I always try to keep up with the latest developments, so I am used to people on social media peddling the narrative of the mainstream press. However today even I was shocked to learn that there are plenty of Americans who support terrorism, as long as it is against the 'right' people.
Willem Van Spronsen, a 69-year old Dutchman who immigrated to the US as a boy, attacked a detention center in Tacoma, Washington on Saturday. Armed with a rifle and explosives, he allegedly attempted to blow up a propane tank which would have most likely resulted in mass murder. In his leaked 'manifesto' he says 'I'm antifa', but basically describes his attack as a suicide mission. In his last paragraphs, he calls for his 'comrades and incoming comrades' to gear up with arms and ignore the laws in order to defend 'the people' from the 'predatory state'.
Couple of issues that I see here. First off, as somewhat of a side note, it is interesting to see somebody identifying with the antifa movement, which is strongly encouraged by the left, calling for arming up even if it means breaking the law. I am further irritated by his phrasing. So his plan was to defend current and future illegal immigrants by killing a bunch of ICE officers. If we just take that statement at face value for the sake of argument, one could construe from it a perspective in which the officers are the crooks and the immigrants are the innocent victims. Those are the 'people' he refers to. I get the argument so far. It is not a strong one, but it holds up to his personal logic up to this point.
The moment he completely contradicts himself is where he mentions the state as the enemy. If you claim to represent a worldview in which 'the people' whom you align yourself with are not defined by a common nationality, but rather a common ideology, and are even willing to break the law to follow that ideology, you are de-facto dismissing the concept of statehood and thereby not recognizing any statutory authority. By that logic, there are no states, no governments, no laws - just groups of people who make up the oppressors and the oppressed. So in order to keep your integrity on the matter, you would have to remove terms like 'the state' from your vocabulary.
Instead, by referring to the 'predatory state' as the enemy against whom 'his' people must defend themselves, he has unwittingly revealed that he indeed believes in the concept of statehood. Thus, his disapproval is only aimed at the current administration (which is probably why he did not attack the detention centers of previous administrations, despite similar conditions). However, since he mentions several billionaires outside of Donald Trump as the root of all evil, who happen to be rather left-leaning (Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and even George Soros et. al), his position on previous governments is not clear-cut either.
Perhaps I'm overthinking it. What is abundantly clear is that this guy was a lunatic who was willing to take the lives of people whose job description is to secure the US border. In an ironic twist, he accuses state representatives of being 'predatory' for trying to protect its citizens from potentially predatory invaders, which happens to be their duly sworn duty. Instead, he declares his solidarity with strangers whose true intentions for crossing the border illegally he cannot possibly have evaluated. This is a glaring demonstration of the violent acts that the perpetual disinformation campaign of mainstream media can cause.
What has really shaken me though was not the incident itself, or how the media tried to downplay its significance, but the reaction of ordinary citizens on Twitter. "RIP comrade", "hero", "martyr" and even "patriot" he is called. This is a new kind of lunacy to me. How in the world have we come to the point that someone who attacks his fellow countrymen in order to support illegal immigration into his own nation can be called a patriot? It appears the brainwashing campaign of the corporate media has been so successful that common word definitions are not applied anymore. After so many incidents of media censorship masquerading as countering 'hate speech', these blatant incitements of violence apparently do not violate Twitter's terms of service.
After reading those shameful tweets this morning I went into the shower. I usually play Sinatra records or other Easy Listening material, but today I felt more like putting on songs from the Vietnam-war era, like Buffalo Springsfield's "For What It's Worth", Jimi Hendrix's "All Along the Watchtower", or Bob Dylan's "Times They Are a-Changin'". I came to the realization that we are potentially at the cusp of a similar social uprising. The level of consciousness is higher than ever because the internet has made it extremely hard for even the wealthiest and most influential individuals to cover up their lies. It is very unfortunate that the general public still allows itself to be duped by old media.
What feels most surreal to me is that the same methods are employed still to manufacture consent for fascist ideologies, and while the opposition was extremely vocal back then, it is very timid these days. Constitutional rights are violated left and right, the war machine is stronger than ever, and American cities have turned into hellholes of crime and poverty. The political spectrum has been completely turned on its head. Classical liberals who used to be the strongest critics of war and social inequality are an endangered species and have been cast off to foreign media outlets like RT. Conservatives are frequently speaking out against foreign intervention and government corruption, while mainstream media is nothing more than the propaganda arm of big corporations who almost all have a leftist agenda, and of course the military industrial complex. Who in their wildest dreams could have foreseen that the same party that once so vehemently opposed McCarthyism is now brazenly spreading Russophobia.
A young buddy of mine recently said to me that he has experienced Democrats only as corporate bootlickers. Classical liberal values have been made obsolete. The main liberal agendas these days are identity politics and hating Donald Trump. It has never been harder to distinguish Democrats from Republicans, except for the former constantly shoving political correctness and pseudo science down our throats. In this age of madness, common sense is a dangerous proposition. Now that we know to what violent extremes the brainwashed victims of leftist ideologies are ready to go, I feel that we are getting very close to massive civil unrest. The righteous people of this country won't take the constant threats much longer now.