January 6th: The Insurrection That Never Happened

It's Ashli Babbitt Remembrance Day for Me

Tune in to any legacy media broadcast tomorrow (possibly including controlled opposition FOX News) and you will be greeted with a near-nonstop deluge of propaganda likening the January 6th protestors of 2021 to ISIS and calling the day "the darkest in modern US history." Biden even skipped over 9-11 in that sense, comparing the day instead to Pearl Harbor. I was not under the impression that Osama Bin Laden had killed nobody and that his main claim to fame was stealing Nancy Pelosi's lectern briefly.

The most meaningful and oft-forgotten aspect of the riot that day is probably the fact that for the first time, US leftists did not respond angrily, but rather with glee and mocking sarcasm, to a police officer shooting an unarmed individual. I speak, of course, of Ashli Babbitt. Members of congress- including most Republicans- even applauded the man who murdered her, who, of course, will not face charges, because she was wearing a MAGA hat at the time she attempted to climb through a door.

Twitter has decided to celebrate the date as well, creating a special posse of propaganda pawns to police the site extra carefully, looking for "harmful content." I presume this means anyone claiming that the day wasn't as horrendous as the entirety of the Civil War, or pointing out that the mistreatment and lack of due process involved in the never-ending prosecution of participants is reminiscent of the internment of Japanese citizens during the second world war. Other big tech firms will almost surely join the censorship field day, happily banning anyone who spreads misinformation- which of course means anything which actually proclaims the truth of that days' events.

Indeed, anyone denying an insurrection took place (the FBI certainly seems to have come to that conclusion months ago and doesn't seem inclined to bring terrorism charges against the defendants anyways) will be mocked and smeared as fanatic, fascistic, potentially violent, and given to conspiracy theories- a slew of labels which more closely approximate the fearmongering, paranoid authoritarianism of the US governments' response, and the slurry of lies and half truths which you will see endlessly repeated by networks run by the same billionaires which run arms to actual terrorists and will support any potential war the government asks them to. The legacy media and establishment politicians will avoid mentioning the George Floyd or Jacob Blake race riots and the billions of dollars in damage and dozens of lives lost in those various firestorms because the pundits and politicians do not live in the areas affected by those explosively violent confrontations. To the pundit class, any riot not near their homes or offices (or Washington bureaus) is "fiery but mostly peaceful."

And while the legacy media, as always, rants about fascism, harm to Democracy, and so forth, and while Chuck Schumer and other shambling neoliberal neanderthals call for federalizing the US voting system, the real threat to our Democracy will be the same hair-plug bearing, breast-implant augmented morons of the legacy media spending the entire day peddling lies alongside their paleozoic politician cohorts.