#qanon is run by russia

[evilwickedme]

I said I'd never do jumblr content again and yet here I am because this keeps coming up and it's like the only thing I can think about. That said I will not hesitate to turn off reblogs if y'all are horrible in the notes again, and be warned that I will be blocking anybody who supports any of the theories I mention immediately

There is no such thing as a conspiracy theory that isn't antisemitic. There is no such animal

Antisemitic conspiracy theories go back thousands of years. The ones that still have the most hold on culture to this day are the blood libel, and the protocols of the elders of zion

The blood libel was an accusation that would be brought against Jewish populations in Europe often but especially around Passover claiming that we were killing Christian children for ritual purposes, usually to use their blood for baking matza or other nonsense (it is important to me that you know that this is nonsense. It is horrible and damaging but also to the core a ridiculous lie that never at any point made any sense. They just didn't care). Debatably this trope is present in the merchant of Venice. Undebatably Jews were killed because people did and still do sincerely believe this

The protocols of the elders of zion is a fictitious document published in Russia at the very beginning of the 20th century, supposedly detailing the meetings of the Jewish people who secretly run the world. The protocols were almost immediately proven to be a rip off of another document - ah, plagiarism - but that hasn't stopped antisemites from embracing it wholeheartedly (special thanks fuck you to Henry Ford for publishing them in his newspaper, spreading it across the USA). It built on previous antisemitic tropes, from the greedy banker trope (Jews were forced to be money lenders in medieval Europe as it was forbidden in Christianity and Jews weren't allowed to join any guilds, preventing them from making money in any other capacity - the reason why there are so many Jews in Hollywood is identical, but in the early 20th century) to the concept of dual loyalty (i.e. Jewish are loyal to ourselves above all else and cannot be trusted to be loyal to the country where we live, see: modern trope that every Jew is probably loyal to Israel and the subsequent idea that it's okay to ask every single diaspora Jew how they feel about Israel immediately upon meeting them). It's also worth noting that the word cabal, used to denote the shadowy organizations that supposedly control the world, comes from kabbala, which is Jewish mysticism

The idea of lizard people, created by a guy literally named Icke because he is a gross human being, was designed to repackage the antisemitic shadow cabal concept to be supposedly more palatable

Most qanon theories also build on all of this, such as world leaders preying on children (remember pizzagate?)

But more importantly conspiratorial thinking always positions you as the good guy standing against a mysterious "them", an other which is influencing things behind the scenes. The Jew is the ultimate other, and specifically an other that supposedly forms a shadowy world government, controlling everything and yet somehow not managing to get rid of antisemitism (see: protocols of Zion, lizard people, we control Hollywood and the government which is of course conspiring against you). There is no way to decouple the idea of an evil shadowy organization (usually also referred to as a cabal to really hammer it in) from antisemitism and antisemitic tropes

And this means that even supposedly "harmless" conspiracy theories attract antisemites and train people who aren't necessarily rabid antisemites to confirm those kinds of biases. Obviously Qanon and lizard people are antisemitic, but what does the moon landing have to do with Jews? Well, it was Hollywood and the government that faked it, obviously. Hell, even the conspiracy that Taylor Swift is secretly a lesbian and is either still secretly dating or is exes with Karlie Kloss is riddled with antisemitism -

Okay so I need to explain my position on this because I fucking hate this conspiracy theory, and the fact that most people simply won't acknowledge that that's what it is. Firstly, Taylor Swift has stated that she is not gay or considers herself an ally at least three times off the top of my head, and specifically denied that she was dating Karlie Kloss. Secondly, outing people is wrong. Thirdly, the conspiracy theory hinges on the idea that she would be risking her career by coming out, except that she's proven that basically no controversy can come in the way of her career, she's already "come out" as an ally, donated to glaad and the equality act, promoted queer musicians & artists & designers (there was a song in the reputation tour that was dedicated to a gay designer every single night of the tour). So what's stopping her from coming out at this point? Mysterious forces, clearly. The antisemitism in that I've already explained, but also the virulent antisemitism among Kaylor shippers aimed at her husband and at the fact that she converted to Judaism is fucking disgusting

Again: even a supposedly harmless conspiracy theory leads to antisemitism and attracts antisemites

A few years ago I tried to rewatch white collar cause I remembered really enjoying that show as a preteen and after around a season I just couldn't stand it anymore, because all I wanted to do was jump into the universe and yell at Mozzie to shut the fuck up because these conspiracy theories were barely presented as a joke and never challenged even once by any of the characters. When I rewatched that 70s show it also fucking sucked, but at least it wasn't showing up in every single episode. The blacklist focuses entirely on a literal Cabal, that's what they're called

This stuff is so normalized and it's fucking everywhere and it's exhausting. Jews are to this day being murdered over this. I can't change the world by myself, unfortunately, but if you don't have a specific person to blame for your troubles, shut the fuck up. Just shut up. There is no conspiracy against you. Sometimes life just sucks. Or definitely does for the Jews who get shot at over this shit

Again, I'll be blocking anybody who parrots this bullshit in the comments but especially fucking gaylors y'all are one of the main reasons that being a fan of Taylor Swift's music is fucking unbearable. Just accept you can connect to music made by somebody different than yourself it's not that difficult of a concept

[mariacallous]

It’s now well understood that generative AI will increase the spread of disinformation on the internet. From deepfakes to fake news articles to bots, AI will generate not only more disinformation, but more convincing disinformation. But what people are only starting to understand is how disinformation will become more targeted and better able to engage with people and sway their opinions.

When Russia tried to influence the 2016 US presidential election via the now disbanded Internet Research Agency, the operation was run by humans who often had little cultural fluency or even fluency in the English language and so were not always able to relate to the groups they were targeting. With generative AI tools, those waging disinformation campaigns will be able to finely tune their approach by profiling individuals and groups. These operatives can produce content that seems legitimate and relatable to the people on the other end and even target individuals with personalized disinformation based on data they’ve collected. Generative AI will also make it much easier to produce disinformation and will thus increase the amount of disinformation that’s freely flowing on the internet, experts say.

“Generative AI lowers the financial barrier for creating content that’s tailored to certain audiences,” says Kate Starbird, an associate professor in the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington. “You can tailor it to audiences and make sure the narrative hits on the values and beliefs of those audiences, as well as the strategic part of the narrative.”

Rather than producing just a handful of articles a day,  Starbird adds, “You can actually write one article and tailor it to 12 different audiences. It takes five minutes for each one of them.”

Considering how much content people post to social media and other platforms, it’s very easy to collect data to build a disinformation campaign. Once operatives are able to profile different groups of people throughout a country, they can teach the generative AI system they’re using to create content that manipulates those targets in highly sophisticated ways.

“You’re going to see that capacity to fine-tune. You’re going to see that precision increase. You’re going to see the relevancy increase,” says Renee Diresta, the technical research manager at Stanford Internet Observatory.

Hany Farid, a professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, says this kind of customized disinformation is going to be “everywhere.” Though bad actors will probably target people by groups when waging a large-scale disinformation campaign, they could also use generative AI to target individuals.

“You could say something like, ‘Here’s a bunch of tweets from this user. Please write me something that will be engaging to them.’ That’ll get automated. I think that’s probably coming,” Farid says.

Purveyors of disinformation will try all sorts of tactics until they find what works best, Farid says, and much of what’s happening with these disinformation campaigns likely won’t be fully understood until after they’ve been in operation for some time. Plus, they only need to be somewhat effective to achieve their aims.

“If I want to launch a disinformation campaign, I can fail 99 percent of the time. You fail all the time, but it doesn’t matter,” Farid says. “Every once in a while, the QAnon gets through. Most of your campaigns can fail, but the ones that don’t can wreak havoc.”

Farid says we saw during the 2016 election cycle how the recommendation algorithms on platforms like Facebook radicalized people and helped spread disinformation and conspiracy theories. In the lead-up to the 2024 US election, Facebook’s algorithm—itself a form of AI—will likely be recommending some AI-generated posts instead of only pushing content created entirely by human actors. We’ve reached the point where AI will be used to create disinformation that another AI then recommends to you.

“We’ve been pretty well tricked by very low-quality content. We are entering a period where we’re going to get higher-quality disinformation and propaganda,” Starbird says. “It’s going to be much easier to produce content that’s tailored for specific audiences than it ever was before. I think we’re just going to have to be aware that that’s here now.”

What can be done about this problem? Unfortunately, only so much. Diresta says people need to be made aware of these potential threats and be more careful about what content they engage with. She says you’ll want to check whether your source is a website or social media profile that was created very recently, for example. Farid says AI companies also need to be pressured to implement safeguards so there’s less disinformation being created overall.

The Biden administration recently struck a deal with some of the largest AI companies—ChatGPT maker OpenAI, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta—that encourages them to create specific guardrails for their AI tools, including external testing of AI tools and watermarking of content created by AI. These AI companies have also created a group focused on developing safety standards for AI tools, and Congress is debating how to regulate AI.

Despite such efforts, AI is accelerating faster than it’s being reined in, and Silicon Valley often fails to keep promises to only release safe, tested products. And even if some companies behave responsibly, that doesn’t mean all of the players in this space will act accordingly.

“This is the classic story of the last 20 years: Unleash technology, invade everybody’s privacy, wreak havoc, become trillion-dollar-valuation companies, and then say, ‘Well, yeah, some bad stuff happened,’” Farid says. “We’re sort of repeating the same mistakes, but now it’s supercharged because we’re releasing this stuff on the back of mobile devices, social media, and a mess that already exists.”

[antidrumpfs]

The Pro-Trump Senate Candidate Who Didn’t Scrub All of His Anti-Trump Tweets

Bernie Moreno is a poster boy example of the spinless hypocrisy and cowardice which runs rampant within the Republicon MAGA party. He has made his true opinion of Trump known many times in the past on social media, but just like Kevin McCarthy, Mitch McConnell, and Lindsey Graham before him he now falls to his knees and proceeds to kiss the big flabby ass of Agent Orange.

Just a few examples from the article of Former posts by Moreno:

In a now-deleted December 2020 tweet, Moreno said it was wrong when Democrats accused Trump of collusion with Russia, “but just as bad for [Trump] to make claims of a fraudulent election without proof. Potentially irreparable harm to US.”

In a tweet sent on the evening of Jan. 6, Moreno tried to distance Republicans from the violence by castigating and insulting the rioters. “The morons who ransacked the capital don’t represent anyone but the mentally unstable,” he said in one reply.

In another Jan. 6 Twitter reply, Moreno referred to the rioters as “criminals” and urged another user to not legitimize them. “This is not how democracy is done,” he said. In another, he dubbed the now-infamous QAnon shaman “an out of work and untalented actor.”

Example of the new MAGA Moreno with his spinless qualities on full display:

In the last month, Moreno has called for President Joe Biden’s impeachment, campaigned recently alongside hardcore election denier Kari Lake, and wrote an op-ed saying that any Republican candidate for office should be “disqualified” if they would not support Trump if he were the GOP nominee for president.

“Some people wish Trump’s words were more polished, but the difference between every other politician and Trump is that he gives us full and honest access to all his thoughts—which is preferable to the deception most politicians engage in publicly,” Moreno wrote in The Columbus Dispatch. “At the end of the day, I care more about actions, and Trump’s actions made us stronger, safer, and more prosperous.”

[studentofetherium]

People wanna paint Trump as this new age Hitler and a master manipulator and fascist

He is just your run of the mill right wing idiot nothing special

i'd argue he's a step below the average grifter, because he's too straightforward, and will always say the intention, rather than hide it behind excuses. this makes him more popular, but it also makes him easier to target for ridicule. he's not even an Alex Jones type, because he so clearly gets all his ideas from other people. and i think all of this is what made him perfect for both the democrats and republicans to gather around

but no one wants to gather around an idiot, whether they support him or hate him, which is why you get liberals assuming he's smarter than he really is, with complicated international conspiracies involving russia, and on the right, qanon

[sixstringphonic]

This Disinformation Is Just for You

Generative AI won't just flood the internet with more lies—it may also create convincing disinformation that’s targeted at groups or even individuals.

(Thor Benson for Wired, 8/1/23)

It’s now well understood that generative AI will increase the spread of disinformation on the internet. From deepfakes to fake news articles to bots, AI will generate not only more disinformation, but more convincing disinformation. But what people are only starting to understand is how disinformation will become more targeted and better able to engage with people and sway their opinions.

When Russia tried to influence the 2016 US presidential election via the now disbanded Internet Research Agency, the operation was run by humans who often had little cultural fluency or even fluency in the English language and so were not always able to relate to the groups they were targeting. With generative AI tools, those waging disinformation campaigns will be able to finely tune their approach by profiling individuals and groups. These operatives can produce content that seems legitimate and relatable to the people on the other end and even target individuals with personalized disinformation based on data they’ve collected. Generative AI will also make it much easier to produce disinformation and will thus increase the amount of disinformation that’s freely flowing on the internet, experts say.

“Generative AI lowers the financial barrier for creating content that’s tailored to certain audiences,” says Kate Starbird, an associate professor in the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington. “You can tailor it to audiences and make sure the narrative hits on the values and beliefs of those audiences, as well as the strategic part of the narrative.”

Rather than producing just a handful of articles a day,  Starbird adds, “You can actually write one article and tailor it to 12 different audiences. It takes five minutes for each one of them.”

Considering how much content people post to social media and other platforms, it’s very easy to collect data to build a disinformation campaign. Once operatives are able to profile different groups of people throughout a country, they can teach the generative AI system they’re using to create content that manipulates those targets in highly sophisticated ways.

“You’re going to see that capacity to fine-tune. You’re going to see that precision increase. You’re going to see the relevancy increase,” says Renee Diresta, the technical research manager at Stanford Internet Observatory.

Hany Farid, a professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, says this kind of customized disinformation is going to be “everywhere.” Though bad actors will probably target people by groups when waging a large-scale disinformation campaign, they could also use generative AI to target individuals.

“You could say something like, ‘Here’s a bunch of tweets from this user. Please write me something that will be engaging to them.’ That’ll get automated. I think that’s probably coming,” Farid says.

Purveyors of disinformation will try all sorts of tactics until they find what works best, Farid says, and much of what’s happening with these disinformation campaigns likely won’t be fully understood until after they’ve been in operation for some time. Plus, they only need to be somewhat effective to achieve their aims.

“If I want to launch a disinformation campaign, I can fail 99 percent of the time. You fail all the time, but it doesn’t matter,” Farid says. “Every once in a while, the QAnon gets through. Most of your campaigns can fail, but the ones that don’t can wreak havoc.”

Farid says we saw during the 2016 election cycle how the recommendation algorithms on platforms like Facebook radicalized people and helped spread disinformation and conspiracy theories. In the lead-up to the 2024 US election, Facebook’s algorithm—itself a form of AI—will likely be recommending some AI-generated posts instead of only pushing content created entirely by human actors. We’ve reached the point where AI will be used to create disinformation that another AI then recommends to you.

“We’ve been pretty well tricked by very low-quality content. We are entering a period where we’re going to get higher-quality disinformation and propaganda,” Starbird says. “It’s going to be much easier to produce content that’s tailored for specific audiences than it ever was before. I think we’re just going to have to be aware that that’s here now.”

What can be done about this problem? Unfortunately, only so much. Diresta says people need to be made aware of these potential threats and be more careful about what content they engage with. She says you’ll want to check whether your source is a website or social media profile that was created very recently, for example. Farid says AI companies also need to be pressured to implement safeguards so there’s less disinformation being created overall.

The Biden administration recently struck a deal with some of the largest AI companies—ChatGPT maker OpenAI, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta—that encourages them to create specific guardrails for their AI tools, including external testing of AI tools and watermarking of content created by AI. These AI companies have also created a group focused on developing safety standards for AI tools, and Congress is debating how to regulate AI.

Despite such efforts, AI is accelerating faster than it’s being reined in, and Silicon Valley often fails to keep promises to only release safe, tested products. And even if some companies behave responsibly, that doesn’t mean all of the players in this space will act accordingly.

“This is the classic story of the last 20 years: Unleash technology, invade everybody’s privacy, wreak havoc, become trillion-dollar-valuation companies, and then say, ‘Well, yeah, some bad stuff happened,’” Farid says. “We’re sort of repeating the same mistakes, but now it’s supercharged because we’re releasing this stuff on the back of mobile devices, social media, and a mess that already exists.” (Source.)

[pashterlengkap]

Marjorie Taylor Greene says Ukraine is sex trafficking kids & selling their organs

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) — who opposes U.S. funding to help Ukraine fight off Russia’s invasion — believes that Ukraine is sex trafficking children and harvesting their organs. It’s just the latest of many extreme conspiracy theories she has peddled. Standing on the U.S. Capitol steps on Tuesday, Greene live-streamed her 40-minute publicity stunt in which she stood nearby fellow protesters and said, “There is massive human trafficking in Ukraine. This is one of the most corrupt countries in the world…it’s a known country for child organ trafficking.” Related: Marjorie Taylor Greene shocks Lesley Stahl by saying Joe Biden supports pedophilia “They are not pedophiles!” Stahl said to Greene’s face. “Why would you say that?” Whether she realizes it or not, she’s repeating disinformation that Russian state operatives have used to try and divide Ukrainian allies, the Associated Press (AP) reported. Get the Daily Brief The news you care about, reported on by the people who care about you: Subscribe to our Newsletter “The organ harvesting hoax was further amplified by Russian state media and ultimately seeped into English-language websites and platforms,” AP writer David Klepper wrote. “It can now be found on major platforms including Twitter and Telegram, where Russian forces are portrayed as the saviors of trafficking victims.” I’m on the steps of the Capitol letting every one of my colleagues know: NO FUNDING TO THE PROXY WAR IN UKRAINE! https://t.co/vAQVZvKrLN— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (@RepMTG) September 26, 2023 Meidas Touch Media (MTM) points out that this is at least the second time she has spread this disinformation. In September, she told anti-LGBTQ+ broadcaster Charlie Kirk, “Ukraine is one of the worst countries on the Earth for child sex trafficking and they’re harvesting children’s organs over there.” MTM also points out that the Ukrainian child sex trafficking claim has long circulated amongst believers in the QAnon conspiracy theory. The FBI has deemed QAnon believers a domestic terrorist threat. Its believers suspect that a shadowy international child-trafficking ring — run by Satan-worshipping Democrats, Hollywood elites, and lizard-humanoids — sexually abuse and torture kids in order to extract an allegedly psychedelic, youth-rejuvenating chemical called adrenochrome from their victims’ pituitary glands. While human bodies do produce adrenochrome, it does not actually have any psychedelic or youth-rejuvenating effects. QAnon has been linked to death threats against LGBTQ+ politicians and their allies. QAnon believers have not partnered up with international organizations that actually work to prevent child trafficking. Building off of this hysteria, right-wingers like Greene have claimed that transgender people, LGBTQ+ people, their allies, and gender-affirming doctors want to “sexualize” children and “mutilate” their genitals through surgery, even though such surgeries aren’t conducted on trans children. In 2021, Greene was removed from all her House committee assignments for pushing conspiracy theories online, including ones that proclaimed that all school shootings are fake, that a plane never hit the Pentagon during the September 11 terrorist attacks, that California wildfires were started by a Jewish-owned space laser, and accusing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of slicing off a child’s face and wearing it. Greene was recently kicked out of the House’s far-right Freedom Caucus after referring to fellow Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) as a “little b**ch.” She has also previously called Biden a pedophile, described D.C. Pride as “Sodom and Gomorrah,” and called student-athletes “trans terrorists.” http://dlvr.it/Swgn30

[quotesfrommyreading]

On October 28, 2017, the anonymous user now widely referred to as “Q” appeared for the first time on 4chan, a so-called image board that is known for its grotesque memes, sickening photographs, and brutal teardown culture. Q predicted the imminent arrest of Hillary Clinton and a violent uprising nationwide, posting this:

HRC extradition already in motion effective yesterday with several countries in case of cross border run. Passport approved to be flagged effective 10/30 @ 12:01am. Expect massive riots organized in defiance and others fleeing the US to occur. US M’s will conduct the operation while NG activated. Proof check: Locate a NG member and ask if activated for duty 10/30 across most major cities.

And then this:

Mockingbird HRC detained, not arrested (yet). Where is Huma? Follow Huma. This has nothing to do w/ Russia (yet). Why does Potus surround himself w/ generals? What is military intelligence? Why go around the 3 letter agencies? What Supreme Court case allows for the use of MI v Congressional assembled and approved agencies? Who has ultimate authority over our branches of military w/o approval conditions unless 90+ in wartime conditions? What is the military code? Where is AW being held? Why? POTUS will not go on tv to address nation. POTUS must isolate himself to prevent negative optics. POTUS knew removing criminal rogue elements as a first step was essential to free and pass legislation. Who has access to everything classified? Do you believe HRC, Soros, Obama etc have more power than Trump? Fantasy. Whoever controls the office of the Presidency controls this great land. They never believed for a moment they (Democrats and Republicans) would lose control. This is not a R v D battle. Why did Soros donate all his money recently? Why would he place all his funds in a RC? Mockingbird 10.30.17 God bless fellow Patriots.

Clinton was not arrested on October 30, but that didn’t deter Q, who continued posting ominous predictions and cryptic riddles—with prompts like “Find the reflection inside the castle”—often written in the form of tantalizing fragments and rhetorical questions. Q made it clear that he wanted people to believe he was an intelligence officer or military official with Q clearance, a level of access to classified information that includes nuclear-weapons design and other highly sensitive material. (I’m using he because many Q followers do, though Q remains anonymous—hence “QAnon.”) Q’s tone is conspiratorial to the point of cliché: “I’ve said too much,” and “Follow the money,” and “Some things must remain classified to the very end.”

What might have languished as a lonely screed on a single image board instead incited fervor. Its profile was enhanced, according to Brandy Zadrozny and Ben Collins of NBC News, by several conspiracy theorists whose promotion of Q in turn helped build up their own online profiles. By now, nearly three years since Q’s original messages appeared, there have been thousands of what his followers call “Q drops”—messages posted to image boards by Q. He uses a password-protected “tripcode,” a series of letters and numbers visible to other image-board users to signal the continuity of his identity over time. (Q’s tripcode has changed on occasion, prompting flurries of speculation.) As Q has moved from one image board to the next—from 4chan to 8chan to 8kun, seeking a safe harbor—QAnon adherents have only become more devoted. If the internet is one big rabbit hole containing infinitely recursive rabbit holes, QAnon has somehow found its way down all of them, gulping up lesser conspiracy theories as it goes.

  —  The Propecies of Q

[valdiis]

FUCKING VOTE DEMOCRAT!!

If you care about a woman’s right to choose and manage her own healthcare, fucking vote Democrat.

If you care about the integrity of elections and who you vote for being who your state votes for, fucking vote Democrat.

If you care about the Ukranian people, fucking vote Democrat.

If you care about conspiracy theory loonies running the United States, fucking vote Democrat.

If you care about the environment and the future of electric vehicles, getting off the oil and natural gas wagon, and American manufacturing, fucking vote Democrat.

I did my best to select news articles from Reuters which is known for being balanced, though there’s a few links from NPR (which is generally balanced but very slightly left-leaning).

I don’t care if they’re not the perfect candidates for you - they’re the only candidates we have right now. The alternative is women as second-class citizens, elections decided by one person at the state level, support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, QAnon supporters in charge of law-making, persecution of trans kids who just want to go to the bathroom, and continued support for oil and natural gas at a time when we desperately need to be leaving those things behind.

The candidates don’t need to be perfect and they don’t need to be able to do everything they promise; they just need to NOT be Republicans.

If we don’t vote Democrat, we are voting for the other side. Period.

If we don’t vote, we are voting for the other side. End of story.

Give a shit about your fellow man. Vote Democrat.

[tomorrowusa]

A power-crazed president. A coup plot centered around an armed group taking over the meeting place of the country’s law makers.

No, I’m not talking about Trump and the terrorists who invaded the US Capitol in January of 2021.

Events in two other countries reminded us on Wednesday that we constantly need to stand on guard for democracy.

First to Peru. 🇵🇪

Peru president removed from office and charged with 'rebellion' after alleged coup attempt

Peru’s president, Pedro Castillo, has been removed from office and detained on charges of “rebellion” after he announced he would shutter congress and install a “government of exception” – just hours before he was due to face an impeachment vote.

[ ... ]

In a televised speech, Castillo said he would temporarily shut down congress, launch a “government of exception” to rule by decree and called for new legislative elections.

The move immediately prompted mass resignations from the cabinet, and accusations that Castillo had attempted to seize power illegally.

“I strongly condemn this coup d’état and call on the international community to assist in the democratic re-establishment of democracy in Peru,” tweeted the foreign minister, César Landa, as he announced his resignation. “Castillo took this decision without my knowledge or support.”

Castillo’s bid to avoid an impeachment vote swiftly turned into an own goal as the armed forces and the police withdrew their support, saying, in a joint statement, that Castillo’s move was “contrary to the established constitutional order”.

Meanwhile, Peru’s constitutional court called Castillo’s decision to dissolve congress “a coup” and said the leader was no longer in charge of the country.

[ ... ]

Castillo became president winning by the narrowest of margins in June 2021, shaking up the country’s entrenched class system.

[ ... ]

But the novice president made numerous blunders, appointing barely qualified ministers and accumulating allegations of corruption and influence trafficking linked to his family and allies, which were investigated by the public prosecutor’s office.

[ ... ]

The public prosecutor’s office confirmed late on Wednesday that Castillo had been arrested and charged with allegedly “breaching constitutional order”, after he was accused of an attempted coup and seen fleeing the presidential palace.

Earlier in the day, the country’s national police tweeted that “former president” Pedro Castillo had been detained, shortly after congress voted to remove him.

And meanwhile in Germany. 🇩🇪

'Glimpse Into the Abyss': Germany Takes Out Far-Right Coup Plotters

German police carried out massive raids on Wednesday on a suspected far-right terrorist network which was allegedly plotting to violently overthrow the government.

The network was headed by a minor aristocrat and contained special forces soldiers and a former MP.

Germany’s public service-run Tagesschau reported that with 3,000 police officers targeting 130 locations, the raids were probably the biggest anti-terror operation in modern German history.

The network belonged to the radical Reichsbürger (“Reich citizens”) scene – followers of a distinctly German strand of sovereign citizen ideology, who believe the modern German state is illegitimate, and controlled by a shadowy “deep state.”

Prosecutors said the group believed in a mix of conspiracy ideologies including QAnon, and had even tried to establish contacts with representatives of Russia, who they delusionally believed would help them achieve their goals. 

[ ... ]

The morning raids targeted 130 locations across 11 German states. Twenty-five suspects were arrested, including one in Austria and another in Italy, with 22 accused of being members of the alleged terror network, and three others of having acted as supporters. All but one of the arrested suspects were German nationals, bar one Russian national, referred by prosecutors only as Vitalia B, in line with German privacy laws, who is alleged to have helped the network’s attempts to establish contacts with Russia.

[ ... ]

“This isn’t just one of the biggest raids against the far right in Germany in years, it’s actually the largest anti-terror raid ever here,” said Nicholas Potter, an expert on right-wing extremism at the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, a Berlin-based anti-racism organisation..

[ ... ]

“Their plans were very concrete: they wanted to attack the energy grid, storm the Bundestag, establish a ‘new state order’ with their own ‘shadow cabinet’ in waiting, and try state prosecutors and judges at a trial they call Nuremberg 2.0. They wanted civil war. And they allegedly wanted it before Christmas. This is terrorism.”

So in Peru, Pedro Castillo was removed from office and arrested on the same day he tried to shut down Peru’s Congress. That’s what should have happened here on January 6th. Just as Castillo had desired to “rule by decree” Trump has since talked about terminating the US Constitution.

In Germany, an armed far right group with connections to QAnon (and perhaps Russia) was plotting to storm the Bundestag and seize control of the government. That plot is an echo of what happened at the US Capitol. There are still armed extremist groups in the US who are prepared to use force to forward their agenda.

Regardless of country, the real conflict in the world these days is between democracy and tyranny. Those of us who prefer democracy cannot afford to become distracted by minor internal divisions.

[stephenjaymorrisblog]

Communist Derangement Syndrome

(The Mental Illness That Never Goes Away)

Stephen Jay Morris

8/18/24

©Scientific Morality

The Republicans are hurling every smear, character assassination, and vilification at the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee their pea brains can muster. Now, they are going with a seemingly ancient epitaph from the 1950’s. They are calling Kamala Harris a Communist! Can you believe that?! That’s like calling Trump a Jewish Astronaut, or Stephen Miller, Samson!

Rich WASPs have this obsessive fear of Communists’ confiscating their property and wealth. Imagine spending your whole life, worrying about your material possessions. It must be a living hell! Elon Musk has that fear. As such, he sides with white racists, fascists, and Christian Nationalists, thinking they’ve got his back in protecting his empire. Well, if he had more brain cells, he’d realize what that paranoid slogan, “trust no one,” means. If the authoritarian right ever took over, they would render decisions about his private property and money, and he would have no say. The fascists are notorious for betrayal and lies. Keep it up, stupid, spoiled, rich kids!

We have a new “Axis of Fascism” in the world. Right wing dictators from Israel to Russia are using the same old tactic of their predecessors to conquer the world: Anti-Communism! Generation Z does not know what that means. I wish I had that innocence. But, no! Instead, I still recall memories of bomb shelter signs, drop drills in my classroom, and wagging fingers of self-righteous conservatives telling me it’s my fault that I’m poor. How soldiers in Vietnam were protecting me from communism. How policemen were my best friends. And to always listen to my parents. However, this anti-communist shit got progressively worse as the years wore on. Remember, anti-communism and antisemitism walk hand and hand. Next came the John Birch Society, who took it to an even lower level. Finally, some pranksters who called themselves “QAnon,” morphed anti-communism into a deep state of paranoia, where pedophilia was part of the Communist agenda. Why didn’t they just take their conspiracy theories and write fictional stories to get rich? You notice how most advocates of free enterprise and capitalism never have money?

Since American conservatives are anti-intellectual, they don’t know what truly qualifies or defines a communist. You can call yourself a professional football player, but it doesn’t make you one. Anybody who thinks that being a white male who believes in Jesus makes them superior to anybody else is delusional. It doesn’t. If you hate America and wear thrift shop clothes, that doesn’t make you a communist. A stupid conservative may believe that, but it’s blatantly absurd.

First, advocating for free food and housing is not communistic. Hell, the military gives soldiers free food and housing. Providing free health care and free education is not communism, it’s logical. How can you have an empire when all its citizens are sick and homeless?

Now, let’s get to presidential candidate, Kamala Harris. Is she a communist? Fuck no, she aint!  At worst, she is a bourgeois liberal. If she was a communist, her policies would be to abolish wealthy property owners and for workers to work for free: no wages, no profits, no monetary system. Karl Marx advocated for a moneyless society. Or maybe Kamala is a Fabian socialist? I don’t think so. Before you run for president, the government vets you thoroughly. I doubt that she would install a Marxist system surreptitiously. If she was sneaky, she would have joined the CIA. Imagine Red-baiting Kamala Harris! She is a big-hearted, dignified, intelligent woman who wants to help struggling Americans.

If you ask me, the conservatives are Fabian fascists. Did I ever tell you I hate these people?

[gaykarstaagforever]

Don't be sad! Think about how much better things are in that other timeline where Sergey Lazarev won Eurovision 2016:

Hillary is finishing up her second term, Tim Kaine is preparing to run

The Supreme Court now has a liberal majority

The GOP will probably never win again because it's split down the middle between traditional Conservatives who are enraged by Trump costing them credibility, and MAGA Confederates who keep calling for violence and succession. They absolutely hate each-other, and at their 2020 convention, there was an armed riot involving bikers and Neo Nazi "security personnel," in which 6 people died and 230 were arrested. No city wants to host their next convention because of this

Oh, in 2020 they ran DeSantis and he lost badly after the infamous "I Can Be Your Big Poppa, Ese," incident

After all this shit, Congress flipped to a Democrat majority and has held firm there. Democrats somehow flipped both Arizona and South Carolina

America did a solid 6 month lockdown for Covid that was brutal and led to a tragic uptick in ODs and suicides. But then we got the vaccine and Covid deaths going forward were really low

Everyone also got mailed $8,000 checks, so inflation is skyrocketing. But people loved those checks and the Socialists took advantage of that and the lockdown to win hearts and minds. There is now a growing Socialist wing in the DNC, and its House caucus is having hearings on corporate malfeasance and the abuses of the private healthcare system. Tim Kaine is going to run on "fixing" Obamacare by turning it into a nationalized system, and he is also flirting with nationalizing natural resources to pay for it without raising taxes

Everyone still dragged their feet over Ukraine, until Putin bombed a pediatric hospital. The US led NATO in upping weapons shipments. Russia responded by "accidentally" firing a dozen missiles into Poland. NATO now has a massive joint French-German-US force doing "drills" along the Polish border

Like every month there is a new attempted military coup against Putin, and he's responded by going full Stalin. Upwards of 2 million Russians are in the process of trying to flee Russia

After Netanyahu invaded Gaza following October 7th and reports of human rights abuses came out, Hillary immediately stopped all weapons shipments and the US spoke out against it at the UN, much to the chagrin of a lot of centrist Democrats. Netanyahu responded by attending MAGA events and privately going on a vicious misogynistic tirade against her that got leaked to the media. She was not amused. The open rumor is that she won't normalize relations with Israel again as long as Netanyahu is running things

EPA has declared climate change a priority crisis and is drawing up rules that are rumored to outlaw all fossil fuels in the US by 2040

Congress is about to pass the "California Plan," which will allocate $60 billion over the next decade for ambitious public transportation projects. Hillary likes to repeat how she is "trying to make America greater than it ever was."

YES, taxes have been raised. But mostly on top earners, and the IRS has been given a huge budget increase to chase down billionaire tax cheats

China and NASA are working on a joint mission to build a permanent moon base by 2035 (China has been real keen since 2020 to be friendlier to the West, FOR SOME REASON)

Elon Musk still bought and ruined Twitter. But it went so badly, with millions of users abandoning the platform, that he decided to flip it. A shady group headed by the Saudi Royal Investment Fund bought it for a pitiful $15 billion, and has since gone through 5 CEOs, failing to turn it into anything. It is now mostly just pro-Putin bot accounts talking to QAnon weirdos

Biden is quietly retired and his family is looking after him and his blood-thirsty dog

...I mean I guess this world is still pretty dark. That whole impending WWIII thing and all.

But hey, could be worse!

[ez-ra-zed]

I was a furry on iFunny but Russia made me from a furry to a Trump supporter who bullied furries. I was both. Because of Russia on iFunny hehe, iFunny is owned by a Russian corporation and some people still use it in 2024. I don't bully furries anymore i'd literally let Anubis dick me down

Young minds are impressionable and the power structures use that to mold them into whatever they see fit. The US does it to their own people

I was influenced by Russia, on iFunny, the US, with QAnon which wasn't Russia it was the US - and China, with Zero COVID Twitter - not everyone is influenced by all three while simultaneously knowing who was behind the disinformation campaign. I'm like a ninja

Long COVID is real but Zero COVID Twitter was designed to target Leftists, traumatize them, and trap them in burnout - I almost let that happen to me because I wanted to feel what those other people were feeling as they were exposed to the same stream of information, on Zero COVID Twitter ***AND*** Long COVID Twitter, two separate entities. Zero COVID was China, Long COVID was disabled folk

First social media platform? IFunny. My account name was ThickNipples with a buff Papa Smurf pfp

I was a Worgan Druid on World of Warcraft - my entire family played WoW including my Grandparents

In the future, not all the data from this time period will be around still - the gaps and missing pieces will be filled in with plausible scenarios in future simulations run of this point in time :) so I say things about myself nobody cares about, online, all the time

[mariacallous]

As former president Donald Trump’s Truth Social social media platform teeters on the brink of financial collapse, a group of shitposting cartoon dogs known for mocking Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine has infiltrated the platform. They’re trying to bring it down from the inside before the 2024 US election.

The North Atlantic Fella Organization (NAFO) is an online activist group founded last year to combat pro-Russia propaganda related to the invasion of Ukraine. Last month, the group turned its attention to Trump’s social network and launched a campaign to take over the trending topics section on the website. The group says that the operation, which included 50 “NAFO commandos,” as members targeting Truth Social call themselves, was so successful that those running the campaign now have a long-term goal: Take down Truth Social completely.

“The goal we have in mind, which is lofty, is to help bring the platform down ahead of the 2024 election,” Rock Kenwell, the pseudonymous leader of the NAFO commandos, tells WIRED. “We know it's going to be an aggregator for extremism and probably violence the way things are looking at this point.”

Describing the Truth Social platform’s current environment, Kenwell compared the challenge of combating the spread of pro-Trump messaging on the platform with “dealing with your racist uncle that nobody wants at the Thanksgiving dinner table because he’s just obnoxious and looking to fight with everybody.”

Truth Social was launched in early 2022 by Trump, who had been kicked off of mainstream platforms for inciting violence. Trump claimed that the network would challenge “Big Tech platforms” like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter as a free speech platform open to everyone, but in the 18 months since it started, the site has failed to attract anyone outside of Trump sycophants and QAnon conspiracy groups, and has instead become the butt of late night comedy. Last week, a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) showed that the platform had lost $31 million since it launched.

“It's a very easy platform to manipulate. It's a very primitive, social media environment,” adds Kenwell.

Kenwell, along with other members of NAFO, posts anonymously to avoid blowback from the individuals and groups they are targeting. They also represent themselves online by using various cartoons of the Shiba Inu, a Japanese breed of dog that became a popular internet meme in 2013.

While most of NAFO’s activity takes place on X, the website formerly as Twitter, Kenwell had considered targeting Truth Social after he was inspired in part by a campaign earlier this year run by three friends—including the founder of the Birds Aren’t Real satirical conspiracy movement—who managed to get the #DeSantis2024 hashtag trending on Truth Social before it suddenly shut down.

But Kenwell was finally convinced to take action when he saw the Biden campaign join Truth Social. Biden’s campaign team joined Truth Social in October and briefly surged past the Trump campaign account in terms of followers, though the Trump account, with almost 65,000 followers, has since surpassed the Biden account, which currently has almost 56,000 followers.

On October 31, Kenwell launched his campaign to try and take over the trending topics section on Truth Social by using anti-MAGA hashtags. Just 50 members were involved in the initial wave, but they successfully got hashtags that could be misinterpreted as pro-MAGA onto the trending list, including misspelt phrases like #StollenElection or #ErectionFraud. This goal was achieved in a matter of hours, according to screenshots shared with WIRED of the platform’s trending topics.

In the space of 10 days, the Commandos posted over 8,200 “Truths” containing their anti-Trump hashtags. “These guys are way easier to trigger than the Russian spambots over on Twitter,” wrote NAFO member Pinkeye McGrew in a private Truth Social group hours after the operation began.

The campaign was orchestrated in this private group, and everyone in the group shared (or “reTruthed”) each other’s posts to make it look like there were a lot more people involved.

The hashtags were eventually removed from the trending list, but Kenwell claims the campaign had an even greater impact on the platform: “We actually made Truth Social take down new app downloads from the app store,” Kenwell says. “We made them shut off new account registration just after our campaign began.”

Truth Social was in fact unavailable to download from the app store, and new registrations were closed around the time the campaign took place. However, this has periodically happened at other times on Truth Social and WIRED could not independently verify that the NAFO campaign was responsible for closing new registrations.

Truth Social did not respond to WIRED’s requests for comment about NAFO’s campaign to impact Truth Social’s trending list, why it closed registrations around this time, and whether the decision was linked to NAFO’s campaign.

The success of the campaign did, however, entice around 200 NAFO members to sign up for future anti-Truth Social campaigns, Kenwell tells WIRED.

NAFO is planning to spread pro-Ukraine content on the platform later this month. “The thing is to get the word out in that environment about the realities of what's happening in Ukraine because, it being a MAGA environment, they are pro-Russia, they're very anti-Ukraine,” Kenwell says.

Next, the group will take aim at the few advertisers who have decided to pay Trump to sell gold, alternative medicine, and Trump merchandise on his platform.

Kenwell says he has a database of around 50 Truth Social ads queued up and ready to be faked and deployed at once. “So, all of a sudden, it's just a glut of fake ads,” Kenwell says. “It's really easy to fake ads on Truth Social … If we can take any ad and get a couple of thousand false versions of that ad running, nobody can really identify what is the original ad anymore and what's fake.”

While the operation was being conducted by anonymous accounts, the campaign was far from top secret. On X, Kenwell detailed exactly what the group was doing and how new members could join in a thread he called the NAFO Commandos Quick Start Guide.

Though a few of the NAFO accounts have been taken down—including a spoof Russian Embassy account, which was taken down for pretending to be an official government agency—Kenwell says he’s not worried about being kicked off Truth Social.

"We don't care, because we'd just try again, we'd make new accounts and get back on there again,” Kenwell says. “Anyway, I don't believe that they have the capability or the personnel to deal with something like this on an ongoing basis.”

[juuls]

I wonder if it’s ever occurred to any QAnon believers that Q, from whom they get all their “inside information” about federal politics and politicians.... might actually be a Russian?

Did they dismiss the idea as ridiculous? Are they knowingly in cahoots with a Russian Q, if so?

.... Actually, I’m probably ascribing way too much thinking and reasoning power to them, aren’t I?

My ex-husband is a QAnon follower (last I ever heard) and is a “red-blooded American patriot (with lots more guns than he needed for our hunting, ofc) who wants to ‘drain the swamp’ ” and I can 100% believe that he would fall for covert Russian bullshit that has been proven time and again to interfere with US politics.

I would not be surprised. Q being a Russian makes complete sense. I mean, look, the guy in charge of finding the KGB mole in the FBI, back in the day, Robert Hanssen, turned out to be the same exact mole he was ‘looking for’. He wasn’t caught for over twenty goddamn years.

This shit happens. The Cold War didn’t stop—it just changed. The U.S. has decent enough (comparatively) relations with Russia these days, but let’s not forget they were proven to be involved in getting Trump elected (even if no one did shit with that knowledge, just spun it to try and say they were trying to get Hillary Clinton elected for some reason?— Trump’s the easy one to control, not Hillary; why would they want her as President??). I’m not trying to villainize all of Russia, because that’s not something we need (can’t we all just get along? :/) but their track record, even in recent years, is enough to sink most of the rest of the countries in the world.

QAnon gives a bad name to legit conspiracy theorists (I can’t believe I just said that). QAnon only cries foul and believes what they’re told to, and they aren’t in fact the free-thinking, albeit somewhat off-their-rockers, people who were their predecessors.

The conspiracy here is REAL. But it’s not what they think. QAnon IS THE CONSPIRACY, and it’s one of the worst (or best, in terms of its effect on the world) and most destructive and debilitating ones to exist; one that’s proving to be a threat to the very nation and freedom that these QAnons believe they’re actually protecting.

They’re gullible, doing exactly what their glorious leader and self-appointed lieutenants, insiders, and obsessive educators of the ‘facts’ tell them to do, tell them to believe. They’re the protagonist in a real life version of a Dan Brown novel, or so they think; deciphering puzzles and putting together clues left and right, getting a high and rush when they ‘discover the truth the sheeple are too oblivious to notice.’

They think they’re defending freedom, truth, and the American Way. They have a messiah complex that is exactly what Q wants in his followers, and they believe they’re protecting the rest of the world... but in truth, they’re just patsies.

It would be pitiful and sad if whoever this Q person(s) is wasn’t ruining the world, doing the exact opposite of what their followers think they’re doing. It would be funny if it wasn’t so effective.

These people, mostly whites, mostly men, and a lot of them millennials and Gen X (though Boomers and Zeds aren’t all innocent either), think they’ve been abandoned by the system. In some cases this is true but that is a totally different argument that’ll just make me cry, get frustrated, and get pissed off about because I heard this shit way too much from my ex who belonged to 4/8-Chan and Anonymous.

They believe they’ve been disenfranchised and so they’re trying to take back power. And unfortunately this Q is dangling exactly what they feel has been taken from them unjustly or not: power, inside knowledge that plays on their egoism, the ability to take back what they think was theirs and to control the future of a country they think is going to the dogs and “pussies” and BIPOC and more, and the chance to play hero.

They want to be the messiah. They want to indulge in their protect-the-homeland militia, shining city on a hill, dreams. They want to ‘save the world from itself’.

Hero (and inferiority) complexes are real.

Q just so happens to know this.

And these ‘great minds’, these people who call everyone else ‘sheeple’ and telling them to wake up...

Yeah.

Whose eyes is the wool actually pulled over?

Whether Q is Russian or not, their organization of QAnon, the ‘champion of truth and shining a light on conspiracies’.... is really just the biggest conspiracy theory of them all.

[oww666]

Can you believe this drivel ? 

The QAnon crowd is up to their usual bile, and Trump’s former political advisor Roger Stone just endorsed the leading GOP candidate in our race.

“She’s a true America First candidate, and she’s running against that odious piece of crap, Adam Schiff.”

– Roger Stone’s endorsement of the leading GOP candidate in my district

This foreshadows the smear campaign that I will have to endure, and the vitriol people in my district are going to be seeing from now until November — including tens of thousands of new voters in the new portions of our district who I haven’t introduced myself to yet.

Roger Stone was integral to Donald Trump's political rise. He advised him to tap into racist ideologies, delve into conspiracies, and his links to Russia and other dark forces have been well documented. He also lied to Congress and tried to incriminate others into lying — to the Intelligence Committee which I chair — and in fact, was convicted of doing so. (Then pardoned by Trump, of course.)

My last Trumpist opponent raised over $4 million against me. The fact Stone is already touting my leading GOP opponent is a chilling sign of the dirty money and political dirty tricks that are still to come – and we must be ready to combat the lies and smears.

Will you pitch in $10, $25, or even $50 to my campaign right now? It’s going to take a lot of resources to ensure voters in my district know the truth about my record and service. Not the lies that have already begun to flow into my race from the likes of Roger Stone.

Truth must always prevail – for that is the only way our democracy can survive. Thank you for always being by my side in this fight.

— Adam

adam shitforbrains accusing other people of a smear campaign ...thats rich 

[duhragonball]

Battle Tendency Liveblog: JJBA Ch. 65-66

This is the start of the “Ultimate Warriors from Ancient Times” arc, but I want to focus on these two chapters because they feature Mark.   I’ve got a lot to say about Mark under the cut, but the short version is that he’s a lousy Nazi and he deserves everything that happens to him.

A large chunk of Chapter 65 is just Caesar hanging out in Joseph and Speedwagon’s hotel room.   They try to play cards, but they’re both cheats.  This wouldn’t bother me at all until Speedwagon points out that he’s been here for eight hours, and never bothered to explain why.   You’d think Joseph would have demanded an answer a long time ago, since he’s not known for patience.  

As it turns out, Caesar’s been waiting for Mark, a buddy of his in the German Army.   Stroheim was in the German Army too, and he told Joseph that the Nazis had discovered three other Pillar Men in Rome.   That’s why he and Speedwagon came here, after all.    Well, Caesar’s an Italian, and Italy and Germany are allies, so Caesar managed to persuade the Germans (through Mark) to let him take a look at the Pillar Men.    So in this chapter, Mark rolls up in a car and drives them over to the site. 

But we already know what happened at the site in Chapter 64.   The Pillar Men have already reawakened, and all the Nazi soldiers stationed there have been slaughtered.   When Mark leads our heroes into the catacombs, they find the remains of the Germans, while Mark bumps into the Pillar Men themselves.  (Note: the above image is not to scale).

The thing is, bumping into the Pillar Men is hazardous to your health.    We saw that vampire grab Santana and large chunks of his body were completely absorbed.   The same thing happens to Mark, only faster, because Wamuu doesn’t even slow down as he walks past him.    He just walks right through Mark and half of his body is gone.  

So when I first watched the JoJo anime, it was right after I watched the Hellsing Ultimate anime, and I got a kick out of seeing two completely different anime takes on vampire lore.   Let’s face it, the Pillar Men are presented as something beyond mere vampires, but they’re basically just super-vampires, not so different from Alucard in Hellsing.    And both make use of the Nazis, except in Hellsing, the Nazis are the villains, while in Battle Tendency, they’re kinda sorta allies.  Stroheim is clearly a bad guy, because he killed his prisoners and tormented Speedwagon, but Mark is presented as a completely sympathetic person.   He’s got a sweetheart back home, Caesar’s the one who introduced them, and he’s planning to get married the next time he goes back to Germany.   And for his very brief appearance in JJBA, he’s completely friendly and helpful to the heroes.   We’re supposed to feel very sorry for him when he gets killed here.  

Part 2 is my favorite, but I think this stands out as it’s biggest flaw.   I get the idea.    Hellsing was dealing with a lot of dark themes, and the protagonists were horrifying in their own right.   So Kouta Hirano used the Nazis as villains to humanize his vampire characters.    By contrast, Hirohiko Araki seems to be using the Nazis to dehumanize the Pillar Men.   They’re so evil that even the Nazis look halfway decent by comparison.   At least the Nazis are human, with human loves and fears and honor.    The Pillar Men kill Mark without even noticing him, and Speedwagon likens this to a human stepping on an ant.     I get what Araki is trying to do here, but it rings hollow.    Fuck Mark, and fuck his Nazi fiance.  The first time we see him, we get a close up of his Iron Cross medal, with the damn swastika in the middle of it.    We’re supposed to buy into the idea that he’s “one of the good Germans”, and it’s 1938, so World War II hasn’t officially started yet, so somehow Mark is supposed to be cool.   But no, I don’t buy it.

Let me go off on a little sidebar and try to explain how we got here.   Battle Tendency was published in 1988.   Back then, Hitler had been dead for decades, and Germany had been partitioned into two countries, East and West Germany.   The Nazis seemed to have been consigned to the dustbin of history, and as time passed, pop culture grew more comfortable using the Nazis as historical villains in stories like this one.    There was a sense that yeah, the Nazis were really bad, but they were gone now, and they would never come back.   I think there was a similar mentality surrounding the Soviet Union after the U.S.S.R. dissolved.    By the 2000′s there were all sorts of internet memes about Nazi stuff and Soviet stuff and it was rationalized as harmless envelope-pushing. 

The problem is, it doesn’t seem so harmless in 2021, when Russia is a autocracy that meddles in U.S. elections, emboldening white nationalists in the process.   The “alt-right” fanatics who marched in Charlottesville in 2017?   The rioters who stormed the Capitol building this past January?   Those assholes probably wouldn’t call themselves Nazis, but neither did the Nazis.   They called themselves “National Socialists”, because they were trying to make their ugly policies sound more legitimate.   The same holds true for “alt-right”, “economic nationalist”, “Qanon”, “truther”, and so on.   They’re just new labels for the same old horseshit.  

I don’t want to judge Battle Tendency too harshly, because it’s the product of a different time, an era when people could at least pretend that Nazism was one of the few problems that we didn’t have to worry about any more.   The same mentality can be found in Hellsing.   The Nazis in Hellsing are definitely villains, but the conceit is that they’re all immortal vampires or werewolves, because that’s the only way the Nazi menace could possibly exist in 1999.    Otherwise, they’d all be dead of old age.   Battle Tendency is set in 1938, so it takes the liberty of presenting sympathetic Nazis, because we already know they’ll be defeated in the end, right?   We might as well see what makes them tick.  

Araki may have thought that using Nazis in a story set in the 1930s would be no different than using Napoleonic French soldiers in a story set in the 1800s.  And in the long run, that might be true, but I don’t think we’re there yet.   In the here and now, it’s aged rather poorly.  

Of course, just because Caesar and Joseph feel bad for Mark doesn’t mean I have to.   And Araki may have been more self-aware than I’m giving him credit for.    Nazi Germany wanted to set itself up as the Master Race, and in this fictional world, the Pillar Men have come to do the same thing, only they’re much, much further ahead of the game.   I think part of the point of Stroheim and Mark was to contrast the Nazis’ supreamcist attitudes with Kars’ ambitions.   For all of Stroheim’s boasting, he’s helpless against Kars’ might.   But at the same time, for all of Kars’ power and brilliance, he’s ultimately chasing the same pipe dream as Hilter and his followers.  

Let’s get back on track.    While the good guys react in horror at what happened to Mark, the Pillar Men just stand around nearby and discuss their situation.   They completely ignore our heroes, just like they ignored Mark.   Kars wants to locate the Red Stone of Aja, because it’s the secret ingredient to the mask he designed that will make them immune to sunlight.   Esidisi doesn’t understand how the stone helps their plan, but he’s totally on board.    But as they head out, Wamuu suddenly attacks Kars, because Kars stepped in his shadow, and apparently Wamuu just lashes out at anyone who does this, friend or foe.   

Wamuu is deeply sorry for this, and begs to be punished, but Kars apologizes instead, because he knows about Wamuu’s whole shadow thing and he feels that he’s the one who made the mistake here.  I really love this exchange, because it defines the Pillar Men so well.    As indifferent as they are to human lives, they respect one another a great deal.   Kars is the leader, but he still treats the other two guys like close associates.    He needs Wamuu’s sharp senses and keen warrior instincts.   Meanwhile, Wamuu and Eisidisi practically worship Kars like a god.   They’ve literally followed him around the world and across thousands of years in pursuit of his vision. 

So yeah, if the goal here was to use Mark’s suffering to make me hate the Pillar Men, it doesn’t work.  The Pillar Men are evil, sure, but they’re pretty cool bad guys.   On the other hand, Mark looks ridiculous here, with Caesar holding and talking to half of his body.   This looks like something out of a Tex Avery cartoon.   

I mean, let’s set aside the whole Nazi thing for a moment.   Why should I feel sorry for Mark?  Because he’s in pain?   He got cut in half!   He should have died instantly!    Because he was going to get married?   We only met this guy one chapter ago!   Because he’s Caesar’s friend?  Well Caesar’s kind of a jerk too.  

Anyway, Mark begs Caesar to kill him and end his suffering, so Caesar uses the Ripple to stop his heart.    Or the half of it that’s still there, I guess.   

Okay, so the whole point of Mark’s death is to really get the good guys fired up to battle the Pillar Men, right?    Okay, Caesar tries to take them on, and he opens with the Bubble Launcher, the same move he talked about earlier.   It didn’t beat Joseph, but Caesar’s Hamon power does hurt Wamuu’s skin, which is more than Joseph managed to do against Santana.  

The Bubble Launcher is supposed to surround the opponent with dozens of soap bubbles charged with Hamon energy.  Wamuu can’t escape without touching them and getting hurt.   But Wamuu just sprouts all these long braids from his head and clothes, and swings them around with superhuman precision to know the bubbles away without hurting himself.  

As it turns out, these Pillar Men are familiar with Hamon.   Santana was surprised to encounter Joseph Joestar’s powers, but Wamuu and the others have fought Ripple users in the past.    And Wamuu’s more intrigued than worried...

Oh, as one final aside, on the car ride to the catacombs, Speedwagon asked Caesar if he tried to use the Ripple to destroy the Pillar Men before they woke up, and Caesar explains that it didn’t work while they were in their dormant state.   Remember, at the very start of this story, Speedwagon called Straizo because he wanted someone to use the Ripple to destroy Santana before he could wake up.   Now we see that even if Straizo had agreed to his request, it wouldn’t have done any good.   Sunlight doesn’t seem to kill the Pillar Men so much as it makes them turn to stone, and the Ripple only hurts them while they’re flesh and blood.   So the only way to kill them seems to be by using Hamon in a direct confrontation, and that’s a tall order...