copsuckers and bootlickers: the new dissident left honeypot thread

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The Voice of Labor: Apr 8, 2020

this is a thread to post about state violence and other reactionary violence. it is also a thread to post about the structural foundations of state and reactionary violence. to put it another way, it’s not just cops and it’s not just amateur fascists. it takes an entire village, a judicial system, a legislature and the tacit support of broad segments of the community to allow other segments of the community to be accosted, assaulted and often æradicated

while protesting in the united states seems to have tapered off now that covid is over, biden is president, racism is over, and the wedge has returned to abortion rights, american police still straight up kill people on a pretty regular basis. this little girl for instance or this guy or totally coincidentally leneal frazier

also while protesting in the united states has tapered off direct action is getting off the couch and getting the goods outside elsewhere in the world right now as we speak. conversely, pipeline protests and water rights/access activity are going to be a permanent fixtures of our climate apocalypse hellworld. no matter how lib infected the line 3 protests are, indigenous rights and reparations are inseparable issues from state violence. cretins attempting vehicular homicide on abortion rights protestors demonstrates that being on the right side of any issue and being vocal about it is an invitation to be attacked

quick administrative stuff:

re: opsec. don’t talk to cops, also everyone on the forum and at least half the people in real life are cops

as a disclaimer for thread etiquette, please don’t wish death on anyone, even cops. you really don’t have to

# ? Oct 9, 2021 05:26

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# ? Mar 25, 2023 23:17

i am harry: Oct 14, 2003

RC Cola posted:

https://twitter.com/bykenarmstrong/status/1446505198516535297?t=Bvg2ZZ0vWSQMATkOVKWROg&s=19

Did we talk about this yet?

# ? Oct 9, 2021 05:27

Man Musk: Jan 13, 2010

https://www.economist.com/1843/2021/09/27/killing-informants-is-cool-how-a-myanmar-hipster-became-a-guerrilla-fighter posted:

Htin Lynn* woke up early, threw on his disguise – a nylon jacket emblazoned with the logo of a food-delivery service – and hopped on his bicycle. As he wove in and out of the morning traffic, listening to street-food sellers drumming up custom and angry commuters honking their horns, it felt almost as though life in Yangon, Myanmar’s commercial capital, had returned to normal. If you ignored the soldiers stationed at every junction, you could almost pretend that the coup had never happened.

When Htin Lynn arrived at the address he’d been given, he was relieved to see a pickup truck parked on the street corner with a dozen soldiers inside. A tangerine-coloured rubbish bin was a few feet away. He stopped at a food stall opposite, ordered a fish-and-rice salad and sent a message to his comrades: the target was there, as expected. Job done, he settled into his chair. The bombs wouldn’t be detonated for another couple of hours. He had more than enough time to enjoy his breakfast.

Before the Burmese army seized power from the democratically elected government in February, Htin Lynn would have seemed an unlikely guerrilla. He was born in 1996, by which point Myanmar had been under military rule for three-and-a-half decades. Thanks to the generals’ incompetence at governing, the country was poor and isolated. In the early noughties, when people in other developing countries were starting to get hold of mobile phones, landlines were still a luxury in Myanmar. Htin Lynn’s aunt did a roaring trade renting hers out to neighbours.

Despite the poverty around him, Htin Lynn had a happy childhood: he enjoyed playing football with his friends and watching Arsenal, his favourite Premier League team, at one of the few local cafés with satellite TV. He knew that some people opposed the government – his grandfather and a few of his uncles had been fighting the army for decades. They belonged to one of 20 ethnic-minority armies that have been battling for independence in the world’s longest-running civil war. But Htin Lynn’s relatives lived hundreds of miles away in the country’s borderlands, and he’d met them only once. He didn’t know why they bothered. The army was part of the landscape, like the Irrawaddy river that flowed through the middle of the country. What was the point in getting angry about something immovable?

When Htin Lynn was a teenager, the generals started to liberalise the economy. They were embarrassed at Myanmar’s lack of development compared with other Asian countries, and wary of its dependence on China. Cash machines popped up across the country, pockets bulged with smartphones and Yangon began to shimmer with high-rises. Htin Lynn’s parents could finally afford an internet connection.

Htin Lynn’s teachers had told him that the army was the guarantor of peace and prosperity. But as he noodled around online, Htin Lynn was startled to find articles about the army’s massacres of democracy activists and its brutal treatment of rebellious ethnic minorities. The army slaughtered men, raped women and enslaved children.

He discovered that the generals had trashed the economy, and that Myanmar had bountiful resources and used to be one of Asia’s richest countries. He watched a video, which has been widely shared, of the lavish wedding of the senior general’s daughter – the celebration was rumoured to have cost three times Myanmar’s annual health budget.

Htin Lynn realised he had been lied to, along with everyone else in Myanmar. He started to notice and resent the censorship and surveillance: the knock on the door in the night to check that no unregistered guests were staying. He learned that the regime had spies on every street corner, and that if you heard a crackle on the phone line, someone was eavesdropping.

In 2015 he was old enough to vote in the first relatively free election in decades (Rohingyas, a persecuted Muslim minority group, were not allowed to participate). Like millions of others, Htin Lynn voted for the National League for Democracy, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, who had spent 15 years under house arrest. Suu Kyi’s promises to reform Myanmar and consign the army to its barracks gave people hope. Her rule opened up new opportunities.

Like many young people, Htin Lynn had no time to be angry with the army any more. He was working hard as a cycle courier for an international firm, as well as delivering salads made by his mother. When he wasn’t biking round Yangon he was selling clothing from his market stall. He decorated his shop with posters of pop stars and handmade signs in English. Young people would take selfies by it.

Htin Lynn himself wore flannel lumberjack shirts, along with black jeans and small black plugs in his earlobes, mimicking singers from American heavy-metal bands. He would roll up his sleeves to show off his tattooed arms and kept his hair swept back in the style of a “greaser”, a member of a motorcycle gang.

Then, on the morning of February 1st, Htin Lynn woke to frantic texts from friends and family. Rumours swirled that the army had seized power in the night. The generals had been humiliated by Suu Kyi’s resounding re-election in November 2020 and seemed intent on retaking control of Myanmar. The anger that Htin Lynn had contained for so long boiled over. He joined hundreds of thousands of people on the streets protesting against the coup.

Marching against the Tatmadaw, as the army is known, is a time-worn tradition in Myanmar. There have been uprisings every decade since the generals took power in the 1960s. The most famous one was in 1988, when Suu Kyi emerged as the leader of the resistance. In 2007 Buddhist monks rallied against the army’s cruelty. Each time the people rise up, the army cracks down.

This occasion was no different. The army killed not only demonstrators but passers-by and children playing in the streets. Soldiers fired randomly into homes and conducted midnight raids as people lay sleeping, arresting anyone they suspected of being in the resistance. By the end of March, according to one Burmese NGO, over 500 people had been killed and more than 2,700 arrested.

Protesters began to defend themselves. Htin Lynn and other young people in his neighbourhood built barricades out of rubbish bins and debris, and armed themselves with fireworks and slingshots: Davids against gun-toting Goliaths. At first older folk in his area supported them, but as the weeks went by and the army continued its violent campaign, many started talking about giving up.

Htin Lynn wasn’t having any of it. The youth of Myanmar had come to enjoy new freedoms: holidays had been too expensive for his parents (his father had only ever been abroad for work), but in recent years Burmese have begun travelling for pleasure. Htin Lynn wanted to learn Korean and visit South Korea. He also dreamed of starting his own delivery business and building a house for himself in a resort town in eastern Myanmar. He had everything to look forward to – and everything to lose.

Before the coup Htin Lynn had never handled a gun and didn’t see himself as a violent person. “Normally I don’t even kill mosquitoes,” he told me in one of our many conversations over Zoom. It’s a common saying in Myanmar, where more than 90% of people are Buddhists. The only time Htin Lynn can remember losing his cool is when he punched a rival football player who had started on one of his teammates.

But when the army began shooting civilians, it became clear to Htin Lynn and others that the resistance would need to step up a gear. Politicians deposed in the coup and grassroots activists discussed forming a “federal army”. If urban protesters joined forces with battle-hardened rebels they might be able to take on the Tatmadaw. Some people began to set up militias. “We had no choice but to choose this violent path,” said Htin Lynn.

In April he and some friends left Yangon for the border with Thailand, where insurgents were training protesters. Recruits spent six days in a camp in the jungle learning how to make bombs and shoot a gun. In the evenings they played football and talked. Some men lived and breathed the “revolution” but Htin Lynn found them boring, preferring to hang out with those who discussed “nasty things” like “girls, alcohol and sex”. Someone took a photograph of Htin Lynn holding an M16 rifle, sitting astride a red Harley Davidson, looking like Rambo. When Htin Lynn pulled the trigger for the first time, he “had this strange feeling”: for the first time he understood how lethal weapons could be.

Training completed, the insurgents gave the recruits a lift part of the way home. In the back of the pickup truck, the young men joked and sang. Htin Lynn brimmed with confidence. The army was better equipped and organised than he and his comrades, but the biggest protest movement in a generation had dented soldiers’ morale. Now, on the way back to Yangon, Htin Lynn was so sure of himself that he cracked jokes with the soldiers at a checkpoint, and offered one of them a beer.

Yangon had changed in the short time he’d been away. Demonstrations had died down and the city rumbled with explosions and crackled with gunfire. Protesters had become guerrillas, assassinating anyone associated with the junta, from soldiers and police officers to politicians and government officials. They bombed offices, homes and even schools.

Htin Lynn formed a cell with six men who had trained with him in the jungle. Because he knew the city streets from his job as a courier, he was appointed as the scout, tasked with looking for potential targets and places to plant bombs. The group talked on Telegram, an encrypted messaging app, and began to plot missions.

Before Htin Lynn left Yangon for military training, he and some friends had made sound bombs: gunpowder-filled containers that emit a loud noise when they explode, disorientating those nearby. They directed the blasts at soldiers stationed at junctions in Yangon, lighting the fuse and tossing the bomb at them, then running away.

Sound bombs are designed to frighten, not wound. But Htin Lynn’s cell was also intent on violence. One member, a former soldier who had defected from the army several years before, said he could procure improvised explosives packed with steel balls normally found in ball bearings, which would injure or kill people in the vicinity.

When I spoke to Htin Lynn in June, his tone sounded hard. “We have to kill them all,” he said. “By targeting the soldiers and police, we will make the dictators vulnerable.” When we chatted again in July, Htin Lynn was even angrier. Some of his friends in the resistance had been arrested, ratted out by loyalists to the regime. Htin Lynn fantasised about how he would kill a prolific informant nicknamed Khway Pin – “dog rear end” – stabbing him in the neck or shooting him in the head. “In the past, if someone killed another human being it was supposed to be a bad thing,” he said. But now, killing informants was “cool”: when an enemy dies, “we are happy”.

The junta claimed in June that 173 civilians had been killed by supporters of the National League for Democracy (NLD), Suu Kyi’s political party. In May an explosion at the wedding of a man alleged to be a military informant killed his bride and two others. I asked Htin Lynn, who supports the NLD, whether he felt uneasy about all this. He said that his cell had tried to reduce the risk to civilians and called off two missions that might have put ordinary people at risk. Then he added: “If things happen, all we can say is we are sorry. And in some cases if civilians are hurt, that would be their bad luck.”

Htin Lynn was worried. The cell-member bringing the bombs was four hours late. Htin Lynn couldn’t leave the area until his associate arrived, in case the soldiers didn’t stay within range of the orange bin. But the longer he hung around, the more exposed he felt. Would people wonder why a courier wasn’t doing deliveries?

Finally a man carrying a plastic KFC bag came into view. He tossed the bag into the bin and carried on walking. Htin Lynn hopped on his bike and pedalled away. He hadn’t been told exactly when the bombs would go off, but suspected it could be any minute. But by the time he got back to the safe house, he still hadn’t heard an explosion. Eventually he got a phone call from another comrade: the bombs were faulty and didn’t detonate.

That was the beginning of the end for Htin Lynn’s cell. The members often failed to execute their plans because they didn’t have enough money; it later emerged that one of them had been stealing from the group’s kitty. One cell member accidentally left an explosive in another member’s car.

Hatred for the army was no replacement for funding, organisation and discipline. The group hadn’t killed a single enemy combatant. Htin Lynn thought the missions were no longer worth the risk. And, after three months of living off his savings, he needed to earn some money. The cell began to argue. In late June, it disbanded.

Others have been more successful. Since the coup, some 170 insurgent groups of varying sizes have formed in Myanmar’s normally quiescent heartland. The junta’s forces are stretched thin: they are battling new guerrillas and more established rebels in the borderlands. In July alone, nearly 750 soldiers were killed, according to a shadow government formed by deposed parliamentarians.

Bombs in the cities have confined the terrified relatives of junta officials to their homes. In a sign of how unnerved the generals are, the regime is backing thousands of vigilantes who are fighting urban guerrillas. In the countryside it has bombed territory held by rebel armies.

Yet for all its success, the resistance is fractured and vastly outnumbered by the Tatmadaw (the junta has 300,000 or so troops, compared with 80,000 in the ethnic armies). The shadow government is a government in name only. Since February the army has killed more than 1,000 civilians and locked up more than 8,000 people, among them the children of dissidents that it can’t find. Neither side can achieve a decisive victory: the army has never managed to bring the peripheries of Myanmar under control. The ethnic armies are too weak to defeat the Tatmadaw. The country seems condemned to years of violence and soul-crushing poverty.

Htin Lynn still believes that the generals can be beaten, though he now thinks that will take years, not months. He still hopes to enlist in the federal army against the Tatmadaw, but these days he brings it up less and less. He is doing occasional jobs for the resistance, whether it’s helping people procure guns or transporting supplies on his bicycle. Htin Lynn says he has told militias in other neighbourhoods that he will murder informants on their behalf.

In his more pessimistic moments, Htin Lynn says that he would consider fleeing Myanmar “if things get worse”. Things are already pretty bad. His father died of covid-19 during a wave of cases in July that was exacerbated by the generals’ savagery: they hoarded oxygen supplies and arrested and shot doctors trying to treat supporters of the resistance.

Htin Lynn can’t return home to look after his mother, who is recovering from covid. If he does, he fears that he may be arrested, just like his friends. For now he is staying in a safe house in Yangon. The army has robbed Htin Lynn of his home and his future. Some days it feels like all he has left is fury.

*Names have been changed

# ? Oct 9, 2021 05:35

BrutalistMcDonalds: Oct 4, 2012; Lipstick Apathy

just gonna drop this here but was reviewing this group's march in philly on the 4th of july, and while i'd be surprised if they weren't a police operaiton, i've become pretty much convinced they are almost entirely a police operation -- as in literally mostly cops having cop marches -- for a variety of reasons. the first is simply that they have a similar build that cops have, and many do not have tattoos or beards. also check the boots. then there's the simple fact that far-right groups rarely hold together without the police propping them up in the first place, and a napkin estimate of the costs for this group to spend several years now traveling around, marching to and fro, equipping themselves with plexiglass riot shields which they sometimes carry, and pasting thousands of stickers in various cities, add up to quite a lot.

also watch them running away when people (random people from the public) confronted them. while tweets from leftists at the time saw this as a victory, i think it's plausible that the reason for booking it like that is because, for whatever reason in this instance, they're just cops who were operating under orders not to engage the public. why are they doing this? on the one hand, the group could serve as a control group for anyone on the far-right dumb enough to join it. secondly, the group can be used as an american GLADIO to force reactions, pressuring and cracking society, to reinforce dependency on the police. one example of this is by vandalizing george floyd murals, which provokes outrage and calls by liberals for the police to "investigate."

https://twitter.com/acabstudios/status/1411558283110801408
https://twitter.com/ABaskerville10/status/1400972782104633347

# ? Oct 9, 2021 05:52

Judakel: Jul 29, 2004; Can't post for 10 years!

I don't know if I will dip my toe in this thread.

# ? Oct 9, 2021 07:35

MLSM: Apr 3, 2021; by Azathoth

https://twitter.com/AP/status/1446577246773338118?s=20

Thread off to a chilly start

# ? Oct 9, 2021 13:03

paul_soccer12: Jan 5, 2020

this is the mod-approved thread where its allowed to post videos of cops dying

# ? Oct 9, 2021 16:39

The Atomic Man-Boy: Jul 23, 2007

paul_soccer12 posted:

this is the mod-approved thread where its allowed to post videos of cops dying

# ? Oct 9, 2021 17:51

AnimeIsTrash: Jun 30, 2018

Posting to get in on the ground floor.

# ? Oct 9, 2021 17:53

staticman: Sep 11, 2008; Be gay
Death to America
Suck my dick Israel
Mess with Texas
and remember to lmao

weeeee

# ? Oct 9, 2021 20:38

Mameluke: Aug 2, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

Judakel posted:

I don't know if I will dip my toe in this thread.

Posting in the new cool zone to say Hey Officer, Abiding By All Laws Over Here!

# ? Oct 9, 2021 21:18

RealityWarCriminal: Aug 10, 2016

hello to the mod forum

# ? Oct 9, 2021 21:28

RealityWarCriminal: Aug 10, 2016

https://mobile.twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1446351417539768332

# ? Oct 9, 2021 21:28

Judakel: Jul 29, 2004; Can't post for 10 years!

kinda weird you're not hearing much about anything happening wrt jacob blake's case ending in nothing. oh well. i am sure it has nothing to do with a democrat being president

# ? Oct 9, 2021 21:57

The Voice of Labor: Apr 8, 2020

Pamela Springstein posted:

https://mobile.twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1446351417539768332

thread will become sentient and post to itself when rittenhouse walks

# ? Oct 9, 2021 22:08

Atrocious Joe: Sep 2, 2011

https://twitter.com/cbschicago/status/1445418337299836930?s=20
https://twitter.com/MDVancleave/status/1445530570298036231?s=20
https://twitter.com/MDVancleave/status/1445533477974147081?s=20

# ? Oct 10, 2021 00:45

tokin opposition: Apr 8, 2021; ~Kawaii Kween~

Kkkops

# ? Oct 12, 2021 09:46

The Voice of Labor: Apr 8, 2020

# ? Oct 16, 2021 02:00

Cloks: Jan 31, 2013; by Azathoth

thought this new Yorker article was good

set up and sent away

in a nutshell it's about how sting operations are basically a chance for cops to play improv games while entrapping marginalized people and sending them to jail for decades

there's some great stuff about how cops are stupid loving pigs in the article, like cops pretending to be Mafia dons and calling themselves Angelo Lasagna and Rico Rigatone but overall it's a chilling look at how cops can just sweep "undesirables" into jails

# ? Oct 16, 2021 02:10

Wheeee: Mar 11, 2001; When a tree grows, it is soft and pliable. But when it's dry and hard, it dies.

Hardness and strength are death's companions. Flexibility and softness are the embodiment of life.

That which has become hard shall not triumph.

# ? Oct 16, 2021 04:10

Chamale: Jul 11, 2010; I'm helping!

Cloks posted:

thought this new Yorker article was good

set up and sent away

in a nutshell it's about how sting operations are basically a chance for cops to play improv games while entrapping marginalized people and sending them to jail for decades

there's some great stuff about how cops are stupid loving pigs in the article, like cops pretending to be Mafia dons and calling themselves Angelo Lasagna and Rico Rigatone but overall it's a chilling look at how cops can just sweep "undesirables" into jails

In the 80s, the FBI tried to crack down on corrupt politicians, and Congress threatened to restrict their powers. Then the FBI backed off and stopped doing stings on politicians, and the politicians didn't need to restrict their powers. bahahaha

# ? Oct 16, 2021 04:15

Junpei: Oct 4, 2015; Kinda get used to weird things in my line of work, but coming back from the dead is definitely a first. I didn't even know that was possible.

https://theintercept.com/2021/10/16/daniel-baker-anarchist-capitol-riot/

# ? Oct 16, 2021 12:44

vyelkin: Jan 2, 2011

Junpei posted:

https://theintercept.com/2021/10/16/daniel-baker-anarchist-capitol-riot/

these days, if you post on the internet, you get arrested and thrown in jail

# ? Oct 16, 2021 16:13

Judakel: Jul 29, 2004; Can't post for 10 years!

Junpei posted:

https://theintercept.com/2021/10/16/daniel-baker-anarchist-capitol-riot/

not only does this dude look exactly what you'd imagine, but anarchists can't help but get wrapped up in their own fantasies and say dumb poo poo like this

# ? Oct 16, 2021 18:42

The Voice of Labor: Apr 8, 2020

quote:

Cases like this exemplify how the invocation of domestic counterterrorism efforts against the right will inevitably harm the left, given the state’s reactionary ideological tendencies.

hey natasha, gently caress off with your inference that the only thing that won't "harm the left" is to be inert and silent and take all the mods and posters who have been echoing that sentiment with you

# ? Oct 16, 2021 19:10

Judakel: Jul 29, 2004; Can't post for 10 years!

The Voice of Labor posted:

hey natasha, gently caress off with your inference that the only thing that won't "harm the left" is to be inert and silent and take all the mods and posters who have been echoing that sentiment with you

the toe terminator has logged on

# ? Oct 16, 2021 19:20

The Voice of Labor: Apr 8, 2020

Judakel posted:

the toe terminator has logged on

just like to point out that being a fascist is a conscious choice. you don't have to go out and beat up the queer and unhoused. you don't have to stage "counter protests" or antivax/antimask protests as an excuse to pick fights. you don't have to shoot people or run them over for speaking up about racial or social equality.

# ? Oct 16, 2021 22:01

Wheeee: Mar 11, 2001; When a tree grows, it is soft and pliable. But when it's dry and hard, it dies.

Hardness and strength are death's companions. Flexibility and softness are the embodiment of life.

That which has become hard shall not triumph.

you also don’t need to publicly post encouragement of violence online linked to your real identity or fire a gun down a city street, but that never stopped anarchists from making those choices

# ? Oct 16, 2021 23:06

Judakel: Jul 29, 2004; Can't post for 10 years!

The Voice of Labor posted:

just like to point out that being a fascist is a conscious choice. you don't have to go out and beat up the queer and unhoused. you don't have to stage "counter protests" or antivax/antimask protests as an excuse to pick fights. you don't have to shoot people or run them over for speaking up about racial or social equality.

ok please don't do anything stupid that will make no difference in the grand scheme of things, which is all anarchists ever do

# ? Oct 16, 2021 23:08

Judakel: Jul 29, 2004; Can't post for 10 years!

oh no wait one shot an archduke and derailed marxist movements all over the world with the outbreak of the first world war

# ? Oct 16, 2021 23:09

The Voice of Labor: Apr 8, 2020

while I have nothing against bagging on anarchists, particularly ones who go down for supporting the state, I believe that article is making a case that the state will express leniency towards regressive and reactionary miscreants, which is true, and that that is just the way things are, which is not true. I believe the article, through both content and structure, is also making the case that the best thing to do about right wing violence is nothing, which is not only false, it's immoral

# ? Oct 16, 2021 23:33

Weka: May 5, 2019

Judakel posted:

oh no wait one shot an archduke and derailed marxist movements all over the world with the outbreak of the first world war

WW1, famous for not contributing to any marxist movements.

# ? Oct 16, 2021 23:44

Judakel: Jul 29, 2004; Can't post for 10 years!

Weka posted:

WW1, famous for not contributing to any marxist movements.

ah yes, the romanovs were doing splendid before the war. ironic that the actions of an anarchist gave birth to hitler, though

# ? Oct 16, 2021 23:46

The Atomic Man-Boy: Jul 23, 2007

Junpei posted:

https://theintercept.com/2021/10/16/daniel-baker-anarchist-capitol-riot/

Huh, wow, it’s almost like the feds had the capability to read Facebook posts and would know if a bunch of hoopleheads decided to riot on the capital. But if that were the case, then they allowed the events of 1/6 to happen.

It’s like the security state benefits from acts of terrorism or something... :thunk: