I also had the view that socialism (and maybe to a larger extent communism) was used as a derogatory slur in America ever since the end of the second world war (perhaps earlier). And as far as I know it wasn't even limited to right wing groups or republicans. I'm no expert but in the 80's the anti-socialist merch was very prominent.

I'm very happy that Hansi dumped Demons and Wizards. There's nothing left for Jon, even if he doesn't get go to prison I can't see his career recovering from this.

There's been plenty of more unscrupulous types that are still touring and releasing music, but I doubt he'll be enjoying as much success as he had prior. As for Hansi ditching Demons & Wizards, well yeah, it's kind of hard to be Demons & Wizards if only the Wizards portion of the equation isn't in jail/custody. The only real future I see for him (assuming he isn't locked away for a long time) is with unknown musicians. I doubt too many people of repute are going to want to deal with all the baggage associated with the brand.

Yeah. I don't doubt that Hansi is sincere in this but regardless there is probably nothing left to do with this project is Jon ends up in prison.

Has any new information surfaced as to exactly what he will be charged with and, more interesting, how long he could be in prison for if sentenced guilty of those charges?

You are correct, but the Tea Party expanded the definition of "Socialism" to include social welfare and public-spending programs that, up until then, had never been considered as such. The socialist/red scare was indeed very prominent in prior decades, but it applied mainly to political socialism- Soviet-style dictatorship and socialist economic politics- government seizing private buisnesses and taking over private industry. In other words, socialism as strictly defined by Karl Marx and as practiced by Marxist/Leninist/Ma-style dictatorships. Not mainstream liberal/centrist Democratic Party policies. Things like expanding health care, environmental protection, public education, and the like were never considered "Socialist" until the rise of the Tea Party.

The American Medical Association was against socialized medicine since 1947. Anything "socialized" was seen as too close to communism at the beginning of the Cold War.

https://www.chicagomag.com/city-life/oc ... obamacare/

The tactic of decrying any moderately progressive liberal policy as "socialism" is very nearly as old as socialism. Marx himself remarked on this habit of reactionaries in The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte in the early 1850s. It isn't a recent innovation of Republicans or the Tea Party.

There are so many ways this works. While not being very familiar to its exact usage in the US I've seen how it is in Europe. Traditionally socialist group have been very fractioned (at least in Sweden) and they have accused each other of not being socialist enough (the more "pure" socialist groups) or the opposite accusing others to be to close to Marx definition of socialism (those modern left wing movements that want to get rid of the Marx and/or communst stamp). And of course the right who take every chance in the world to claim that a small increase of taxes are a sign of a comming communist dictatorship!

Most of my friends online post centrist or left wing things on social media but I have this one person who really goes all in with all this about the Democratic party being socialist and how everything will fall once they are on power since they want to restrict individual freedoms and change the constituation. He's a clear example of a political hooligan. Rotting for everything his party does, dismissing everything the opposite side does and sees no shades of gray.

It's crazy to me how seemingly so many people think having the right to freedom means there can be no limitations on that freedom whatsoever, even going as far as ignoring the many existing restrictions. As evidenced by all the people who whine about their personal freedoms and the inevitable slippery slope because they need to wear masks in a pandemic... Or how so many people see changes to the Constitution as negative. The Constitution (of any country) shouldn't be changed willy-nilly, but at the same time, the US Constitution already has many Amendments and is a centuries old piece of paper written by men who had no idea what current-day US would look like.

It's also fascinating the number of people invoking the Constitution all the time and not having even read it. I guess there is a similarity with christians invoking the Bible without having read it.

Yeah, invoking documents or authors that people haven't read is very common. Same goes for critiqing documents one hasn't read. Human nature perhaps.

On the thoughts about freedom its the classic distcincion whether one leans towards negative freedom ("freedom from") or positive freedom ("freedom to"). If one philosohically prefers Charles Taylor, John Rawls or Robert Nozick. Of course few lean hard to either side and end up somewhere in between.

I always see the US political lanscape like a rebelious teenager where everyone wants to shout the loudest and be the most correct (according to their own definition of what that might be). A funny, but a bit tragic example of this, was that MetalSuck podcast with Jon Shafer which ended with the interviewer saying to Jon "Stay safe" and he replied "I'll stay free"

I have not read through this entire thread, but from everything I have read and observed the rise in right-wing extremists out of the fringes and into the mainstream has been a gradual occurrence since at least the 90s. Ruby Ridge, and the Waco Texas Standoff in the 90s are 2 events that supercharged the anti-Government politics in America, and militia movements. The Oklahoma City Bombing was the biggest terrorist act in the name of this movement. I know the same militia movement Timothy McVeigh was part of was involved with the capitol insurrection. These incidents from the 90s helped shape the anti-government politics of right-wing personalities like Alex Jones.

These extremists really began to be assimilated into the Republican Party during 2007 and 2008 with the Tea Party movement. This began with Ron Paul. Fox News began advertising his rallies, and that right-wing populist movement gained a lot of steam and turned into The Tea Party. While Fox News was already serving as a Republican Party activist mouthpiece it began to radicalize their message more into entertaining conspiracy theories with Glen Beck and the birther movement. Other opinion hosts there quickly followed. These conspiracy theories were racially charged, and are examples of the “White Grievance” sentiment that largely defines the Republican Party now. The Tea Party movement, which is an extremist anti-government populist movement rode the message of white grievance and limited government into power in the 2010 midterm elections. The movement campaigned on limited government and populist anger as the big banks were all bailed out from the Financial Crisis even though they largely caused it. Former President Obama would argue this was necessary to kickstart the economy again, but what people saw was that they were still struggling and big business was thriving. The Oath Keepers, the far-right militia movement, Jon Shaffer is a part of formed during this period.

Plus, during Obama’s Presidency McConnel, and his party obstructed Democrats at every turn and essentially broke the government. This was an extension of Nute Gingritch’s strategy of obstructionism, and it sowed a lot of distrust in government, fueling the anti-Government sentiments. The Republican Party’s message of populism was a shift away from focusing on policy and into being an opposition party. The party even replaced a lot of policy writers on their staff with more PR people. John Bennan’s book The Imposters discusses how this post-policy message of the party culminated in Donald Trump.

Dr. Bandy Lee, Psychiatrist from Yale whom has been an outspoken Trump Critic said this in an interview.

The Right-wing media movement in the United States began in the 1950s with the goal of creating and serving as activist platforms for a new conservative party after the conservatives were upset that Taft lost to Eisenhower in the primaries. Dan Smoot, and Clarence Manion are 2 of the founders of the modern conservative movement. The goal initially was to combine the Southern Dixiecrats (The racist south) with deregulation (big business). They made an agreement with Barry Goldwater that he would run on their platform, but as a Republican instead of a third party. This essentially created the Modern Republican Party, which was further refined, particularly under Reagan whom also added in the Evangelical Christians to the party. Interesting that even Goldwater left the party in the 80s calling them all a bunch of crooks, and accusing them of doing worse to the country than the Democrats ever had.

During the 80s, and 90s the talk show radio industry boomed, and with the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine a lot of restrictions were removed and the media was able to turn into pretty much a big conservative activist outlet that people could listen to all day. Conservative media hosts had not forgotten that President Kennedy had placed restrictions on them in the past and helped fuel a resentment message. One of the things these radio hosts were able to do was to become intertwined with Evangelical Christianity, which has been highly prominent in rural communities. Neuropsychologists have discussed how evangelical thinking stops short of developing critical thinking skills for being able to determine what is fact from fiction. They tend to accept biblical authority over expertise. Right-wing media hosts have been able to become their authority. I saw some statistics recently that claimed that 11 out of the top 12 most popular political talk radio shows were conservative. The advantage of talk radio is that people can listen to it all day and it shapes the reality they live in.

Another key reason for the rise of “white grievance” is that through the 80s and 90s under Presidents like Reagan, and Clinton a lot of the blue collar jobs began to be lost, and the rural communities began to struggle more. While much of this had to do with jobs being outsourced to foreign countries people were feeling the squeeze and looking at the minorities for the blame. Experts in the wake of the capitol riot have claimed that these predominantly White Christians that made up this population have felt their status under threat. They feel their demographic have lost a lot of status in society over the decades and have clung onto what rights they do have, and the right wing media has promoted so much fear, and perpetuated their victim complex. This includes things like guns, not wanting to wear masks, freedom of speech, and more. A big problem that the rest of the world sees in America is Americans focusing on "Negative Liberty" right now, which is people not wanting to be told what to do by the Government even if it is for the greater good of society such as when people complain about their freedoms to not wear masks. The resentment mentality that has taken hold and fueled a lot of these extremists groups like The Oath Keepers just views government as the problem and the solution is to have freedom from Government (Big Reagan message).

I suggest reading David Newart whom has studied the alt-right and coined the term "eliminationism" which has taken hold in the Republican Party. Meaning, that they view everything that is from outside their tribe as a threat to America, and unAmerican. It really took off when Obama was elected. It also goes along with the message that you have to adhere to the group's principles as a whole and can't deviate on individual political issues. Like how the party is about Trump now, and any Republican like Liz Cheney that has spoken out against Trump like she did on impeachment is being censored. This mentality has bullied many Republican lawmakers into falling in line with Trump at all costs. Those whom do not are labeled as threats and enemies. There is no compromising with Trumpism.

The Jon Birsch Society, which was part of the extremism in the 50s with stuff like McCarthyism was initially shunned by the Republican Party and mainstream media outlets so it was limited to the fringe. The society was full of conspiracy theories, but unfortunately, now seems to be the mainstream with the GOP.


Great book on the rise of the alt right by David Newart
https://theconversation.com/speaking-wi ... ica-101972

Article about the beginning of the Conservative media movement and some of the tactics they employ. If I remember correctly it also goes into how the Republicans keep using the opposite extreme by calling everything communist or socialist that they don't like. No matter what Republicans do Democrats or Liberals are always worse in their minds.
https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/ ... -are-evil/

Article about the beginning of the Conservative media and how they became activists for the GOP
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story ... ion-214199

Interview with a former Republican representative about how the party became so extreme and stopped caring about policy, and would just stay on their talking points.
https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/co ... story.html

Article with answers from a variety of experts on the factors behind people's anger that led to the insurrection attempt. I discussed a little of this above.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/13/opin ... e=Homepage

Probably the most informative article I have read about how the right-wing media and Republican Party became so intertwined with Christian fundamentalism.
https://www.rawstory.com/2017/06/fundam ... er-change/

Excellent discussion with the audio and transcript included with Dr. Lee about Trumpism. I'm a Psychology and History nut so all this stuff interests me.
https://billmoyers.com/story/podcast-bi ... ald-trump/

Article about how Nute Gingritch changed American politics and turned into essentially a bloodsport.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ar ... me/570832/

Article where I got the quote I used from Dr Lee.
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/09/a-yale ... te-fiasco/

Turns out Jon Schaffer hasn't actually voted in an election since 2008 and has botched his livelihood on behalf of a president that he didn't even vote for.

What a fucking dipshit.

Actually, it's been reported that he did vote in the 2020 election, although it hasn't been revealed who he voted for (I assume either Trump or a Libertarian candidate).

I'm not well read enough on the subject to discuss what you bring forth but wanted to say that I thoroughly enjoyed reading that post. And from what I know I did recognice a lot of what you wrote there. A fine job!

It was a bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see how it plays out for him.

When they support police power, the cruelest enforcement of the law possible, based on racial bias(like, you know, not having the basic, free market freedom to move to a new country, because you can make more money there, or not get killed by a theocracy), laws based on Christianity, and want your cult leader to rule forever(don’t forget, he raised taxes, for millions of people!), and most of their online comments talk about dealing with their “enemies” exactly like Hitler or Stalin, it isn’t credible to call them “anti-government.” I wish people would stop writing that. More accurate terms would be “anti-black,” or “neoconfederate.”
Don’t forget, they weren’t always pro-gun. It is illegal to carry rifles in public, in my state, because the legislature(which was much more conservative, in 1967, when it was passed, it wasn’t just racist liberals) didn’t want black panthers doing it, and Ronald Reagan was the governor, who signed it!

The search function is weird for me on these forums so if anyone has already posted this I appologize but according to Metal Injection these are the charges against him as of a few days ago:

https://metalinjection.net/news/breakup ... ns-wizards



Sounds about right from what we currently know about the situation and his involvement.

Seditious conspiracy should be one of the charges, but isn't. If this had been carried out by left wing protesters of BLM advocates, you can bet your bippy that would have been on the list.

I knew there was a reason I had you muted. Good lord.

There is nothing wrong with what she said though.

Absolutely. Judiciary/Police system are fucking racists and it's something already proven. If any non-white did that, they would getting death penalties right away, but since the felons are "patriots", let's charge them the less as possible. Disgusting.

Agreed. I disagree with half of her conclusions in the dedicated US politics thread(s), but she's on the fucking mark here.


ALL OF THIS. The 1987 repeal of the Fairness Doctrine was the breaking of the dam, and it was absolutely intentional.

Yes indeed. Still more proof that human beings cannot give justice objectively. Something tells me that most of these folks will simply be given a slap on the wrist, especially since they've all started blaming Trump for their actions.

Orange Man made me treason when I should have pizzaed, and I had a BAD TIME

You make an important point. They want government insofar as to protect their rights and status in society against the threats of minorities, non-Christians, liberals and whatever other evils right-wing media accuses Democrats of cooking up.



Thanks for the kind words. America has a long History and it feels like to me that we still haven't really dealt with the issues that we fought a civil war over.

As someone who gets into it with S&P pretty often, what she said here is totally reasonable and you're just being a prick.

Even the good Iced Earth is massively overrated IMO. There's some nice riffage to be found in both Night of the Stormrider and Burnt Offerings but I prefer some vocal hook with my power/thrash. They were never fit to even be mentioned alongside the likes of Blind Guardian or Nocturnal Rites, and the attention afforded them can, IMO, ultimately be attributed to the American metal scene's desperation for a heavy hitter to call their own throughout the post-grunge/nu-metal age. They were officially on the nose for me with The Glorious Burden, which looks and sounds even more egregious with the benefit of hindsight.

Fuck this clown and banish his mediocre band to the dustbin of metal history. It's not like he ever gave us a Rust In Peace that would justify the mental gymnastics required to effectively separate the art from an objectionable artist.

I think the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, Occupy Wallstreet, and GamerGate more directly lead to where we are now. You could draw a direct correlation between those events and the rising of the socio-political temperature as young people flocked to alt-right online echo chambers.

Also I’d be terrified to see what would have happened if BLM had been the ones at the capitol.

Don't underestimate the impact 9/11 and the War on Terror had on the socio-political climate, either, both in sentiments and in the type of rhetoric employed.

It does clean up the politics threads enormously. There's a real delight too in someone part of an anti-government group moaning about sedition charges not being used - some people have no sense of irony, though.

Fun aside, there's also the fact that they are planning just that charge for some of those involved. It's almost as if they know what they're doing.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/us-prosecutors-weighing-sedition-charges-in-capitol-riot-capitol-washington-ap-us-trump-b1786302.html

Ha!

Yeah it had a huge impact. Probably the most powerful event I can remember in terms of the consequences. It is obviously something that happened in a certain context with so much preceding the actual attack however without what happened on September 11 2001 I think the world would look a lot different today.

You do realize that being anti-fascism or even being anti-government is not the same as being anti-democracy, right? Sedition charges should be brought because the Capitol attack was an attempt at overthrowing a democratically elected government. There's actually a term for what Trump tried to do there: "Self-coup". He tried to assume power beyond what the Constitution allows him to have by means of a violent riot against the legislative branch of government. It was undemocratic on his part and on the part of the attackers, many of which were openly ANTI-GOVERNMENT, and they all should be charged to the full extent of the law.

Yep.

Those charges are going to be used (see the link I shared), I don't think anyone is arguing that they shouldn't be used

This is just an incredibly stupid version of the disingenuous "What do you mean feminists don't want Marine Le Pen to be president of France? I thought they wanted more women in power!" bullshit I saw all over the place in 2017.

I know prodding at Pockets is one of your favorite pastimes next to eating paint but you're being a dipshit.

EDIT: Slick edit but not quick enough!

Good catch, thought you lot would all be in bed by now

Like I said pre-edit, I've had my chuckle, it's not a hill I'm going to die on

I wonder why all these other people involved in the Capitol storming have been granted bail, but Schaffer still hasn't?

It is possible he's considered a flight risk because of his overseas connections from touring.

None of them should be granted bail at all. They broke into a federal building an an attempt to wreak havoc. The fact that they're able to be bailed out and walk free is disturbing.