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The article strongly implies it was domestic terrorists. Where does politics come into this? Are terrorists not your enemies?

sokoloff 4y ago
Almost immediately after the NC ones happened, there was generated consensus online that this was the work of conservatives upset at a drag show happening somewhere in the state. That’s where politics comes in: instant outrage at beyond-unproven, unfounded speculation. Whoever did this were assholes. What their political leanings were is not yet discovered.
- culi 4y ago
  Whether rightwing extremists did or did not actually act out the plot is hard to prove. We'll have to wait for the FBI's investigation for that. What's not hard at all to prove is the very public threads of rightwing extremists encouraging attacks on public infrastructure so I think it's important to have these discussions This report[0] on domestic violent terrorism came out in 2022 before the NC attack and talks about how rapidly far-right terrorism has grown in the past decades > Salafi-jihadist and white supremacist attack planners attempted to target different critical infrastructure sectors, with the former focusing on the commercial facilities, government facilities, and emergency services sectors, and the latter predominantly focusing on the energy sector. > Since 2019, white supremacist attacks plots against critical infrastructure systems have distinctly increased. > Between 2016 and 2022, white supremacist plots targeting energy systems dramatically increased in frequency. 13 individuals associated with the movement were arrested and charged in federal court with planning attacks on the energy sector; 11 of these attack planners were charged after 2020. [0]: https://extremism.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs2191/f/CriticalInfrastructureTargeting09072022.pdf https://extremism.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs2191/f/Critica...
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    By all means, we should have these discussions. When having them, we should keep the differences among threats, speculation, and facts clear.
    - culi 4y ago
      Your comment felt unprompted and the accusation of "[instant] generated consensus" is hard to prove and I don't think any GP implied anything like that
      - sokoloff 4y ago
        Look at the time stamps of HN, Twitter, or FB comments on the day of the NC attacks. Either law-enforcement investigations happened vastly faster on that particular day than ever before, or people were leaping to and sharing outraged conclusions. You’re right that I can’t prove law enforcement hadn’t solved the case that quickly that day. As for unprompted, the post above mine directly asked “where does politics come into this?”
- mchanson 4y ago
  Far right folks have been talking about the power grid as something to attack and working to do it. (https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/three-men-plead-guilty-conspiring-provide-material-support-plot-attack-power-grids-united https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/three-men-plead-guilty-conspi...) Conservatives, currently, have a significant problem with folks doing violence and domestic terrorism. Left wing had it in the 1970s (although to be fair the data has shown the right tends to kills more folks even going back to then).
culi 4y ago
The FBI's definition of "terrorist" has been criticized by academics in the past. For example, attacks on property and attacks on humans have been grouped together leading to stuff like "vegan extremists free help some factory farm pigs escape" and "rightwing extremist shoots up a hospital that provides abortion access" (a shockingly common event tbh) both bring grouped under the same label. Whatever you think of vegans or factory farming, I think most people would agree these are pretty different categories. In a past review the FBI analyzed their data by grouping it into "leftwing", "rightwing", and "salafi-jihadist" categories of domestic terrorism. Leftwing violence was still the smallest out of these (and with the exception of 2001, rightwing violence led), but not by much given that the vast majority events under that category were "ecoterrorism" And that's just domestically. Internationally most countries know the label is a joke and purely a political tool used against anyone the US doesn't like. The "ecoterrorist" label is particularly brutal as it's been used to justify the state's murder of many indigenous activists, particularly in the Amazon tl:dr; "terrorist" is a political term

sokoloff 4y ago

Almost immediately after the NC ones happened, there was generated consensus online that this was the work of conservatives upset at a drag show happening somewhere in the state. That’s where politics comes in: instant outrage at beyond-unproven, unfounded speculation. Whoever did this were assholes. What their political leanings were is not yet discovered.

culi 4y ago
Whether rightwing extremists did or did not actually act out the plot is hard to prove. We'll have to wait for the FBI's investigation for that. What's not hard at all to prove is the very public threads of rightwing extremists encouraging attacks on public infrastructure so I think it's important to have these discussions This report[0] on domestic violent terrorism came out in 2022 before the NC attack and talks about how rapidly far-right terrorism has grown in the past decades > Salafi-jihadist and white supremacist attack planners attempted to target different critical infrastructure sectors, with the former focusing on the commercial facilities, government facilities, and emergency services sectors, and the latter predominantly focusing on the energy sector. > Since 2019, white supremacist attacks plots against critical infrastructure systems have distinctly increased. > Between 2016 and 2022, white supremacist plots targeting energy systems dramatically increased in frequency. 13 individuals associated with the movement were arrested and charged in federal court with planning attacks on the energy sector; 11 of these attack planners were charged after 2020. [0]: https://extremism.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs2191/f/CriticalInfrastructureTargeting09072022.pdf https://extremism.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs2191/f/Critica...
- sokoloff 4y ago
  By all means, we should have these discussions. When having them, we should keep the differences among threats, speculation, and facts clear.
  - culi 4y ago
    Your comment felt unprompted and the accusation of "[instant] generated consensus" is hard to prove and I don't think any GP implied anything like that
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      Look at the time stamps of HN, Twitter, or FB comments on the day of the NC attacks. Either law-enforcement investigations happened vastly faster on that particular day than ever before, or people were leaping to and sharing outraged conclusions. You’re right that I can’t prove law enforcement hadn’t solved the case that quickly that day. As for unprompted, the post above mine directly asked “where does politics come into this?”
mchanson 4y ago
Far right folks have been talking about the power grid as something to attack and working to do it. (https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/three-men-plead-guilty-conspiring-provide-material-support-plot-attack-power-grids-united https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/three-men-plead-guilty-conspi...) Conservatives, currently, have a significant problem with folks doing violence and domestic terrorism. Left wing had it in the 1970s (although to be fair the data has shown the right tends to kills more folks even going back to then).

culi 4y ago

The FBI's definition of "terrorist" has been criticized by academics in the past. For example, attacks on property and attacks on humans have been grouped together leading to stuff like "vegan extremists free help some factory farm pigs escape" and "rightwing extremist shoots up a hospital that provides abortion access" (a shockingly common event tbh) both bring grouped under the same label. Whatever you think of vegans or factory farming, I think most people would agree these are pretty different categories. In a past review the FBI analyzed their data by grouping it into "leftwing", "rightwing", and "salafi-jihadist" categories of domestic terrorism. Leftwing violence was still the smallest out of these (and with the exception of 2001, rightwing violence led), but not by much given that the vast majority events under that category were "ecoterrorism" And that's just domestically. Internationally most countries know the label is a joke and purely a political tool used against anyone the US doesn't like. The "ecoterrorist" label is particularly brutal as it's been used to justify the state's murder of many indigenous activists, particularly in the Amazon tl:dr; "terrorist" is a political term