership there is because organization and messaging will be important to affect change. Right now, that seems a bit lacking, but it could just be biased news coverage...

I do think maybe a large, organized, and contentious but peaceful protest could and should have armed citizens among them.

Click to expand...

lithy said:

Fuck a multiquote.

One man's riot is another man's revolution. I think the targets are important though if you intend a revolution. I don't think looting and burning area Target stores sends a message to the police.

Which is somewhat why I asked about leadership. I'm not attempting to associate all protesters with looting, I know that is not the case, but I would like to know what leadership there is because organization and messaging will be important to affect change. Right now, that seems a bit lacking, but it could just be biased news coverage...

I do think maybe a large, organized, and contentious but peaceful protest could and should have armed citizens among them.

Click to expand...

Lagduf said:

Only way someone is getting off is if the Jury is made of good ol boys.

Click to expand...

Evil Wasabi said:

Wow, you missed the opportunity to plug in “boogaloo” when talking revolution.

And whether or not you are into that, idk, but the point I want to make is that this is the boogaloo starting up for some of those folks.

Click to expand...

Lagduf said:

The boogaloo is for idiots, yes.

Click to expand...

lithy said:

Is that counting me?

Click to expand...

LoneSage said:

I've spent the past hour looking up information about the riots. The whole time I kept thinking, "Man, sure would be nice if they lit the police station on fire instead of all the shops."

But then I instantly remembered, oh wait, they'd get slaughtered.

Click to expand...

LoneSage said:

Do you think a civil war will happen in America soon, though?

Was a bad move to hero-ize people who fought to keep black people as slaves, in hindsight. I remember learning about 'state's rights' when I was a kid in Virginia.

Click to expand...

Lagduf said:

Well I heard they just looted and burned some USPS Trucks.

They’re fucked now.

Click to expand...

Lagduf said:

We won’t be calling the real revolution the “boogaloo” - it’s just crass.

Click to expand...

Poppy said:

Why do those abortion survivors take things I enjoy and co opt them? Boogaloo, the ok-sigh, kek (that shit was so fun as a 2005 WoW meme)

Click to expand...

Orwell said:

...The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics’. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer. I should expect to find — this is a guess which I have not sufficient knowledge to verify — that the German, Russian and Italian languages have all deteriorated in the last ten or fifteen years, as a result of dictatorship.

But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better. The debased language that I have been discussing is in some ways very convenient. Phrases like a "not unjustifiable assumption," "leaves much to be desired," "would serve no good purpose," "a consideration which we should do well to bear in mind," are a continuous temptation, a packet of aspirins always at one's elbow. Look back through this essay, and for certain you will find that I have again and again committed the very faults I am protesting against.

Click to expand...

...Afterward one can choose — not simply accept — the phrases that will best cover the meaning, and then switch round and decide what impressions one's words are likely to make on another person. This last effort of the mind cuts out all stale or mixed images, all prefabricated phrases, needless repetitions, and humbug and vagueness generally. But one can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I think the following rules will cover most cases:

i. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
ii. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
iii. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
iv. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
v. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
vi. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Click to expand...

lithy said:

Eh, Grant welcoming back the defeated and showing them honor as countrymen is up there with Washington turning down the opportunity to be dictator for life at the end of the revolution in my book of important American turning points.

Sure, there were still plenty of other problems to fix, letting people honor their war dead is not up at the top for me.

Click to expand...

SML said:

I remember someone here posted a "Fashwave" youtube video and one of those websites (stormfront or daily stormer or something like that) did itself up in a 80s neon theme. Later one of those websites declared itself the "#1 PewDiePie Fansite" when he was in the news for nazi jokes.

I remember an article arguing that fascists have no culture of their own, and have to appropriate culture (lol, cultural appropriation) to give themselves relevance and legitimacy. I mean, that goes all the way back to the adoption of the fasces itself, of course, but it's so much faster and more pervasive now that memes and social media are the primary form of public discourse.

The trend with memes (once "vital" and provocative, now exhausting and near-meaningless) seems to be share the essential features Orwell raised with trite language and jargon in "politics and the English language."





What are memes if not "prefabricated" forms of expression? How often are they used to mask meaning or obfuscate the sincere feelings of the person using them? How often are they used to sidestep criticism? (You have a problem with what what I posted? You just don't "get" memes or meme culture.)

I've probably quoted that shit before. I don't care. It's a good essay.

I said it before, obliquely, when I was comparing eclypse's "freezer posts" to the way DNSDies hedged his statements by maintaining the pose of someone who was always, on some level, just in it for the lulz. NeoTheranThrope (anyone remember him?) was the exact same way. It's not a coincidence that they both loved to argue using memes. Aside from providing a coward's exit when you start to lose the argument, they provide a very convenient way to hold and exchange contradictory beliefs as needed, which is really helpful if you've decided to be subsumed into an authoritarian movement.

In conclusion, the new dark ages ate my balls. :keekeekee:

Click to expand...

Evil Wasabi said:

Did Grant show them honor, or respect? There’s a difference in letting someone maintain their dignity and honoring them.

Click to expand...

U.S. Grant said:

The war is over, the Rebels are our countrymen again, and the best sign of rejoicing after the victory will be to abstain from all demonstrations in the field.

I propose to receive the surrender of the Army of N. Va. on the following terms, to wit: Rolls of all the officers and men to be made in duplicate. One copy to be given to an officer designated by me, the other to be retained by such officer or officers as you may designate. The officers to give their individual paroles not to take up arms against the Government of the United States until properly exchanged, and each company or regimental commander sign a like parole for the men of their commands. The arms, artillery and public property to be parked and stacked, and turned over to the officer appointed by me to receive them. This will not embrace the side-arms of the officers, nor their private horses or baggage. This done, each officer and man will be allowed to return to their homes, not to be disturbed by United States authority so long as they observe their paroles and the laws in force where they may reside.

Click to expand...

Lagduf said:

Third degree murder and manslaughter are the charges against the officer.

What possible charges for the other three, if any? Manslaughter?

Click to expand...