To put it mildly.
Reminder that this is the emblem of the US National Sheriff’s Association:
Note the symbol in the middle of the shield.
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Well, that symbol also appears above the Senate House rostrum.
There are historical reasons why American institutions of law use the ancient Roman fasces as a symbol. Technically, a sheriff’s association should be showing the bundle without the axe (since they’re domestic magistrates), but the symbolism wouldn’t be as clear (and, if they care about history, they want to make a statement with the axe).
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That’s the House of Reps, I thought.
Note that those carvings aren’t some bit of archaic iconography that predates modern fascism. They were added in 1950.
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You’re correct. Fixed above.
You can also see the fasces on the wall pre-remodel, famously and ironically in the photos of FDR declaring war on Japan (e.g. on the middle left in this photo):
A clearer photo here:
The House used the fasces to represent its sergeant at arms (i.e. its protector) starting in 1789. The symbols we see there are replicated all over American government architecture, and aren’t declarations that the U.S. is a fascist state.
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I think this paints a little too politically one sided- it might have just been my particular vantage point, but it was kind of a big deal that they were targeting university research, not just logging. This did not ingratiate them with the academic side of society.
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This is very much “careful what you wish for”, and why I wish looking at mechanisms down the road were more important than This Issue Right Now.
Whenever there is x and y and x is treated worse than y, it’s important that x be improved to y, and not degrading y until it is x. Domestic left wing political groups have been treated shitty here since forever and it’s frustrating to hear progressives of course forget all that and call for that to be applied more broadly rather than continuing the difficult work of sticking fingers in the dyke against the surveillance and incarcaral state. Go after them for their crimes but for Zod’s sake don’t insist on calling them terrorists; it just feeds the right-wing mentality.
We’ve created this unhinged category called terrorism that makes people see red and turn off their brains and it’s already codified into law that it short circuits all the things that made our country great. We should be trying to apply this less, rather than more. Rather than saying “hey, you’re calling (vaguely lefty group) terrorists but not white supremecists, so let’s be consistent and call them all terrorists” how about “none of them are terrorists. If however some of them commit crimes, the ones who do will be prosecuted”
Don’t feed the beast.
Maybe the difference between seeing something as “terrorism” in the modern context and just crimes is that with terrorism we look for patterns and organizations that led to the crime. I don’t know if “terrorism” is overused or underused in different contexts, but I think it’s clear that white supremacists are not being scrutinized the way foreign (Muslim mostly) extremists are. And often in this administration that scrutiny has extended to people who are not violent at all but just share the same religion, country of origin… which is absolutely wrong.
Well, and obviously “terrorism” is a crime that is also intended to intimidate or terrorize someone. Which… if your crime is motivated by white nationalism, it seems to kinda fit the bill.
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I don’t think you’re moving goalposts, but you definitely want a broader talk then I desire. I’m just responding to AOC’s narrow question of why X were treated as hate crimes while Y was treated as terrorism.
I tend to agree with you on the larger point.
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Wow. That pig really went all Rodney King on a brother.
Makes cops look like a fucking skinhead prison gang members.
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Like I’ve said elsewhere on the bbs: the cops are rotten to the core.
Policing as an institution needs to be completely dismantled, and rebuilt from scratch including nobody from the old regime. One bad apple spoils the whole barrel and the barrel of American police is full of so many bad apples.
People say “but there’s good cops too! They don’t murder anyone!”
I say a “good cop” who can tolerate another cop abusing his power in any way shape or form is just another bad cop of a lesser degree. They say “being a cop is a hard job”. I say, yes being a good cop is a very hard job, you gotta snitch on all your dirty coworkers who have your back. Otherwise it’s an easy job being a gang member with extra paper work.
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In the cases people have talked about in the thread so far the most important thing accepting these acts for the terrorism definition they clearly fit 2331 (5) is that it opens up the option of material support charges for the people running and participating in some of these white supremacist groups. If I have to worry that teaching some environmental activist how to use Signal could land me in federal prison, then Nazis should have to worry that teaching someone which types of guns work well in confined environments should face the same. Treating it as a terror threat allows the use of the same resources that are used on other groups to be turned on the well connected network that has committed most of the lethal terror attacks of the past decade.
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Like, for goodness’ sake, they arrested Rakem Balogun for expressing opinions on Facebook because they identified “black identity extremists” as terrorists. They do whatever they want to people they label terrorists. But there is a lot of hand wringing about identifying actual Nazi’s as potential terrorists, despite their somewhat regular acts of actual terrorism.
And I know, lots of people will point out that their targeting of “black identity extremists” was wrong and is not a model to emulate. I’m not saying that it’s right. I’m saying that the racism inherent in it is extremely obvious.
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