Culture Wars

[Ivanhoe]

But "know thyself" comes from γνῶθι σεαυτόν. So if "know thyself" is an ancient African proverb, does that mean:

- Greece was actually in Africa, or;

- Greece was settled by ancient Africans?

Either way, this changes everything!

 

Thought; those universities removing Greek from their Classics curricula are apparently racist in doing so.

 

[17thfabn]

On 7/4/2021 at 5:03 PM, Ivanhoe said:

But "know thyself" comes from γνῶθι σεαυτόν. So if "know thyself" is an ancient African proverb, does that mean:

- Greece was actually in Africa, or;

- Greece was settled by ancient Africans?

There is the out of Africa theory:

https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/out-africa-hypothesishttps://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/out-africa-hypothesis

[TonyE]

On 7/4/2021 at 11:03 PM, Ivanhoe said:

But "know thyself" comes from γνῶθι σεαυτόν. So if "know thyself" is an ancient African proverb, does that mean:

- Greece was actually in Africa, or;

- Greece was settled by ancient Africans?

Either way, this changes everything!

 

Thought; those universities removing Greek from their Classics curricula are apparently racist in doing so.

 

We wuz basileus'n sheeiit.

[Daan]

Edited July 6, 2021 by Daan

[rmgill]

 

[Stargrunt6]

6 hours ago, rmgill said:

 

Nowadays, Lin-Manuel Miranda would write a musical about them. 

[Rick]

Promise Keepers is back!!  They’re holding their first in-person Promise Keepers Men’s Conference at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on July 16–17, 2021.
Some of our nation’s most respected Christian leaders, including Carter Conlon, Samuel Rodriguez, Nick Vujicic, AR Bernard, Les Parrott, Donald Burgs and Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, and Jonathan Evans.

From tony@tonyevans.org

[EchoFiveMike]

Respected by whom?

Every attempt to corral American thought is suspect.  Be it contrived false flag, Reichstag fire faggotry like Proud Boys, KKK, etc on the "right", or the various thought-stop weak sauce faggotry in the "center." 

Anyone actively seeking a position of authority or influence is always, ALWAYS suspect.  S/F....Ken M

 

[BansheeOne]

21 hours ago, rmgill said:

Not sure what reaction now the poster expects to compare adequately to then - all of the recent Capitol rioters to be handed prison terms between 50 and 85 years of which they serve about 25, the home of their ideological leader shot up and teargassed and him also being thrown in prison for the next eleven years despite no proof of direct involvement, to be released only a year before his death after a stroke he suffered two years into his term? That would be a bit harsh. 

[rmgill]

2 hours ago, BansheeOne said:

Not sure what reaction now the poster expects to compare adequately to then - all of the recent Capitol rioters to be handed prison terms between 50 and 85 years of which they serve about 25, the home of their ideological leader shot up and teargassed and him also being thrown in prison for the next eleven years despite no proof of direct involvement, to be released only a year before his death after a stroke he suffered two years into his term? That would be a bit harsh. 

Yes. Because breaking into a building to commit a protest is the same thing as deliberate attempts to murder people over political ends. 

Dude, there are people sitting in congress who broke into government buildings and protested. The mass of Democrats who held a sit in on the house floor weren't exactly authorized. It wasn't as far as breaking in, but it then noone brought firearms into congress and started off by shooting congressmen. In fact, take it a step further and you can find folks on the left who committed armed robberies and are now holding positions of tenure at universities. 

Your comparison falls flat. 

The reaction is that there are degrees of violence that so far nothing that the Jan 6 rioters have approached with the above as a benchmark for further perspective. 

[BansheeOne]

Yeah well I'm asking what comparison the poster wants to make, because the events are so disparate I'm finding it hard to make any except for attacking the seat of Congress. But one was by a group of four using firearms, the other by a crowd of several hundred on a mostly unarmed rampage. A quick search shows that at this point there are a dozen guilty pleas over the latter, most for parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Congress building, the others being obstruction of Congress with conspiracy added in two cases, and entering restricted grounds with a deadly weapon in one. I haven't even seen any mention of prison sentences yet, just one fine of 500 Dollar. Seems entirely adequate to events to me, so again I'm not sure what kind of reaction this guy wants. 

[rmgill]

4 hours ago, BansheeOne said:

Yeah well I'm asking what comparison the poster wants to make, because the events are so disparate I'm finding it hard to make any except for attacking the seat of Congress.

You're not here. But the current thematic of the DNC is that the January 6 riot was an attack on the nation itself and thus anyone who waves a flag, or is christian is wanting to end the nation, as some of the people who were there on January 6 were flag wavers and/or christians. 

It's become their drum to beat. They've dropped the all cops are bad thing with the Whitehouse trying to walk back and re-cast all the anti-police rhetoric of the past several years as something the GOP did. 

The comparison is EASY to determine. If Jan 6 was the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil war in 1860...exactly what sort of yardstick are we using? One that has a temporal existence from 1860 to just last year? 

4 hours ago, BansheeOne said:

But one was by a group of four using firearms, the other by a crowd of several hundred on a mostly unarmed rampage.

There's part of your comparison right there. 

Do you see a difference in an unruly protest turned riot and a deliberate attempt to murder a bunch of congressmen? 

Would the attack on the Munich olympics be the same sort of thing from a moral outrage as say a soccer match celebration that got out of hand for a few hours and then was rapidly sorted out? 

Would claims of the latter being the worst example of violence at a German Sporting event in history be accurate? 

4 hours ago, BansheeOne said:

A quick search shows that at this point there are a dozen guilty pleas over the latter, most for parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Congress building, the others being obstruction of Congress with conspiracy added in two cases, and entering restricted grounds with a deadly weapon in one. I haven't even seen any mention of prison sentences yet, just one fine of 500 Dollar. Seems entirely adequate to events to me, so again I'm not sure what kind of reaction this guy wants. 

Considering many of them have been held without bail since their arrest, I think it's something to be noting. Also note the number of rioters over the past ~1.5 years who have escaped from their repeated evens without charges. 

Edited July 8, 2021 by rmgill

[LT Ducky]

Am I the only one to remember the DC riots/protests of the 1960’s including a bomb in a capitol restroom?

[Mikel2]

34 minutes ago, LT Ducky said:

Am I the only one to remember the DC riots/protests of the 1960’s including a bomb in a capitol restroom?

Don't have to go that far. Kavanaugh and BLM protesters. All memoryholed.

[BansheeOne]

Not really. There were historic recaps of Capitol attacks immediately after the January events. 

Quote

Political extremists have attacked the U.S. Capitol before: A history of the violence

By Gillian Brockell

January 7, 2021 | Updated January 7, 2021 at 5:49 p.m. EST

A mob of President Trump’s supporters stormed into the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday in an unprecedented breach of security.

Here are other instances of politically motivated attacks on the Capitol throughout history.

The War of 1812

Despite the name of the war, it lasted three years. And on Aug. 24, 1814, the British invaded Washington, leading to the infamous torching of the White House. The Capitol building — then much smaller and lacking its current dome, was also set alight. The British retreated after a huge storm struck the city — perhaps a hurricane or a tornado — quenching the fires.

A bomb ‘for peace’

In 1915, a German-born Harvard University professor planted dynamite near the Senate Reception Room. No one was injured when it exploded around midnight. The professor wrote to newspapers, saying he had done it as “an exclamation point in my appeal for peace.” He was later detained and committed suicide while in custody.

Attack by Puerto Rican nationalists

In March 1954, four Puerto Rican nationalists opened fire on the House floor from the visitor’s gallery above, wounding five members of Congress. The perpetrators were caught and imprisoned. One was released in 1978; the others were released the next year after President Jimmy Carter pardoned them.

The Weather Underground bombing

In March 1971, the extremist group set off a bomb inside a bathroom on the Senate side of the Capitol. No one was hurt, but it resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage. The group claimed responsibility for multiple bombings in the late 1960s and 1970s, including at the Pentagon and a New York City police station.

The Armed Resistance Unit bombing

A decade later, in 1983, a leftist group protesting military action in Lebanon and Grenada set off a bomb inside the Capitol, this time blowing off the door of Sen. Robert Byrd’s office and shredding a portrait of Daniel Webster. After a five-year hunt, three women were charged and given lengthy prison sentences. After this incident, the House and Senate chambers added metal detectors and increased security, which the pro-Trump mob breached on Wednesday.

The Capitol was also targeted on Sept. 11, 2001, but the terrorists were unsuccessful. There have also been several shootings at the Capitol that were not politically motivated.

Some of Wednesday’s rioters carried Confederate flags, but the real Confederates never breached the Capitol during the Civil War. The closest they got was Fort Stevens on the north side of the city in July 1864. President Abraham Lincoln visited the site during the battle and was shot at, prompting a Union officer to ask him to leave.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/01/07/us-capitol-violent-political-attacks/

[BansheeOne]

1 hour ago, rmgill said:

You're not here. But the current thematic of the DNC is that the January 6 riot was an attack on the nation itself and thus anyone who waves a flag, or is christian is wanting to end the nation, as some of the people who were there on January 6 were flag wavers and/or christians. 

It's become their drum to beat. They've dropped the all cops are bad thing with the Whitehouse trying to walk back and re-cast all the anti-police rhetoric of the past several years as something the GOP did. 

The comparison is EASY to determine. If Jan 6 was the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil war in 1860...exactly what sort of yardstick are we using? One that has a temporal existence from 1860 to just last year? 

There's part of your comparison right there. 

Do you see a difference in an unruly protest turned riot and a deliberate attempt to murder a bunch of congressmen? 

Would the attack on the Munich olympics be the same sort of thing from a moral outrage as say a soccer match celebration that got out of hand for a few hours and then was rapidly sorted out? 

Would claims of the latter being the worst example of violence at a German Sporting event in history be accurate? 

Considering many of them have been held without bail since their arrest, I think it's something to be noting. Also note the number of rioters over the past ~1.5 years who have escaped from their repeated evens without charges. 

Okay, let's not move goalposts all over the field once again by making up all sorts of new references to Olympics, soccer riots, BLM protests etc. The question was to compare and contrast reactions to the Capitol attacks in 1954 and 2021. I posit that not only both events, but the environment in which they happened were so disparate that it's hard to establish a common standard for the equal reaction implicitly demanded in the question.

There was obviously a strong reaction in 1954 even apart from the legal consequences. From a 2011 obit on Lolita Lebron:

Quote

Lolita Lebrón: Puerto Rican nationalist who launched an armed attack on the US House of Representatives

Sunday 23 October 2011 03:02

When an exotically beautiful, elegantly dressed woman stood up in the public gallery of the US House of Representatives on Washington's Capitol Hill on 1 March 1954, no one batted an eyelid. When three men stood up alongside her and all four started shooting from 9mm semi-automatic Luger pistols, all hell broke loose. After 30 bullets were fired and five congressmen or their aides fell wounded on the House floor, the woman, Lolita Lebrón, unfurled and waved a Puerto Rican flag and shouted "Viva Puerto Rico Libre!" (Long Live Free Puerto Rico).

To the post-9/11 generation, the date 1 March 1954 may seem trivial, but Lebrón's assault on the heart of US democracy sent shock waves through the United States at the time and was front-page news for weeks. The Puerto Rico-born New Yorker Lebrón and her three co-conspirators were branded as "terrorists" and jailed for up to 75 years. She herself got a maximum 50 years because the jury believed her story that she had not intended to kill anyone and had shot only into the ceiling. In line with the anti-communist paranoia of the 1950s, newsreels said the four were "linked to communists, their arsenal was believed to have been supplied by Reds."

[...] 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/lolita-lebr-243-n-puerto-rican-nationalist-who-launched-an-armed-attack-on-the-us-house-of-representatives-2043382.html?amp

That was before the advent of the 24/7 electronic media news cycle and the internet of course, which themselves shaped society differently. I would further suggest that public reaction in 1954 was largely unison against four, for all practical purposes, outsiders fighting for some special interest; though critical thinkers might have acknowledged that they were acting in the finest American tradition of rising against taxation without representation. Very unlike 2021, where the assault was the ultimate symptom of a deeply divided nation, with each side accusing the other of plotting to stage a coup and steal the election. And I guess we'll have to wait a couple decades to see whether obits for the recent rioters will sound just as detached from the period coverage. 

On style points, but actually quite representative of how much things have changed between then and now, in 1954 people had the decorum to wear a suit or dress when they were going to assault the Capitol, not horns.

[Tim the Tank Nut]

to be fair your position on this is edited by your personal views.  Some of us have watched crime waves wash over our cities with nary a peep.  My own company restricted staff from making sales calls in a major metropolitan area over safety concerns.  Now we have the full force of the United States government chasing after a man with horns on his head.  It's okay that you can't see how that looks from our side of the fence but doesn't it make a bit of a hash of the notion of the disinterested, neutral European observer?

In my area the BLM types run their can into the back of your car.  When you stop to check what happened your car is taken at gunpoint.  After dozens of occurrences no one has been apprehended...

The other new fad is to post a desirable item online for sale and then kill the prospective buyer when they arrive to see it.  One of our customer's family member died that way.  Again, no charges.

It's hard for me to see how the Capitol Hill riots are anything other than theater?

where was all this concern when Senator Paul was attacked and ended up in the hospital or when he was attacked again in DC?

I suspect that the outrage here is just a bit partisan but what do I know, I'm just a hick shopkeeper...

 

[sunday]

Homophobia? What homophobia?
 

 

[R011]

20 minutes ago, BansheeOne said:

Not really. There were historic recaps of Capitol attacks immediately after the January events. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/01/07/us-capitol-violent-political-attacks/

That article is very much an outlier.  There have been very few mentions of previous protests and assaults with most media hyping the January 6 riot as a dangerous insurrection.

[BansheeOne]

Obviously the vast majority of coverage will always be about the event at hand. Historical recaps are typical add-ons to give some perspective, fill out pages and generate some extra clicks on a hot topic. But I can easily find a dozen from major outlets, if of variable comprehensiveness. 

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/07/us/us-capitol-violence-history-trnd/index.html

https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN29D03F

https://api.nationalgeographic.com/distribution/public/amp/history/article/united-states-capitol-building-turbulent-history-bombings-assassination-attempts-violence

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.5863856

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55572825.amp

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/u-s-capitol-has-a-history-of-occasional-violence-but-nothing-like-this-11609982224

https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/06/us-capitol-building-washington-history-breach

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-01-07/history-violence-capitol-dc-riots?_amp=true

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/the-history-of-the-u-s-capitol/#

https://abc7chicago.com/amp/history-of-violence-at-capitol-has-anyone-stormed-before-past-in-capital-dc-chaos-insurrection-siege/9454766/

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/02/28/when-the-left-attacked-the-capitol-471270

12 hours ago, Tim the Tank Nut said:

to be fair your position on this is edited by your personal views.  Some of us have watched crime waves wash over our cities with nary a peep.  My own company restricted staff from making sales calls in a major metropolitan area over safety concerns.  Now we have the full force of the United States government chasing after a man with horns on his head.  It's okay that you can't see how that looks from our side of the fence but doesn't it make a bit of a hash of the notion of the disinterested, neutral European observer?

In my area the BLM types run their can into the back of your car.  When you stop to check what happened your car is taken at gunpoint.  After dozens of occurrences no one has been apprehended...

The other new fad is to post a desirable item online for sale and then kill the prospective buyer when they arrive to see it.  One of our customer's family member died that way.  Again, no charges.

It's hard for me to see how the Capitol Hill riots are anything other than theater?

where was all this concern when Senator Paul was attacked and ended up in the hospital or when he was attacked again in DC?

I suspect that the outrage here is just a bit partisan but what do I know, I'm just a hick shopkeeper...

Everyone's view is colored by their personal view, and people living through history will see it differently than following generations 67 years later. Hence my contention that it's hard to gauge what would be an equal reaction; very few here probably had a conscious experience of events in 1954, and thus would be in a position to compare from a position of personal authority. Another 60-plus years on, reviews of current events might take a puzzled look at all the excitement of 2021, too. 

[Mikel2]

Another incident that was quickly memoryholed was the shooting of a bunch of GOP congressmen by a former Bernie Sanders volunteer a few years ago.  Had this happened to people of the opposing party, with the shooter wearing a MAGA hat, this would have been the greatest threat to the republic since 1812.  But as it was, it was out of the news in a week.

 

I am yet to find a single person who remembers the name of the shooter.

Edited July 9, 2021 by Mikel2

[Tim the Tank Nut]

those of us trying to make a living in what amounts to a huge percentage in the increase of crime would have a view different from those whose livelihoods are not directly effected by the crime.  It's easy to castigate others when you live in a safe community and work in an office but those of us in direct contact with the working public should be excused for thinking differently.

I feel like what you call "moving the goalposts" really amounts to "seeing the conditions in aggregate".  Each time those of us on the right object to a particular issue whether it be gun control, abortion, religious rights, or crime we are told it is just a single issue, let it go but the reality is that it's all tied together and we can literally see the smoke from burning buildings that aren't even covered in the local news.  At most it is a fire, never called arson and no mention of the disadvantaged minorities that started it.

A crowd attacked a light skinned woman in a car.  In her haste to escape she ran over one of the attackers.  They destroyed the car but she did escape.  It was on video.  The media went wild demanding that this person be located and severely punished for her acts.  The woman was located and it was determined that she was of African descent.  Within hours all mention of the incident was gone.  The driver assumed she was safe because she was of the same race as the protestors but in their fury they mistook her for a person of privilege.  All of this happened on a road between my shop and one of our accounts.

Is this the behavior you are defending?

 

Now before anyone accuses me of putting word's in others' mouths can you really not see the connection between the lack of enforcement against crimes against certain portions of the population resulting in that part of the population pushing back?  After all, rhetorical you has no problem with Antifa burning Federal buildings but by God, nobody in a horn hat is going to be allowed to breach a Federal building!  He didn't even have gasoline or matches, it's no wonder that the Jan 6th protestors are under the full assault of the Law Enforcement community as they didn't even start fires.

Those of us on the right are marked at this point and yet we do not behave like those on the Left.

You know what you get when you go to a Klan rally?  Thirty FBI agents and one dumb yokel that showed up thinking there'd be free beer.

[BansheeOne]

What's all this nonsense about memoryholing? The baseball shooting was back in the news just three weeks ago, and a month earlier, and a month before that. 

Quote

Scalise slams McCabe for saying FBI 'doesn't exactly know' motive of congressional baseball shooter

Carly Roman

June 16, 2021, 2:21 am

[...] 

https://news.yahoo.com/scalise-slams-mccabe-saying-fbi-002100196.html

 

Quote

After Ohio Rep. Brad Wenstrup objects, FBI changes designation of baseball shooting

HANNAH K. SPARLING | CINCINNATI ENQUIRER | 7:33 am EDT May 19, 2021

[...]

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/2021/05/17/fbi-changes-baseball-shooting-designation-after-wenstrup-complaint/5125052001/

 

Quote

May 11, 2021 - 11:49 AM EDT

Scalise demands FBI reopen probe into 2017 baseball shooting

[...] 

https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/552851-scalise-demands-fbi-reopen-investigation-into-2017-baseball-shooting

 

Quote

Lawmakers reveal — and dispute — FBI conclusion about 2017 baseball field shooting

A GOP congressman said the FBI privately told members the shooting was a "suicide by cop" incident.

By KYLE CHENEY and MARTIN MATISHAK

04/21/2021 12:05 PM EDT

Updated: 04/21/2021 02:41 PM EDT

[...] 

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/21/2017-baseball-field-shooting-fbi-conculsion-483993

[BansheeOne]

9 minutes ago, Tim the Tank Nut said:

Is this the behavior you are defending?

How the everloving fuck do you even begin to get the completely nonsensical idea I'm defending any behavior here? 

[Detonable]

The Capitol rioters were held in jail for months until their trials. The rioters attacking federal buildings and officers were granted bail, with the bail sometimes paid by Democratic politicians, one of which was Kamala Harris.