[HN Gopher] A mole infiltrated the highest ranks of American mil...
___________________________________________________________________
A mole infiltrated the highest ranks of American militias
Author : colinprince
Score : 332 points
Date : 2025-01-04 14:13 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.propublica.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.propublica.org)
| oldpersonintx wrote:
| After years of research, our mole discovered that "militia"
| members liked to dress in plus-sized camo and shoot legally-owned
| ARs on private property...
| declan_roberts wrote:
| One of the biggest threats to the country according to the FBI!
| laidoffamazon wrote:
| Yes, by the instruction of our incoming president they
| attempted an insurrection.
| nailer wrote:
| This is provably false -Donald Trump stated that there
| should be no violence multiple times on January 6. If you
| have evidence, otherwise please state it here.
| thefaux wrote:
| He sat in the White House watching the violence unfold on
| fox news for hours egging the protestors on on twitter
| while leaving Mike Pence to be hung while he very likely
| could have stopped the violence with a few tweets.
| Instead, he waited until it was clear that they already
| failed. We all saw it live on tv and Jack Smith's
| investigation brought out the details. Unfortunately, he
| was not permitted by the supreme court to provide his
| evidence.
| laidoffamazon wrote:
| He also said "let's all march to the capitol" and wanted
| to walk with them until the secret service stopped him
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| You are spreading misinformation, as did most of the news
| media and politicians that manufactured outrageous claims
| about J6. That's not the quote. Trump literally used the
| word "peacefully" in the same sentence when he called for
| the (planned) march. He did not call for illegal actions
| or violence at any point. This is well known now, so your
| made up false quote is a lie.
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| > very likely could have stopped the violence with a few
| tweets.
|
| That he didn't was repugnant and a dereliction of duty,
| but even if he had, do you honestly think that mob would
| have done anything different? People in groups don't
| think normally, that's pretty well studied and
| established; I don't think it would have made one whit of
| difference.
|
| But he should have tried; I'm surprised someone didn't
| even tell him to just for the optics of it.
| alamortsubite wrote:
| > I'm surprised someone didn't even tell him to just for
| the optics of it.
|
| White house staff and Trump's family members were urging
| him to do something while he was enjoying watching the
| show unfold on TV. I'm unsure of where you live but the
| truly surprising thing is many people in the US aren't
| aware of this.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-capitol-probes-
| season-fi...
| laidoffamazon wrote:
| One of the more disturbing parts of seeing him back in
| office is going to be knowing that a lot of this
| malfeasance is just not known by the general public.
| laidoffamazon wrote:
| People in the white house did tell him, we know this from
| testimony under oath. He refused to do anything until it
| failed.
| nailer wrote:
| > Egging the protesters on on Twitter
|
| No. This is false. Trump specifically called for law and
| order at the protests twice on Jan 6th.
| pstuart wrote:
| Trump says many things and not all of them are true.
| mindslight wrote:
| Words are not always confined to their literal meaning.
| You need to read about the concepts of powertalk and the
| big lie.
| y33t wrote:
| There's a credible organization.
| kylebenzle wrote:
| What an oddly long and pointless "investigation".
|
| The majority of "militia members" are just like me, middle age
| ex-military guys who lost their kids to an unfair, biased and
| broken "family court" system.
|
| These idiots think they are going undercover with the mob
| apparently, the author and subject of this article seem to been
| uninformed and scared of everyone around them. Two pathetic
| losers.
|
| Don't be like the author, instead be a man, use Linux and join
| your local militia.
| timkpaine wrote:
| The military->domestic abuse->divorce->family
| court->terrorism pipeline is quite strong, as evidenced in LV
| and NOLA this week. Rather than larping in your "local
| militia" while being slowly but surely radicalized, consider
| professional help. Everyone can benefit from some therapy.
| mmooss wrote:
| People need to socialize with other humans that understand
| them. Therapy can be great and necessary, but it's not
| sufficient.
| aliasxneo wrote:
| Unfortunately the spin cycle has anyone, including a lot of
| HN, believing that all militia members are the most violent
| and evil people living in the world.
|
| Ironic given I reserve that title for ISIS who seems to have
| just recently radicalized another person to run over a bunch
| of people in New Orleans.
|
| I have no particular love for these militias, but I'm not
| ignorant enough to believe the stuff media goes about
| parroting.
| HeatrayEnjoyer wrote:
| ISIS _is_ a militia, you 're not making any sense.
| aliasxneo wrote:
| Since when was ISIS an American militia? It seems you
| didn't read the post. My comment makes perfect sense in
| the context of the article.
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| > Since when was ISIS an American militia?
|
| Luckily that was never asserted.
| mmooss wrote:
| > all militia members are the most violent and evil people
| living in the world.
|
| That's a strawperson. It doesn't have to be all. Groups
| that call themselves 'militias', arm and train themselves,
| plan violence, and sometimes perpetuate it. It's reasonable
| for the public to be concerned about them.
| mmooss wrote:
| Thanks for sharing your perspective; HN really needs it; I
| could really benefit from it.
|
| > The majority of "militia members" are just like me, middle
| age ex-military guys who lost their kids to an unfair, biased
| and broken "family court" system.
|
| I can believe that and really I expect it. The majority of
| any movement aren't really true believers trying to burn
| things down.
|
| How do you reconcile that with the militia group members that
| are planning and plotting and acting to burn things down? The
| most visible example was the January 6 attack, but of course
| there are plenty more.
|
| Are they just segregated into different groups? Are there a
| few around but you think of them as ineffectual cranks? Do
| the groups, in this way, have different circles: the hard
| core, maybe another layer, and the people who like to hang
| out?
|
| The majority of any movement aren't really true believers
| trying to burn things down, but some movements do try to burn
| things down. People just there to socialize sometimes find
| they supported something awful and turned a blind eye, when
| they should have done something or at least walked away. A
| genuine question: With everything happening, doesn't that
| cross your mind?
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| > The majority of "militia members" are ... middle age ex-
| military guys who lost their kids to an unfair, biased and
| broken "family court" system.
|
| Cite? I mean, really, what?
| Barracoon wrote:
| As a vet, get some help bro and stop hanging around the
| militia losers.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _majority of "militia members" are just like me, middle age
| ex-military guys who lost their kids to an unfair, biased and
| broken "family court" system_
|
| Are you discussing assassinating politicians with your
| militia members? Did any of them march on the Capitol? If
| not, you're not comparable to AP3. (If so, um, call a lawyer
| and a psychiatrist.)
| bagels wrote:
| That and sedition and terrorism plots.
| pama wrote:
| "It was a world where a man would propose assassinating
| politicians, only to spark a debate about logistics."
| ashoeafoot wrote:
| Completely new motion, eh, that, ah-- that there be, ah,
| immediate action--
|
| FRANCIS: Ah, once the vote has been taken.
|
| REG: Well, obviously once the vote's been taken. You can't
| act another resolution till you've voted on it...
| brookst wrote:
| I mean Ted Kaczynski liked a nice glass of water, maybe he
| wasn't a bad guy?
| wat10000 wrote:
| That description could fit a group of friends having wholesome
| fun, or a private army being raised with the goal of taking
| territory. These groups are somewhere in between, but closer to
| the latter. The main mitigating factor is that they're usually
| pretty incompetent.
| BadHumans wrote:
| > Unless otherwise noted, none of the militia members mentioned
| in this story responded to requests for comment
|
| This is a serious story but this made me burst out laughing.
| Sorry, the PR agent for these heavily armed militias was unable
| to return my request for comments.
| 9dev wrote:
| It's just good journalism to give everyone in a story a chance
| to defend their position, even if those opportunities are often
| not taken up.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| I have seen journalists give 24 hr to defend your position.
| Many times it's zero time.
| nullstyle wrote:
| I think that's bad journalism
| Magi604 wrote:
| It is. Sometimes the writer will add "didn't respond
| before press time" to give a little more context, but
| most readers won't grasp what that could really mean
| (like the reporter might have contacted them 15 mins
| before press time)
| sp0rk wrote:
| Do you have any examples of stories where one of the
| subjects was contacted, wanted to respond, but didn't
| have enough time?
| 9dev wrote:
| Well they have to strike _some_ compromise between readers
| expecting timely news and story subjects responding to
| accusations, especially when they're competing against the
| Joe Rogans of the world with no professional ethics
| whatsoever.
| brookst wrote:
| 24 hours is reasonable. At the very least you can say "I
| will provide a response but it will take 7 days" and they
| can note that in the article and update later.
|
| No time is usually reserved for breaking news. No outlet is
| going to hold a story on today's building fire because the
| fireworks factory owner deserves 24 hours to respond.
| nailer wrote:
| In the recent case between the actress and the film
| director for ' it ends with us' one of the sides gave the
| other a few hours to respond on the last working day of the
| year.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| Assuming the email released is genuine, ProPublica itself
| recently sent a request for comment to someone by email
| with the line "Our deadline is in one hour".
| kylebenzle wrote:
| The confusion comes from thinking these are organized groups
| with a solid chain of command, author seems wildly uninformed.
|
| Most are loose gatherings of people who like shooting guns
| where people come and go week to week.
| totallynothoney wrote:
| The one who seems confused is you, the section in the article
| talks about members themselves not some imaginary PR person.
| a9i wrote:
| The first paragraph seems to be an invitation to create your own
| emergency procedure (mine would actually be less "wild"...).
| CalChris wrote:
| Yeah, I wouldn't include vitamins in lieu of more cash or
| calories.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| You might if you were already in the habit of taking them. Or
| if you were more worried about the quality of your future
| food than having any. They don't take much space or weight,
| so it's not that hard to include them.
| dole wrote:
| A "Bug Out Bag" is a pretty standard notion in the prepper and
| survival communities, also handy for fleeing disasters and
| power outages.
| throwup238 wrote:
| It's also recommended by CALFIRE in California:
| https://readyforwildfire.org/prepare-for-
| wildfire/emergency-...
| bee_rider wrote:
| It seems like a good thing to have in general. A few days
| of food? Good if society collapses... or also if you have a
| real bad storm. Having it in a bag, eh, well why not,
| right?
| leptons wrote:
| Earthquakes are a thing in California too, a very real
| threat. Flooding in Southern California is something that
| could happen too especially with climate change, and we
| live right next to a major waterway. We have our
| emergency kit in a very large thick rubber waterproof
| bag. We also have water filtration devices in there.
| Nobody I know is prepared as well as we are, not even a
| little bit prepared.
| dylan604 wrote:
| If society collapses, a few days of food is not going to
| do too much for you except maybe delay the suffering by a
| few days. If that's your intent for the bug out bag, you
| might want to reconsider. If it's for getting out to
| allow a natural disaster to subside, it's more than
| probably a good idea
| Loughla wrote:
| We have prepared for disasters. 3 to 6 months of food
| fuel and water for every member of the house and
| livestock.
|
| Everyone should have a week or two of supplies just in
| case. Look at what happens during large scale natural
| disasters. Prices go way up and supply goes way down. Why
| bother with that?
|
| But in a real society collapse situation, our plan is
| much, much shorter term and much darker. That's just the
| reality of the situation. Why starve and suffer when you
| can just happily exit as a family in a way if your own
| choosing?
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| there are all sorts of levels of society collapsing,
| probably the only ones where surviving the collapse means
| delaying the inevitable by a few days are fictional
| collapses, like Zombie apocalypse or similar.
| bee_rider wrote:
| That's true. I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek, but based
| on multiple responses it didn't really go through. So,
| unclear communication on my part.
|
| Society collapsing was supposed to be the unlikely and
| somewhat comical (in that it is a bit over-the-top)
| motivator for people to do something prep that we should
| do anyway.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Good if society collapses_
|
| If society actually collapses, you really don't want to
| be the person with lots of highly-demanded resources.
| mcsniff wrote:
| You'd prefer to be one with none of the resources?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _You 'd prefer to be one with none of the resources?_
|
| Look at actual societal collapses. The starting position
| of the resources within the map is almost irrelevant.
| mcsniff wrote:
| You do you, but I will keep my X months of food, water,
| and warm shelter even it makes me a "target".
|
| Besides, the first rule of being prepared, is you don't
| talk about being prepared.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _I will keep my X months of food, water, and warm
| shelter even it makes me a "target"_
|
| As you should. For all of the things that can happen
| between normal life and full societal collapse. The point
| is, X months of anything is useless in that last case.
| The only precedented way of evading death or poverty in
| the wake of societal collapse is to get out.
|
| > _you don 't talk about being prepared_
|
| You're thinking of a zombie apocalypse film. Picture,
| instead, the warlords and their armies in Sudan or
| Ethiopia. Whether you talk about it is irrelevant. Your
| home will be torn apart, and your body pressed into
| service, irrespectively.
| j-bos wrote:
| Have you personally been through a major disaster?
| Talking federal state of emergency declared, electrical
| grid is down for weeks, data networks overcrowded,
| shipments bottlenecked?
|
| I ask because I see so much resistence to good prep
| online but never from people who've been through
| disasters.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| That's disaster prep. It's rational. Preparing for
| society's collapse is not. (If you want to prepare for
| society's collapse, what this article's protagonist
| trains for is closer to what you want to master than
| kitting out a glorified man cave.)
| ben_w wrote:
| A few days food is a normal kitchen cupboard -- singular
| cupboard, not the whole kitchen.
|
| A few weeks was what I kept ready during the pandemic,
| just in case I got ill and didn't want to go shopping for
| a fortnight. Plenty of natural disasters are in that kind
| of range, even outside the pandemic.
|
| Civilisation collapsing needs a stockpile of about
| however many months it would take for you to turn your
| garden into a residential farm and get to harvest season,
| plus a bit for if that doesn't work... or if raccoons
| steal in the night everything the ravens didn't steal in
| the day.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > Civilisation collapsing needs a stockpile of about
| however many months it would take for you to turn your
| garden into a residential farm and get to harvest season,
| plus a bit for if that doesn't work
|
| So, to coin a phrase: how about never?
| Does never work for you?
| ocschwar wrote:
| I don't want to stoke panic about violence, but the fact is
| anything that you do that's prepper-adjacent is something you
| should do anyway:
|
| 1. prep your residence in can't you can't leave for days on
| end - something you should do to prepare for h5n1.
|
| 2. stock a bug out bag: most of you are in range of wild
| fires. So you need to do it.
| eagleinparadise wrote:
| My family had to evacuate a few times due to fires. One of
| them, the National Guard was outside my neighborhood helping to
| coordinate the chaos. I'll never forget seeing Humvees right
| outside _my_ neighborhood while the sky was blood red and full
| of smoke. It was like a disaster scene out of a movie, except
| real life. Not fun as a kid...
|
| We barely were able to find a hotel to go to.
|
| Afterwards, my dad kept 4-6 duffel bags full of water, first
| aid, clothes, MREs/dry meals, and other gear so if we ever need
| to get out of the place, we'd be ready.
|
| So yes, it's a good idea to have some supplies ready because
| you never know.
| sitkack wrote:
| > He moved to Las Vegas and, at the age of 25, became an officer
| in the metro police. Kinch came to serve in elite detective units
| over 23 years in the force, hunting fugitives and helping take
| down gangs like the Playboy Bloods. Eventually he was assigned to
| what he called the "Black squad," according to court records,
| tasked with investigating violent crimes where the suspect was
| African American. (A Las Vegas police spokesperson told me they
| stopped "dividing squads by a suspect's race" a year before Kinch
| retired.)
|
| That is crazy, you'd think that would be illegal under the Civil
| Rights Act. White criminals had a separate police force from
| black ones.
| chrsig wrote:
| nah, not crazy. it's pretty crazy to think that sort of shit
| _doesn 't_ happen.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| i can see why in highly segregated communities it might be more
| effective to have detectives who know xyz about a certain
| community, especially since criminal gangs tend to self-
| associate by race/ethnicity
|
| would a police group dedicated to investigating the mafia be a
| violation of the civil rights act?
| oivey wrote:
| No, that would be ridiculous. An "Italian squad" might be,
| though.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| any mafia squad back in the day was effectively an italian
| squad
| BadHumans wrote:
| The details matter when talking about legalities. A group
| of cops investigating a gang that happens to have a lot
| of italian members is different than having a group of
| cops that investigates italians.
| oivey wrote:
| And yet, it was never called that, right? It would have
| been a Mafia task force, a task force against a
| particular family, or a task force against organized
| crime. You wouldn't call it an Italian task force because
| you're probably hoping for help from the Italian-American
| community to help catch the Mafiosos, and that naming
| convention is pretty insulting to law abiding Italians-
| Americans.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| i believe the nypd (before the civil rights era)
| historically had an italian squad named precisely that
| comprised mostly of italian-american officers
| investigating italians in NYC
| oceanplexian wrote:
| It's a bona fide occupational qualification, it's completely
| legal under the Civil Rights Act and works the same way if for
| example Hollywood wants to hire a black actor or a Las Vegas
| club wants to hire female dancers. If said discrimination is
| necessary for a legitimate business function (And meets a
| couple of tests) it's completely legal.
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| > It's a bona fide occupational qualification, it's
| completely legal under the Civil Rights Act and works the
| same way if for example Hollywood wants to hire a black actor
| or a Las Vegas club wants to hire female dancers.
|
| I think you've misunderstood. It's clear from the article
| that the "Black squad" was so named because it specialised in
| investigating suspects who were Black, not because the
| officers in it were themselves Black.
| nailer wrote:
| I imagine the officers best at investigating black crime
| would either be black or have good contacts within that
| community.
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| In this case the article says that the former member of
| the squad, Kinch, described himself in a Facebook post as
| being White.
| g-b-r wrote:
| Or be racist
| daseiner1 wrote:
| That doesn't follow at all, unless you're following the
| standard "assume racism from whites" line.
|
| Black cops have similar brutality rates to white cops
| even against minority populations, for the record.
|
| Some will point to some amorphous internalized systemic
| racism, others will point to population traits like black
| folk wondering "why they have to be more polite to cops",
| while white folk know that "i should be polite to cops".
| Victimhood narrative wins elections in cities, though.
| mindslight wrote:
| A lack of "being polite" does not justify state
| sanctioned extrajudicial punishment, as your victimhood
| narrative implies. Sure, be polite to cops because you
| should be polite in general until someone gives you a
| reason not to be. And from a social engineering
| standpoint you get better results by being friendly. But
| as a rule one should be able to be rude to police
| officers in any way one can be rude to any other citizen,
| and if they attack you for it they should be the ones
| going to jail, like any other citizen. Public employees
| tasked with upholding law and order need to be shining
| examples of it, not hypocritically exempt from it.
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| > Uh, a lack of "being polite" does not justify state
| sanctioned extrajudicial punishment.
|
| In theory, but we're dealing with humans here.
| atmavatar wrote:
| The existence of black cops and their similar treatment
| of minorities does not eliminate the possibility of there
| being racism.
|
| For example, there are documented cases of emancipated
| black slaves becoming slave owners themselves prior to
| the Civil War, some of whom were known to be at least as
| brutal with their slaves as their white peers.
|
| I suspect it comes down to individuals identifying
| themselves as being part of a new tribe (e.g., cops),
| allowing them to treat members of their former tribe (by
| race) as "others". The degree to which they mistreat
| their former tribe likely stems from how their new tribe
| perceives the old one (i.e. many cops believe they are
| above "civilians" and especially minorities).
|
| That is ultimately the core of racism.
|
| This has been demonstrated repeatedly in simple classroom
| experiments where children are divided into two groups
| based upon some arbitrary characteristic (e.g., eye
| color, clothing, or even some new identifier passed out
| to them) and quickly displaying camaraderie within their
| own group while antagonizing members of the other group.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > It's a bona fide occupational qualification
|
| A BFOQ can only apply to private hiring discrimination, not
| "having a separate police force when you are suspected of a
| crime based on race" discrimination. It's not employment
| rights at issue, so occupational qualifications are not
| relevant.
|
| OTOH, the issue here is probably more 14th Amendment equal
| protection than statutory rights.
|
| On the gripping hand, American police departments having
| racist practices that are internally well-known, and not
| being held accountable for them is..not at all surprising.
| sitkack wrote:
| Black Squad refers to who they are investigating, not the
| officers themselves.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Is Williams black? I can see the argument for having black
| officers investigate black criminals, particularly if they're
| enterprises requiring infiltration.
| g-b-r wrote:
| The black squad member was Bobby Kinch, "American, Christian,
| White, Heterosexual"
| cperciva wrote:
| It's unfortunate, certainly, but it's probably very useful for
| police to have knowledge of and experience with the communities
| they're policing. In Canada police officers who are expected to
| work with indigenous communities often get special training to
| familiarize them with those cultures.
| UncleEntity wrote:
| Sure, you (presumably) want the police to be sensitive to
| cultural issues -- the problem is you can't use skin color as
| an indicator of inclusion in a cultural group.
|
| I was watching an interview the other day from one of the
| Tuskegee Airmen and just going by his physical appearance he
| looked as "European" as I do.
| mmooss wrote:
| From the OP:
|
| > A Las Vegas police spokesperson told me they stopped
| "dividing squads by a suspect's race" a year before Kinch
| retired.
|
| and later:
|
| > In 2016, he turned in his badge, a year after the saga broke
| in the local press.
|
| If all those facts are consistent, they had a 'Black squad'
| until 2015.
|
| Edit: An aside in an article and piecing together facts that
| were not necessarily intended to be consistent can result in
| bad misunderstandings. We need more information to understand
| it.
|
| But at the same time, let's be careful about proceeding like
| scientists and making the null hypothesis 'it wasn't racist' or
| even 'there isn't racism', requiring 99.9% certainty. That's
| one way members of the status quo perpetuate bad things, even
| without meaning to. It's a rationalization ('I'm thinking about
| this scientifically!') for plain old self-serving bias - I'm
| innocent of anything until there are scientific levels of
| proof, and then I'll still keep questioning it and probably
| just refuse to believe it. It's an impossible mountain to
| climb; in those discussions, the status quo will never agree.
|
| There are other approaches, such as a preponderance of
| evidence, to borrow the legal term.
| Applejinx wrote:
| I'm white as heck but I wouldn't think that for a single
| moment. I know enough black Americans and enough about policing
| that I'm unsurprised. Also, I would categorize the
| spokesperson's response as 'PR' and an expected claim, which is
| not the same thing as an accurate claim.
|
| As near as I can tell Black Lives Matter did not arise out of
| some sort of spite or radicalism, but out of the conditions
| Kinch's stated experience suggests. This pretty well
| contradicts the Civil Rights Act, something Kinch's stated
| experience also suggests.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| > Sowing that distrust is why Williams is going on the record,
| albeit without his original name
|
| I don't understand this. There's an insane level of detail here
| that if true immediately reveals his identity to those involved.
| How does withholding his name change anything?
|
| > On March 20... He'd helped persuade Seddon and his lieutenants
| to fire the head of AP3's Utah chapter and to install Williams in
| his place.
| vasco wrote:
| Do you know his name after reading the article?
| vlovich123 wrote:
| I am not the one that would be a threat to his life or have
| context to reverse engineer his identity.
| alamortsubite wrote:
| You aren't the only one who may read the article.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| I am guessing that his threat model includes people involved in
| these militias (or others) but who he didn't interact with
| directly. It probably also includes action by people merely
| _sympathetic_ to them, for example maybe local law enforcement.
|
| There can be a difference between revealing identity to some
| and revealing it to all. I'm not sure how much difference there
| is in this case specifically but it's not my life, not my call.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I wonder if he also infiltrated under a fake name (possibly the
| same fake name).
|
| I think the "albeit" is just an aside. It isn't necessarily
| enhancing his ability to create distrust. It is slightly
| confusing though because one could of course imagine a way of
| writing the report anonymously that would add additional
| distrust; if he was vague enough it could be hard for anybody
| to know that he wasn't talking about their organization. But
| he'd have to be pretty vague.
| not_alexb wrote:
| Those details are not necessarily _his_ firsthand account of
| things. I mean, in your own comment you quote something where
| Williams is posing as something else in order to take someone
| else down, why should it be any different in the case of
| providing these details?
| vlovich123 wrote:
| Because the journalist is claiming to have validated the
| elements of the story. If the journalist is also lying about
| that or intentionally helping their source in lying that's a
| huge breach of public trust and should be immediately
| blacklisted from working as such in the future. There are
| other ways the source could be protected without actually
| lying about things they're claiming are true.
| Applejinx wrote:
| I don't think that source can really be protected, nor does
| he expect to be. He's pretty clear on 'I want the militias
| to know what I did and to live in fear that anybody they
| trust could be another me, ready to betray them'.
|
| To some extent, the FBI has at least sometimes done just
| this. It's possible that some new leader like Kash Patel
| can remove the threat of the FBI infiltrating and betraying
| militias, but then what about moles infiltrating the FBI
| once they become effectively the same thing as the
| militias?
|
| There's a fundamental difference between acting as a law
| enforcement agency, and acting as a militia seeking to wage
| secret war on a class of citizens, where if your intent is
| to STOP various humans from planting bombs etc. you're
| acting like law enforcement, and if your intent is to plant
| the bombs you are the militia even if you're wearing a law
| enforcement name.
|
| This is shown in the struggles of the mole: would've been
| morally easier for him if he was just looking to rack up a
| body count. He wanted to protect what he saw as innocents,
| and so he had to calculate to what extent his infiltration
| was causing collateral damage, and when he acted on that he
| fled, cover blown as far as he knew. If he was more
| interested in just body count he might have been more blase
| about how things were going.
| MontagFTB wrote:
| I don't understand the lack of interest by journalists. What more
| did Williams need to do the first time he reached out to garner
| interest? Does ProPublica overestimate the seriousness of the
| militia movement? I'd think based on J6 the journalists ignoring
| Williams' communications should have paid attention.
| zzzeek wrote:
| I dont think journalists really find J6 to be important at all.
| Even left leaning journalists pay lip service to it but shrugs,
| buncha white dudes blowing off steam I think is how "everyone"
| sees this. As evidence, look at the election we just had.
|
| It reminds me of how the World Trade Center was bombed in 1993.
| Oh, that was scary, well, whatever, the dudes in jail, shrugs.
| Because it failed to bring the building down. For me, I was
| like, holy crap people are trying to blow up the WTC arent they
| going to.... _keep trying_? but that 's just not how people
| think. Super scary thing that failed == ho hum.
| wat10000 wrote:
| Or, pertinent to the subject at hand, how the Oklahoma City
| bombing was tied to the right wing militia movement and
| they're still mostly seen as, well, a bunch of white dudes
| blowing off steam like you said. In that case, it seems like
| people saw that they got the perpetrators and that's that,
| not considering what sort of circumstances produced them and
| where it might go in the future.
|
| And WTC and OKC were (at least somewhat) successful attacks!
| J6 caused damage but failed. We're _really_ bad at taking
| failed attempts seriously.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| A big factor in the OKC, J6, and militia movement and White
| nationalist violence more generally is that the law
| enforcement community in the US has very significant
| overlap with the militia and White nationalist movements,
| impacting how seriously they are treated by law
| enforcement, and how seriously they are treated by
| journalists who rely on experts from within the law
| enforcement community (both current officers and private
| experts that are the same people relied on as outside
| experts by law enforcement and are usually ex-law
| enforcement) for their understanding of the issues.
| josh_frome wrote:
| "Some of those that work forces..." indeed.
| sitkack wrote:
| If BLM had attempted what J6 actually did, it would have
| made Kent State look like a Simpson's episode.
| LudwigNagasena wrote:
| Seattle allowed BLM protesters to establish their own
| "autonomous zone" and ignored it until enough kids were
| killed.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _ignored it until enough kids were killed_
|
| From overdoses, right? Sort of different from terrorism
| in many meaningful ways.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| No, shooting. I don't think it was a meaningfully
| different rate than other weeks in Capitol Hill, but
| firefighters failing to render first aid certainly didn't
| help that one kid who was dying a couple hundred yards
| from a fire station. (The crowd wouldn't let a police car
| through, and it turns out the firefighters wouldn't
| approach until the police were there and said it was
| safe).
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _firefighters failing to render first aid certainly
| didn't help that one kid who was dying a couple hundred
| yards from a fire station_
|
| Still not terrorism. Left-wing militias are certainly a
| problem in some parts of the world. They aren't in
| America. Our domestic terrorism comes almost exclusively
| from radical Islam and right-wing nutjobs. (Who, somewhat
| hilariously, see eye to eye on more than they realise.)
| roenxi wrote:
| I suspect you're classifying the Trump assassins as
| right-wing nutjobs though (they weren't Islamists), which
| dilutes the position somewhat. What does right-wing even
| mean to you if it covers people trying to gun Trump down?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _suspect you 're classifying the Trump assassins as
| right-wing nutjobs_
|
| No. Of course we've had left-wing terrorism. It's just
| not been as prevalent, organised or present as the right-
| wing form. (And I'm aware of zero currently-operating
| left-wing militias anyone considers a threat in America.)
| derektank wrote:
| There were 5 shootings resulting in 3 deaths over a
| period of 9 days (20-29 June). CHAZ/CHOP existed for a
| period of 23 days (8 June - 1 July). There were 33
| homicides in the entire city of Seattle in 2019. No
| matter how you slice it, there was definitely an increase
| in the murder rate around the protests, potentially much
| higher.
|
| And a piece with the increase in homicides, Mayor Durkan
| reported that SPD had received a 525% increase in
| reported crimes in the area when compared to the previous
| June. Obviously not all of the crime was committed by
| protestors, but the protestors were the ones that drove
| out the police presence and the city tolerated the
| situation created by the protestors for nearly a month.
| Regardless of whether the situation is best described as
| domestic terrorism or not, it's clear that public
| officials were willing to tolerate violence enabled by
| left wing protestors "letting off steam" too.
| roenxi wrote:
| You should have included a link to be unambiguous: https:
| //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill_Occupied_Protest
|
| It was quite a spectacle.
| mnky9800n wrote:
| didn't timothy mcveigh also say that it was specifically a
| retaliation for waco?
| treis wrote:
| I don't think these right wing militias are that much of a
| threat. They're mostly LARPers and have enough attachment
| to their groups to not do the radical violence.
| Historically the right wingers that have actually committed
| violence are the ones that can't even find belonging in the
| right wing militias.
| dylan604 wrote:
| They're essentially the US' guerilla forces that we see
| in other countries that cause foreign forces operating in
| their land to get stuck in a quagmire. They may not be
| undefeatable, but they'll be able to put up a helluva
| show enough to make the opfor to question their
| commitment. Probably long enough to sway public opinion
| as well.
|
| Dismiss them at your own peril. The FBI did
| SoftTalker wrote:
| They were also well planned and intentional. J6 seemed much
| more like spur-of-the-moment mob action, at least from my
| armchair.
| x86_64Ubuntu wrote:
| But it wasn't, I remember seeing people on Facebook
| talking about J6 before it happened. It's kind of weird
| to see the minimization of J6 in real time.
| ericjmorey wrote:
| I think your comment is a direct reflection of the lack
| of popular coverage and discussion of January 6th. It was
| planned for prior to the election as a contingency.
| There's clear and direct evidence of that fact and
| there's very little awareness of that fact.
| LPisGood wrote:
| There were groups with guns and boats ready to resupply
| an insurgency.
| dotancohen wrote:
| Do you have a credible source that I could read about
| that? Thank you.
| thinkcontext wrote:
| https://apnews.com/article/capitol-siege-florida-
| virginia-co...
| djeastm wrote:
| There were several organized groups of people among the
| mob who went prepared for it to go much differently and
| stoked the flames. I shudder to think what would have
| happened if they made it to the chamber before the
| Representatives and Senators got out.
| zzzeek wrote:
| that's what they wanted it to look like. plenty of
| evidence aired at the congressional hearings showing this
| was a highly planned act
| dylan604 wrote:
| After OKC, the FBI turned the eye of sauron upon the
| militias. Then 9/11 happened, and white guys in the woods
| were suddenly less scary than non-white guy and the eye of
| sauron was no longer looking at the white guys in the
| woods.
|
| > We're really bad at taking failed attempts seriously.
|
| To that point, Osama bin Laden had multiple attempts
| attacking the WTC. They realized that it was going to take
| a lot more than a car bomb to take down those buildings and
| made improved plans from a car bomb. Which is just some of
| the data pointed to by those that are unbelieving that a
| truck bomb was the sole cause of OKC.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| It's sort of alluded to but I suspect journalists get a whole
| lot of false tips from various mentally unhealthy folk, which
| perhaps appear much like Williams' in this story.
| wat10000 wrote:
| Yeah, being contacted by someone who's on a bespoke
| undercover mission in right-wing militias is huge. Being
| contacted by someone who's _says_ they are is another matter.
| sitkack wrote:
| We don't know how the initial attempts at contact were
| presented. I can see it being extremely difficult to get
| someones attention. If how seemingly technical people ask
| for assistance on net forums is any indication, unless has
| someone has the skill of a reporter in presenting
| information, a string of signal messages with, "contact me,
| I have important information on XYZ" isn't going to cut it.
| SilasX wrote:
| Exactly. That's precisely the angle someone would use if
| they were trying to hoax or embarrass your publication.
| Applejinx wrote:
| He might have been reaching out to journalists working for
| outlets that run cover for this militia movement. Based on J6
| and subsequent developments in the justice system, there are
| media outlets cooperating with those authorities that
| downplay/join the militia movement.
|
| This is an important side-light on the concept that media
| sources are 'grifting' and only interested in what will make
| them money. It's surprisingly common for media sources to turn
| away from stories that could be sensational and give them
| money, but at the expense of a cause (such as these
| paramilitaries) which someone at the media source supports.
|
| In that case, the person at the media source making decisions
| will understand that the story is sensational and attention-
| getting, but will quash it because to run the story would be
| hurting the paramilitaries...
| cavisne wrote:
| Reading the article he found nothing right?
| dole wrote:
| He found and could verify militia connections between various
| law enforcement, local and state government officials.
| cavisne wrote:
| The report identified (but didn't directly) name 1 sheriff.
| Assuming its the current sheriff, a quick google of his
| background + the fact that he "facilitated" the militia
| members FBI interview gives a pretty strong hint why
| mainstream media would not pick up this story.
| ADeerAppeared wrote:
| Besides the things other comments mentioned: There is a
| longstanding sentiment that "It can't happen here".
|
| The wider public in America more or less blocks out the risks
| involved. "They're not _actually_ going to blow up the power
| grid. "
|
| Hell, just look at the tech industry. Endless whining about not
| needing to be regulated, and what have they done? Built an
| enormous surveilance machine, lead by executives who
| preemptively kowtow to any authoritarian leader. Europe's
| attempt to regulate this is still angrily opposed by heaps,
| even on this very site.
| toss1 wrote:
| Yup
|
| Normalcy bias -- it's an absolute killer. The same cognitive
| failure that has people in a fire thinking it's "just part of
| the show", or "just something in the kitchen", until it is
| too late, and panic overtakes everyone. I've never seen a
| story of a fire where someone in the situation said "I wasn't
| sure what was going on, but it didn't seem good so I left
| early, I'm alive because I did!".
|
| Normalcy bias can kill us all if we aren't careful.
| refulgentis wrote:
| Thanks for writing this: things are quite askew right now for
| various reasons, and it was unexpectedly affirming to hear
| someone say it loud.
|
| Until now I would have said this is an extreme minority view,
| even though it's quite obvious and aligns with the core
| values I've seen on this site over the last 15 years, and
| thus presumed were tech in general's view.
|
| Maybe I just need to get off X, the Everything App(tm), 90%
| of my news consumption and commentary is through there.
| rcruzeiro wrote:
| Come to Bluesky. It's not perfect, but neither was twitter
| 10 year ago. Bluesky feels a bit like that.
| jajko wrote:
| As somebody who successfully avoided twitter stuff my
| whole life - whats the lure of this? Following some folks
| reading some random brainfarts is not how I imagine
| spending my time, and that's all I can see on this. Maybe
| I have just different type of personality than target
| audience.
|
| Or is it so addictive like social networks seem to be?
| daveguy wrote:
| Yes, you should definitely leave X. It is a cesspool of
| rage bait.
| jibe wrote:
| Because as low as most journalist's standard are, Williams is
| below that low standard. Though good enough for Pro Publica. He
| is an erratic, ex-con, who seems to be mentally unstable. Did
| you believe the puppy story?
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| If the journalist really verified the audio recordings I
| believe it. Faking so many hours of audio from multiple
| people is still difficult. I mean, you could do it with AI
| voices, but I doubt that's the case
| timewizard wrote:
| > the journalists ignoring Williams' communications
|
| It's because just accepting a prepackaged story like this from
| a single source would completely fail to meet the standards of
| journalism.
| nostromo wrote:
| Because his story barely passes the sniff test.
|
| He just up and joined a bunch of radical militias that he
| strongly disagrees with? I mean... maybe. But you'd of course
| be very suspicious of everything he says and his motives for
| coming forward.
| Animats wrote:
| > Does ProPublica overestimate the seriousness of the militia
| movement?
|
| Unclear. Depends on how supportive of it Trump is. He might
| legitimize it by pardoning the Jan. 6 attackers. Many of them
| thought they were acting on Trump's orders, after all. There
| was one platoon-sized Proud Boys unit on Jan. 6th that showed
| military organization and discipline. The rest were just a mob.
|
| Having a private army of goons can be useful. That's what the
| SA was in the Nazi era. The SA was a big organization, 20x the
| size of the German army at peak. Eventually, it was put down
| once Hitler was firmly in power. See "Night of the Long
| Knives".[1] Other countries have been through this. Sometimes
| the goons ended up in charge, or at least as a large faction to
| be kept happy.
|
| This is often seen after internal unrest that yields a large,
| restless, armed group. Germany got there by losing WWI, but not
| being crushed. Haiti is a classic example. Afghanistan seems to
| have gone down this road - all those former "fighters" have to
| be fed and kept busy.
|
| The closest the US came was the "Bonus Army" camped out on the
| Mall after WWI, demanding a bonus for veterans.[2] The Bonus
| Army had 17,000 veteran soldiers, and some political and police
| support. Eventually they were forcibly dispersed.
|
| US militias don't match any of those classic situations.
| They're mostly wannabees. If you encounter militia types, ask
| them if all their members use the same ammo. If not, they're a
| rabble, not an army.
|
| Do we get to see the actual documents the original author talks
| about?
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army
| mjfl wrote:
| The moles are leading the militias, what are you talking about -
| 'infiltrated'? Enirque Tarrio was an FBI informant the entire
| time before he was arrested.
| jamestimmins wrote:
| This post makes me wonder why videos of militias training always
| look so farcical.
|
| Practically, why are there not militia groups with Navy
| SEAL/Delta-level tactical abilities? Or at least near to that? Is
| it personnel selection effects or bc that level of training
| requires time/money investments that are out of the reach of non-
| professional organizations?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| In think it's personnel selection.
|
| I think the militias don't get the top-of-the-line retired
| military people. They get the wannabes, the people who love the
| _trappings_ of being tough and deadly, without the actual
| skills or training. Putting on my amateur psychologist 's hat,
| I'd guess that the militia types mostly washed out in the
| military, but are still looking for what they went into the
| military to try to find - a sense of belonging and identity.
|
| The real SEAL/Delta level people don't go into a militia to try
| to find that - they found it for real in the real military.
| mmooss wrote:
| The love of military-style vests (and of the word 'tactical')
| seems like a signal.
| ckcheng wrote:
| > seems like a signal
|
| Also "mil-spec", and in a totally different context i.e.
| big box retail, "contractor grade".
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_grade
| dole wrote:
| More often plate carriers and body armor, mag holders and
| other "operator" gear than just military syyle vests.
| "tacticool" is the ironic label given to overtly "tactical"
| gear.
| ben_w wrote:
| During the pandemic, I was wondering why I never saw
| "military grade" or "tactical" masks.
|
| I guess not enough of an overlap between anyone anti-mask
| and any convenient promotional memes.
| jamestimmins wrote:
| This is a good point, and the emphasis on belonging aligns
| with the article.
|
| A trope of many action/thriller movies is groups of top-notch
| professionals becoming disenchanted with democracy and
| forming terrorist organizations. While movies aren't reality,
| it's striking that even watered-down versions almost never
| seem to happen. Maybe the military is just that good at
| filtering out those types during psychological testing, or
| maybe belonging is far more important than ideology.
| otoburb wrote:
| >> _Maybe the military is just that good at filtering out
| those types during psychological testing, or maybe
| belonging is far more important than ideology._
|
| The more mundane reason is probably because it's more
| appealing to use those skills to enter law enforcement or
| become a private military contractor than knowingly and
| overtly breaking away from society to form and maintain an
| organization that uses violence to achieve specific
| political aims.
| ylk wrote:
| What you write sounds plausible at first, but then there's
| this example from the German KSK:
|
| ,,In 2018, the German Federal Criminal Police Office
| uncovered a plot involving unknown KSK soldiers to murder
| prominent German politicians such as Claudia Roth, Heiko Maas
| and Joachim Gauck among others, and carry out attacks against
| immigrants living in Germany.[7] Also, earlier that same year
| in a separate investigation, the State prosecutors in the
| city of Tubingen investigated whether neo-Nazi symbols were
| used at a "farewell" event involving members of KSK.[8][9]
|
| In June 2020, German defence minister Annegret Kramp-
| Karrenbauer announced that the unit would be partially
| disbanded due to growing far-right extremism within the
| ranks.[10] The KSK had become partially independent from the
| chain of command, with a toxic leadership culture. One of the
| force's four companies where extremism is said to be the most
| rife was to be dissolved and not replaced.[11]"
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kommando_Spezialkr%C3%A4fte
| ocschwar wrote:
| > Practically, why are there not militia groups with Navy
| SEAL/Delta-level tactical abilities?
|
| Because SEAL/Delta units are made up of statistical outliers
| who can keep their cortisol levels low under conditions that
| 99% of us absolutely cannot.
| mmooss wrote:
| Possibly those with real abilities have the discipline to not
| publicise it in videos.
|
| Also, in experience with self-organized volunteer organizations
| in different fields (not militias, etc.), the lack of
| discipline, organization, motivation, just basic thought is
| often shocking. The dysfunction can be overwhelming. I'm not
| surprised that very few have developed real capabilities.
|
| > Navy SEAL/Delta-level
|
| Maybe you didn't mean it literally, but that is a pretty high
| standard. It's like asking why you don't see local basketball
| players with NBA-level ability. 99.x% of military personnel,
| with years of training and experience, don't reach those
| levels.
| jamestimmins wrote:
| You bring up some interesting points. The publicizing side of
| things makes sense. Although given how often you hear about
| ex-military, police, etc, members in groups like these, I'd
| still expect that we'd see a handful of criminal/terrorist
| activities taken out by highly competent groups, even if it's
| unclear who it is.
|
| But that may get back to your point about discipline,
| motivation, intelligence, etc.
|
| Re SEAL/Delta-level: I guess I'm asking two distinct
| questions.
|
| 1) To use your basketball analogy: while NBA-level skills may
| be an unreasonable expectation, why do the videos seem to
| show middle school or JV-level competence? I'd expect that D3
| college-level competence wouldn't be super difficult, but
| evidently that isn't a correct assumption.
|
| 2) What is the practical requirement for a world-class
| tactical unit (or near that level, e.g. D1 basketball or a
| bad pro team)? I wouldn't expect current militias to be at
| that level, but what about less developed nation-states?
| cj wrote:
| The simplest explanation is that it's possible, but there
| isn't an obvious ROI for having a highly trained tactical
| team.
|
| Highly trained tactical teams are useful for precision
| strikes. Most goals of a militia don't require that much
| precision, if I had to guess.
| abracadaniel wrote:
| Also, having that level of skill makes you valuable. You
| could probably earn a decent wage and therefore have more
| to lose and be less likely to use or want to pass on
| those skills for free. If you have the skill, you're
| probably not desperate enough to use it. If you're
| desperate enough to use those skills, you probably can't
| afford to learn them.
| mmooss wrote:
| A very good point. Also, if you are a professional, few
| things are more frustrating that working with amateurs.
| Mostly you are wasting time, trying to prevent
| fundamental mistakes, and failing.
| mcmcmc wrote:
| 1) Opsec is synonymous with survival to elite warfighters,
| so again you will rarely if ever see them in PR videos.
| Then think about the video production resources available
| to actual militaries versus homegrown militia. Appearing
| competent on video is a different matter from actually
| being competent.
|
| 2) World class units require world class funding. Training
| and equipment are not cheap. The amount of money spent on
| the military by the US government is a big factor in
| tactical superiority, not just for the front-line units
| themselves, but also the massive amount of logistics it
| takes for them to operate at that elite level anywhere on
| the planet at the drop of a hat.
| mmooss wrote:
| > What is the practical requirement for a world-class
| tactical unit (or near that level, e.g. D1 basketball or a
| bad pro team)? I wouldn't expect current militias to be at
| that level, but what about less developed nation-states?
|
| One common form of US military aid is training elite units
| in partner militaries, often in less developed countries.
| This has an evil history, training death squads and other
| war criminals, knowingly or unknowingly. It also has a
| cost-effective and good history, training Ukraine's elite
| units, for example.
|
| (My impression is that it's a cost-effective compromise
| solution to a very difficult, expensive problem: The
| institutions of militaries are sometimes highly corrupt and
| incompetent; the Afghan military is an example. Fixing that
| problem would require building a new military, which could
| take 20 years at great cost and may be impossible: The
| corruption usually comes from the government, whose
| corruption comes from elites and from society-wide
| political problems.)
|
| You can find some competent people and create a small,
| isolated organization, and train and equip them, and do it
| cost-effectively. The Afghan military was hopeless; their
| elite units were reportedly very good.
| otoburb wrote:
| In addition to the prohibitive cost and effort to setup and
| maintain such a program, I believe all 50 states have laws on
| the books that make it illegal to organize and train in
| military tactics without prior authorization from the state.[1]
|
| [1] https://www.law.georgetown.edu/icap/wp-
| content/uploads/sites...
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| Perhaps, but do you think these groups would NOT train just
| because of some state law?
|
| It feels like the "no scammers" thing you see on Craigslist
| ads; as if some scammer would say, "Darn, and I was really
| hoping to cash in on THIS one; I guess I'm out."
| otoburb wrote:
| >> _[...]but do you think these groups would NOT train just
| because of some state law?_
|
| To your point, the groups will likely continue to train
| (seemingly illegally), but the _quality_ of the groups will
| definitely be degraded due to the more limited pool of
| qualified trainers driven by the presumably high-deterrence
| of state laws. The original comment above asked why we don
| 't see high(er) performing militia groups, and these types
| of state laws seem like a strong contributing factor.
| rekttrader wrote:
| Ah yes, the law... sworn enemy of the militia.
| timewizard wrote:
| The law doesn't say that at all. They're not allowed to
| perform law enforcement _functions_. There's nothing that
| prevents them from /training/ to do so.
| rtpg wrote:
| My two bit understanding is that militias are mostly LARPing
| (in a very open sense)? And it's not like they have a giant
| candidate pool
|
| Probably important to consider that everything you know about
| SEALs etc are filtered through a massive PR system anyways. So
| you might not be comparing the same level of quality of video
| either. Good editing can do wonders.
| hylaride wrote:
| > everything you know about SEALs etc are filtered through a
| massive PR system anyways.
|
| I saw a joke about Navy Seals awhile ago that went something
| like:
|
| A Navy Seal and a Delta Force operator are chatting in a bar.
| The Navy Seal immediately starts talking and bragging for
| hours about all the amazing things he and other Seals have
| done. The entire time the Delta Force operator smiles and
| nods.
| basementcat wrote:
| The cost of training "special forces" personnel is likely
| beyond the financial capabilities of militia type
| organizations.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy_SEAL_sele...
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Boat_Service#Recruit...
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranger_School
| nobodywillobsrv wrote:
| Exactly. And defense against tyranny is a legitimate thing.
| Militia's are not really special. It's unclear what it even
| means given many things are legal in the US.
| Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
| > This post makes me wonder why videos of militias training
| always look so farcical.
|
| This exactly - a few 300-pound dudes taking a break from their
| McDonalds to look like they really mean it by firing long
| barrelled weapons at some cardboard target. All this escape and
| evasion training, with all the wilderness stuff too - it's
| nonsense, little guys playing soldier is all.
| VeejayRampay wrote:
| this is that guy bringing his tactical knife to the forest
| and putting wax in a can to light a fire for a
| "bushcraft/survivalist" YouTube video, but in group
| timewizard wrote:
| It's a volunteer organization. They all have the exact same
| problem because they don't actively select their members.
| AzzyHN wrote:
| A large part of the FBI's job is to shut these militias down.
| You can't grow a resistance movement without making some noise,
| and the US government is obviously very keen on maintaining the
| status quo.
|
| Examples from the past are easy to come by (COINTELPRO), but a
| recent example would be the failed 2020 kidnapping plot of
| Gretchen Whitmer, the Governor of Michigan at the time.
|
| Thirteen arrests were announced, and the FBI has admitted to
| using three informants and two special agents. The defense
| argued that there were at least twelve.
|
| Using the official number as a conservative guess, that's still
| 5 feds for 13 arrests (a 38% ratio!)
|
| Now imagine if instead of 13 dudes trying to kidnap a governor,
| it was a local militia trying to arm and train hundreds or
| thousands of people. The full power of the US government to
| crush opposition is terrifying.
| indymike wrote:
| > why are there not militia groups with Navy SEAL/Delta-level
| tactical abilities?
|
| Let's set aside talent, access to experience trainers,
| facilities and equipment and just look at time on task: real
| special forces operators spend 30-60 hours per week, 48 weeks a
| year (assuming 4 weeks of leave) working on their craft.
| Finding people that can put that kind of time in would be rare.
|
| When you look at the other factors, the gap widens.
|
| So if the militia doesn't hold a candle to the SEALs the why do
| they matter? Because of modern point and shoot repeating and
| guided weapons. We're seeing that in how the Russians are
| taking people off the streets and out of prisons, giving 1-3
| week of training and throwing them at the Ukrainians. We saw
| that with the Ukrainians when they stopped huge Russian armored
| columns with man-portable anti-tank missiles. Bullets,
| grenades, ATGMs and drones really don't care about the
| experience level of their target. Artillery, even portable
| stuff like a pack mortar or repeating grenade launcher takes
| out any Spetznaz or Rangers in the general area you aim at just
| like it does any other soldier. The age of the super-proficient
| ended with the US Civil war: the revolver, repeating rifle and
| machine gun level skill gaps pretty quickly..
| VeejayRampay wrote:
| because if you have the mentality and resolve to produce SEAL-
| levels of ability, you don't end up in loser militias, you
| become a SEAL
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| I remember re-watching "three days of the condor" recently - and
| apart from a few "wow the 70s was a different time" moments the
| biggest takeaway was the hero just hands a dossier to the
| Washington Post, no _drops off a dossier to the post room!_ , and
| the film, the audience, everyone just assumes the job is done -
| the bad guys are exposed and they will be punished
|
| I think we have a different view now. In the UK we are looking at
| a Post Office scandal where the upper management literally
| prosecuted its own employees for theft instead of admit a billion
| dollar computer system was buggy. And this started in 1990s, was
| printed in newspapers by the mid-2000s and only got serious last
| year and prosecutions will probably go through to the 2030s
|
| I mean if the punishment for your misdeeds is thirty years
| delayed, and basically consists of retiring and being embarrassed
| in front of friends it's hardly a punishment.
|
| And it rather makes this "moles" efforts ... well it's not much
| of a deal for him is it really.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| That's kinda the trouble with fighting these memes, it's legal
| to own guns, it's legal to hang out with your buddies and shoot
| guns and talk about overthrowing the government, it's legal to
| be friends with the sheriff, it's legal for the sheriff to be a
| white supremacist...
|
| But all that shit's a powder keg, they're hoping for some
| nonsense like "race war" to set them off, and until then they
| have a lot of deniability.
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| Good read. For a similar story I can recommend:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mole:_Undercover_in_North_...
| hackandthink wrote:
| Reminds me of a story in Germany:
|
| Verfassungsschutz moles have procured weapons for Nazi
| terrorists(1999-2011).
|
| https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalsozialistischer_Unterg...
| nobodywillobsrv wrote:
| Frustrating article. They didn't discuss the goals of the
| militia's or their concerns at all. The spy was basically a one
| man militia.
|
| Whole thing smells.
| jondwillis wrote:
| Infinite Luigis Theory:
|
| I get a sense that we are beginning to see a resurgence in lone-
| wolf style operator activism and crime (or terrorism, etc.,
| depending on your view of things), sort of like was more common
| 30+ years ago, a la the Unibomber, Skyjacker, all of the serial
| killers in the 60-80s.
|
| The reasons of "why now" and "why lone wolf" are complicated but
| mostly boil down to high availability of information (awareness
| of opsec) and relatively low trust amongst social groups and of
| institutions, coupled with a more online and more destabilized
| male demographic the younger you go.
| ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
| Luigi was the first educated one we've seen in a while, not
| sure if its a trend yet. the rest are young with not much going
| for them, or homeless and have mental problems
| nobodywillobsrv wrote:
| What does it even mean "militia" in the US? Is any group with
| weapons a militia? Is it a militia to gather and train and only
| worry about tyranny?
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| An organized group of people arming themselves and training to
| fight against some present or future threat. Also not
| recognized as an official armed force of a country.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| Nobody is actually afraid of the militia movement. Nobody says,
| sorry I can't criticize the "militia movement it would hurt my
| career." Nobody says "I can't criticize the militia movement, my
| children need me."
|
| It makes a very good folk-demon, especially since it's real.
|
| But there's only one ideology able to scare Americans into
| silence . It's the one that makes ChatGPT avoid making an image
| of anyone named Muhammad.
|
| Imagine a lone American infiltrating Al-Qaeda or the Taliban or
| Isis. Not likely, right? Because they're actually scary
| organizations.
| lovasoa wrote:
| I have never heard of anyone in the developed world who would
| be afraid to criticize Al-Qaeda or the Taliban or Isis.
| Actually I have never heard anyone NOT criticize them when
| talking about them.
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