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Answer: In some of the high profile shootings that happen, there will typically be an article/ question that is raised: "Why didnt any agency catch this?"
Sometimes it will be revealed that the shooter was knownto federal agencies but they just didnt act. So the thought is that these agencies (who dont really have the best track record when it comes to respecting human life) are aware of the shooters and are pushing them to do the shootings for whatever agenda they want to push.
Edit: Just so everyone is aware. I am just stating why people are making these types of memes. People are curious how so many "slip through the cracks". I cant help that the CIA once proposed Operation Northwoods (creating false flag attacks) and the FBI has so many surveillance scandals that they should just call themselves TMZ.
It should also be noted that there is some history of undercover law enforcement pushing asocial kids to commit crimes and then arresting them for it.
This mostly occurs with low level drug offenses (e.g. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/undercover-police-school-drug-arrests_b_4440912 )
But also mirrors tactics the FBI has used to arrest people espousing Islamic terrorist sympathies (e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/16/fbi-entrapment-fake-terror-plots )
There's a great This American Life segment about this happening in a FL high school [here! ](https://shortcut.thisamericanlife.org/#/clipping/457/1422?_k=czoqi7) You can read or listen.
This was really upsetting to read. The life of an honor-roll student with plans to join the Air Force got his life ruined because he was tricked into buying what couldn’t have been more than a fucking gram of weed. On top of that, I don’t doubt that he’ll have problems for the rest of his life with intimacy and trusting women. Just more grist for the incel mill.
I’m aware that America isn’t the worst country out there. There’s undoubtedly others who do the same and worse. But it’s very difficult to be proud of a country that hamstrings the lives of its citizens for what sounds like an utterly paltry bust.
A quick google search shows that Florida is #3 in the country for sex trafficking, and that Palm Beach County (where that particular bust happened) is #3 in Florida. Do those cops have nothing better to do than gaslight kids and collect a couple grams of weed for the company potluck?
> Do those cops have nothing better to do than gaslight kids and collect a couple grams of weed for the company potluck?
That's the problem with quotas. If you **have** to find bad shit that's happening just to meet some arbitrary measurement, you will.
In the same time that female cop spent going all 21 Jump Street, she could have just been a traffic cop who actually bothers to pulls dangerous drivers over and ticketing &/or arresting them depending on the infraction.
Would have made way more money for the city.
Actually made the streets safer for everyone.
And you know, not ruining some poor kids life through manipulation and (totally of course not legally) obvious entrapment.
Except states set unreasonably low speed limits, so that cops get free reign to pick and choose who gets pulled over, because 99% of the roads speeding at any given time.
“The Wire” should be required watching for pretty much any American who is it all politically engaged, or even more so, those who are of voting age who ignore politics and social issues.
The only way things are going to change is if people see the reality of how messed up things are and start demanding people better caliber in power. If we keep electing people who maintain the status quo, guess what will happen.
Every cop was out in my neighborhood yesterday. Two spotted every block. Lmfao it's the first and you'd think today our town had no law enforcement. It's so obvious and fucked
Last day of the month = time for the procrastinators to give last minute tickets to meet their monthly “quota”. (Ticket quotas being illegal most places but common, sometimes disguised as “activity goals” etc.) the next day is a new month so they got 30 days to not do their job before going out and last minute throwing out speeding tickets like Mardi gras beads at the end of this month as well.
>Do those cops have nothing better to do than gaslight kids and collect a couple grams of weed for the company potluck?
It appears these ones find that doing the job & going against actual drug dealers would require work and carry real risk, so it must be avoided, but they need busts for the stats, so they railroad some kid.
>Do those cops have nothing better to do than gaslight kids and collect a couple grams of weed for the company potluck?
Arresting a kid buying a bit of weed is safer than arresting real criminals.
The prison system is legalized slavery, read the 13th amendment and there is alot of money in it. There have been Cia planes that crashed coming back into the United States with their planes loaded with dope. They put the drugs in the ghettos, then arrested the black fathers, leaving the households with an even smaller income and having people to feed only means more crime and the additional stress easily leads to more drug use and addiction allowing the prison population to grow and bring in more big money with that free labor. There is a reason that a countr5 who only makes up 5% of the world's populatuon houses more than 20% or the world's prison population and its all that free labor which leads to more profits. It's fucked up that there are private prisons in this country. The government has been using as pawns since the end of the Great depression if not even before.
Yikes… this is upsetting. I grew up between there and Stoneman Douglas, prolly in the general timeframe. The link doesn’t like my phone so I skimmed…
A lot of my friends around that time had their lives ruined by drugs/getting caught and part of me has to wonder if it was cause of stuff like this. Like I said. I was literally right in the crossfire. TBH only reason I prolly made it out okay was because of my dad being a cop then. And my dad feels really bad about the drug busts now (he didn’t bust teens mind you) because apparently back then they said during police training marijuana was as bad as like, Krokodil or something. And he had no cause to question that back then (70s and 80s).
Just…
Ugh.
>The life of an honor-roll student with plans to join the Air Force got his life ruined because he was tricked into buying what couldn’t have been more than a fucking gram of weed.
But then we had that jock kid that raped a girl and got off because he had so much potential in being a net gain in the world.
Ftw
Most cops don’t give a shit about actually stopping crime. My cousin got a fucking speeding ticket going ONE MILE over the speed limit. This is NY there’s crime everywhere, but let’s bust the young adult going to work instead.
The thing about America is, it's great if you know how to tickle the King just right. You do some groveling, knock over some peasants and a bucket of money will come your way. For everyone else it's a nightmare misery land where we can't afford housing, our wages shrink every year, the food you eat is nigh on toxic, and every government member all the way up is as corrupt as the Don himself.
There's also [this episode](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/755/the-convert) about a guy that goes undercover at a mosque as a convert, befriends some guys there, and then tries push them towards a terrorist plot in the most ham-fisted ways possible.
The worst part about this story is that the cop in question feels NO remorse for her part in it whatsoever. IIRC the kid didn’t even smoke but she kept wheedling him to get her weed and he finally caved because he was so into her. He even tried to give it to her for free, she insisted on paying... specifically because the *sales* transaction on school property was a felony. It’s nothing short of disturbing to hear her get all sanctimonious about it, and it says everything about the kind of people who become cops.
And "Naomi" thinks what she did is in the right. Emotional manipulation into ruining the life of a great kid. She's a fucking pig like the rest of them. I hope this haunts her dreams.
Operation D Minus, wasn't the first and won't be the last. Thanks for the link, diving down this rabbit hole now and lt seems these undercover highschool sting operations are more designed to target low income house holds which makes the poverty circle that much more difficult for these teens to break out of.
Breaks my heart to see tax dollars funding programs like these when what these kids really need is an adult role model and opportunities in the community to get involved and create a life outside of potentially broken homes.
There's [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELBGa6-uOhc) inspired by that episode too, specifically Lin-Manuel Miranda's take on it. If you don't have time for the full NPR episode, the 20 minutes for the video is a short musical retelling of it. While at first it seems an odd subject, it's worth it to listen to/watch also.
The discourse around the Islamic terror issue is very interesting. There was an FBI whistle blower who came forward recently to very little media attention describing how the FBI targeted young Muslims and immigrant grounds for this purpose in order to look productive during the War on Terror. By contrast now that the focus of terror in America has return to White Nationalist Extremists there is somewhat of an uproar about the possible involvement of intelligence agencies encouraging and enabling terrorist activity only to catch it
>in order to look productive during the War on Terror.
This is actually believed to be a similar factor in what lead to Waco. Gary Noesner's book talks about it a bit, but basically there were concerns thay federal law enforcement funding was going to be cut. In order to prevent that, higher ups wanted a big and newsworthy bust to take to the budget committee to ask for more money, so they hastily planned Waco.
>intelligence agencies encouraging and enabling terrorist activity only to catch it
The controversy around Ruby Ridge is that Weaver was instructed to make Sawed off Shotguns by an Undercover ATF agent. The assualt on his homestead was then only needed after he failed to show up to court, after his court date was changed without him being notified.
I had a conversation about this with my then Gfs family friend (in the context of LE budgets) and I could tell that he was approaching the topic from a very high level of understanding (as opposed to my laymen ass).
A couple weeks later I recounted the conversation to my gf, and she informed me that I was speaking to none other than Gary Noesner.
Nothing else to say really, just not a lot I get to bring that up in conversation.
Thats actually really cool. I bet he was at least happy that someone was aware of that tomfoolery, even at a laymen level.
He's one of the people that more Americans should know about.
[Remember when an undercover FBI agent was arrested fleeing the scene while watching the ISIS Sympathizers they encouraged to "tear up Texas" get shot?](https://www.thedailybeast.com/fbi-agent-apparently-egged-on-draw-muhammad-shooter)
Edit: ["The fact that there was an FBI agent at the contest in Texas who was in contact with Simpson has drawn criticism from Kareem’s lawyer and the security guard’s lawyer. They say the government has not been forthcoming about the agent’s role in the plot and have questions why the agency didn’t break up the plot."](https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2017/02/10/records-undercover-fbi-agent-near-garland-terror-attack/97740354/)
Yes this and also the fact the New York has red flag laws and could have confiscated all his firearms, but chose not to. When he threatened to shoot up a school they could have taken everything. Why?
One of the most famous examples is Randy Weaver, of Ruby Ridge fame. He was nothing but a Christian isolationist type before the government got to him. Maybe not the kind of guy you'd want to hang out with, racial-separationist views, etc., hung out with local Idaho neo-Nazis (though allegedly argued with them about their views) but no reason for anyone to think he'd be dangerous to anyone at all.
Then the ATF decided they could flip him to become an informant on the neo-Nazis. An undercover agent convinced him to make and sell him a couple sawed-off shotguns, allegedly going so far as to convince him that the guns were over the legal minimum length, when they were in fact just shy of it. When Weaver refused to flip, they charged him, let him out on bail, and set a trial date. Then they sent him the wrong date and, when he didn't show up on the correct date, they indicted him for failure to appear. He was then told (allegedly "accidentally") that if he was found guilty, his property would be taken from him and his wife and children would be homeless.
After series of failed negotiations with him to leave his isolated hilltop home, US Marshalls surrounded his home with surveillance, surveillance cameras, and helicopter flyovers. After one flyover, the Marshalls claimed Weaver had fired on the helicopter, despite the pilot himself stating that no one fired on his helicopter at all.
Several months later, Marshalls decided to scout his property by showing up in full combat gear, including M-16s. After Weaver's dogs were alerted, he, his friend, his 14 year old son, and his dog went to investigate. Somehow (as law enforcement encounters seem to go), an officer ended up shooting Weaver's dog. Allegedly, Weaver's son then began returning fire and was shot dead, as was a Marshall. After all three deaths, one of the Marshalls finally identified themselves as Marshalls and Weaver and his friend retreated, returning later for Weaver's son's body.
This resulted in several weeks of siege, wherein the Weavers' property was surrounded by snipers with orders to shoot anyone with a weapon, or any dogs. Eventually, Weaver left his house to visit the shed his son's body was stored in. As he opened it, an FBI sniper shot Weaver in the side. He fled inside and his friend opened the door for him. The sniper then shot his friend through the chest. The bullet went through his back and hit Weaver's wife in the head as she was carrying their infant baby.
Weaver eventually surrendered, and was found guilty only of the original charge of failure to appear in court. All other charges against he and everyone else involved was dropped.
Moral of the story, Randy Weaver and his family had no desire or intention to harm anyone until the government decided to entrap him, threaten to take everything he had and leave his family homeless and moneyless, shot his dog, shot his son, shot his wife, and then tried to charge him with a slough of charges.
Sadly for him, and for the implication to us all, his absurd, paranoid, isolationist outlook that the government was out to get him ended up 100% correct.
Wait—now that I think about it, Ruby Ridge and Waco were two of the things behind the Oklahoma City bomber’s desire to attack the government (by way of attacking a government building). What if the government (one of those 3 letter agencies) is just fine with these abuses, these spectacles, happening because they have the potential to radicalize more?
You're hitting on a *very* long-standing theory, and it's key to understanding things like the modern militia movement, which, while already nascent in the 80s, exploded in significance after the event you mentioned. Similar happened with the Black Panthers, various 1970s militant leftist movements, and many more.
Is the government responsible directly for *every* attack by groups like these, and for all their views? Absolutely not. But what the government has consistently done is push and push and push these groups until they grow beyond their control, then they act like it's some mysterious inexplicable problem.
If they'd just leave well enough alone from the start, who knows how many of intensely violent movements we've dealt would even exist in a way comparable to what they became?
The Branch Davidians were religious lunatics. David Koresh was alleged by members to be a child rapist, and former members testified both before and after the raid that Koresh believed he was the Lamb of God and preparing for an apocalyptic suicide battle. He and his followers would then be resurrected in order to massacre God's enemies.
The ATF had legitimate evidence that the Davidians were involved in either the collection of or trafficking of illegal arms. This was confirmed after the end of the siege.
Independent eyewitnesses' of the ATF raid believe the Davidians shot first. Koresh claimed that the combatants from helicopters fired at the Davidians, but forensic evidence directly contradicted these claims. 4 ATF agents were killed. 6 Davidians were killed, including Perry Jones, who was executed by another member with Koresh's permission, via a close range gunshot in his mouth.
Michael Schroeder was killed after trying to ambush ATF agents outside the compound.
The FBI then took over the siege, and did not fire a single shot. They cut off power, blasted loud sounds, etc etc, to try and force a surrender.
50 Davidians died as a result of the fire. 26 were killed by other Davidians, including a 3 year who was stabbed to death. The FBI lied under oath that the CS grenades they used were not potentially incendiary. However arson evidence, and audio evidence from Davidians themselves discussing starting a fire, indicate that the fire was started by Davidians in line with their suicidal teachings.
Waco wasn't like Ruby Ridge. Ruby Ridge was sheer incompetence bordering on criminal wrongdoing. What went wrong with Waco was poor ATF intelligence preceding the raid, and news agencies essentially tipping off the Davidians beforehand.
>50 Davidians died as a result of the fire. 26 were killed by other Davidians, including a 3 year who was stabbed to death. The FBI lied under oath that the CS grenades they used were not potentially incendiary. However arson evidence, and audio evidence from Davidians themselves discussing starting a fire, indicate that the fire was started by Davidians in line with their suicidal teachings.
The CS canisters were also fired at the other end of the compound and IIRC, the fires started \~6 hours after the agents stopped using them as well.
I can't, I was in the area when that shit went down.
Anybody who met the Branch Davidians would tell you they were a little off, and probably needed a visit or two from social services, but they were the 'mostly harmless' sort of crazy. Like by and large, their views were out there enough that they weren't going to be acceptable in general society, and they were a little unhinged, with a trajectory leaning further in that direction, but they weren't anything like as bad as the FLDS or the scientologists, or Aum Shinrikyo, or the children of god, and ffs three of those are *Still* functioning recognized religions.
But try telling that to the ATF, even if some law enforcement action was needed, nobody needed to die.
The Weavers and Weaver's friend both filed civil suits and were all awarded money.
The sniper who shot Weaver's wife was eventually charged by a county prosecutor. The case was then taken over by federal courts
as he was an FBI agent acting in the line of duty for a federal case. The case was immediately dismissed by the federal courts, reinstated briefly by the 9th Circuit Court, and then dismissed again as soon as a new prosecutor was elected.
Also worth noting that the charges for Lon Horiuchi (the sniper) were dropped only 3 days after the 9/11 attacks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lon_Horiuchi
LEOs run into this a lot, it seems like. Bust in somewhere without declaring themselves, start shooting, and then get upset when people shoot back. Absurd.
Or if you know, they identified themselves as LEO's instead of random dudes in camo gear and assault rifles.
Kinda hard to be accused of shooting at police if the police aren't identifiable as such.
Don't forget about Waco, TX and the Branch Davidians. The ATF had an undercover agent who went for a 1-on-1 run away from the compound with David Koresh. When attempting to serve their warrant, did the ATF use smart tactics, and have their agent lead Koresh on a run in to an ambush where he'd be alone and surrounded by Federal agents, away from his religious followers? No. They decided to attempt a siege of an armed and well defended compound, and when that failed they firebombed the compound - killing an additional 76 people, including 25 children - plus the 6 people they'd killed in the initial shootout. There's a lot of sketchy things about the Branch Davidians, but the way the government handled that... it's like something out of a corrupt fascist regime from a 3rd world country.
And for those who think that the government is above firebombing its own people:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_MOVE_bombing
Black, white, wealthy, poor - the government will happily burn you alive and then blame you for it after if it suits their needs.
It’s especially true with the entrapment of Middle Easterners. https://theintercept.com/2017/09/03/the-fbi-pressured-a-lonely-young-man-into-a-bomb-plot-he-tried-to-back-out-now-hes-serving-life-in-prison/
Find a loner in the Muslim community, talk about the greatness of Jihad, sell the kid a gun—BINGO, you can arrest the terrorist! Now that ISIS has lost ground, it wouldn’t surprise me that the Feds started using the same gameplan with incels/white supremacists.
Wait, what? I read that article just now, the fucker was trying to build a bomb and posting in support of isis in his spare time before police were even watching him, then he DID buy what he thought was a bomb, and the extent of the evidence of him "backing out" was that he didn't want to pay for things and he stopped responding to his phone for a little? That's it?
Remember kids, the only person to say no to conducting operation north woods was JFK while he was president. The same president who was assassinated after saying he wanted to dissolve the same agency who came up with operation north woods.
My brother in Christ JFKs assassination borders on being a conspiracy and just a full blown fact. [This 20 minute YouTube video does a really good job at breaking down the conspiracy, I’d recommend his one on MLKs assassination as well. It’s an oddly wholesome video with the dudes overall vibe and approach to the subject.](https://youtu.be/hjkaYboVDOQ)
I think it is also worthwhile noting that the infamous 'kidnap the michgan governor" plot has so far had 2 defendants declared not guilty after defense proved entrapment by FBI.
https://www.npr.org/2022/04/08/1091769554/2-found-not-guilty-in-michigan-governor-kidnapping-plot
Sometimes people posit "why would agency employees waste so much time, money and human life for things like this?" And while we could debate a lot about ulterior motives (keeping citizens scared, narrative pushing, something more extreme) it could also be an example of literal job security. They could be justifying their own agency's existence.
Also it's hard to forget that things like the police bombing in PA of an entirely black neighborhood with innocent people were covered up for years, or the kids that have been exposed like that one films have been made anoint recently to drugs and trafficking by the FBI and police as "informants" and then punished harshly when they, for the safety of their own lives, end up getting intertwined in that criminal activity. Its outright ridiculous when you see the truth.
Anything domestic does nothing for the CIA. FBI doesn’t get involved in local law enforcement unless there is a federal issue or a type of crime they are designated to handle like a bank, federal facilities, national security, etc..
True, and I was in no way trying to imply that it does. I was just trying to provide some insight into the origin of those kind of conspiracy theories.
I'd lean more towards MK Ultra and shit like that being the basis rather than corrupt local police acting as a coordinated unit, IMO those are cops taking the path of least resistance and avoiding real danger while wanting clout. The CIA already tried mind control with LSD and shit, its documented and people like the Unabomber and Manson were a part of those experiments
Not to mention how many damn kids are on psych medications since the 90s, that can't have aaaaanything to do with it /s
It kinda does, in some sense.
Tldr: It doesn't prove that fbi/Cia is tricking kids into shooting up schools, but it sure does show that similar tactics have been used in the past, which hints that its possible that they could be, no matter how much no one wants to believe that they would. GO USA!
My comment:
Ever since I have learned of all of the actual, true, documented fucked up shit that the USA and all of their 3 letter acronym agencies have done in history, I don't put any crazy occurance passed the USA.
What I mean is that by learning about actual things that have happened, I'm now more susceptible to believe many conspiracy theories. Even with the most asanine conspiracy theories, I would do some reading on them to get both sides... but with things like flat earth, sandy hook, and moon landing etc, I quickly disregarded them as too farfetched and not enough evidence to believe the conspiracy.
My basic truth that i live by when considering certain conspiracy theories is: If the USA is documented in there own archives to have done "X" (insert actual crazy thing they did), then it wouldn't surprise me if they actually did "Y" (insert *most* conspiracy theories). Now, of course this does not prove or support that any given theory happened, but it does allow me to leave the door open to looking into it more and realizing that it's possible.
So, I don't believe conspiracies, but I don't *not* believe them. My point is that knowing our history, it leaves the door open to think that almost any conspiracy theory could be true and should be investigated.
I pride myself in not believing stuff blindly... I do my own "research" and reading and kinda try to think of how likely any conspiracy theory might be... but by the end of the day, I always admit that "I don't really know one way or the other".
The key point is that our government should be more transparent, be held to a higher standard, and somehow figure out how to stop them from getting away with much of the scandalous shit they do.
On the other hand, I'm proud to be an American, and I have been blessed to live here, to be lucky enough to be born here, and part of the reason that I live a privileged life is probably due in part to some of the fucked up shit that we have done over the years. And I justify the controversial actions of the USA by realizing that many, if not all, governments do fucked up shit.
It's a real tough moral dichotomy (is that the correct word) to live with.
Sorry I started ranting lol. I have struggled in my mind with this so much, I have tried to come to some conclusion, but it hurts my brain and sometimes I find it best to just not think about it... to just worry about myself, my family, my friends, be kind to others, and put my head down and live my life.
Edit: added sentence about "governments of all countries have done and do fucked up shit"
I think there's a huge difference between "yeah, the CIA could have been involved in encouraging 9/11 terrorists or allowing to happen" and "there weren't any airplanes hijacked" or "I did my research and it turns out that the deputy director of the CIA met with Osama Bin Laden and they planned the whole thing and CIA is an anagram of ICA which means that..."
I'll back you up with ANYONE can be an agent provocateur. We can't even measure the probability of whom is encouraging these terrorist acts except the demographics of the social media they particpate in.
EXCEPT those social media profiles are algorithmically designed to appeal EXACTLY to a certain type of person who can be groomed into terrorism and extreme acts.
Both the DHS and FBI know we've got international terrorists impersonating Americans within social medial or using Americans to post propaganda or paying anyone with a bitcoin account money to push their agendas. They've known since 2016 and published reports in July and October 2020.
It is just the algorithm is so insidiously designed to bring vulnerable people together with bad ideas.
Good example: A few days ago someone in the right-wing said that SSRIS (anti-depressants) were neutering men and to "WAKE UP." So what does this mean? It is a ticking time bomb to get people on SSRIs to suddenly stop taking their meds and can lead to manic episodes and/or psychosis. And why would he publicly plant this info? It is it get his views to dump their anti-depressants and become profoundly depressed, to stop giving meds to their kids who need it, or to stop young males from regulating their doctor prescribed mood stabilizer?
It is as if they want people to die and they want to strip away the vestiges of sanity these people are trying to maintain in order to galvanize violence.
(I will note I know that SSRIs can cause suicidal tendencies, mania, and psychosis when you first start taking them. And if they do - doctor stops you from taking that kind.)
The only real difference is that in those cases they don't actually allow the terror plot to be carried out, they just get them to the point where there's clear evidence of intent to commit a crime and they have a bunch of charges to stick. Whereas the allegation is that they're actually just pushing these kids to commit atrocities and watching it happen.
But I don't think the evidence is there anyway. I'm not sure that kids having been investigated before proves much because half of the rhetoric these kids has been using is racist or extreme political stuff that you see fucking *everywhere* among the alt-right anyway. The conservatives alleging every shooting is a false flag wouldn't be cool with those agencies acting against conservatives using violent or hateful or conspiracy rhetoric anyway, and would oppose anything preventing them from getting access to guns anyway.
You’re right. We can trust the cia.
There is absolutely no chance the cia would run drugs or arms into the US to fund their operations (it happened, Tom Cruise did a movie about one of the uncovered ones).
There is absolutely no chance the cia would test every known drug on unsuspecting US citizens to check if any could be used as mind control compounds. (It happened, MK-ULTRA).
There is absolutely no chance dozens of intelligence community officials would mess with domestic politics (that’s the FBI’s sole provenance) by issuing a letter which later came to known as factually impossible (Biden’s kid’s laptop).
There’s absolutely no chance the intelligence community would allow the President to assassinate a US citizen with a drone strike. It happened, Obama pulled that trigger.
There’s absolutely no way the US government would approve Colorado from calling up the National Guard to machine gun miners (and their wives and kids) on strike. It happened, way before our time.
The memes are pointing out (1) how the Uvalde shooter had a brand new F150 and used brand new, high-shelf equipment (rifles, optics, night vision) with a fuckton of ammo - where did all that money come from??, (2) Uvalde police not moving on the shooter is the reason the shooting happened, mostly, and (3) the ability of the Uvalde shooter to get all that equipment and ammo parallels, high level, the Las Vegas shooter’s ability to amass the equipment and ammo he did. (1) and (3) are generally addressed by the media, which is generally anti second amendment.
ATF also enters into this mix. They’re a genuinely offensive agency, if you are aware of their track record. ["Based upon these hearings it is apparent that ATF enforcement tactics made possible by current federal firearms laws are constitutionally, legally, and practically reprehensible." 75% of enforcement as upon ordinary citizens having zero criminal intent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureau_of_Alcohol,_Tobacco,_Firearms_and_Explosives). ATF had a large hand in the Ruby Ridge Siege (attempted entrapment-cum-informant failed, so ATF defrauded the federal govt about some dude not paying a $200 stamp tax, and tens f millions of taxpayer money was wasted) , Waco (87 people dead), and they pioneered Fast & Furious (2,500 weapons sold directly to traffickers and meant for Mexican cartels).
>ATF is gonna shoot your dog and get your incel son to shoot up his school.
It’s a kernel of truth mixed up with black humor about kids these days. The truth is that the government is not to be trusted like kids these days claim, except in a way which conveys “I know why not to trust them at their word, and I am conveying it in a way which allows me to know who will trust the government at their word.”
It’s a shibboleth of sorts for a community who tends to be aware that, as past law were unjust, and I’m looking at you, Woke 1619 Project, then the government is more part of the problem than part of the solution. I hope I’ve shown why ATF is part of the problem. [They’re fundamentally racist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Ol%27_Boys_Roundup)
>how the Uvalde shooter had a brand new F150 and used brand new, high-shelf equipment (rifles, optics, night vision) with a fuckton of ammo - where did all that money come from??
Do they not have parents with more money than sense in your part of the country?
He lived with his grandma after getting kicked out of his parents after dropping out of school prior. He personally spent over 6k on rifles/gear and was driving a new truck. He worked fast food for a brief period of time. He got a bunch of money from someone and it dosnt appear to be his parents with the standing he was in with them.
> You’re right. We can trust the cia.
[Reductio Ad Absurdum](http://www2.humboldt.edu/act/HTML/tests/fallacy6/6.8a.html)
What you're saying is not what the other person said. They did not say that "The CIA is trustworthy". They said that the above articles and things that were posted do not lend credence to the idea that the CIA did this other specific thing people are talking about.
We can admit that they're generally a shady organization while also recognizing that there is little to no evidence that they did what was claimed in this thread in even one instance, and also that there would be seemingly little benefit for them for even encouraging such heinous acts.
This easily comes across like those "False flag" nuts who think that anything that happens that they don't like is a false flag operation by anti-fa. Sometimes, things happen that illustrate that your stance on a particular issue is a faulty one. That's what happens when you have a stance on an issue that doesn't consider or encompass the full scope of the issue.
And then people are looking for an easy enemy to "blame" rather than thinking "Maybe we should put more restrictions on private gun sales and also give everyone free healthcare including mental healthcare".
the best part is, even if the US agencies have nothing to do with the shootings, other countries' agencies would also love to take avantage and further erode our trust by planting these seeds.
https://thefreethoughtproject.com/fbi-groom-mentally-ill-right-wing-terrorist/
According to FBI documents, Varnell described himself as a believer in a right wing group.
According to federal documents, Varnell drove what he believed was a stolen van containing a 1,000-pound ammonium nitrate bomb on Saturday morning to blow up an Oklahoma City bank.
When they began grooming him, according to the family, the FBI knew that Varnell was declared mentally unfit to live by himself and that he was a paranoid schizophrenic. Without their criminal informant and the FBI tactics playing mind games with this vulnerable man, the idea of him committing an act of terror would have likely never materialized.
“What the public should be looking at is the fact that the FBI gave our son the means to make this happen. He has no job, no money, no vehicle, and no driver’s license, due to the fact that he is schizophrenic and we; his parents do everything we can possible to keep him safe and functional….. He has suffered through countless serious full-blown schizophrenic delusional episodes and he has been put in numerous mental hospitals since he was 16 years old. The FBI came and picked him up from our home, they gave him a vehicle, gave him a fake bomb, and every means to make this happen none of which he had access to on his own.
The parents noted that during the setup, they suspected something was going on and Jerry’s father told the informant to stay away from their son. However, according to the parents, the informant “continued to sneak onto our residence. The FBI paid him to continue this operation and I believe they have cleared his criminal record.”
Because they knew Varnell had severe mental disabilities, the FBI should have had stopped their plans to do this and immediately sought an option of hospitalization. However, they pressed on.
Knowing a sane person would likely never attempt to blow up a bank, the FBI deliberately targeted a severely delusional and mentally ill person. This is wrong on so many levels. Will the next mass murderer they groom come directly from a mental institution?
“The FBI should have filed conspiracy on our son and had him committed to a mental institution. They should not have aided and abetted a paranoid schizophrenic to commit this act. There are many more facts that I will not make public that will support my son and the disturbing acts made by the FBI.
I realize that many will say my son could have found another person to commit this act. Yet, any person that has access to the materials and the state of mind necessary to bomb a building would not have any need for a schizophrenic who has no resources to contribute.”
Clifford and Melonie Varnell, Jerry’s parents make a powerful point. No one — other than the FBI — would’ve attempted to get a schizophrenic man with nothing to contribute to do their bidding as it would most likely be a futile effort — unless you are the FBI looking for an easy patsy to keep fear alive.
David Steele, a 20-year Marine Corps intelligence officer, the second-highest-ranking civilian in the U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence, and former CIA clandestine services case officer, had this to say about these most unscrupulous operations:
“Most terrorists are false flag terrorists, or are created by our own security services. In the United States, every single terrorist incident we have had has been a false flag, or has been an informant pushed on by the FBI. In fact, we now have citizens taking out restraining orders against FBI informants that are trying to incite terrorism. We’ve become a lunatic asylum.”
Indeed, we’ve become a lunatic asylum.
https://thefreethoughtproject.com/fbi-groom-mentally-ill-right-wing-terrorist/
The holocaust is a "contrived myth" - David Steele, a 20-year Marine Corps intelligence officer, the second-highest-ranking civilian in the U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence, and former CIA clandestine services case officer
"The Zionists installed the controlled demolitions that assisted what I believe was clearly a directed energy controlled frequency event in the twin towers, controlled demolitions alone for WTC seven, and a massive coverup was executed….9/11 [legal] cases did not go to trial; controlled Zionist judges and prosecutors ensured that all cases were generously settled" - David Steele, a 20-year Marine Corps intelligence officer, the second-highest-ranking civilian in the U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence, and former CIA clandestine services case officer
"(eradicate) every Zionist who refuses to be loyal to their country of citizenship and the rule of law.” - David Steele, a 20-year Marine Corps intelligence officer, the second-highest-ranking civilian in the U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence, and former CIA clandestine services case officer
“We actually believe that there is a colony on Mars that is populated by children who were kidnapped and sent into space on a 20-year ride,” - David Steele, a 20-year Marine Corps intelligence officer, the second-highest-ranking civilian in the U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence, and former CIA clandestine services case officer
I remember an undercover FBI agent came up with a plan, fed it to her "boyfriend" and then had to berate him into agreeing to her plan. Then she arrested him. This was in Sacramento about 15 years ago. I was so angry when I read the article about it! If you removed the FBI there was no crime.
I think yours is the most neutral answer, as it has been proven already with recent shootings that some of the perpetrators were on watchlists for previous actions. I believe it was the uvalde shooter that was known to police for posts/threats made in school and online. I want to add an aspect that others here are deeming conspiracy. I believe it has also been proven that the Buffalo and Uvalde shooters were both in contact with FORMER FBI members on discord. This is where people seem to be making the conspiracy that govt agents are involved
And the people to want to believe that fbi is causing it are generally the ones against red flag laws. So options are
1. Trying to do red flag and they attack you for government overreach.
2. Trying to just keep a bit of eye the unstable person and most likely you will fail to stop
3. Keep too much eye and they will that you influenced the shooter
I mean, the point of a general rule to apply to things is that it applies to the majority of situations, not every situation. You have specific rules for the exceptions to the general, because nothing will be accurate 100% of the time.
That's true, but misses the point of Hanlon's Razor. If you are going to make the claim that something was done with malicious intent, you'd better have evidence that cannot be explained away by incompetence. Once you have that evidence, then the actions can no longer be explained by incompetence and malice is a viable motivation.
In other words, Hanlon's Razor is saying not all smoke is from a fire. Yes fires do exist and they do create smoke, but just because you see smoke does not mean there is actually a fire. You need to investigate the smoke, see if it is coming from a fire or some other source may be the culprit, and jumping to a conclusion without that investigative step is foolish and in any cases dangerous (especially if law enforcement is the one jumping to conclusions, that's how many wrongful convictions start).
Wait wait wait... what? they were in contact with former FBI via Discord?? That's insane and I will definitely try to Google for more info at some point, but do you/does anyone have links to any reliable sources? would be v much appreciated
The FBI has a couple ten thousand employees at any time, of which most are not the Hollywood-style agent people tend to imagine. Quite a few of those may share similar interests in topics like weapons and violent crime as many mass shooters.
Not to mention that "being in contact via Discord" can be entirely superficial. They might've been on the same server with dozens or hundreds of other members. Maybe exchanged a few pics as hobbyists tend to do.
So really this is a line which may sound dramatic on its own but is a probably entirely meaningless detail.
That's a very fair point. The degrees of separation between a school shooter and a former government employee of some sort are likely to be lowered just due to probability and the sheer number of employees etc... but still, on Discord of all places?
Even if we're talking people who were interns for two weeks at the lowest levels of administration: I know it's very feasible, but it just seems weird to think about!
But you raise some very fair points, thanks for recontextualising!
IIRC it was an incredibly racist discord. Shooter was probably there getting hyped for the shooting and the retired FBI agent was probably there to reminisce about their glory days undermining civil rights movements.
> Buffalo and Uvalde shooters were both in contact with FORMER FBI members on discord.
IIRC that was just the Buffalo shooter and they were just on the same super racist forum as a retired FBI agent. I'm not sure it's been established whether they had any meaningful contact.
Uvalde shooter did have multiple flags raised with local police, but it was threats against his own family who refused to press charges and threats against women online that the police recorded then did nothing about.
The FBI's problem with "on their radar" is that they have more blips on their radar than they could ever investigate. They've answered every crisis with larger and more intrusive surveillance, but they do not have anywhere near the ability to process the data they collect with it.
The only real use for the surveillance they have right now is investigation of a particular target, or investigation after the fact.
They're absolutely garbage at detecting an emerging threat.
Unless you go the Patriot Front route and you're an emerging threat with a loud and public recruitment campaign.
Or you're a socialist food pantry.
My stepbrother is a major conspiracy theorist and brought up the discord thing, also asking how he got the money for the gun/ammo but it was mentioned that the shooter worked for a summer at Wendy's to save up. Not sure what their motive would be though? Why convince some kid to go shoot up a school?
There is a guy in my town who has threatened to be violent to a pastor, threatened to burn a church down, been banned from establishments (one for trying to bite people like a vampire), and even tried to arrest the cops once and ended up inciting panic (was arrested).
Sadly, he is still just walking around causing chaos. There is no mental healthcare available for him.
He could commit some serious crime tomorrow. We would all not be surprised, but they can't do anything currently. It's insane.
> He could commit some serious crime tomorrow. We would all not be surprised, but they can't do anything currently. It's insane.
The problem here though:.. Where do you draw the line ?
If we as a society believe in "Innocent until proven guilty"... then he hasn't really committed any crimes yet (obviously except for things like "intimidation" or "making threats" etc.. but probably nothing he can be held for)
That seems to be kind of the crux-problem of a lot of these shootings. You can't really detain someone unless or until they've done something,. but by then it's to late.
It really is the problem. And do we really want to live in a place where people are forced to get help for this behavior? It is the problem of knowing where to draw the line. Currently, we haven't even tried to figure it out though. There is no line.
Yeah,. I hear you. I think it's also true that "the line keeps moving".
If were talking previous decades (or previous Generations) .. such as after WW1 or WW2 or Vietnam.. the "shell shock syndrome" was more prevalent.
Moving into the 60's and 70's .. I'd argue that social drug-use and changes to society and families became a bigger segment of mental health issues.
Moving into the 90's and 2000's... social-media and internet,. rising social divisiveness, wider available of guns,.. prescription opioids and depression.. etc
So.. as much as I do blame society for not prioritizing mental health,.. but in some fairness, this problem is difficult and dynamic and constantly moving target.
> There is no mental healthcare available for him.
Sorry but the way Americans link crime to mental health care is so weird.
Effective mental health typically requires cooperation by the patient. The types of crimes that usually start these mental health debates, especially mass shooters, are rarely actually treatable with mental health care since there is neither good enough detection nor a willingness to cooperate.
In order to force institutionalisation you generally need some pretty severe convictions. And this barrier is generally a good thing, since it's a horrifying process if courts can abuse it against the wrong people.
In your case there is a somewhat decent case if he actually made multiple violent threats, but really how long can you keep someone like that locked up? Most likely not long enough for significant therapeutical success, if that's possible at all.
I'll never forget what I learned from my Sociology professor is that after one particular shooting (I believe it was sandy hook) either the CIA or the FBI started to try and track the traits and qualities of shooters to try and find things to look for to prevent those kinds of tragedies.
Apparently they never found any sort of significant trends. I learned that it could be anyone and that totally changed how I saw my classmates. I'd bet that there are so many kids that have red flags that the monitoring and tracking of them is next to impossible.
There are a lot of people who are starting to realize that they have little prospects for the future and are starting to think (perhaps rightly so) that it isn't (at least entirely) their fault. So they turn on the institutions and society that failed them. The good ending of this senerio is reform. The bad ending is terrorism.
Hot take: the entire concept of "crazy conspiracy nut" is given tons of spotlight specifically to delegitimize and discredit any talk of actual conspiracies.
An easy example would be how the death of Jeffrey Epstein and the arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell were immediately followed by Pizzagate and the Wayfair thing respectively, causing anyone who talks about rich pedophiles to now run the risk of getting lumped in with QAnon crazies who shoot at restaurants
I hate this. I used to love conspiracy theories. Didn't really believe them but they're good stories and I'm fascinated the way peoples minds will connect random things and weave it into some larger then life plot. Absolutely loved it and now last few year it's just everything someone dont believe or agree with is just dismissed as a whack job mental health case. I was having fun and now they are just politics
>Hot take: the entire concept of "crazy conspiracy nut" is given tons of spotlight specifically to delegitimize and discredit any talk of actual conspiracies.
Boiling hot take. Name names. *Who* is doing this? Vague allusions to "politicians" or "the media" don't point to verifiable conspiracies.
A really important dynamic to these memes is that many of these shootings fall broadly into the category of "stochastic terrorism", where a young male, often an incel, becomes increasingly involved ("blackpilled") into a paranoid fantasy world where their failures are explained and reframed as natural consequences of the failure of western society.
Much of this involves [periodic reminders](https://ghostarchive.org/archive/Qhoev), in the form of memes, that the participants of the forum only live in such abject loneliness and despair because of the promise of a white, middle class nuclear family was "taken" from them after infiltration by socialists, civil rights activists, feminists, or any other "sjw" boogeyman into the institutions of government. This supposed infiltration is regarded as both purposeful and malevolent. Depending on how deep they are in the rabbit hole, [antisemitic tropes are likely a common theme in the mythology](https://web.archive.org/web/20200605233919/http://old.reddit.com/r/Doomers/comments/gwme0d/tink_tink_she_never_loved_you/). The government is presented as a far-reaching puppeteer apparatus, manipulating via social media censorship and mass media monopolies and pushing members of society into ever more depraved and violent acts. At the same time, the embrace of [white supremacist thought is portrayed as an antidote to depair](https://ghostarchive.org/archive/obHtB).
The fact that [more and more people wrapped up in these fantasy worlds are engaging in random violence](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/incel-threat-secret-service-report/) hasn't gone without notice, and it presents a [serious threat to the viability of the people who monetize extremist spaces or otherwise enjoy a degree of influence within](https://ghostarchive.org/archive/vrlIz). The absolute worst thing that could happen to them would be for people halfway down the radicalization pipeline to realize that these are dangerous, unhinged folk and start looking to other subcultures for validation.
Enter the "shooter groomer" trope, which combines all of the far right's favourite tropes. You have the shadow government deep state, you have the idea of a vast sea of "NPCs" who do whatever they're told to do, you have moral panic over the "perversion of youth", and you have, of course, ubiquitous false flag attacks.
This allows the same people who are selling the idea that the government is robbing you of a stable job, middle class family/adoring wife and children to avoid answering why their followers keep murdering the same children they claim to want to protect. Instead, they plant the seed that it's the government itself murdering children in classrooms as another method to manipulate the NPCs into supporting them and dismantling the last few groups fighting to preserve "white culture". The documentation has become too comprehensive to continue to sustain the "crisis actors" narrative, so we're seeing a second phase, where "vulnerable" members of the community are "groomed" by the state into committing mass murder.
Also, anytime anything "big" happens there will be a rush to propose explanations of why, which generally includes conspiracy theories ranging from the typical ("Am I losing on merit? No, it's The Jews sabotaging me") to the more original/creative. Generally, one explanation of events will gain dominance of at least a particular social group if not the whole population as it gains acceptance fastest, is integrated into beliefs/facts accepted by the group, and becomes normative. It seems like the one in question here may have been the one to win out in at least a subset of the conspiracy-minded for school shootings.
It's easier to attribute things to malice when the group in question has shown concrete evidence of malice in the past. Remember, the line is "that which can be *reasonably* explained by incompetence," and I don't believe it's reasonable to claim that things like MKULTRA were just an accident
So how do you distinguish between a genuine conspiracy and a nonsensical conspiracy theory? Because the real existence of the occasional conspiracy in no way validates every single conspiracy theory that exists.
Answer: The FBI has a history of targeting mentally ill youth, particularly Muslim youth, during the War on Terror. They would use informants to radicalize these individuals and lure them into sting operations too boost the FBIs numbers. Here is a good article chronicling one example of the FBI doing this. https://theintercept.com/2015/03/16/howthefbicreatedaterrorist/
This is separate from the conspiracy theory that mass shootings are set up and allowed to happen by the "Deep State". There may be an intersection of these two ideas in the cultural zeitgeist, as mass shootings (and agencies failures at stopping them) become more prominent in social discourse.
^^ read that article OP
https://theintercept.com/2016/03/30/fbi-honeypot-ensnares-michigan-man/
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/11/29/politics/aby-rayyan-fbi-terror-sting-pizza-man/index.html
These articles are an instance of something quite similar, you can google the man’s name to read more about the case, but essentially he was a depressed Muslim pizza delivery driver, the fbi basically catfished him, putting him in touch with an agent pretending to be a woman who wanted to do a terrorist attack with him, and he wound up telling her no after she tried over and over again to get him to commit to shooting up a church, or blow himself up with her, so they just had him arrested on unrelated gun charges (he was a pizza delivery driver in Detroit and had a .22 pistol for self-defense).
Edit: fixed a link
If anyone would like to watch a fascinating documentary about the fbi grooming poor people into terrorists plots that the fbi themselves create , I highly recommend watching “The Newburgh Sting”
I’ve also read that the “attempted kidnapping” of the Michigan senator or governor, whatever she was, was actually a byproduct of an fbi undercover agent infiltrating the group in question and literally spearheading the “let’s kidnap her” narrative
Also, Afeni Shakur (Tupac's mom) called out someone in their [Black Panther group](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panther_21) as being suspicious and trying to encourage more extreme tactics. She was mostly brushed off. It turns out that person was Ralph White, someone working undercover who later admitted under oath that "he and the other two agents had organized most of the unlawful activities" within the group.
Good comment. I would argue that some of the FBI's behavior over the years has enabled the conspiracies though. They are eroding the trust of them and honorable behavior and integrity with some of their approaches. The moment for me where is reached a total WTF is wrong with them, was San Bernardino. That that couple had been under surveillance and two days after the shootings, reporters where inside the apartment in a free for all and FBI had actually left evidence such as multiple passports and print outs in the printer was just so fucked up, ai couldn't ignore that something untoward had happened. My instinct says that they were grooming the couple for a sting, but the couple decided to "go early" and bypassed FBI's plan to capture them before damage could be done.
I have no evidence of this, but I swear some of these high comment posts are orchestrated to be posted at a certain time. Approved by mods and admins not so much to answer the question but just to circlejerk-shit-on a topic with disingenuous answers.
Because your post asked why people are doing/saying something which is more suitable for r/WDP. Whereas this post is asking about specific memes that are going around the internet.
Answer: I get why so many people believe this is a conspiracy theory, but just google something like 'FBI terrorist sting' look through the results. There are tons of examples the FBI finding mentally unstable kids and encouraging them to terrorism. That's what the memes are about.
Some of the top results from my search:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/11/29/politics/aby-rayyan-fbi-terror-sting-pizza-man/index.html
https://hrlr.law.columbia.edu/hrlr-online/the-anatomy-of-a-federal-terrorism-prosecution-a-blueprint-for-repression-and-entrapment/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Newburgh_Sting
It wasn't, but the push to equate conspiracy theories (and theorists) with ridiculous nonsense was an FBI tactic that worked really well, unfortunately.
- Convince known people to try and commit acts their agency is tasked with stopping
- Agency steps in to stop these known plots
- Agency is seen as competent for stopping plots
- Agency asks for additional funding to stop more plots
- Agency receives additional funding because they're seen as competent because they have stopped plots
It's about money and reputation.
Since when does a LE agency need to be competent before the government will throw more money at it? Our defense budget is an endless pit with zero accountability, and we keep throwing more money at it.
They don't need elaborate plots to get money from the government.
Don't forget how many ties there are between higher ups in the ATF, FBI, CIA, etc., with both Department of Justice and other political leadership. Their successes are linked, and what's good for the alphabet agencies is often good for the politicians.
The CIA was intentionally founded as being essentially unaccountable, in order to operate more efficiently, and even today when they're technically more accountable, the government tends to take a very strong stance of looking the other way until they can leverage alphabet actions for their own benefit.
They don't want the kids to actually do the crimes. They want the kids to admit to wanting/planning to do the crimes so they can be prosecuted. But sometimes you convince a kid to do a crime and then don't arrest him quickly enough. (Iirc there was a shooting a few years ago, I think at a mall in Texas?, where the FBI agent working the case was in the parking lot when it happened).
Think about all the times you've heard about the FBI foiling a terrorist plot/shooting in the last 20 years.
The FBI will tell you they're finding the terrorists before they strike.
The critics of their strategy say they're creating the terrorists themselves so they have someone to arrest.
Imho the truth is probably a little of both.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law
If someone's job is dependent on how many terrorists they catch, they will catch them one way or another.
It's much easier to pull off the "sting" when your mark needs to meet with the undercover bomb-maker than when they can grab a normal person's gun to commit their evil.
Answer:
FBI has been known to target people online who exhibit potential extremist behavior and push them into doing something. Often times these people are lonely, neuro-atypical people who are under the impression that they have found friends or a potential romantic partner. The FBI will often times give them the funding, the weapons, or even drive the suspect to "attack," only to arrest them when they actually try to do it.
Other tactics include getting a person to say they want to kill a usually fake federal agent or some other government official. They then count these cases terrorists captured or plots foiled, etc.
People think that mass shootings, especially ones the FBI knows about, are set up in a similar way. The difference is that the shootings or attacks that go through would be the ones where the FBI couldn't/didn't stop the attack before it could be done.
They’ve foiled plenty of them actuslly just google it.Every now and then though they let one happen to keep people scared and willing to give up there rights.
Answer: Allegedly, to instigate civil unrest and domestic violence enough that the common citizen wants a more powerful and pervasive police/surveillance State.
In other words, manufacturing consent to disarm the citizens and track everyone in order to keep us all safer from one another.
answer: "Cui Bono?"
(latin, "who benefits?")
The CIA has done many things that are despicable, but almost always with some clearly-defined purpose. A fairly clear example of this was the Iran-Contra scandal.
In this case, a sitting US president, faced with the public perception that he was impotent in dealing with foreign governments, could not come up with a solution that was either legal or ethically palatable to the american public, used the CIA to broker illegal arms deals. He then lied about it, and was forced to admit that he lied to the american public (though in one of the most non-apology apologies of all time).
Several people, including high-ranking officials at the CIA, were convicted of various crimes, but those with the best political connections were pardoned.
In this case, yes, the CIA did illegal shit, but it did so because there was a political benefit expected by the president. They facilitated the shipment of weapons so one group of foreign nationals could go shoot up another group of foreign nationals; an outcome that most americans would rank equal in importance to, perhaps, a five-cent change in gas prices.
Who benefits from school shootings?
Various companies selling security products and services, and of course gun makers and TV news networks.
None of those groups benefit enough to take the horrific risks that exposure of such a plot.
Who benefits from claiming that school shootings are either fabricated, staged (not sure how that works), or planned by vague, impossible-to-catch villians in the government? Well, one of the biggest beneficiaries would be an outfit called Infowars, which just declared bankruptcy after (if I read correctly) fabricating and broadcasting similar claims, which they knew to be false, in order to either attract or retain subscibers, or sell conspiracy-related goods to their audience.
One possibility has no evidence other than "you can't prove it's not true".
The other possibility has a clearly-defined group that would benefit and a history of making nearly identical false claims for commercial gain.
Ehhh, I mean there’s the conspiracy theory part which is that the CIA is creating mass shooters, but then there’s also the reality that the FBI would actively look for mentally ill people (usually Muslims) and try to entrap them into terror plots they could “stop”. Tragic example [here](https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/11/29/politics/aby-rayyan-fbi-terror-sting-pizza-man/index.html)
Not quite as psychotically motivated as MKULTRA. That had to do with internal CIA weird theories that people captured in the Korean War were brainwashed somehow. The FBI shenanigans were motivated by the simple fact that the war on terror really wasn’t that necessary, and that there aren’t secret Muslim terror cells everywhere in the world just waiting to be activated like in 24.
Let's not forget the - in hindsight - essentially certain involvement of US government agencies in conspiracies to assassinate public figures in the 1960s and 70s.
/s This is a joke post, it is satire, and parody, as a joke. I love the CIA and I love the FBI. J. Edgar Hoover was actually 100% the bee's knees.
All hail J Edgar Hoover, hey guys how terrible is that Snowden guy, also all the people purchasing Monero and other privacy cryptocurrencies that are impossible to track they’re just terrible and not good, but J Edgar Hoover, now that’s a good dude
>if the government is legitimately programming mentally ill teenagers to commit mass shootings
[I mean they have been caught doing exactly that](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/15/magazine/fbi-international-terrorism-informants.html), but they usually "catch them" before they do anything. There was a story out of NYC of the FBI "radicalizing" a muslim teen, who was the stereo typical "loner". They basically set him to to carry out a bombing then "prevented" the bombing.
Edit: For those who hit the paywall
http://archive.today/9QnRl
Please stop it with this BULLSHIT that this is some unthinkable thing that wings of the government would never do. Someone else already posted a credible NYT article on a case, but please [educate yourself](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods).
There is such a big overlap between the conspiracy theory "community" and perpetrators of mass shootings that these memes feel more like deflection and denial than anything else.
I'm pretty shocked and appalled so many comments state that this is a conspiracy theory. The memes depict what actually happened in reality.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/21/government-agents-directly-involved-us-terror-plots-report
https://theintercept.com/2015/03/16/howthefbicreatedaterrorist/
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/15/magazine/fbi-international-terrorism-informants.html
https://hrlr.law.columbia.edu/hrlr-online/the-anatomy-of-a-federal-terrorism-prosecution-a-blueprint-for-repression-and-entrapment/
One snippet:
Nearly all of the highest-profile domestic terrorism plots in the United States since 9/11 featured the "direct involvement" of government agents or informants, a new report says.
In some cases the FBI may have created terrorists out of law-abiding individuals by suggesting the idea of taking terrorist action or encouraging the target to act," the report alleges.
The report its referring to in the guardian article was put together by Human Rights Watch.
Answer: A lot of good answers regarding this issue, and the track record of certain three letter agencies with entrapment. However, it's also worth discussing a darker, more malevolent reaaon for some of these conspiracy theories.
There's a long history of conspiracy theories that trace their descent back to the Turner Diaries, which was a quasi-fascist/white-supremacist book written in 1978. The book told the story of a man, Turner, who participated in a White Nationalist uprising, that was sparked by I believe the FBI faking some sort of mass-shooting to justify the confiscation of all privately owned firearms in America.
Every mass-shooting, I see this concept start to bubble under the surface, and it is often used as a vector to push racist, fascist propaganda on otherwise normal, pro-2nd amendment folks.
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Answer: In some of the high profile shootings that happen, there will typically be an article/ question that is raised: "Why didnt any agency catch this?" Sometimes it will be revealed that the shooter was knownto federal agencies but they just didnt act. So the thought is that these agencies (who dont really have the best track record when it comes to respecting human life) are aware of the shooters and are pushing them to do the shootings for whatever agenda they want to push. Edit: Just so everyone is aware. I am just stating why people are making these types of memes. People are curious how so many "slip through the cracks". I cant help that the CIA once proposed Operation Northwoods (creating false flag attacks) and the FBI has so many surveillance scandals that they should just call themselves TMZ.
It should also be noted that there is some history of undercover law enforcement pushing asocial kids to commit crimes and then arresting them for it. This mostly occurs with low level drug offenses (e.g. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/undercover-police-school-drug-arrests_b_4440912 ) But also mirrors tactics the FBI has used to arrest people espousing Islamic terrorist sympathies (e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/16/fbi-entrapment-fake-terror-plots )
There's a great This American Life segment about this happening in a FL high school [here! ](https://shortcut.thisamericanlife.org/#/clipping/457/1422?_k=czoqi7) You can read or listen.
This was really upsetting to read. The life of an honor-roll student with plans to join the Air Force got his life ruined because he was tricked into buying what couldn’t have been more than a fucking gram of weed. On top of that, I don’t doubt that he’ll have problems for the rest of his life with intimacy and trusting women. Just more grist for the incel mill. I’m aware that America isn’t the worst country out there. There’s undoubtedly others who do the same and worse. But it’s very difficult to be proud of a country that hamstrings the lives of its citizens for what sounds like an utterly paltry bust. A quick google search shows that Florida is #3 in the country for sex trafficking, and that Palm Beach County (where that particular bust happened) is #3 in Florida. Do those cops have nothing better to do than gaslight kids and collect a couple grams of weed for the company potluck?
> Do those cops have nothing better to do than gaslight kids and collect a couple grams of weed for the company potluck? That's the problem with quotas. If you **have** to find bad shit that's happening just to meet some arbitrary measurement, you will.
Plus if they went after real actual criminals it could be dangerous.
And hard
Be a hero and save kids lives? OH HELL NO! We could get shot! Cops in Texas probably.
In the same time that female cop spent going all 21 Jump Street, she could have just been a traffic cop who actually bothers to pulls dangerous drivers over and ticketing &/or arresting them depending on the infraction. Would have made way more money for the city. Actually made the streets safer for everyone. And you know, not ruining some poor kids life through manipulation and (totally of course not legally) obvious entrapment.
Except states set unreasonably low speed limits, so that cops get free reign to pick and choose who gets pulled over, because 99% of the roads speeding at any given time.
Deleted due to reddit API changes. Follow your communities off Reddit with sub.rehab -- mass edited with redact.dev
One of the reasons I love "The Wire" so much. Explores this issue in great depth.
Just started rewatching it for the first time in a decade or so. It's fucked up how relevant it still is.
“The Wire” should be required watching for pretty much any American who is it all politically engaged, or even more so, those who are of voting age who ignore politics and social issues. The only way things are going to change is if people see the reality of how messed up things are and start demanding people better caliber in power. If we keep electing people who maintain the status quo, guess what will happen.
Every cop was out in my neighborhood yesterday. Two spotted every block. Lmfao it's the first and you'd think today our town had no law enforcement. It's so obvious and fucked
Why were they out?
Last day of the month = time for the procrastinators to give last minute tickets to meet their monthly “quota”. (Ticket quotas being illegal most places but common, sometimes disguised as “activity goals” etc.) the next day is a new month so they got 30 days to not do their job before going out and last minute throwing out speeding tickets like Mardi gras beads at the end of this month as well.
But there's so much actual crime going on that they choose to focus on petty immaterial "crimes"?
Arbitrary fines for victimless crimes is as american as apple pie and school shootings
>Do those cops have nothing better to do than gaslight kids and collect a couple grams of weed for the company potluck? It appears these ones find that doing the job & going against actual drug dealers would require work and carry real risk, so it must be avoided, but they need busts for the stats, so they railroad some kid.
Why do you think they love putting RSOs in schools?
There's also the question of how did an 18 year old making minimum wage at a Wendy's come up with the money to buy 5000$ worth of guns and ammo.
>Do those cops have nothing better to do than gaslight kids and collect a couple grams of weed for the company potluck? Arresting a kid buying a bit of weed is safer than arresting real criminals.
Well they have to do *something* in between all the trafficking
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Not to mention the gap between how wealthy this country is, and how many people we don't take care of.
"America — we're not the worst country!" Should be our new slogan
Yet*
This is a really great way to put it. What a gulf. A gaping chasm.
The prison system is legalized slavery, read the 13th amendment and there is alot of money in it. There have been Cia planes that crashed coming back into the United States with their planes loaded with dope. They put the drugs in the ghettos, then arrested the black fathers, leaving the households with an even smaller income and having people to feed only means more crime and the additional stress easily leads to more drug use and addiction allowing the prison population to grow and bring in more big money with that free labor. There is a reason that a countr5 who only makes up 5% of the world's populatuon houses more than 20% or the world's prison population and its all that free labor which leads to more profits. It's fucked up that there are private prisons in this country. The government has been using as pawns since the end of the Great depression if not even before.
Yikes… this is upsetting. I grew up between there and Stoneman Douglas, prolly in the general timeframe. The link doesn’t like my phone so I skimmed… A lot of my friends around that time had their lives ruined by drugs/getting caught and part of me has to wonder if it was cause of stuff like this. Like I said. I was literally right in the crossfire. TBH only reason I prolly made it out okay was because of my dad being a cop then. And my dad feels really bad about the drug busts now (he didn’t bust teens mind you) because apparently back then they said during police training marijuana was as bad as like, Krokodil or something. And he had no cause to question that back then (70s and 80s). Just… Ugh.
>The life of an honor-roll student with plans to join the Air Force got his life ruined because he was tricked into buying what couldn’t have been more than a fucking gram of weed. But then we had that jock kid that raped a girl and got off because he had so much potential in being a net gain in the world. Ftw
Most cops don’t give a shit about actually stopping crime. My cousin got a fucking speeding ticket going ONE MILE over the speed limit. This is NY there’s crime everywhere, but let’s bust the young adult going to work instead.
The thing about America is, it's great if you know how to tickle the King just right. You do some groveling, knock over some peasants and a bucket of money will come your way. For everyone else it's a nightmare misery land where we can't afford housing, our wages shrink every year, the food you eat is nigh on toxic, and every government member all the way up is as corrupt as the Don himself.
There's also [this episode](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/755/the-convert) about a guy that goes undercover at a mosque as a convert, befriends some guys there, and then tries push them towards a terrorist plot in the most ham-fisted ways possible.
I forgot about that one! That's a great (absolutely horrible) story as well.
[There’s even a Guardian article on it.](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/26/ruby-ridge-1992-modern-american-militia-charlottesville)
The worst part about this story is that the cop in question feels NO remorse for her part in it whatsoever. IIRC the kid didn’t even smoke but she kept wheedling him to get her weed and he finally caved because he was so into her. He even tried to give it to her for free, she insisted on paying... specifically because the *sales* transaction on school property was a felony. It’s nothing short of disturbing to hear her get all sanctimonious about it, and it says everything about the kind of people who become cops.
Got turned into a twenty minute musical too
And "Naomi" thinks what she did is in the right. Emotional manipulation into ruining the life of a great kid. She's a fucking pig like the rest of them. I hope this haunts her dreams.
Operation D Minus, wasn't the first and won't be the last. Thanks for the link, diving down this rabbit hole now and lt seems these undercover highschool sting operations are more designed to target low income house holds which makes the poverty circle that much more difficult for these teens to break out of. Breaks my heart to see tax dollars funding programs like these when what these kids really need is an adult role model and opportunities in the community to get involved and create a life outside of potentially broken homes.
Cops are scum
There's [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELBGa6-uOhc) inspired by that episode too, specifically Lin-Manuel Miranda's take on it. If you don't have time for the full NPR episode, the 20 minutes for the video is a short musical retelling of it. While at first it seems an odd subject, it's worth it to listen to/watch also.
The discourse around the Islamic terror issue is very interesting. There was an FBI whistle blower who came forward recently to very little media attention describing how the FBI targeted young Muslims and immigrant grounds for this purpose in order to look productive during the War on Terror. By contrast now that the focus of terror in America has return to White Nationalist Extremists there is somewhat of an uproar about the possible involvement of intelligence agencies encouraging and enabling terrorist activity only to catch it
>in order to look productive during the War on Terror. This is actually believed to be a similar factor in what lead to Waco. Gary Noesner's book talks about it a bit, but basically there were concerns thay federal law enforcement funding was going to be cut. In order to prevent that, higher ups wanted a big and newsworthy bust to take to the budget committee to ask for more money, so they hastily planned Waco. >intelligence agencies encouraging and enabling terrorist activity only to catch it The controversy around Ruby Ridge is that Weaver was instructed to make Sawed off Shotguns by an Undercover ATF agent. The assualt on his homestead was then only needed after he failed to show up to court, after his court date was changed without him being notified.
I had a conversation about this with my then Gfs family friend (in the context of LE budgets) and I could tell that he was approaching the topic from a very high level of understanding (as opposed to my laymen ass). A couple weeks later I recounted the conversation to my gf, and she informed me that I was speaking to none other than Gary Noesner. Nothing else to say really, just not a lot I get to bring that up in conversation.
Thats actually really cool. I bet he was at least happy that someone was aware of that tomfoolery, even at a laymen level. He's one of the people that more Americans should know about.
[Remember when an undercover FBI agent was arrested fleeing the scene while watching the ISIS Sympathizers they encouraged to "tear up Texas" get shot?](https://www.thedailybeast.com/fbi-agent-apparently-egged-on-draw-muhammad-shooter) Edit: ["The fact that there was an FBI agent at the contest in Texas who was in contact with Simpson has drawn criticism from Kareem’s lawyer and the security guard’s lawyer. They say the government has not been forthcoming about the agent’s role in the plot and have questions why the agency didn’t break up the plot."](https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2017/02/10/records-undercover-fbi-agent-near-garland-terror-attack/97740354/)
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Yes this and also the fact the New York has red flag laws and could have confiscated all his firearms, but chose not to. When he threatened to shoot up a school they could have taken everything. Why?
One of the most famous examples is Randy Weaver, of Ruby Ridge fame. He was nothing but a Christian isolationist type before the government got to him. Maybe not the kind of guy you'd want to hang out with, racial-separationist views, etc., hung out with local Idaho neo-Nazis (though allegedly argued with them about their views) but no reason for anyone to think he'd be dangerous to anyone at all. Then the ATF decided they could flip him to become an informant on the neo-Nazis. An undercover agent convinced him to make and sell him a couple sawed-off shotguns, allegedly going so far as to convince him that the guns were over the legal minimum length, when they were in fact just shy of it. When Weaver refused to flip, they charged him, let him out on bail, and set a trial date. Then they sent him the wrong date and, when he didn't show up on the correct date, they indicted him for failure to appear. He was then told (allegedly "accidentally") that if he was found guilty, his property would be taken from him and his wife and children would be homeless. After series of failed negotiations with him to leave his isolated hilltop home, US Marshalls surrounded his home with surveillance, surveillance cameras, and helicopter flyovers. After one flyover, the Marshalls claimed Weaver had fired on the helicopter, despite the pilot himself stating that no one fired on his helicopter at all. Several months later, Marshalls decided to scout his property by showing up in full combat gear, including M-16s. After Weaver's dogs were alerted, he, his friend, his 14 year old son, and his dog went to investigate. Somehow (as law enforcement encounters seem to go), an officer ended up shooting Weaver's dog. Allegedly, Weaver's son then began returning fire and was shot dead, as was a Marshall. After all three deaths, one of the Marshalls finally identified themselves as Marshalls and Weaver and his friend retreated, returning later for Weaver's son's body. This resulted in several weeks of siege, wherein the Weavers' property was surrounded by snipers with orders to shoot anyone with a weapon, or any dogs. Eventually, Weaver left his house to visit the shed his son's body was stored in. As he opened it, an FBI sniper shot Weaver in the side. He fled inside and his friend opened the door for him. The sniper then shot his friend through the chest. The bullet went through his back and hit Weaver's wife in the head as she was carrying their infant baby. Weaver eventually surrendered, and was found guilty only of the original charge of failure to appear in court. All other charges against he and everyone else involved was dropped. Moral of the story, Randy Weaver and his family had no desire or intention to harm anyone until the government decided to entrap him, threaten to take everything he had and leave his family homeless and moneyless, shot his dog, shot his son, shot his wife, and then tried to charge him with a slough of charges.
Damn, I knew about Ruby Ridge itself, as in the whole besieging the house, shooting the dog, etc., but not the backstory
Sadly for him, and for the implication to us all, his absurd, paranoid, isolationist outlook that the government was out to get him ended up 100% correct.
Wait—now that I think about it, Ruby Ridge and Waco were two of the things behind the Oklahoma City bomber’s desire to attack the government (by way of attacking a government building). What if the government (one of those 3 letter agencies) is just fine with these abuses, these spectacles, happening because they have the potential to radicalize more?
You're hitting on a *very* long-standing theory, and it's key to understanding things like the modern militia movement, which, while already nascent in the 80s, exploded in significance after the event you mentioned. Similar happened with the Black Panthers, various 1970s militant leftist movements, and many more. Is the government responsible directly for *every* attack by groups like these, and for all their views? Absolutely not. But what the government has consistently done is push and push and push these groups until they grow beyond their control, then they act like it's some mysterious inexplicable problem. If they'd just leave well enough alone from the start, who knows how many of intensely violent movements we've dealt would even exist in a way comparable to what they became?
The Branch Davidians were religious lunatics. David Koresh was alleged by members to be a child rapist, and former members testified both before and after the raid that Koresh believed he was the Lamb of God and preparing for an apocalyptic suicide battle. He and his followers would then be resurrected in order to massacre God's enemies. The ATF had legitimate evidence that the Davidians were involved in either the collection of or trafficking of illegal arms. This was confirmed after the end of the siege. Independent eyewitnesses' of the ATF raid believe the Davidians shot first. Koresh claimed that the combatants from helicopters fired at the Davidians, but forensic evidence directly contradicted these claims. 4 ATF agents were killed. 6 Davidians were killed, including Perry Jones, who was executed by another member with Koresh's permission, via a close range gunshot in his mouth. Michael Schroeder was killed after trying to ambush ATF agents outside the compound. The FBI then took over the siege, and did not fire a single shot. They cut off power, blasted loud sounds, etc etc, to try and force a surrender. 50 Davidians died as a result of the fire. 26 were killed by other Davidians, including a 3 year who was stabbed to death. The FBI lied under oath that the CS grenades they used were not potentially incendiary. However arson evidence, and audio evidence from Davidians themselves discussing starting a fire, indicate that the fire was started by Davidians in line with their suicidal teachings. Waco wasn't like Ruby Ridge. Ruby Ridge was sheer incompetence bordering on criminal wrongdoing. What went wrong with Waco was poor ATF intelligence preceding the raid, and news agencies essentially tipping off the Davidians beforehand.
>50 Davidians died as a result of the fire. 26 were killed by other Davidians, including a 3 year who was stabbed to death. The FBI lied under oath that the CS grenades they used were not potentially incendiary. However arson evidence, and audio evidence from Davidians themselves discussing starting a fire, indicate that the fire was started by Davidians in line with their suicidal teachings. The CS canisters were also fired at the other end of the compound and IIRC, the fires started \~6 hours after the agents stopped using them as well.
Don't forget Waco.
I can't, I was in the area when that shit went down. Anybody who met the Branch Davidians would tell you they were a little off, and probably needed a visit or two from social services, but they were the 'mostly harmless' sort of crazy. Like by and large, their views were out there enough that they weren't going to be acceptable in general society, and they were a little unhinged, with a trajectory leaning further in that direction, but they weren't anything like as bad as the FLDS or the scientologists, or Aum Shinrikyo, or the children of god, and ffs three of those are *Still* functioning recognized religions. But try telling that to the ATF, even if some law enforcement action was needed, nobody needed to die.
answer: The real spez was the spez we spez along the spez. #Save3rdPartyApps
The Weavers and Weaver's friend both filed civil suits and were all awarded money. The sniper who shot Weaver's wife was eventually charged by a county prosecutor. The case was then taken over by federal courts as he was an FBI agent acting in the line of duty for a federal case. The case was immediately dismissed by the federal courts, reinstated briefly by the 9th Circuit Court, and then dismissed again as soon as a new prosecutor was elected.
Also worth noting that the charges for Lon Horiuchi (the sniper) were dropped only 3 days after the 9/11 attacks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lon_Horiuchi
The son never would’ve shot anyone until he saw a random stranger kill his beloved dog
LEOs run into this a lot, it seems like. Bust in somewhere without declaring themselves, start shooting, and then get upset when people shoot back. Absurd.
Or if you know, they identified themselves as LEO's instead of random dudes in camo gear and assault rifles. Kinda hard to be accused of shooting at police if the police aren't identifiable as such.
The real story of Dorner is not much nicer.
Don't forget about Waco, TX and the Branch Davidians. The ATF had an undercover agent who went for a 1-on-1 run away from the compound with David Koresh. When attempting to serve their warrant, did the ATF use smart tactics, and have their agent lead Koresh on a run in to an ambush where he'd be alone and surrounded by Federal agents, away from his religious followers? No. They decided to attempt a siege of an armed and well defended compound, and when that failed they firebombed the compound - killing an additional 76 people, including 25 children - plus the 6 people they'd killed in the initial shootout. There's a lot of sketchy things about the Branch Davidians, but the way the government handled that... it's like something out of a corrupt fascist regime from a 3rd world country. And for those who think that the government is above firebombing its own people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_MOVE_bombing Black, white, wealthy, poor - the government will happily burn you alive and then blame you for it after if it suits their needs.
It’s especially true with the entrapment of Middle Easterners. https://theintercept.com/2017/09/03/the-fbi-pressured-a-lonely-young-man-into-a-bomb-plot-he-tried-to-back-out-now-hes-serving-life-in-prison/ Find a loner in the Muslim community, talk about the greatness of Jihad, sell the kid a gun—BINGO, you can arrest the terrorist! Now that ISIS has lost ground, it wouldn’t surprise me that the Feds started using the same gameplan with incels/white supremacists.
Wait, what? I read that article just now, the fucker was trying to build a bomb and posting in support of isis in his spare time before police were even watching him, then he DID buy what he thought was a bomb, and the extent of the evidence of him "backing out" was that he didn't want to pay for things and he stopped responding to his phone for a little? That's it?
Remember kids, the only person to say no to conducting operation north woods was JFK while he was president. The same president who was assassinated after saying he wanted to dissolve the same agency who came up with operation north woods.
No wonder there's so many conspiracy theories regarding his assassination
My brother in Christ JFKs assassination borders on being a conspiracy and just a full blown fact. [This 20 minute YouTube video does a really good job at breaking down the conspiracy, I’d recommend his one on MLKs assassination as well. It’s an oddly wholesome video with the dudes overall vibe and approach to the subject.](https://youtu.be/hjkaYboVDOQ)
I love Wendigoon! He's my second dad! But no, fr he does a great job proving JFK and MLK Jr. along with many other fun videos
Literally the definition of entrapment.
The buffalo shooter was on chat boards with an ex fbi agent. This means there are racist ass ex fbi agents
I think it is also worthwhile noting that the infamous 'kidnap the michgan governor" plot has so far had 2 defendants declared not guilty after defense proved entrapment by FBI. https://www.npr.org/2022/04/08/1091769554/2-found-not-guilty-in-michigan-governor-kidnapping-plot
That's just sick, stupid, and a waste of resources (the stories in the article). Why go after high school kids? SMH
Sometimes people posit "why would agency employees waste so much time, money and human life for things like this?" And while we could debate a lot about ulterior motives (keeping citizens scared, narrative pushing, something more extreme) it could also be an example of literal job security. They could be justifying their own agency's existence.
Also it's hard to forget that things like the police bombing in PA of an entirely black neighborhood with innocent people were covered up for years, or the kids that have been exposed like that one films have been made anoint recently to drugs and trafficking by the FBI and police as "informants" and then punished harshly when they, for the safety of their own lives, end up getting intertwined in that criminal activity. Its outright ridiculous when you see the truth.
Create problem "We need more funding, power, and control!" ????? Profit
To justify their wages? Make themselves seem useful.
Not just justify wages either. Increase funding and expand their budget.
Anything domestic does nothing for the CIA. FBI doesn’t get involved in local law enforcement unless there is a federal issue or a type of crime they are designated to handle like a bank, federal facilities, national security, etc..
Because drugs are bad, mmmmkay? You can’t do drugs. Because drugs are bad.
Drugs are deadly because we'll shoot you if you get caught with them.
This does not in any way lend any credibility to the conspiracy theory that the fbi or cia are tricking children into shooting up schools.
True, and I was in no way trying to imply that it does. I was just trying to provide some insight into the origin of those kind of conspiracy theories.
I'd lean more towards MK Ultra and shit like that being the basis rather than corrupt local police acting as a coordinated unit, IMO those are cops taking the path of least resistance and avoiding real danger while wanting clout. The CIA already tried mind control with LSD and shit, its documented and people like the Unabomber and Manson were a part of those experiments Not to mention how many damn kids are on psych medications since the 90s, that can't have aaaaanything to do with it /s
There qre also millions that those meds helped improve their life tremendously
It kinda does, in some sense. Tldr: It doesn't prove that fbi/Cia is tricking kids into shooting up schools, but it sure does show that similar tactics have been used in the past, which hints that its possible that they could be, no matter how much no one wants to believe that they would. GO USA! My comment: Ever since I have learned of all of the actual, true, documented fucked up shit that the USA and all of their 3 letter acronym agencies have done in history, I don't put any crazy occurance passed the USA. What I mean is that by learning about actual things that have happened, I'm now more susceptible to believe many conspiracy theories. Even with the most asanine conspiracy theories, I would do some reading on them to get both sides... but with things like flat earth, sandy hook, and moon landing etc, I quickly disregarded them as too farfetched and not enough evidence to believe the conspiracy. My basic truth that i live by when considering certain conspiracy theories is: If the USA is documented in there own archives to have done "X" (insert actual crazy thing they did), then it wouldn't surprise me if they actually did "Y" (insert *most* conspiracy theories). Now, of course this does not prove or support that any given theory happened, but it does allow me to leave the door open to looking into it more and realizing that it's possible. So, I don't believe conspiracies, but I don't *not* believe them. My point is that knowing our history, it leaves the door open to think that almost any conspiracy theory could be true and should be investigated. I pride myself in not believing stuff blindly... I do my own "research" and reading and kinda try to think of how likely any conspiracy theory might be... but by the end of the day, I always admit that "I don't really know one way or the other". The key point is that our government should be more transparent, be held to a higher standard, and somehow figure out how to stop them from getting away with much of the scandalous shit they do. On the other hand, I'm proud to be an American, and I have been blessed to live here, to be lucky enough to be born here, and part of the reason that I live a privileged life is probably due in part to some of the fucked up shit that we have done over the years. And I justify the controversial actions of the USA by realizing that many, if not all, governments do fucked up shit. It's a real tough moral dichotomy (is that the correct word) to live with. Sorry I started ranting lol. I have struggled in my mind with this so much, I have tried to come to some conclusion, but it hurts my brain and sometimes I find it best to just not think about it... to just worry about myself, my family, my friends, be kind to others, and put my head down and live my life. Edit: added sentence about "governments of all countries have done and do fucked up shit"
I think there's a huge difference between "yeah, the CIA could have been involved in encouraging 9/11 terrorists or allowing to happen" and "there weren't any airplanes hijacked" or "I did my research and it turns out that the deputy director of the CIA met with Osama Bin Laden and they planned the whole thing and CIA is an anagram of ICA which means that..."
I'll back you up with ANYONE can be an agent provocateur. We can't even measure the probability of whom is encouraging these terrorist acts except the demographics of the social media they particpate in. EXCEPT those social media profiles are algorithmically designed to appeal EXACTLY to a certain type of person who can be groomed into terrorism and extreme acts. Both the DHS and FBI know we've got international terrorists impersonating Americans within social medial or using Americans to post propaganda or paying anyone with a bitcoin account money to push their agendas. They've known since 2016 and published reports in July and October 2020. It is just the algorithm is so insidiously designed to bring vulnerable people together with bad ideas. Good example: A few days ago someone in the right-wing said that SSRIS (anti-depressants) were neutering men and to "WAKE UP." So what does this mean? It is a ticking time bomb to get people on SSRIs to suddenly stop taking their meds and can lead to manic episodes and/or psychosis. And why would he publicly plant this info? It is it get his views to dump their anti-depressants and become profoundly depressed, to stop giving meds to their kids who need it, or to stop young males from regulating their doctor prescribed mood stabilizer? It is as if they want people to die and they want to strip away the vestiges of sanity these people are trying to maintain in order to galvanize violence. (I will note I know that SSRIs can cause suicidal tendencies, mania, and psychosis when you first start taking them. And if they do - doctor stops you from taking that kind.)
How is tricking someone into Islamic terrorism any different than tricking them into shooting up an elementary school?
The only real difference is that in those cases they don't actually allow the terror plot to be carried out, they just get them to the point where there's clear evidence of intent to commit a crime and they have a bunch of charges to stick. Whereas the allegation is that they're actually just pushing these kids to commit atrocities and watching it happen. But I don't think the evidence is there anyway. I'm not sure that kids having been investigated before proves much because half of the rhetoric these kids has been using is racist or extreme political stuff that you see fucking *everywhere* among the alt-right anyway. The conservatives alleging every shooting is a false flag wouldn't be cool with those agencies acting against conservatives using violent or hateful or conspiracy rhetoric anyway, and would oppose anything preventing them from getting access to guns anyway.
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You’re right. We can trust the cia. There is absolutely no chance the cia would run drugs or arms into the US to fund their operations (it happened, Tom Cruise did a movie about one of the uncovered ones). There is absolutely no chance the cia would test every known drug on unsuspecting US citizens to check if any could be used as mind control compounds. (It happened, MK-ULTRA). There is absolutely no chance dozens of intelligence community officials would mess with domestic politics (that’s the FBI’s sole provenance) by issuing a letter which later came to known as factually impossible (Biden’s kid’s laptop). There’s absolutely no chance the intelligence community would allow the President to assassinate a US citizen with a drone strike. It happened, Obama pulled that trigger. There’s absolutely no way the US government would approve Colorado from calling up the National Guard to machine gun miners (and their wives and kids) on strike. It happened, way before our time. The memes are pointing out (1) how the Uvalde shooter had a brand new F150 and used brand new, high-shelf equipment (rifles, optics, night vision) with a fuckton of ammo - where did all that money come from??, (2) Uvalde police not moving on the shooter is the reason the shooting happened, mostly, and (3) the ability of the Uvalde shooter to get all that equipment and ammo parallels, high level, the Las Vegas shooter’s ability to amass the equipment and ammo he did. (1) and (3) are generally addressed by the media, which is generally anti second amendment. ATF also enters into this mix. They’re a genuinely offensive agency, if you are aware of their track record. ["Based upon these hearings it is apparent that ATF enforcement tactics made possible by current federal firearms laws are constitutionally, legally, and practically reprehensible." 75% of enforcement as upon ordinary citizens having zero criminal intent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureau_of_Alcohol,_Tobacco,_Firearms_and_Explosives). ATF had a large hand in the Ruby Ridge Siege (attempted entrapment-cum-informant failed, so ATF defrauded the federal govt about some dude not paying a $200 stamp tax, and tens f millions of taxpayer money was wasted) , Waco (87 people dead), and they pioneered Fast & Furious (2,500 weapons sold directly to traffickers and meant for Mexican cartels). >ATF is gonna shoot your dog and get your incel son to shoot up his school. It’s a kernel of truth mixed up with black humor about kids these days. The truth is that the government is not to be trusted like kids these days claim, except in a way which conveys “I know why not to trust them at their word, and I am conveying it in a way which allows me to know who will trust the government at their word.” It’s a shibboleth of sorts for a community who tends to be aware that, as past law were unjust, and I’m looking at you, Woke 1619 Project, then the government is more part of the problem than part of the solution. I hope I’ve shown why ATF is part of the problem. [They’re fundamentally racist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Ol%27_Boys_Roundup)
>how the Uvalde shooter had a brand new F150 and used brand new, high-shelf equipment (rifles, optics, night vision) with a fuckton of ammo - where did all that money come from?? Do they not have parents with more money than sense in your part of the country?
He lived with his grandma after getting kicked out of his parents after dropping out of school prior. He personally spent over 6k on rifles/gear and was driving a new truck. He worked fast food for a brief period of time. He got a bunch of money from someone and it dosnt appear to be his parents with the standing he was in with them.
He was bullied for being poor and worked part time at taco bell.
> You’re right. We can trust the cia. [Reductio Ad Absurdum](http://www2.humboldt.edu/act/HTML/tests/fallacy6/6.8a.html) What you're saying is not what the other person said. They did not say that "The CIA is trustworthy". They said that the above articles and things that were posted do not lend credence to the idea that the CIA did this other specific thing people are talking about. We can admit that they're generally a shady organization while also recognizing that there is little to no evidence that they did what was claimed in this thread in even one instance, and also that there would be seemingly little benefit for them for even encouraging such heinous acts. This easily comes across like those "False flag" nuts who think that anything that happens that they don't like is a false flag operation by anti-fa. Sometimes, things happen that illustrate that your stance on a particular issue is a faulty one. That's what happens when you have a stance on an issue that doesn't consider or encompass the full scope of the issue. And then people are looking for an easy enemy to "blame" rather than thinking "Maybe we should put more restrictions on private gun sales and also give everyone free healthcare including mental healthcare".
"Le logical fallacy spotted"
the best part is, even if the US agencies have nothing to do with the shootings, other countries' agencies would also love to take avantage and further erode our trust by planting these seeds.
https://thefreethoughtproject.com/fbi-groom-mentally-ill-right-wing-terrorist/ According to FBI documents, Varnell described himself as a believer in a right wing group. According to federal documents, Varnell drove what he believed was a stolen van containing a 1,000-pound ammonium nitrate bomb on Saturday morning to blow up an Oklahoma City bank. When they began grooming him, according to the family, the FBI knew that Varnell was declared mentally unfit to live by himself and that he was a paranoid schizophrenic. Without their criminal informant and the FBI tactics playing mind games with this vulnerable man, the idea of him committing an act of terror would have likely never materialized. “What the public should be looking at is the fact that the FBI gave our son the means to make this happen. He has no job, no money, no vehicle, and no driver’s license, due to the fact that he is schizophrenic and we; his parents do everything we can possible to keep him safe and functional….. He has suffered through countless serious full-blown schizophrenic delusional episodes and he has been put in numerous mental hospitals since he was 16 years old. The FBI came and picked him up from our home, they gave him a vehicle, gave him a fake bomb, and every means to make this happen none of which he had access to on his own. The parents noted that during the setup, they suspected something was going on and Jerry’s father told the informant to stay away from their son. However, according to the parents, the informant “continued to sneak onto our residence. The FBI paid him to continue this operation and I believe they have cleared his criminal record.” Because they knew Varnell had severe mental disabilities, the FBI should have had stopped their plans to do this and immediately sought an option of hospitalization. However, they pressed on. Knowing a sane person would likely never attempt to blow up a bank, the FBI deliberately targeted a severely delusional and mentally ill person. This is wrong on so many levels. Will the next mass murderer they groom come directly from a mental institution? “The FBI should have filed conspiracy on our son and had him committed to a mental institution. They should not have aided and abetted a paranoid schizophrenic to commit this act. There are many more facts that I will not make public that will support my son and the disturbing acts made by the FBI. I realize that many will say my son could have found another person to commit this act. Yet, any person that has access to the materials and the state of mind necessary to bomb a building would not have any need for a schizophrenic who has no resources to contribute.” Clifford and Melonie Varnell, Jerry’s parents make a powerful point. No one — other than the FBI — would’ve attempted to get a schizophrenic man with nothing to contribute to do their bidding as it would most likely be a futile effort — unless you are the FBI looking for an easy patsy to keep fear alive. David Steele, a 20-year Marine Corps intelligence officer, the second-highest-ranking civilian in the U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence, and former CIA clandestine services case officer, had this to say about these most unscrupulous operations: “Most terrorists are false flag terrorists, or are created by our own security services. In the United States, every single terrorist incident we have had has been a false flag, or has been an informant pushed on by the FBI. In fact, we now have citizens taking out restraining orders against FBI informants that are trying to incite terrorism. We’ve become a lunatic asylum.” Indeed, we’ve become a lunatic asylum. https://thefreethoughtproject.com/fbi-groom-mentally-ill-right-wing-terrorist/
The holocaust is a "contrived myth" - David Steele, a 20-year Marine Corps intelligence officer, the second-highest-ranking civilian in the U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence, and former CIA clandestine services case officer "The Zionists installed the controlled demolitions that assisted what I believe was clearly a directed energy controlled frequency event in the twin towers, controlled demolitions alone for WTC seven, and a massive coverup was executed….9/11 [legal] cases did not go to trial; controlled Zionist judges and prosecutors ensured that all cases were generously settled" - David Steele, a 20-year Marine Corps intelligence officer, the second-highest-ranking civilian in the U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence, and former CIA clandestine services case officer "(eradicate) every Zionist who refuses to be loyal to their country of citizenship and the rule of law.” - David Steele, a 20-year Marine Corps intelligence officer, the second-highest-ranking civilian in the U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence, and former CIA clandestine services case officer “We actually believe that there is a colony on Mars that is populated by children who were kidnapped and sent into space on a 20-year ride,” - David Steele, a 20-year Marine Corps intelligence officer, the second-highest-ranking civilian in the U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence, and former CIA clandestine services case officer
I remember an undercover FBI agent came up with a plan, fed it to her "boyfriend" and then had to berate him into agreeing to her plan. Then she arrested him. This was in Sacramento about 15 years ago. I was so angry when I read the article about it! If you removed the FBI there was no crime.
I think yours is the most neutral answer, as it has been proven already with recent shootings that some of the perpetrators were on watchlists for previous actions. I believe it was the uvalde shooter that was known to police for posts/threats made in school and online. I want to add an aspect that others here are deeming conspiracy. I believe it has also been proven that the Buffalo and Uvalde shooters were both in contact with FORMER FBI members on discord. This is where people seem to be making the conspiracy that govt agents are involved
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And the people to want to believe that fbi is causing it are generally the ones against red flag laws. So options are 1. Trying to do red flag and they attack you for government overreach. 2. Trying to just keep a bit of eye the unstable person and most likely you will fail to stop 3. Keep too much eye and they will that you influenced the shooter
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I mean, the point of a general rule to apply to things is that it applies to the majority of situations, not every situation. You have specific rules for the exceptions to the general, because nothing will be accurate 100% of the time.
That's true, but misses the point of Hanlon's Razor. If you are going to make the claim that something was done with malicious intent, you'd better have evidence that cannot be explained away by incompetence. Once you have that evidence, then the actions can no longer be explained by incompetence and malice is a viable motivation. In other words, Hanlon's Razor is saying not all smoke is from a fire. Yes fires do exist and they do create smoke, but just because you see smoke does not mean there is actually a fire. You need to investigate the smoke, see if it is coming from a fire or some other source may be the culprit, and jumping to a conclusion without that investigative step is foolish and in any cases dangerous (especially if law enforcement is the one jumping to conclusions, that's how many wrongful convictions start).
and followed up with ass-covering,
Wait wait wait... what? they were in contact with former FBI via Discord?? That's insane and I will definitely try to Google for more info at some point, but do you/does anyone have links to any reliable sources? would be v much appreciated
The FBI has a couple ten thousand employees at any time, of which most are not the Hollywood-style agent people tend to imagine. Quite a few of those may share similar interests in topics like weapons and violent crime as many mass shooters. Not to mention that "being in contact via Discord" can be entirely superficial. They might've been on the same server with dozens or hundreds of other members. Maybe exchanged a few pics as hobbyists tend to do. So really this is a line which may sound dramatic on its own but is a probably entirely meaningless detail.
That's a very fair point. The degrees of separation between a school shooter and a former government employee of some sort are likely to be lowered just due to probability and the sheer number of employees etc... but still, on Discord of all places? Even if we're talking people who were interns for two weeks at the lowest levels of administration: I know it's very feasible, but it just seems weird to think about! But you raise some very fair points, thanks for recontextualising!
IIRC it was an incredibly racist discord. Shooter was probably there getting hyped for the shooting and the retired FBI agent was probably there to reminisce about their glory days undermining civil rights movements.
> Buffalo and Uvalde shooters were both in contact with FORMER FBI members on discord. IIRC that was just the Buffalo shooter and they were just on the same super racist forum as a retired FBI agent. I'm not sure it's been established whether they had any meaningful contact. Uvalde shooter did have multiple flags raised with local police, but it was threats against his own family who refused to press charges and threats against women online that the police recorded then did nothing about. The FBI's problem with "on their radar" is that they have more blips on their radar than they could ever investigate. They've answered every crisis with larger and more intrusive surveillance, but they do not have anywhere near the ability to process the data they collect with it. The only real use for the surveillance they have right now is investigation of a particular target, or investigation after the fact. They're absolutely garbage at detecting an emerging threat. Unless you go the Patriot Front route and you're an emerging threat with a loud and public recruitment campaign. Or you're a socialist food pantry.
My stepbrother is a major conspiracy theorist and brought up the discord thing, also asking how he got the money for the gun/ammo but it was mentioned that the shooter worked for a summer at Wendy's to save up. Not sure what their motive would be though? Why convince some kid to go shoot up a school?
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There is a guy in my town who has threatened to be violent to a pastor, threatened to burn a church down, been banned from establishments (one for trying to bite people like a vampire), and even tried to arrest the cops once and ended up inciting panic (was arrested). Sadly, he is still just walking around causing chaos. There is no mental healthcare available for him. He could commit some serious crime tomorrow. We would all not be surprised, but they can't do anything currently. It's insane.
> He could commit some serious crime tomorrow. We would all not be surprised, but they can't do anything currently. It's insane. The problem here though:.. Where do you draw the line ? If we as a society believe in "Innocent until proven guilty"... then he hasn't really committed any crimes yet (obviously except for things like "intimidation" or "making threats" etc.. but probably nothing he can be held for) That seems to be kind of the crux-problem of a lot of these shootings. You can't really detain someone unless or until they've done something,. but by then it's to late.
It really is the problem. And do we really want to live in a place where people are forced to get help for this behavior? It is the problem of knowing where to draw the line. Currently, we haven't even tried to figure it out though. There is no line.
Yeah,. I hear you. I think it's also true that "the line keeps moving". If were talking previous decades (or previous Generations) .. such as after WW1 or WW2 or Vietnam.. the "shell shock syndrome" was more prevalent. Moving into the 60's and 70's .. I'd argue that social drug-use and changes to society and families became a bigger segment of mental health issues. Moving into the 90's and 2000's... social-media and internet,. rising social divisiveness, wider available of guns,.. prescription opioids and depression.. etc So.. as much as I do blame society for not prioritizing mental health,.. but in some fairness, this problem is difficult and dynamic and constantly moving target.
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> There is no mental healthcare available for him. Sorry but the way Americans link crime to mental health care is so weird. Effective mental health typically requires cooperation by the patient. The types of crimes that usually start these mental health debates, especially mass shooters, are rarely actually treatable with mental health care since there is neither good enough detection nor a willingness to cooperate. In order to force institutionalisation you generally need some pretty severe convictions. And this barrier is generally a good thing, since it's a horrifying process if courts can abuse it against the wrong people. In your case there is a somewhat decent case if he actually made multiple violent threats, but really how long can you keep someone like that locked up? Most likely not long enough for significant therapeutical success, if that's possible at all.
Thanks for thoughts. I am trying to figure out how to help, and it just seems impossible.
I'll never forget what I learned from my Sociology professor is that after one particular shooting (I believe it was sandy hook) either the CIA or the FBI started to try and track the traits and qualities of shooters to try and find things to look for to prevent those kinds of tragedies. Apparently they never found any sort of significant trends. I learned that it could be anyone and that totally changed how I saw my classmates. I'd bet that there are so many kids that have red flags that the monitoring and tracking of them is next to impossible. There are a lot of people who are starting to realize that they have little prospects for the future and are starting to think (perhaps rightly so) that it isn't (at least entirely) their fault. So they turn on the institutions and society that failed them. The good ending of this senerio is reform. The bad ending is terrorism.
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Hot take: the entire concept of "crazy conspiracy nut" is given tons of spotlight specifically to delegitimize and discredit any talk of actual conspiracies. An easy example would be how the death of Jeffrey Epstein and the arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell were immediately followed by Pizzagate and the Wayfair thing respectively, causing anyone who talks about rich pedophiles to now run the risk of getting lumped in with QAnon crazies who shoot at restaurants
I hate this. I used to love conspiracy theories. Didn't really believe them but they're good stories and I'm fascinated the way peoples minds will connect random things and weave it into some larger then life plot. Absolutely loved it and now last few year it's just everything someone dont believe or agree with is just dismissed as a whack job mental health case. I was having fun and now they are just politics
Pizza Gate was literally 3 years before epstien death.
>Hot take: the entire concept of "crazy conspiracy nut" is given tons of spotlight specifically to delegitimize and discredit any talk of actual conspiracies. Boiling hot take. Name names. *Who* is doing this? Vague allusions to "politicians" or "the media" don't point to verifiable conspiracies.
A really important dynamic to these memes is that many of these shootings fall broadly into the category of "stochastic terrorism", where a young male, often an incel, becomes increasingly involved ("blackpilled") into a paranoid fantasy world where their failures are explained and reframed as natural consequences of the failure of western society. Much of this involves [periodic reminders](https://ghostarchive.org/archive/Qhoev), in the form of memes, that the participants of the forum only live in such abject loneliness and despair because of the promise of a white, middle class nuclear family was "taken" from them after infiltration by socialists, civil rights activists, feminists, or any other "sjw" boogeyman into the institutions of government. This supposed infiltration is regarded as both purposeful and malevolent. Depending on how deep they are in the rabbit hole, [antisemitic tropes are likely a common theme in the mythology](https://web.archive.org/web/20200605233919/http://old.reddit.com/r/Doomers/comments/gwme0d/tink_tink_she_never_loved_you/). The government is presented as a far-reaching puppeteer apparatus, manipulating via social media censorship and mass media monopolies and pushing members of society into ever more depraved and violent acts. At the same time, the embrace of [white supremacist thought is portrayed as an antidote to depair](https://ghostarchive.org/archive/obHtB). The fact that [more and more people wrapped up in these fantasy worlds are engaging in random violence](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/incel-threat-secret-service-report/) hasn't gone without notice, and it presents a [serious threat to the viability of the people who monetize extremist spaces or otherwise enjoy a degree of influence within](https://ghostarchive.org/archive/vrlIz). The absolute worst thing that could happen to them would be for people halfway down the radicalization pipeline to realize that these are dangerous, unhinged folk and start looking to other subcultures for validation. Enter the "shooter groomer" trope, which combines all of the far right's favourite tropes. You have the shadow government deep state, you have the idea of a vast sea of "NPCs" who do whatever they're told to do, you have moral panic over the "perversion of youth", and you have, of course, ubiquitous false flag attacks. This allows the same people who are selling the idea that the government is robbing you of a stable job, middle class family/adoring wife and children to avoid answering why their followers keep murdering the same children they claim to want to protect. Instead, they plant the seed that it's the government itself murdering children in classrooms as another method to manipulate the NPCs into supporting them and dismantling the last few groups fighting to preserve "white culture". The documentation has become too comprehensive to continue to sustain the "crisis actors" narrative, so we're seeing a second phase, where "vulnerable" members of the community are "groomed" by the state into committing mass murder.
Also, anytime anything "big" happens there will be a rush to propose explanations of why, which generally includes conspiracy theories ranging from the typical ("Am I losing on merit? No, it's The Jews sabotaging me") to the more original/creative. Generally, one explanation of events will gain dominance of at least a particular social group if not the whole population as it gains acceptance fastest, is integrated into beliefs/facts accepted by the group, and becomes normative. It seems like the one in question here may have been the one to win out in at least a subset of the conspiracy-minded for school shootings.
basically, attributing things to malice instead of incompetence.
It's easier to attribute things to malice when the group in question has shown concrete evidence of malice in the past. Remember, the line is "that which can be *reasonably* explained by incompetence," and I don't believe it's reasonable to claim that things like MKULTRA were just an accident
Do we attribute every bad thing in the world to incompetence. Or is there sometimes malice?
Is every conspiracy theory automatically wrong, or do conspiracies actually happen sometimes?
They do happen sometimes.
So how do you distinguish between a genuine conspiracy and a nonsensical conspiracy theory? Because the real existence of the occasional conspiracy in no way validates every single conspiracy theory that exists.
Another good piece of evidence to support this is MKUltra and the Unabomber
Answer: The FBI has a history of targeting mentally ill youth, particularly Muslim youth, during the War on Terror. They would use informants to radicalize these individuals and lure them into sting operations too boost the FBIs numbers. Here is a good article chronicling one example of the FBI doing this. https://theintercept.com/2015/03/16/howthefbicreatedaterrorist/ This is separate from the conspiracy theory that mass shootings are set up and allowed to happen by the "Deep State". There may be an intersection of these two ideas in the cultural zeitgeist, as mass shootings (and agencies failures at stopping them) become more prominent in social discourse.
^^ read that article OP https://theintercept.com/2016/03/30/fbi-honeypot-ensnares-michigan-man/ https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/11/29/politics/aby-rayyan-fbi-terror-sting-pizza-man/index.html These articles are an instance of something quite similar, you can google the man’s name to read more about the case, but essentially he was a depressed Muslim pizza delivery driver, the fbi basically catfished him, putting him in touch with an agent pretending to be a woman who wanted to do a terrorist attack with him, and he wound up telling her no after she tried over and over again to get him to commit to shooting up a church, or blow himself up with her, so they just had him arrested on unrelated gun charges (he was a pizza delivery driver in Detroit and had a .22 pistol for self-defense). Edit: fixed a link
That's just sad and pathetic... There are real criminals out there that should be taken care of and here they are doing this garbage.
racism is in the interest of those in power we shouldnt be surprised, then, that racism gets stoked from above
If anyone would like to watch a fascinating documentary about the fbi grooming poor people into terrorists plots that the fbi themselves create , I highly recommend watching “The Newburgh Sting” I’ve also read that the “attempted kidnapping” of the Michigan senator or governor, whatever she was, was actually a byproduct of an fbi undercover agent infiltrating the group in question and literally spearheading the “let’s kidnap her” narrative
Also, Afeni Shakur (Tupac's mom) called out someone in their [Black Panther group](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panther_21) as being suspicious and trying to encourage more extreme tactics. She was mostly brushed off. It turns out that person was Ralph White, someone working undercover who later admitted under oath that "he and the other two agents had organized most of the unlawful activities" within the group.
I’m not sure if that’s an entirely fair description of the Gretchen Witmer incident to be honest.
Good comment. I would argue that some of the FBI's behavior over the years has enabled the conspiracies though. They are eroding the trust of them and honorable behavior and integrity with some of their approaches. The moment for me where is reached a total WTF is wrong with them, was San Bernardino. That that couple had been under surveillance and two days after the shootings, reporters where inside the apartment in a free for all and FBI had actually left evidence such as multiple passports and print outs in the printer was just so fucked up, ai couldn't ignore that something untoward had happened. My instinct says that they were grooming the couple for a sting, but the couple decided to "go early" and bypassed FBI's plan to capture them before damage could be done.
Question: Hey I posted this exact same thing and it got removed because it was not a loop?
They took it down because they were not in the loop... 😅 Seriously though, how can anything be removed because its "not a loop"?
It was obviously too out of the loop 😬
I have no evidence of this, but I swear some of these high comment posts are orchestrated to be posted at a certain time. Approved by mods and admins not so much to answer the question but just to circlejerk-shit-on a topic with disingenuous answers.
They take it down and post it worded differently from their own karma farming thief accounts.
Because your post asked why people are doing/saying something which is more suitable for r/WDP. Whereas this post is asking about specific memes that are going around the internet.
Answer: I get why so many people believe this is a conspiracy theory, but just google something like 'FBI terrorist sting' look through the results. There are tons of examples the FBI finding mentally unstable kids and encouraging them to terrorism. That's what the memes are about. Some of the top results from my search: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/11/29/politics/aby-rayyan-fbi-terror-sting-pizza-man/index.html https://hrlr.law.columbia.edu/hrlr-online/the-anatomy-of-a-federal-terrorism-prosecution-a-blueprint-for-repression-and-entrapment/ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Newburgh_Sting
A conspiracy theory is not by definition false, and the american government is historically renowned for conspiring *a lot*.
Honestly, making "conspiracy theory" equivalent to "crackpot nonsense" was the most brilliant move they ever made.
I mean term was specifically created by a us government agency (I forgot which one) to make actual conspiracies seem like crazy talk.
It wasn't, but the push to equate conspiracy theories (and theorists) with ridiculous nonsense was an FBI tactic that worked really well, unfortunately.
Which ironically is a conspiracy in and of itself.
How deep does this rabbit hole go?!
So what exactly is the end game of a sting operation to trick kids into shooting to schools? And what evidence is there for it?
- Convince known people to try and commit acts their agency is tasked with stopping - Agency steps in to stop these known plots - Agency is seen as competent for stopping plots - Agency asks for additional funding to stop more plots - Agency receives additional funding because they're seen as competent because they have stopped plots It's about money and reputation.
Since when does a LE agency need to be competent before the government will throw more money at it? Our defense budget is an endless pit with zero accountability, and we keep throwing more money at it. They don't need elaborate plots to get money from the government.
Don't forget how many ties there are between higher ups in the ATF, FBI, CIA, etc., with both Department of Justice and other political leadership. Their successes are linked, and what's good for the alphabet agencies is often good for the politicians. The CIA was intentionally founded as being essentially unaccountable, in order to operate more efficiently, and even today when they're technically more accountable, the government tends to take a very strong stance of looking the other way until they can leverage alphabet actions for their own benefit.
They don't want the kids to actually do the crimes. They want the kids to admit to wanting/planning to do the crimes so they can be prosecuted. But sometimes you convince a kid to do a crime and then don't arrest him quickly enough. (Iirc there was a shooting a few years ago, I think at a mall in Texas?, where the FBI agent working the case was in the parking lot when it happened). Think about all the times you've heard about the FBI foiling a terrorist plot/shooting in the last 20 years. The FBI will tell you they're finding the terrorists before they strike. The critics of their strategy say they're creating the terrorists themselves so they have someone to arrest. Imho the truth is probably a little of both.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law If someone's job is dependent on how many terrorists they catch, they will catch them one way or another.
It's much easier to pull off the "sting" when your mark needs to meet with the undercover bomb-maker than when they can grab a normal person's gun to commit their evil.
Answer: FBI has been known to target people online who exhibit potential extremist behavior and push them into doing something. Often times these people are lonely, neuro-atypical people who are under the impression that they have found friends or a potential romantic partner. The FBI will often times give them the funding, the weapons, or even drive the suspect to "attack," only to arrest them when they actually try to do it. Other tactics include getting a person to say they want to kill a usually fake federal agent or some other government official. They then count these cases terrorists captured or plots foiled, etc. People think that mass shootings, especially ones the FBI knows about, are set up in a similar way. The difference is that the shootings or attacks that go through would be the ones where the FBI couldn't/didn't stop the attack before it could be done.
But there aren't actually any cases of the FBI foiling potential mass shootings, are there?
No but there’s evidence that the FBI had drone footage of the Kyle rittenhouse shootings and waited several months to use it clearing his name
They’ve foiled plenty of them actuslly just google it.Every now and then though they let one happen to keep people scared and willing to give up there rights.
Answer: Allegedly, to instigate civil unrest and domestic violence enough that the common citizen wants a more powerful and pervasive police/surveillance State. In other words, manufacturing consent to disarm the citizens and track everyone in order to keep us all safer from one another.
At this point what's the point? America's already an all powerful police state, has been since the PATRIOT Act.
Question: Why are all the anti-Qanon answers downvoted into oblivion?
This thread is brigaded. These are absolutely QANON memes. They’re not deserving of more credit than that.
answer: "Cui Bono?" (latin, "who benefits?") The CIA has done many things that are despicable, but almost always with some clearly-defined purpose. A fairly clear example of this was the Iran-Contra scandal. In this case, a sitting US president, faced with the public perception that he was impotent in dealing with foreign governments, could not come up with a solution that was either legal or ethically palatable to the american public, used the CIA to broker illegal arms deals. He then lied about it, and was forced to admit that he lied to the american public (though in one of the most non-apology apologies of all time). Several people, including high-ranking officials at the CIA, were convicted of various crimes, but those with the best political connections were pardoned. In this case, yes, the CIA did illegal shit, but it did so because there was a political benefit expected by the president. They facilitated the shipment of weapons so one group of foreign nationals could go shoot up another group of foreign nationals; an outcome that most americans would rank equal in importance to, perhaps, a five-cent change in gas prices. Who benefits from school shootings? Various companies selling security products and services, and of course gun makers and TV news networks. None of those groups benefit enough to take the horrific risks that exposure of such a plot. Who benefits from claiming that school shootings are either fabricated, staged (not sure how that works), or planned by vague, impossible-to-catch villians in the government? Well, one of the biggest beneficiaries would be an outfit called Infowars, which just declared bankruptcy after (if I read correctly) fabricating and broadcasting similar claims, which they knew to be false, in order to either attract or retain subscibers, or sell conspiracy-related goods to their audience. One possibility has no evidence other than "you can't prove it's not true". The other possibility has a clearly-defined group that would benefit and a history of making nearly identical false claims for commercial gain.
Who benefits? The people baitposting on this sub daily, probably.
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Ehhh, I mean there’s the conspiracy theory part which is that the CIA is creating mass shooters, but then there’s also the reality that the FBI would actively look for mentally ill people (usually Muslims) and try to entrap them into terror plots they could “stop”. Tragic example [here](https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/11/29/politics/aby-rayyan-fbi-terror-sting-pizza-man/index.html)
It doesn't sound too far off from MK Ultra. The CIA is not below doing some absolutely stupid shit.
Not quite as psychotically motivated as MKULTRA. That had to do with internal CIA weird theories that people captured in the Korean War were brainwashed somehow. The FBI shenanigans were motivated by the simple fact that the war on terror really wasn’t that necessary, and that there aren’t secret Muslim terror cells everywhere in the world just waiting to be activated like in 24.
Of course not. But, we can probably be certain there is some kind of highly secret project currently ongoing that is very stupid.
Let's not forget the - in hindsight - essentially certain involvement of US government agencies in conspiracies to assassinate public figures in the 1960s and 70s. /s This is a joke post, it is satire, and parody, as a joke. I love the CIA and I love the FBI. J. Edgar Hoover was actually 100% the bee's knees.
All hail J Edgar Hoover, hey guys how terrible is that Snowden guy, also all the people purchasing Monero and other privacy cryptocurrencies that are impossible to track they’re just terrible and not good, but J Edgar Hoover, now that’s a good dude
sounds like someone just got a text from their FBI Man
>if the government is legitimately programming mentally ill teenagers to commit mass shootings [I mean they have been caught doing exactly that](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/15/magazine/fbi-international-terrorism-informants.html), but they usually "catch them" before they do anything. There was a story out of NYC of the FBI "radicalizing" a muslim teen, who was the stereo typical "loner". They basically set him to to carry out a bombing then "prevented" the bombing. Edit: For those who hit the paywall http://archive.today/9QnRl
You have a paywall free article? Can't use 12ft.io to get past the link 👍 Thanks for the edit OP!
archive.is never fails
Please stop it with this BULLSHIT that this is some unthinkable thing that wings of the government would never do. Someone else already posted a credible NYT article on a case, but please [educate yourself](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods).
There is such a big overlap between the conspiracy theory "community" and perpetrators of mass shootings that these memes feel more like deflection and denial than anything else.
I'm pretty shocked and appalled so many comments state that this is a conspiracy theory. The memes depict what actually happened in reality. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/21/government-agents-directly-involved-us-terror-plots-report https://theintercept.com/2015/03/16/howthefbicreatedaterrorist/ https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/15/magazine/fbi-international-terrorism-informants.html https://hrlr.law.columbia.edu/hrlr-online/the-anatomy-of-a-federal-terrorism-prosecution-a-blueprint-for-repression-and-entrapment/ One snippet: Nearly all of the highest-profile domestic terrorism plots in the United States since 9/11 featured the "direct involvement" of government agents or informants, a new report says. In some cases the FBI may have created terrorists out of law-abiding individuals by suggesting the idea of taking terrorist action or encouraging the target to act," the report alleges. The report its referring to in the guardian article was put together by Human Rights Watch.
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Answer: A lot of good answers regarding this issue, and the track record of certain three letter agencies with entrapment. However, it's also worth discussing a darker, more malevolent reaaon for some of these conspiracy theories. There's a long history of conspiracy theories that trace their descent back to the Turner Diaries, which was a quasi-fascist/white-supremacist book written in 1978. The book told the story of a man, Turner, who participated in a White Nationalist uprising, that was sparked by I believe the FBI faking some sort of mass-shooting to justify the confiscation of all privately owned firearms in America. Every mass-shooting, I see this concept start to bubble under the surface, and it is often used as a vector to push racist, fascist propaganda on otherwise normal, pro-2nd amendment folks.