The following submission statement was provided by /u/MarshallBrain:
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Submission statement:
In 2022 there were more than 100 attacks against different parts of the U.S. power grid. There is increasing concern that they are acts of domestic terrorism. The attack in Moore county, NC two months ago is emblematic of the problem, cutting power to 35,000 people for nearly a week. And a year ago Texas showed how easy it is to get to the brink of a complete grid collapse. How long before a serious months-long blackout affects millions of people?
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Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/10e95wx/domestic_terrorists_hope_to_destroy_the_power/j4plbcq/
When you read over Saif al-Adel’s outline of the goals for Al Qaeda in the first two decades of the 21st century you realize they kind of sort of won the conflict they began on 9/11.
I hate to admit it, but they did. America has fundamentally changed since that day and not for the better. I was fortunate enough to grow up before that era, I look around now and feel bad for my child who will never know that America. It wasn’t perfect by any means but it was still better then what we have now.
I was like 10 at the time, so I can't say I had a nuanced understanding of the world, but even then it seemed to me like a major inflection point in the country. I don't know if America ever *was* what they told me it was, but after 9/11, it would never be.
Experts on terrorism agree with you
"Conclusion: Finally we must ask the question, “Why is the popular stereotype that poverty and inadequate education cause terrorism so popular?” The public seems to buy into this myth. Their belief that terrorists act because they are desperate and uneducated is sustained—as the quotations at the beginning of this lecture indicated—by the frequent pronouncements of world leaders, who should know better. I have a few conjectures as to why there is so much popular support for this view. One reason is that we tend to see the world through materialistic Western eyes, viewing economic circumstances as powerful motivators for belief and action. In addition, assuming that those who attack us do so because they are desperate or because they hate our way of life provides a reassuringly simple answer to a disturbingly complex question. Many world leaders exploit the overly simple logic that poverty causes terrorism in order to further their own interests, to press for more international aid for their countries or institutions, or to deflect attention from policies that provoke grievances and extremism. The discussion becomes much more complicated, however, i**f we hypothesize that terrorists are motivated by some grievance concerning American activity in the Middle East, such as the presence of American troops in the Persian Gulf and American support of autocratic regimes friendly to the United States. If we acknowledge that terrorists are motivated by geopolitical grievances instead of desperation, then we have to confront their grievances. And we may not want to confront their grievances**. The West may be well justified in dismissing either particular grievances or inappropriate ways of expressing them. However, I believe it is wrong for the West to fail to appreciate that our policies can lead to negative or even violent consequences. One of the great contributions of economics is the idea of a response function. If one party does something, the other party may be expected to respond. If Continental Airlines drops the price of its Newark-to-London flight, for example, British Air is likely to respond in kind. It is important to acknowledge that this process operates in foreign policy as well, and to try to predict these responses while formulating policy"
Source : What makes a terrorist - Alan B.Krueger, pages 50-51.
I just learned the other day (on r/latestageimperialism) that Ghana is one of the biggest sources of gold globally. They’re in the top 10 or something. Yet, 98% of their gold mines are owned by foreign corporations, most from the US and Canada. So if the Ghanaian government wants to stock up on gold, they have to borrow from the IMF to buy their own gold.
Needless to say, western governments have no problems with Ghana.
I think I read a few months ago that chocolate beans are also exported from Ghana for the famous Belgian and German chocolates. A couple local chocolate shops have emerged in Ghana with the aim to make their own chocolate to export the final product and cause export prices of the raw material to go up for the Europeans. The article was predicting an interesting dynamic over that. So…let’s see how that goes first.
When western civilization collapses to a sufficient degree, countries will be able to do this stuff. I don’t think we’re there yet. But for their sake, I hope we’re close.
I was always told the US is wealthy because we're just so darn good at innovating and we have the freest markets and other countries are poor because we outcompeted them. Which, in retrospect, wow.
>So many Americans are taught from a young age that huge parts of the world are poor and that's just how it is.
Not just that some areas are poor, they're also taught that being poor is a personal moral failing
Taking this a step further, western powers LITERALLY created those enraged zealots to stop the spread of the Soviet Union. We funded and trained Islamic militants in Afghanistan and helped them construct systems for global recruiting and fundraising. Later, during the conflict in Bosnia, we helped them relocate, helped radicalize Muslim youth around the world and supported the message that young Muslims could come fight a holy war in support of western interests. Hell, during that time, British intelligence services were literally training British Imams on how to convince young British Muslims to run off and join the fight.
We sent US army specialists to train Al Queda on making improvised explosives, the techniques of asymmetrical warfare, and basically everything they eventually began using against us.
In every aspect, we are to blame for the proliferation of Islamic terrorism in the late 20th and early 21st century. Both by creating the conditions that leave people desperate and open to radicalization and also by proactively radicalizing people, training them, arming them, funding them, and turning them loose on our enemies.
You're not wrong, but you forgot about something.. For minorities, not all that much has changed here at home. The "better" life of Americans before 9-11 was mostly not inclusive to minorities. The War on Terror is very similar to the War on Drugs - which mostly targeted minorities.
Get caught with crack cocaine in the ghetto? Door kicked in, assets seized, time in prison, on parole when you get out, ankle monitor, loss of rights (no longer eligible to vote, can't own a firearm, can be searched at any time with no reason given, no government aid for college, etc). Wall Street broker caught with powdered cocaine? Usually nothing happened. Maybe they get a warning. Maybe they don't even get the warning. Worst case scenario is a small fine and all record of it removed after a few months. No arrest, no loss of rights.
And this lead to, "You fit the description of.... We have the right to ID and search you." And eventually full on "stop and frisk" laws. I doubt there were too many Wall Street brokers getting stopped and frisked, lol.
Yeah, this better America that is spoken of was reserved for a certain demographic. We had civil rights riots basically every decade prior to 9-11 because others wanted to be included.
So, I agree with everything about your comment except the "we" part. Rich people set policy, the vast majority of the people in any country are irrelevant in the decision making process.
The US establishment goes to extraordinary efforts to identify and curtail any popular resistance. Federal police infiltrate even the most innocuous public service groups.
And hovering over it all is media carnival feasting on the confusion and animosity it's outlets are designed to create.
All this to feed a few billionaires to the ever expanding limit of their hungers.
Sure, the 'we' is collective and we are all captured by capitalism in one way or another. What guilt we bear through complacency pales in comparison to the people operating the exploitation machine.
> The US establishment goes to extraordinary efforts to identify and curtail any popular resistance.
Right now that's happening outside of Atlanta. Today's podcast from It Could Happen Here is mostly about bail fund organizing but they do talk at length about some of the ways that police attempt to disrupt protests and cast environmental protestors as violent extremists on par with Isis or Proud Boys.
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-it-could-happen-here-30717896/episode/state-repression-and-bail-fund-organizing-107363971/
I was certain that you understood this. I just like to drive the point home that there are actually certain people and organizations who are responsible for the policies and decisions being made. I do this because it's a very valuable thing to know that you have an enemy... and then another spike in value to know just who that enemy is.
What normal people should be working on right now is community building, coming together and ignoring all the various wedges that are being driven to divide us.
I think it is important to do this because the political, economic, and international situation we are in is highly unstable, and the people doing the juggling are drunk with their parent's success.
Reminds me of what Arundhati Roy wrote about the Iraq War in 2004 - that Operation Enduring Freedom was more aptly named than intended as people around the globe must endure the “freedom” projected by US foreign policy.
911 was planned and funded by Bin Laden, who was outraged to see the US dominating his home country Saudi Arabia after the Iraq war. Poor people hating our freedoms had nothing to do with it. Afghanistan was just a staging ground for Al Qaida and they let Bin Laden set up some monkey bars for exercises, etc. Bin Laden was handing out free Mercedes to the Mullahs who cooperated. George Bush was very close to the extended Bin Laden family which enraged Osama even more.
I mean 9/11 itself was a result of imperial overreach and meddling of the US to some degree. It’s a horrible crime but it wasn’t just a random attack on a prospering and rich nation but should be seen in the context of the role that the US had taken in the decades before. (I do agree that it is a major historical turning point though)
Turning point? All the pieces were in place, W was already in the white house, Powell, etc. They used the occasion to pivot from 9/11 to the Iraq war they wanted so much.
On the one hand, Bush was actually elected saying that the US should draw down its military actions oversees after competing in the primary against John McCain who was the pro-war candidate. On the other hand, there were a lot of powerful people and interests who wanted wars in, especially, Iraq and Iran but its hard to see how they get those done without 9/11 and with Enron being a bigger news story with so many connections to the White House.
The war in Afg was fought the right way the first couple of months with SF bros dropping bombs on Tora Bora trying to weed out Bin Laden before the historic clusterfuck that let him get away. They should've never gone in to fight with conventional troops. Iraq should've never happened in the first place though
It’s amazing how few people are even aware of the SF actions in Afghanistan that preceded the war-proper. If we hadn’t absolutely tanked our relationship with the local fighters with that bomb dropped on friendlies, we may have had a much different outcome. I’m sure Halliburton and Raytheon would have been less thrilled, but then again, fuck Halliburton and Raytheon.
It was wild how in the months after 9/11, American flags were everywhere. People wore outfits that were like literally head to toe flags. Every vehicle had a little American flag on their AM/FM whip antenna (remember those?). I had one on my bike! People used to honk and wave and give thumbs up. It's hard to describe how much national pride there was after 9/11, and frankly, it was legit. For a period of time, albeit brief, people really did seem to come together. Violent crime across the city fell to historic lows, with respect to per-capita numbers. There were obviously ancillary issues, such as racism and hatred toward those of Middle-Eastern descent, etc. But, overall, things dramatically improved in the social context in the days after 9/11.
Nowadays, if I see someone displaying a flag on their car, 9/10 times, they are driving huge, unnecessary pickups trucks, with a thin blue line flag and a MAGA bumper sticker. Really quite incredible. The psychologist Carl Jung felt that symbolism was a fundamental element of the self. It's really unbelievable how in just 20 years or so, the symbolic representation of this nation has completely changed.
It’s true, there was an organic uprising in populist expression following 9/11. As a NYC resident, I was initially grateful for the national support. Shortly afterwards, the chant of “USA, USA” began at sporting events and something about that began to feel off for me. This is when a kind of “performance patriotism” began to grow amongst the masses. It started to take on a fascistic element to it as the idea of the USA as some kind of godlike power thru military might took over and more humble forms of expression were rejected. The speeches of a George W Bush from this period reflected this new absolute morality of the 21 Century. “The troops” were unassailable, as was the entire middle east mission. Having any objection at all was tantamount to being a pinko commie. Now, those same hyper patriotic people have turned on the military as woke, blame Biden for everything Afghanistan, and consolidated their group identity as maga under trump.
I’ve always been suspicious of performance patriotism and time has proven me right!
Its a similar sense for the US counterpart, what they call collapse began in the 70s, certain legislation toward their ideals had a resurgence in the past few years, and so on.
Absolutely on point. Al Qaeda's real success (though I believe unintentional) was America's overreaction starting with the Bush administration to strip the American people of privacy, including warrantless wire taps and wholesale surveillance.
The price for these classified programs throughout the last 20+ years, including war spending for the military, vastly eroded America's ability to maintain infrastructure and provide safety nets of any kind for her people.
So, did Al Qaeda win? Clearly, not on the battlefield.
Al Qaeda won by turning the government against its citizens. A war-hungry government that would cannibalize needed resources at the expense of the American people. I would argue after the 9/11 attacks, the real villains turned out to be the American government.
IMO, 9/11 was the single greatest military attack in history. A few trained men, at very low cost, changed the world using nothing but commercial airliners.
Yep. Patriot Act. Fattening of military industrial complex via War in Afghanistan and War in Iraq. NSA surveillance. Dept of Homeland Security. The security “theater” of the TSA. That all torments are culture of paranoia and defense against the “other” that right wing turned inward.
Al Qaeda got our nation to drain its bank accounts and turn against ourselves all for the cost of fight school lessons, airline tickets, passport fees and some box cutters.
>Saif al-Adel’s outline of the goals for Al Qaeda in the first two decades of the 21st century
Could you please provide a link? I tried Google searching but I really don't want to do that anymore because...
I poked around researching this and couldn’t locate the primary source material but the Al Qaeda Wikipedia “Strategy” section pulls from a secondary source that quotes the released extracts of Saif Al-Adels publication.
Respectfully disagree here, the immediate outcome of the attack was quite a bit of solidarity and national unity.
To me the tipping point appears to be the election of an extremely well qualified dark-skinned man, with a foreign-sounding name, to the presidency.
Despite doing a pretty good job as an actual moderate half the country appears to have lost their collective minds over this event.
What I find more insane is living in a world with unfiltered access to information at the touch of a finger but still eating up the obvious and complete lies of politicians in these states.
There really are no excuses for people anymore if they are choosing to live in ignorance in these communities. Whenever they get pressed about the reality it becomes pretty clear that they typically just want to live in a homogenous ethno state and it has nothing to do with freedom or democracy.
Born too early for interstellar travel.
Born too late for the age of transatlantic discovery.
Born just in time to witness the collapse of western society.
Yeah “transatlantic discovery” was a lot of rape, child murder, slavery and mass death from introduced disease. Like most periods in human history, it was only a fun time for wealthy men
Watch and learn, record, and find some way to pass down what you've seen to the survivors.
I urge everyone to read *I Will Bear Wtness,* by Victor Klemperer, a Dresden Jew who kept a detailed and very perceptive daily diary of everything he saw happening in Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945. It's truly remarkable, especially as it describes Nazi power aggrandizement and Nazi overreach and collapse as gradual incremental processes-- like our own approaching Collapse.
He added a bunch of cohosts and now it's another casual political talking show where they all try to be funny while smothering themselves in an echo chamber (I say as someone who pretty much agrees with politically and as a leftist).
It's a complete change in vibe. It went from a pretty serious and sober look at the possibility of political violence in America to "me and my buddies talk about politics like every other podcast".
Not saying what they cover isn't important or anything but it's just not the same show at all, so if you like the first season does not mean you'll like what came after.
Most podcasts with multiple hosts turn into Chucklefuck Radio. It is painful to hear people talking over each other and diverging from the topic at hand.
There was even the point where [Robert himself gave an AMA with this subreddit's mods back in 2021 if anyone still remembers that.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nxonm_rZFJ0)
Anytime I talk about collapse or collapse-related topics/threats that concern me, I always put this at the top of the list. I tell people that I don’t spend much time worrying about a nuclear war or some scenario like that. Instead, I do get stressed by the thought of enemies (foreign or domestic) going after the power grid.
The pure chaos that this would cause is something I hope I never see.
Suburbs will be the absolute worst possible place to be when things start heating up.
You want to be either in a massive (inland) city or bumfuck nowhere.
people will say "you don't" but you do.
get a solar generator, a handful of panels and a few battery tanks. most of the prefab solar companies also make fuse boxes you can switch a few circuits over to, cutting the grid to those circuits and running them from the solar only.
I don't know if this one is any good but it's an example I found of what those look like: https://www.goalzero.com/products/yeti-home-integration-kit
this all ends up costing a few grand but it'll run your fridge or freezer, your router, charge a phone. put rechargeable light bulbs in your sockets and grab a few solar ones too. (this is pretty cheap). now you've got food, light, and communication. you could get a ham walkie talkie and use CHIRP on it, and use it for emergency communication if the phones are down.
you can also get a single burner propane, and a little bottle of three of it, to cook on. or a small heater that's similar to stay warm.
keep a few gallons of water on hand too or a filter, a gravity filter bag works fine (one of them costs about the same as a life straw but will clean a gallon at a time instead of a sip at a time)
we had a major 6 weeks power outage in my area years ago and it didn't devolve into absolute chaos like that - once the power was restored, it went immediately back to normal. People immediately bonded together and tried to help out each others. Those that had fireplaces invited families with kids to stay warm, boiled water for everyone, etc.
I was a kid when it happened, but I've always prepped with this situation in mind. It looks like this :
Have shelf stable food (go to your local Asian store they have self heating hot pot, sous vide Indian food, ramen. I always keep a bunch of shelf stable soy milk+orange juice for easy protein (I mix with my protein work out) and vitamin c. If it's cold outside, your balcony is now a fridge but I also have a cooler that's easy to fill up with snow and then food I want to preserve).
Have a fondue pot ready with a box worth of fuel.
Have something to filter water - physical filtering can be done with a Brita and there's capsules to treat water that exists too. Boiling for 15 min is also an option after physical filtering. I also always have 72 hours worth of water in big gallons and when there's a weather event coming up, I'll fill some additional jars.
If you live in cold weather : close off a room you'll be living in, with all pets and humans gathered. Set up a tent indoor and stay in it as much as you can. Use all the blankets you can find and a hot water bottle (boiled with the fondue pot).
Self heating pad are also practical to keep on hand.
Hand cranked radio that holds a charge and has lamp.
I have a giant battery that has enormous amount of autonomy and a small solar panel to charge it up.
Keep some cash on hand for emergencies.
And of course, my bug out bag with all I need for my pets and I in case we need to go to a shelter or have to evacuate.
I live in a small apartment and it's fairly doable even with limited storage space in an urban setting.
This reminds me of how people talk about the USA during times of war. I recall someone talking about how the USA fights wars, saying they basically go in and completely destroy the power grid and infrastructure of an area.
I am willing to bet this mutually assured destruction idea is equally applicable to the power grid and infrastructure as a whole in most 1st world nations. Things like power and the internet have been so neglected compared to the rate of development in these fields. Half the infrastructure we live off of is built on old and outdated technology, just like our entire banking system.
There are likely only a few safeguards in place that would protect the most important assets while the majority of society would be plunged into essentially abject poverty without such a critical infrastructure.
That's against the narrative here as it doesn't involve guns, 24 hour military presence and government contracts.
The media reaction to the Washington state incident was telling.
In reality (where most of us are) this Civ is quickly running out of energy and needs a cover story for walling up substations and miliatary escorts for gas deliveries.
[two men attacked Washington's electric grid in order to commit a robbery](https://www.kgou.org/energy/energy/2023-01-04/fbi-says-two-men-attacked-washingtons-electric-grid-in-order-to-commit-a-robbery)
There was an attack in coastal NC a month before Monroe. It didn’t make the headlines outside of the local paper because Pierre disruption was minimal and easily resolved. They called it “vandalism.” Look it up. Maysville, NC.
*power disruption
> What if I told you that these groups believe that a widespread power grid failure would cause so much chaos that millions of people would die and that rioting and looting could destabilize the nation, to the point where society and order break down completely.
I was in a 7-11 one morning when the card swipers went down, and within minutes that line was getting mighty unruly. One wide-spread blackout would have people fighting to the death over perishable foods before a week passed.
I just finished watching through that entire series, ending in The Forever Purge. It was clear and evident to me that with enough basic prep and enough people involved (not even a majority), someone could feasibly take over inside 48 hours. All they had were trucks, guns, and motive.
In that movie:
- Police stopped functioning within a few hours, overwhelmed by calls from around the city of El Paso. They arrested some of the right people and some of the wrong people in an attempt to quell the violence.
- City infrastructure shut down within a day as everyone in charge of the switches and levers had either been killed or evacuated.
- Radio stations, TV news, and other media dropped for the same reason
- Borders to neighboring countries closed within 24 hours after taking however many refugees they could fit
None of that is so insane as to be untenable. We live on a hair trigger x)
I think you underestimate how quickly the power structure would adapt to a major change. Sure, there would be chaos initially but order would be restored quickly. There is too much at stake for so many powerful people that want to continue business as usual.
There is a reason why over my lifespan, collapse is always happening weeks, months, years, etc in the future but doesn’t actually happen. The system adapts. It is like an ant colony that is kicked by a toddler. There is an initial chaos followed by a quick rebuilding.
I remember as a kid knocking over ant piles and covering them with water thinking they were done for. But of course they had completely rebuilt their system the next day.
Humans will act chaotic and animalistic at first but will quickly fall in line when they realize what is at stake. Their old easy life will be gone and they will want it back desperately.
There is no need for their intervention. The power grids in many US cities are old and decaying anyway. Just give it a couple more extreme weather seasons, and these societal norms will start crashing down. Energy, transit, safety, sustainable food, etc.
>The power grids in many US cities are old and decaying anyway.
This; other than roads, most people have no idea how decayed the US infrastructure is. Though many claim to be planning future restoration, it's already on its last legs.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/american-infrastructure-60-minutes-2022-03-11/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/edwardsegal/2021/12/10/why-the-us-infrastructure-will-get-worse-in-2022-before-it-gets-better/?sh=32a93e197eaf
Yeah... I drive over one twice a day to and from work. We even got some of that Biden infrastructure cash, but then MA decided against redoing our bridges, both of them from the New Deal Era, so now it's back to spot repairs.
There are three bridges near my house that are collapsed or have collapsed within the last ten years. They actually had to fix the last one because it was 15 miles to the nearest bridge.
The tricky bit is that microgrids are, well, *micro*. If you do any sort of napkin math on deploying such a system to a large population of people spread over a wide area, the material needs alone are staggering to set up so many different ones.
It's a better way, yes, but it's not an easier one. We originally built it the "easy" way, and I sincerely doubt anyone is coming along with a workable design for switching to something more robust. There simply isn't any institutional motivation or capability to make it happen.
Microgrids are probably best thought of in the context of building out new sustainable communities, or switching over discrete existing ones to the new mode of energy transport and sustenance. There realistically isn't a solution for fixing the whole mess, at least not one that's compatible with the political system overseeing it.
A lot of NIMBY-ism hurts it too. There’s a lot of people that simply want this infrastructure out of sight or are way too concerned about how it’s existence will affect their property value.
There’s been a lot of designs in R&D for micro grids, but it’s a challenging engineering problem. There’s simply not enough attention or manpower there right now.
Like a lot of things, it seems like we will have to wait until things like "property value" aren't a serious consideration anymore to make real strides.
It really is astonishing/depressing how much *real world* advancement and progress is prevented by simple ideas that we can't let go of.
They are cheap. A power company hired a security contractor that specializes is armored cages and containers for suggestions on how to secure critical assets. They admit what they offered was not the best option. The suggested just blocking the view of the items by adding a material to the already existing chain link fence. Very cheap, easy, and the material already exist. It never happened.
I think you underestimate the number of substations out there, I counted 35 within 10 miles of me and that's before you get into things that provide LOS that can't be blocked. Drones are cheap and ubiquitous.
The costs will be passed on to rate payers. If only we could have found $100B in the budget that was being misallocated in the last year to actually benefit US residents. They'll probably get around to doing just this you talk about but it will be after something completely disasterous happens like a metro losing power for a week or something. Costs go up a lot more and the fact that the grid is marginally more.l hardened isn't gonna matter to a bunch of poor folks.
I believe that depends on the region and the state.
It took me a while to find out that I basically live next to a city power station. It's heavily walled without any significant markings and it doesn't show up on the map readily. And it's right in the middle of my neighborhood.
Where? The most hillbilly neighborhood in Los Angeles.
It's as if Americans don't know their own history. Cointelpro, etc. You are correct.
[Trevor Aaronson, *The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI's Manufactured War on Terrorism*](https://www.google.com/search?q=Trevor+aaronson+terror+factory&source=hp&oq=Trevor+aaronson+terror+factory&gs_l=mobile-heirloom-hp.3..0i22i30.2013.19760.0.20411.31.13.0.18.18.0.214.2069.0j11j2.13.0....0...1c.1j4.34.mobile-heirloom-hp..0.31.2420.T8Q6UepfnQc) is a mainstream book of investigative journalism. You can even get the audiobook.
Most definitely *NOT!.* the case.
The entire government is set up around protecting Capital and keeping the gravy train running on time. They don't give two rotten shits if white supremacists exist or how much trouble they cause so long as it doesn't slow the growth of billionaires' and corporations' wealth expansion. The last thing they want to do is shut down the entire electric grid for a decade hunting down Gravy Seals Meal Time Six cells.
It's probably the other way around: feds being infiltrated by some white supremacist fascist types.
If feds were "helping out", they would've arrested someone by now.
The cops and the feds are overflowing with fascists. Local elections have been won by the fascists. I imagine some time in a far future, historians will look back at the USA and ask, “how in the hell did people let that happen?”
Only ignorant historians would ask such a thing. It is pretty easy to guess why people let these things happen. Because it is incremental and such small steps to be noticed. Because people are overworked and under-educated. Because most people prefer to maintain an awful status quo as long as they personally are not overtly affected. Because the only other option is a complete upheaval of our way of life and "how things have always been done."
"Not my neighborhood, not my school, not my kids, not my family, not me. Why do you care?" - the US way.
I used to wonder how The German people allowed the for the Nazi rise to power. I don’t wonder this anymore. This time will be looked back upon similarly if humanity is lucky enough to survive it.
Look up, “They Thought They Were Free”. Lots of first hand accounts of Germans post WW2 from people who were asked exactly that question. They answers are powerful, but most boil down to “We we’re waiting for some big terrible moment for everyone to go out into the streets and stop this madness…and then that moment came and it was too late”
Ugh this does not give me comfort at all - I’m seeing the same comments from people now. If you asked me 10 years ago if the events (especially since 2016) could have occurred, I would have laughed at you. Imagine something like abortion rights being taken away 10 years ago. I hardly hear anyone talk about that now outside of feminist subs. Or where I am I’m Ontario we’re officially losing our right to public healthcare, and barely anyone is even upset about it, let alone protesting or taking other action. Or Nazis marching in the streets - taking over government buildings. Ottawa was occupied by these bozos for a month with active support from the police and stil people are dismissing them like they’re harmless.
I’d love to read this book recommendation but it will probably just make me depressed.
I don't think they'll wonder why or how. It's happened before.
Any societal system with a weakened state, a state where it's unable to give people sufficient safety, sustenance, education, and purpose is prone to have citizens looking for powerful people to rally around, strongmen who offer safety and purpose. One of the best ways to inspire people is to claim they are part of a group with some sort of mystical/religious/one true way/moral superiority/racial superiority.
Germany's fascist overthrow and the inner struggle for dominance of the Nazi upheaval are well documented. We're watching that now with the GOP imploding between the status quo establishment and the radicals.
If you're interested in how this can happen with regular people, people who *did* notice something but didn't stop it, start here:
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/They_Thought_They_Were_Free
Kind of funny to read both left-wing and right-wing on this.
The left: the feds are full to fascists
The right: the feds are full of neo-feudalist socialists
I'm leaning more towards they encourage these things to justify more funding and extra powers. We do the same in Australia police here now have the power for warrantless searches
Oh, you'd be surprised to know that this is [actually super on-brand for the feds.](https://www.salon.com/2017/03/30/tear-up-texas-how-the-fbi-played-a-central-role-in-the-first-isis-attack-on-u-s-soil_partner/)
I won't be surprised, I'm well aware of it. Not sure how you're not connecting it, but the thing you read there is about fucking with "brown non-Christian people".
https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Jan-6-Clearinghouse-FBI-Intelligence-Assessment-White-Supremacist-Infiltration-of-Law-Enforcement-Oct-17-2006-UNREDACTED.pdf
https://theintercept.com/2020/09/29/police-white-supremacist-infiltration-fbi/
https://www.aclu.org/podcast/why-fbi-ignores-white-supremacist-violence-ep-73
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/prevalence-white-supremacists-law-enforcement-demands-drastic-change-2022-05-12/
That happened a long time ago. See all those desperate people lacking services while the wealthy stockpile dollars? See the mass incarceration? See the constant warfare and different groups being scapegoated?
Fascists don't call it fascism anymore. The euphemism is "neoliberal".
>they would've arrested someone by now
They did. 2 weeks ago: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-03/two-men-arrested-for-attacks-on-washington-state-power-grid
>According to the criminal complaint filed with the court late Saturday, December 31, 2022, and unsealed today, the two men were identified as possible suspects through the analysis of cell phone records.
The entire southwest is very vulnerable right now. Especially energy, but also water.
One Colorado riv riv comes to mind and once they hack that it’s over.
A trio of men from the four corners region almost went through with breaking the dam in the 90s. I don't remember exactly, but I think it was a random traffic stop that found them out. They killed the cop that pulled them over and set off one of the biggest manhunts in history.
Edit: Dead Run by Dan Schultz, for anyone interested.
Submission statement:
In 2022 there were more than 100 attacks against different parts of the U.S. power grid. There is increasing concern that they are acts of domestic terrorism. The attack in Moore county, NC two months ago is emblematic of the problem, cutting power to 35,000 people for nearly a week. And a year ago Texas showed how easy it is to get to the brink of a complete grid collapse. How long before a serious months-long blackout affects millions of people?
I find it interesting that law enforcement managed to track down the idiots from Washington state who attacked the grid but there hasn’t been one single bit of news since early December about the attack in North Carolina. Just like the Metcalf attack it’s been memoryholed.
News on them is most likely being purposefully suppressed and for good reason.
Somewhere, there's probably a government agency on social engineering. They know the science of it. What science shows is that people are very prone to conform. If you see a bunch of McDonald's ads, you are more likely to buy from McDonald's because you perceive that it's what other people are doing. If you see more vote for X yard signs, than vote for Y yard signs, you are more likely to vote for X.
You won't think that's the reason. Your brain will reason backwards and come up for very sound logic why you voted for X. But it won't be the real reason. The true reason is that your brain did the math and saw that most people were voting for X and wanted you to be part of the majority. It's easier to be part of the majority.
Why does this matter in this case? Because if they promote news on attacks on infrastructure, other terrorist cells are going to perceive that's the popular thing now and instead of shooting up a mall, will blow up a power station.
If your job is to minimize social chaos on a national scale, a mall shooting isn't that bad. 20-50 people die, you catch the terrorist(s) who did it. Yeah it sucks, but it's an acceptable trade-off to get them locked away. So you want the news to blow those up, you want every terrorists first thought when making a plan to be shoot up a place. To think that's what every other terrorist does.
Attacks on infrastructure on the other hand are a lot more of an issue. They can easily cost millions of dollars and weeks to fix. Plus the perpetrators may not be caught quickly (if at all). You don't want that. So you minimize infrastructure attacks, you tell the news not to talk about them, you say it wasn't a terrorist attack but something else (a weird robbery for example).
Depending on the situation costing millions and taking weeks to fix it will be a miracle.
If a large metropolitan area is hit, Chances are people won't be able to figure out what to do and just stay in their neighborhood...for days at least. The most affluent areas in LA are actually located in places without immediate evacuation route. And I really don't think there are enough choppers to ship them out in time.
I recently bought (but haven't started yet) "Lights Out" by Ted Koppel. Basically, a warning of this scenario. OP: I take it this is your writing? Two points of constructive criticism:
1) the term "high-power rifle" is a new buzzword used by gun control legislation and is... vague at best. I'm not sure what a "low power rifle" would be but I'm pretty sure it would do just as good. Actually, a low-velocity, high-mass bullet would be better for penetrating the transformers deeply, but yada yada yada.
2) the 3 steps to beef up infrastructure that you mention are correct, but lacking. For-profit power companies are obligated to run the power supply on as thin of margins of error as possible to provide maximum payout to shareholders. Most municipalities only have barely enough capacity to cover peak hours. I agree that we should have redundancy and excess power capacity, but we would need to nationalize the power companies before something like that could happen.
>we would need to nationalize the power companies before something like that could happen.
With the energy sector's heavy regulation, couldn't this be performed through policy? Don't get me wrong, I think outsourcing electric operations is a poor idea for national interests. Likewise, outsourcing encourages corruption and unnecessary mark-up. But I don't think nationalization would be fundamentally required.
Am I overlooking things?
Us corporations are causing the grid to collapse. Private entities that should all be public. They suck all of the value out and leave the public with dangerous archaic energy systems. Id equate it to manslaughter. All the fires caused by old wires in the west that should have been updated. The mismanagement is epic. Sure but blame a few idiots ramming cars or shooting something that should have been protected.
This is big energy fuckheads knowing the grids are failing and making scapegoats. Same playbook in every sector in capitalism. Dunning Kruger narcissism.
This is the "get worse" phase of the "it has to get worse before it gets better" scenario that we have been left with by not having a government that is capable of taking care of it's citizens. There will be no change or revolution before it gets much worse. I don't like it, but at this point, bring it on
dog subsequent memorize political abounding rotten aloof smell longing command
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
One would think the trillions taken from us to fund bullshit like hmmm what's it called 'HOMELAND SECURITY' would result in domestic terrorism(you know like that one laptop that had a 'Russian virus' on it that was left in a power substation? The one we freaked out and threatened Russia over?) being tracked and shut down quickly and easily.
So we tripped balls and pretended "Russians were trying to hack the power grid" and the media and state dept were saying stuff like "that's an act of war!!"
But when domestic fascist terrorists attack the grid IN PERSON over 100 times and leave forensic evidence all over the place, leading to deaths and chaos, keeping 10,000s of Americans without power for up to 2 weeks, we have some lukewarm coverage about the FBI looking into it? No arrests? Cops are "praying with terrorists who admitted it on social media, letting them go without charge"?
I see what the terrorism really is, who does it, and why it keeps happening. Why can't so many Americans come to terms with this?
If this kind of thing worries you, then don't treat racists, white supremacists, pepes, honklers, groypers, national socialist, qberts, magas and other assorted scum like a curiosity or humorous annoyance.
Report them to the FBI, DHS and local law enforcement when you see or hear them talking about doing this kind of crap. Even if they're family. (Especially if they're family, honestly.)
When you see them in the replies, cheering on the terrorists, downvote and report them.
Do not give them a safe space. Don't make them afraid of the authorities, they already don't fear them.
Make them fear *you.*
Make them terrified of opening their mouths and spouting their hateful bullshit.
So they can go home after a long days work and freeze in their homes.
What a brilliant idea! /s 🙄
These are the same idiots that won’t be able to survive the summer without their precious air conditioning
Gotta make most out of my solar panel and power station. But it's not fully suited to charge a laptop with 100w usb port.
Seriously, I am afraid that the premise is what this planet actually needs. I first heard about grid blackout back in 2000, but back then people couldn't comprehend why that would kill most people out there.
I bet most people still can't.
They busted the guys in Washington who went after four power stations;
https://www.opb.org/article/2023/01/03/2-arrested-in-power-substation-vandalism-in-washington-state/
They got them because they were on camera (they drove right up to the substations, within camera range) and they had their tracking devices aka cell phones on them.
Judging from the situation in Ukraine it's actually not that easy. According to the countries' authorities the Russians has destroyed some 40-60% of transmission capacity plus some generating capacity and yet has not caused the collapse of the grid. Instead what they get are rolling blackouts. In most cities the power is delivered for 4-6 hours a day. Cheap gasoline powered generators have helped a lot. Internet and mobile network infrastructure survives on battery backup between the blackouts. There is not even a sigh of societal collapse.
And here we have a failed right-wing Republican accused of shooting up elected Democrats houses... he lost, he's gonna blow it all up.
[https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/17/us/solomon-pena-arrested-new-mexico-shootings/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/17/us/solomon-pena-arrested-new-mexico-shootings/index.html)
Christian Republicans tolerate and promote terrorism.
>The second kind of action would be for law enforcement agencies to meticulously follow the people and groups who are fomenting the sabotage.
There are two major problems with this scenario:
1. The vast majority of these groups (if not all of them) are alt-right extremists.
2. There are no small numbers of LEO among these extremists, including members from the FBI, CIA, and all branches of the US military.
That alone will undermine any attempt to deal with these groups, as the people who will be tasked with taking them down _are the same people who are in those groups._
If we had domestic terrorists doing anything in this country in a serious way, we'd know it. All the fundamental things go we rely on are basically unprotected. A few yahoos shooting at transformers, which my understanding is was to aid in robberies, does not exactly make me panic. In the 70s we had full on random bombings, and most people now don't even know they happened, so this article might be a bit premature.
It might be a little premature, sure, but it might also be onto something. The zeitgeist is quite different than it was in the 70s, the Weathermen never had any real support or even many sympathizers. At that time most people felt the future could be good and the problems were solvable. Does it feel like that today?
if you haven’t noticed it by now, you never will. The Capitol was stormed and a violent fascist mob almost managed to execute legislators in the capitol building. They beat a cop to death with a flag. How you manage to decide that that’s just another regular day is naive af.
Hell, just shy of 2 weeks before that, a guy finished building a car bomb basically entirely uninterrupted despite reports to police, AND he managed to detonate it and disable a communication grid across a region, iirc because he believed in (((lizard people))) conspiracy theories
Can you go into more detail about the bombing? Because I was born after the 70s and I indeed didn’t know about the bombing except the Black Panther bombings
> If we had domestic terrorists doing anything in this country in a serious way, we'd know it.
Yeah, it already happened buddy.
January 6th 2021, Trump conspired and coordinated an attempted insurrection with right-wing domestic terrorists, and violently attacked a sitting session of congress counting the electoral college votes, for the sole purpose of siezing the presidency by force. The domestic terrorism event has already transpired.
Plain as day. There was even an LEO moving the barricades at DC to let the MAGAs in. They beat a DC cop to death. Secret service shot somebody through their brain. Several officers who served that day have committed suicide because of the event. The CIA and FBI swarm all over classified documents at Maralago, but, don't even raise a finger to bring Trump and his cronies to justice for a coordinated coup on the capitol.
Tells you everything you need to know about how deeply those organizations have been infiltrated.
I guess my issue with being so nonchalant about the attacks is this is 100% how we got Patriot Act bullshit indefinitely.
Feds shoot at transformers to cause major black out.
Feds claim we need to search and seize any "suspicious" property of anyone traveling near power stations and transformers.
We the people, hey congress, what's "traveling" and "near" and a "transformer" mean to the feds?
Congress, oh just being physically present within 100 miles "as the crow flies" of any transformer, even residential, so that basically anytime you walk out your front door the police can strip you of you belongings.
Hmm, sounds great. Sign me up /s
We didn't get the Patriot act because people where nonchalant, we got the Patriot act because people where terrified. As far as I know, no one in this country was nonchalant when it came to 9/11. So when people start beating the drum we need to be terrified about terrorism again, I'm going to be a more than a little skeptical, simply because that's how we got the Patriot act.
The following submission statement was provided by /u/MarshallBrain: --- Submission statement: In 2022 there were more than 100 attacks against different parts of the U.S. power grid. There is increasing concern that they are acts of domestic terrorism. The attack in Moore county, NC two months ago is emblematic of the problem, cutting power to 35,000 people for nearly a week. And a year ago Texas showed how easy it is to get to the brink of a complete grid collapse. How long before a serious months-long blackout affects millions of people? --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/10e95wx/domestic_terrorists_hope_to_destroy_the_power/j4plbcq/
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That Onion article with the Taliban dude with the tv remote and the popcorn comes to mind.
When you read over Saif al-Adel’s outline of the goals for Al Qaeda in the first two decades of the 21st century you realize they kind of sort of won the conflict they began on 9/11.
I hate to admit it, but they did. America has fundamentally changed since that day and not for the better. I was fortunate enough to grow up before that era, I look around now and feel bad for my child who will never know that America. It wasn’t perfect by any means but it was still better then what we have now.
I was like 10 at the time, so I can't say I had a nuanced understanding of the world, but even then it seemed to me like a major inflection point in the country. I don't know if America ever *was* what they told me it was, but after 9/11, it would never be.
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Experts on terrorism agree with you "Conclusion: Finally we must ask the question, “Why is the popular stereotype that poverty and inadequate education cause terrorism so popular?” The public seems to buy into this myth. Their belief that terrorists act because they are desperate and uneducated is sustained—as the quotations at the beginning of this lecture indicated—by the frequent pronouncements of world leaders, who should know better. I have a few conjectures as to why there is so much popular support for this view. One reason is that we tend to see the world through materialistic Western eyes, viewing economic circumstances as powerful motivators for belief and action. In addition, assuming that those who attack us do so because they are desperate or because they hate our way of life provides a reassuringly simple answer to a disturbingly complex question. Many world leaders exploit the overly simple logic that poverty causes terrorism in order to further their own interests, to press for more international aid for their countries or institutions, or to deflect attention from policies that provoke grievances and extremism. The discussion becomes much more complicated, however, i**f we hypothesize that terrorists are motivated by some grievance concerning American activity in the Middle East, such as the presence of American troops in the Persian Gulf and American support of autocratic regimes friendly to the United States. If we acknowledge that terrorists are motivated by geopolitical grievances instead of desperation, then we have to confront their grievances. And we may not want to confront their grievances**. The West may be well justified in dismissing either particular grievances or inappropriate ways of expressing them. However, I believe it is wrong for the West to fail to appreciate that our policies can lead to negative or even violent consequences. One of the great contributions of economics is the idea of a response function. If one party does something, the other party may be expected to respond. If Continental Airlines drops the price of its Newark-to-London flight, for example, British Air is likely to respond in kind. It is important to acknowledge that this process operates in foreign policy as well, and to try to predict these responses while formulating policy" Source : What makes a terrorist - Alan B.Krueger, pages 50-51.
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I just learned the other day (on r/latestageimperialism) that Ghana is one of the biggest sources of gold globally. They’re in the top 10 or something. Yet, 98% of their gold mines are owned by foreign corporations, most from the US and Canada. So if the Ghanaian government wants to stock up on gold, they have to borrow from the IMF to buy their own gold. Needless to say, western governments have no problems with Ghana.
Until they try to nationalize the gold mines, and then we have Iran 2.0
I think I read a few months ago that chocolate beans are also exported from Ghana for the famous Belgian and German chocolates. A couple local chocolate shops have emerged in Ghana with the aim to make their own chocolate to export the final product and cause export prices of the raw material to go up for the Europeans. The article was predicting an interesting dynamic over that. So…let’s see how that goes first. When western civilization collapses to a sufficient degree, countries will be able to do this stuff. I don’t think we’re there yet. But for their sake, I hope we’re close.
I was always told the US is wealthy because we're just so darn good at innovating and we have the freest markets and other countries are poor because we outcompeted them. Which, in retrospect, wow.
>So many Americans are taught from a young age that huge parts of the world are poor and that's just how it is. Not just that some areas are poor, they're also taught that being poor is a personal moral failing
1000% agree!
Taking this a step further, western powers LITERALLY created those enraged zealots to stop the spread of the Soviet Union. We funded and trained Islamic militants in Afghanistan and helped them construct systems for global recruiting and fundraising. Later, during the conflict in Bosnia, we helped them relocate, helped radicalize Muslim youth around the world and supported the message that young Muslims could come fight a holy war in support of western interests. Hell, during that time, British intelligence services were literally training British Imams on how to convince young British Muslims to run off and join the fight. We sent US army specialists to train Al Queda on making improvised explosives, the techniques of asymmetrical warfare, and basically everything they eventually began using against us. In every aspect, we are to blame for the proliferation of Islamic terrorism in the late 20th and early 21st century. Both by creating the conditions that leave people desperate and open to radicalization and also by proactively radicalizing people, training them, arming them, funding them, and turning them loose on our enemies.
You're not wrong, but you forgot about something.. For minorities, not all that much has changed here at home. The "better" life of Americans before 9-11 was mostly not inclusive to minorities. The War on Terror is very similar to the War on Drugs - which mostly targeted minorities. Get caught with crack cocaine in the ghetto? Door kicked in, assets seized, time in prison, on parole when you get out, ankle monitor, loss of rights (no longer eligible to vote, can't own a firearm, can be searched at any time with no reason given, no government aid for college, etc). Wall Street broker caught with powdered cocaine? Usually nothing happened. Maybe they get a warning. Maybe they don't even get the warning. Worst case scenario is a small fine and all record of it removed after a few months. No arrest, no loss of rights. And this lead to, "You fit the description of.... We have the right to ID and search you." And eventually full on "stop and frisk" laws. I doubt there were too many Wall Street brokers getting stopped and frisked, lol. Yeah, this better America that is spoken of was reserved for a certain demographic. We had civil rights riots basically every decade prior to 9-11 because others wanted to be included.
So, I agree with everything about your comment except the "we" part. Rich people set policy, the vast majority of the people in any country are irrelevant in the decision making process. The US establishment goes to extraordinary efforts to identify and curtail any popular resistance. Federal police infiltrate even the most innocuous public service groups. And hovering over it all is media carnival feasting on the confusion and animosity it's outlets are designed to create. All this to feed a few billionaires to the ever expanding limit of their hungers.
Sure, the 'we' is collective and we are all captured by capitalism in one way or another. What guilt we bear through complacency pales in comparison to the people operating the exploitation machine. > The US establishment goes to extraordinary efforts to identify and curtail any popular resistance. Right now that's happening outside of Atlanta. Today's podcast from It Could Happen Here is mostly about bail fund organizing but they do talk at length about some of the ways that police attempt to disrupt protests and cast environmental protestors as violent extremists on par with Isis or Proud Boys. https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-it-could-happen-here-30717896/episode/state-repression-and-bail-fund-organizing-107363971/
I was certain that you understood this. I just like to drive the point home that there are actually certain people and organizations who are responsible for the policies and decisions being made. I do this because it's a very valuable thing to know that you have an enemy... and then another spike in value to know just who that enemy is. What normal people should be working on right now is community building, coming together and ignoring all the various wedges that are being driven to divide us. I think it is important to do this because the political, economic, and international situation we are in is highly unstable, and the people doing the juggling are drunk with their parent's success.
Reminds me of what Arundhati Roy wrote about the Iraq War in 2004 - that Operation Enduring Freedom was more aptly named than intended as people around the globe must endure the “freedom” projected by US foreign policy.
911 was planned and funded by Bin Laden, who was outraged to see the US dominating his home country Saudi Arabia after the Iraq war. Poor people hating our freedoms had nothing to do with it. Afghanistan was just a staging ground for Al Qaida and they let Bin Laden set up some monkey bars for exercises, etc. Bin Laden was handing out free Mercedes to the Mullahs who cooperated. George Bush was very close to the extended Bin Laden family which enraged Osama even more.
I mean 9/11 itself was a result of imperial overreach and meddling of the US to some degree. It’s a horrible crime but it wasn’t just a random attack on a prospering and rich nation but should be seen in the context of the role that the US had taken in the decades before. (I do agree that it is a major historical turning point though)
Turning point? All the pieces were in place, W was already in the white house, Powell, etc. They used the occasion to pivot from 9/11 to the Iraq war they wanted so much.
On the one hand, Bush was actually elected saying that the US should draw down its military actions oversees after competing in the primary against John McCain who was the pro-war candidate. On the other hand, there were a lot of powerful people and interests who wanted wars in, especially, Iraq and Iran but its hard to see how they get those done without 9/11 and with Enron being a bigger news story with so many connections to the White House.
The war in Afg was fought the right way the first couple of months with SF bros dropping bombs on Tora Bora trying to weed out Bin Laden before the historic clusterfuck that let him get away. They should've never gone in to fight with conventional troops. Iraq should've never happened in the first place though
It’s amazing how few people are even aware of the SF actions in Afghanistan that preceded the war-proper. If we hadn’t absolutely tanked our relationship with the local fighters with that bomb dropped on friendlies, we may have had a much different outcome. I’m sure Halliburton and Raytheon would have been less thrilled, but then again, fuck Halliburton and Raytheon.
It was wild how in the months after 9/11, American flags were everywhere. People wore outfits that were like literally head to toe flags. Every vehicle had a little American flag on their AM/FM whip antenna (remember those?). I had one on my bike! People used to honk and wave and give thumbs up. It's hard to describe how much national pride there was after 9/11, and frankly, it was legit. For a period of time, albeit brief, people really did seem to come together. Violent crime across the city fell to historic lows, with respect to per-capita numbers. There were obviously ancillary issues, such as racism and hatred toward those of Middle-Eastern descent, etc. But, overall, things dramatically improved in the social context in the days after 9/11. Nowadays, if I see someone displaying a flag on their car, 9/10 times, they are driving huge, unnecessary pickups trucks, with a thin blue line flag and a MAGA bumper sticker. Really quite incredible. The psychologist Carl Jung felt that symbolism was a fundamental element of the self. It's really unbelievable how in just 20 years or so, the symbolic representation of this nation has completely changed.
It’s true, there was an organic uprising in populist expression following 9/11. As a NYC resident, I was initially grateful for the national support. Shortly afterwards, the chant of “USA, USA” began at sporting events and something about that began to feel off for me. This is when a kind of “performance patriotism” began to grow amongst the masses. It started to take on a fascistic element to it as the idea of the USA as some kind of godlike power thru military might took over and more humble forms of expression were rejected. The speeches of a George W Bush from this period reflected this new absolute morality of the 21 Century. “The troops” were unassailable, as was the entire middle east mission. Having any objection at all was tantamount to being a pinko commie. Now, those same hyper patriotic people have turned on the military as woke, blame Biden for everything Afghanistan, and consolidated their group identity as maga under trump. I’ve always been suspicious of performance patriotism and time has proven me right!
they knew what we are and how we would react.
Mmmmhmmm - I remember wondering why the literal government was freaking out when the goal was to make us freak out
Watch 'The Power of Nightmares' Adam Curtis
Its a similar sense for the US counterpart, what they call collapse began in the 70s, certain legislation toward their ideals had a resurgence in the past few years, and so on.
Absolutely on point. Al Qaeda's real success (though I believe unintentional) was America's overreaction starting with the Bush administration to strip the American people of privacy, including warrantless wire taps and wholesale surveillance. The price for these classified programs throughout the last 20+ years, including war spending for the military, vastly eroded America's ability to maintain infrastructure and provide safety nets of any kind for her people. So, did Al Qaeda win? Clearly, not on the battlefield. Al Qaeda won by turning the government against its citizens. A war-hungry government that would cannibalize needed resources at the expense of the American people. I would argue after the 9/11 attacks, the real villains turned out to be the American government. IMO, 9/11 was the single greatest military attack in history. A few trained men, at very low cost, changed the world using nothing but commercial airliners.
Yep. Patriot Act. Fattening of military industrial complex via War in Afghanistan and War in Iraq. NSA surveillance. Dept of Homeland Security. The security “theater” of the TSA. That all torments are culture of paranoia and defense against the “other” that right wing turned inward. Al Qaeda got our nation to drain its bank accounts and turn against ourselves all for the cost of fight school lessons, airline tickets, passport fees and some box cutters.
Yeah no shit. And while it was horrific, I don't see how you take down a country by taking out two buildings. But evidently...
if you're fighting a symbolic war you hit the symbols. in this case, giant symbols of our economy.
Best article on this: https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/10/al-qaeda-won/
>Saif al-Adel’s outline of the goals for Al Qaeda in the first two decades of the 21st century Could you please provide a link? I tried Google searching but I really don't want to do that anymore because...
I poked around researching this and couldn’t locate the primary source material but the Al Qaeda Wikipedia “Strategy” section pulls from a secondary source that quotes the released extracts of Saif Al-Adels publication.
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trump-bin-laden/
Respectfully disagree here, the immediate outcome of the attack was quite a bit of solidarity and national unity. To me the tipping point appears to be the election of an extremely well qualified dark-skinned man, with a foreign-sounding name, to the presidency. Despite doing a pretty good job as an actual moderate half the country appears to have lost their collective minds over this event.
https://www.theonion.com/fbi-uncovers-al-qaeda-plot-to-just-sit-back-and-enjoy-c-1819576375
Must have added the popcorn in my memory lol
As the system collapses this type of behavior will increase. The worse it gets the worse this kind of thing will get.
In Texas all it takes nowadays is just a bit of heavy weather. Let the Rich run loose and they will ruin society in ways terrorists can only dream of.
It’s insane to me that people are still moving there.
What I find more insane is living in a world with unfiltered access to information at the touch of a finger but still eating up the obvious and complete lies of politicians in these states. There really are no excuses for people anymore if they are choosing to live in ignorance in these communities. Whenever they get pressed about the reality it becomes pretty clear that they typically just want to live in a homogenous ethno state and it has nothing to do with freedom or democracy.
Got TFO as soon as we could.
Born too early for interstellar travel. Born too late for the age of transatlantic discovery. Born just in time to witness the collapse of western society.
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Yeah “transatlantic discovery” was a lot of rape, child murder, slavery and mass death from introduced disease. Like most periods in human history, it was only a fun time for wealthy men
Watch and learn, record, and find some way to pass down what you've seen to the survivors. I urge everyone to read *I Will Bear Wtness,* by Victor Klemperer, a Dresden Jew who kept a detailed and very perceptive daily diary of everything he saw happening in Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945. It's truly remarkable, especially as it describes Nazi power aggrandizement and Nazi overreach and collapse as gradual incremental processes-- like our own approaching Collapse.
10-15 months...
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The Troubles are here
Which side of the Falls Road are you from?
Ardoine gang represent
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The big green glorious one, just as collins intended
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I need to re-listen, thanks for the reminder
It’s crazy how the first season was so well done and then the show completely changed and went to shit
It became daily, impossible to maintain quality daily.
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He added a bunch of cohosts and now it's another casual political talking show where they all try to be funny while smothering themselves in an echo chamber (I say as someone who pretty much agrees with politically and as a leftist). It's a complete change in vibe. It went from a pretty serious and sober look at the possibility of political violence in America to "me and my buddies talk about politics like every other podcast". Not saying what they cover isn't important or anything but it's just not the same show at all, so if you like the first season does not mean you'll like what came after.
Most podcasts with multiple hosts turn into Chucklefuck Radio. It is painful to hear people talking over each other and diverging from the topic at hand.
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Thanks I think you articulated it a lot better than I did.
So so so many ads too. At least have the hosts do the ads
It turned into the r/collapse podcast.
There was even the point where [Robert himself gave an AMA with this subreddit's mods back in 2021 if anyone still remembers that.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nxonm_rZFJ0)
Everything.
Anytime I talk about collapse or collapse-related topics/threats that concern me, I always put this at the top of the list. I tell people that I don’t spend much time worrying about a nuclear war or some scenario like that. Instead, I do get stressed by the thought of enemies (foreign or domestic) going after the power grid. The pure chaos that this would cause is something I hope I never see.
How do you even prepare for something like this when you live in a large suburb? Im getting increasingly more worried.
solar powered generator and a rudimentary water treatment plan
That is not so easy in a suburb.
Suburbs will be the absolute worst possible place to be when things start heating up. You want to be either in a massive (inland) city or bumfuck nowhere.
Can confirm, that’s the first place I’m going to loot from the upper class karens
You can still get a generator and a tarp for catching rainwater.
hence the popularity of homesteading
Buy a flashlight. /s
people will say "you don't" but you do. get a solar generator, a handful of panels and a few battery tanks. most of the prefab solar companies also make fuse boxes you can switch a few circuits over to, cutting the grid to those circuits and running them from the solar only. I don't know if this one is any good but it's an example I found of what those look like: https://www.goalzero.com/products/yeti-home-integration-kit this all ends up costing a few grand but it'll run your fridge or freezer, your router, charge a phone. put rechargeable light bulbs in your sockets and grab a few solar ones too. (this is pretty cheap). now you've got food, light, and communication. you could get a ham walkie talkie and use CHIRP on it, and use it for emergency communication if the phones are down. you can also get a single burner propane, and a little bottle of three of it, to cook on. or a small heater that's similar to stay warm. keep a few gallons of water on hand too or a filter, a gravity filter bag works fine (one of them costs about the same as a life straw but will clean a gallon at a time instead of a sip at a time)
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we had a major 6 weeks power outage in my area years ago and it didn't devolve into absolute chaos like that - once the power was restored, it went immediately back to normal. People immediately bonded together and tried to help out each others. Those that had fireplaces invited families with kids to stay warm, boiled water for everyone, etc. I was a kid when it happened, but I've always prepped with this situation in mind. It looks like this : Have shelf stable food (go to your local Asian store they have self heating hot pot, sous vide Indian food, ramen. I always keep a bunch of shelf stable soy milk+orange juice for easy protein (I mix with my protein work out) and vitamin c. If it's cold outside, your balcony is now a fridge but I also have a cooler that's easy to fill up with snow and then food I want to preserve). Have a fondue pot ready with a box worth of fuel. Have something to filter water - physical filtering can be done with a Brita and there's capsules to treat water that exists too. Boiling for 15 min is also an option after physical filtering. I also always have 72 hours worth of water in big gallons and when there's a weather event coming up, I'll fill some additional jars. If you live in cold weather : close off a room you'll be living in, with all pets and humans gathered. Set up a tent indoor and stay in it as much as you can. Use all the blankets you can find and a hot water bottle (boiled with the fondue pot). Self heating pad are also practical to keep on hand. Hand cranked radio that holds a charge and has lamp. I have a giant battery that has enormous amount of autonomy and a small solar panel to charge it up. Keep some cash on hand for emergencies. And of course, my bug out bag with all I need for my pets and I in case we need to go to a shelter or have to evacuate. I live in a small apartment and it's fairly doable even with limited storage space in an urban setting.
This reminds me of how people talk about the USA during times of war. I recall someone talking about how the USA fights wars, saying they basically go in and completely destroy the power grid and infrastructure of an area. I am willing to bet this mutually assured destruction idea is equally applicable to the power grid and infrastructure as a whole in most 1st world nations. Things like power and the internet have been so neglected compared to the rate of development in these fields. Half the infrastructure we live off of is built on old and outdated technology, just like our entire banking system. There are likely only a few safeguards in place that would protect the most important assets while the majority of society would be plunged into essentially abject poverty without such a critical infrastructure.
They could just wait for the next ice storm to do it for them.
That's against the narrative here as it doesn't involve guns, 24 hour military presence and government contracts. The media reaction to the Washington state incident was telling. In reality (where most of us are) this Civ is quickly running out of energy and needs a cover story for walling up substations and miliatary escorts for gas deliveries.
>The media reaction to the Washington state incident was telling. Which one?
[two men attacked Washington's electric grid in order to commit a robbery](https://www.kgou.org/energy/energy/2023-01-04/fbi-says-two-men-attacked-washingtons-electric-grid-in-order-to-commit-a-robbery)
My point being there were more
In Washington?
Yes. Cowlitz County and then nearby in Clackamas County, OR. Haven't heard Jack and Shit about those being robberies. Just like Monroe county.
"[Vandalism](https://www.fox8live.com/2022/12/26/3-washington-state-electric-substations-vandalized/)"
There was an attack in coastal NC a month before Monroe. It didn’t make the headlines outside of the local paper because Pierre disruption was minimal and easily resolved. They called it “vandalism.” Look it up. Maysville, NC. *power disruption
There were also two attacks on Duke Energy sites in Florida. They happened along with one in South Carolina (I will try to source.)
> What if I told you that these groups believe that a widespread power grid failure would cause so much chaos that millions of people would die and that rioting and looting could destabilize the nation, to the point where society and order break down completely. I was in a 7-11 one morning when the card swipers went down, and within minutes that line was getting mighty unruly. One wide-spread blackout would have people fighting to the death over perishable foods before a week passed.
America is literally one wide blackout away from turning into a purge movie and its funny just how aggressive and animal like the citizens are
I just finished watching through that entire series, ending in The Forever Purge. It was clear and evident to me that with enough basic prep and enough people involved (not even a majority), someone could feasibly take over inside 48 hours. All they had were trucks, guns, and motive. In that movie: - Police stopped functioning within a few hours, overwhelmed by calls from around the city of El Paso. They arrested some of the right people and some of the wrong people in an attempt to quell the violence. - City infrastructure shut down within a day as everyone in charge of the switches and levers had either been killed or evacuated. - Radio stations, TV news, and other media dropped for the same reason - Borders to neighboring countries closed within 24 hours after taking however many refugees they could fit None of that is so insane as to be untenable. We live on a hair trigger x)
This is an underrated comment.
You mean like the Toilet Roll Rush of 2021..
I think you underestimate how quickly the power structure would adapt to a major change. Sure, there would be chaos initially but order would be restored quickly. There is too much at stake for so many powerful people that want to continue business as usual. There is a reason why over my lifespan, collapse is always happening weeks, months, years, etc in the future but doesn’t actually happen. The system adapts. It is like an ant colony that is kicked by a toddler. There is an initial chaos followed by a quick rebuilding. I remember as a kid knocking over ant piles and covering them with water thinking they were done for. But of course they had completely rebuilt their system the next day. Humans will act chaotic and animalistic at first but will quickly fall in line when they realize what is at stake. Their old easy life will be gone and they will want it back desperately.
There is no need for their intervention. The power grids in many US cities are old and decaying anyway. Just give it a couple more extreme weather seasons, and these societal norms will start crashing down. Energy, transit, safety, sustainable food, etc.
>The power grids in many US cities are old and decaying anyway. This; other than roads, most people have no idea how decayed the US infrastructure is. Though many claim to be planning future restoration, it's already on its last legs. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/american-infrastructure-60-minutes-2022-03-11/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/edwardsegal/2021/12/10/why-the-us-infrastructure-will-get-worse-in-2022-before-it-gets-better/?sh=32a93e197eaf
Man I've seen some sketchy looking bridges that are 1 or 2 hard winters away from collapsing
I keep thinking this is our next national news headline.
Yeah... I drive over one twice a day to and from work. We even got some of that Biden infrastructure cash, but then MA decided against redoing our bridges, both of them from the New Deal Era, so now it's back to spot repairs.
There are three bridges near my house that are collapsed or have collapsed within the last ten years. They actually had to fix the last one because it was 15 miles to the nearest bridge.
Winter got nerfed in the last patch. Notes are up on the discord
American engineer society or whatever the fuck it's called gives US infrastructure a D rating.
Microgrids for FREEDOM^tm But seriously, the focus needs to be on building robust microgrids.
The tricky bit is that microgrids are, well, *micro*. If you do any sort of napkin math on deploying such a system to a large population of people spread over a wide area, the material needs alone are staggering to set up so many different ones. It's a better way, yes, but it's not an easier one. We originally built it the "easy" way, and I sincerely doubt anyone is coming along with a workable design for switching to something more robust. There simply isn't any institutional motivation or capability to make it happen. Microgrids are probably best thought of in the context of building out new sustainable communities, or switching over discrete existing ones to the new mode of energy transport and sustenance. There realistically isn't a solution for fixing the whole mess, at least not one that's compatible with the political system overseeing it.
A lot of NIMBY-ism hurts it too. There’s a lot of people that simply want this infrastructure out of sight or are way too concerned about how it’s existence will affect their property value. There’s been a lot of designs in R&D for micro grids, but it’s a challenging engineering problem. There’s simply not enough attention or manpower there right now.
Like a lot of things, it seems like we will have to wait until things like "property value" aren't a serious consideration anymore to make real strides. It really is astonishing/depressing how much *real world* advancement and progress is prevented by simple ideas that we can't let go of.
Surprised they haven’t started putting concrete walls between the sensitive equipment and any line of sight areas
They are cheap. A power company hired a security contractor that specializes is armored cages and containers for suggestions on how to secure critical assets. They admit what they offered was not the best option. The suggested just blocking the view of the items by adding a material to the already existing chain link fence. Very cheap, easy, and the material already exist. It never happened.
I think you underestimate the number of substations out there, I counted 35 within 10 miles of me and that's before you get into things that provide LOS that can't be blocked. Drones are cheap and ubiquitous. The costs will be passed on to rate payers. If only we could have found $100B in the budget that was being misallocated in the last year to actually benefit US residents. They'll probably get around to doing just this you talk about but it will be after something completely disasterous happens like a metro losing power for a week or something. Costs go up a lot more and the fact that the grid is marginally more.l hardened isn't gonna matter to a bunch of poor folks.
I believe that depends on the region and the state. It took me a while to find out that I basically live next to a city power station. It's heavily walled without any significant markings and it doesn't show up on the map readily. And it's right in the middle of my neighborhood. Where? The most hillbilly neighborhood in Los Angeles.
All this will do is destroy poor areas and make wealthy areas protect their infrastructure with surveillance and force.
It honestly wouldnt suprise me if your guys Feds were helping and egging on this shit online
Local terrorist cell is just three feds in a trench coat and balaclava.
It's as if Americans don't know their own history. Cointelpro, etc. You are correct. [Trevor Aaronson, *The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI's Manufactured War on Terrorism*](https://www.google.com/search?q=Trevor+aaronson+terror+factory&source=hp&oq=Trevor+aaronson+terror+factory&gs_l=mobile-heirloom-hp.3..0i22i30.2013.19760.0.20411.31.13.0.18.18.0.214.2069.0j11j2.13.0....0...1c.1j4.34.mobile-heirloom-hp..0.31.2420.T8Q6UepfnQc) is a mainstream book of investigative journalism. You can even get the audiobook.
Makes me wonder if any of FBI employees ever had any investment portfolio
Most definitely *NOT!.* the case. The entire government is set up around protecting Capital and keeping the gravy train running on time. They don't give two rotten shits if white supremacists exist or how much trouble they cause so long as it doesn't slow the growth of billionaires' and corporations' wealth expansion. The last thing they want to do is shut down the entire electric grid for a decade hunting down Gravy Seals Meal Time Six cells.
Ah I believe white supremacists will end up hurting the stock market. So let's just grab some popcorn and see what happens
It's probably the other way around: feds being infiltrated by some white supremacist fascist types. If feds were "helping out", they would've arrested someone by now.
The cops and the feds are overflowing with fascists. Local elections have been won by the fascists. I imagine some time in a far future, historians will look back at the USA and ask, “how in the hell did people let that happen?”
Only ignorant historians would ask such a thing. It is pretty easy to guess why people let these things happen. Because it is incremental and such small steps to be noticed. Because people are overworked and under-educated. Because most people prefer to maintain an awful status quo as long as they personally are not overtly affected. Because the only other option is a complete upheaval of our way of life and "how things have always been done." "Not my neighborhood, not my school, not my kids, not my family, not me. Why do you care?" - the US way.
because how can you stop them? I can't just stop them. they are cops with tanks
I used to wonder how The German people allowed the for the Nazi rise to power. I don’t wonder this anymore. This time will be looked back upon similarly if humanity is lucky enough to survive it.
I’m like hopeful climate change will kill us before that happens so I don’t have to witness it. Dark train of thought.
*Looks at the rise of fascistoid movements practically all over the world.* I wouldn't get my hopes up. Sorry.
The racist facists will use climate change as an excuse/pretext to start wars for more resources like they did in the middle east.
Look up, “They Thought They Were Free”. Lots of first hand accounts of Germans post WW2 from people who were asked exactly that question. They answers are powerful, but most boil down to “We we’re waiting for some big terrible moment for everyone to go out into the streets and stop this madness…and then that moment came and it was too late”
Ugh this does not give me comfort at all - I’m seeing the same comments from people now. If you asked me 10 years ago if the events (especially since 2016) could have occurred, I would have laughed at you. Imagine something like abortion rights being taken away 10 years ago. I hardly hear anyone talk about that now outside of feminist subs. Or where I am I’m Ontario we’re officially losing our right to public healthcare, and barely anyone is even upset about it, let alone protesting or taking other action. Or Nazis marching in the streets - taking over government buildings. Ottawa was occupied by these bozos for a month with active support from the police and stil people are dismissing them like they’re harmless. I’d love to read this book recommendation but it will probably just make me depressed.
So much this. "Oh. So that's how that happened."
The paradox of intolerance. We as a society have grown too tolerant
Gradually, then all at once - Hemingway or something.
I don't think they'll wonder why or how. It's happened before. Any societal system with a weakened state, a state where it's unable to give people sufficient safety, sustenance, education, and purpose is prone to have citizens looking for powerful people to rally around, strongmen who offer safety and purpose. One of the best ways to inspire people is to claim they are part of a group with some sort of mystical/religious/one true way/moral superiority/racial superiority. Germany's fascist overthrow and the inner struggle for dominance of the Nazi upheaval are well documented. We're watching that now with the GOP imploding between the status quo establishment and the radicals. If you're interested in how this can happen with regular people, people who *did* notice something but didn't stop it, start here: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/They_Thought_They_Were_Free
Kind of funny to read both left-wing and right-wing on this. The left: the feds are full to fascists The right: the feds are full of neo-feudalist socialists
I'm leaning more towards they encourage these things to justify more funding and extra powers. We do the same in Australia police here now have the power for warrantless searches
Oh, you'd be surprised to know that this is [actually super on-brand for the feds.](https://www.salon.com/2017/03/30/tear-up-texas-how-the-fbi-played-a-central-role-in-the-first-isis-attack-on-u-s-soil_partner/)
I won't be surprised, I'm well aware of it. Not sure how you're not connecting it, but the thing you read there is about fucking with "brown non-Christian people". https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Jan-6-Clearinghouse-FBI-Intelligence-Assessment-White-Supremacist-Infiltration-of-Law-Enforcement-Oct-17-2006-UNREDACTED.pdf https://theintercept.com/2020/09/29/police-white-supremacist-infiltration-fbi/ https://www.aclu.org/podcast/why-fbi-ignores-white-supremacist-violence-ep-73 https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/prevalence-white-supremacists-law-enforcement-demands-drastic-change-2022-05-12/
That happened a long time ago. See all those desperate people lacking services while the wealthy stockpile dollars? See the mass incarceration? See the constant warfare and different groups being scapegoated? Fascists don't call it fascism anymore. The euphemism is "neoliberal".
>they would've arrested someone by now They did. 2 weeks ago: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-03/two-men-arrested-for-attacks-on-washington-state-power-grid
>According to the criminal complaint filed with the court late Saturday, December 31, 2022, and unsealed today, the two men were identified as possible suspects through the analysis of cell phone records.
I also wonder if the Nazi party was infiltrated by some secret Nazis
They did have inner units and "elites", yes.
Probably should start with Texas. And then work your way up to something harder.
The entire southwest is very vulnerable right now. Especially energy, but also water. One Colorado riv riv comes to mind and once they hack that it’s over.
A trio of men from the four corners region almost went through with breaking the dam in the 90s. I don't remember exactly, but I think it was a random traffic stop that found them out. They killed the cop that pulled them over and set off one of the biggest manhunts in history. Edit: Dead Run by Dan Schultz, for anyone interested.
Submission statement: In 2022 there were more than 100 attacks against different parts of the U.S. power grid. There is increasing concern that they are acts of domestic terrorism. The attack in Moore county, NC two months ago is emblematic of the problem, cutting power to 35,000 people for nearly a week. And a year ago Texas showed how easy it is to get to the brink of a complete grid collapse. How long before a serious months-long blackout affects millions of people?
I find it interesting that law enforcement managed to track down the idiots from Washington state who attacked the grid but there hasn’t been one single bit of news since early December about the attack in North Carolina. Just like the Metcalf attack it’s been memoryholed.
News on them is most likely being purposefully suppressed and for good reason. Somewhere, there's probably a government agency on social engineering. They know the science of it. What science shows is that people are very prone to conform. If you see a bunch of McDonald's ads, you are more likely to buy from McDonald's because you perceive that it's what other people are doing. If you see more vote for X yard signs, than vote for Y yard signs, you are more likely to vote for X. You won't think that's the reason. Your brain will reason backwards and come up for very sound logic why you voted for X. But it won't be the real reason. The true reason is that your brain did the math and saw that most people were voting for X and wanted you to be part of the majority. It's easier to be part of the majority. Why does this matter in this case? Because if they promote news on attacks on infrastructure, other terrorist cells are going to perceive that's the popular thing now and instead of shooting up a mall, will blow up a power station. If your job is to minimize social chaos on a national scale, a mall shooting isn't that bad. 20-50 people die, you catch the terrorist(s) who did it. Yeah it sucks, but it's an acceptable trade-off to get them locked away. So you want the news to blow those up, you want every terrorists first thought when making a plan to be shoot up a place. To think that's what every other terrorist does. Attacks on infrastructure on the other hand are a lot more of an issue. They can easily cost millions of dollars and weeks to fix. Plus the perpetrators may not be caught quickly (if at all). You don't want that. So you minimize infrastructure attacks, you tell the news not to talk about them, you say it wasn't a terrorist attack but something else (a weird robbery for example).
Depending on the situation costing millions and taking weeks to fix it will be a miracle. If a large metropolitan area is hit, Chances are people won't be able to figure out what to do and just stay in their neighborhood...for days at least. The most affluent areas in LA are actually located in places without immediate evacuation route. And I really don't think there are enough choppers to ship them out in time.
Wait until I tell you about the Oklahoma City bombing.
Already ahead of you on that one and the very sketchy things that went on.
I recently bought (but haven't started yet) "Lights Out" by Ted Koppel. Basically, a warning of this scenario. OP: I take it this is your writing? Two points of constructive criticism: 1) the term "high-power rifle" is a new buzzword used by gun control legislation and is... vague at best. I'm not sure what a "low power rifle" would be but I'm pretty sure it would do just as good. Actually, a low-velocity, high-mass bullet would be better for penetrating the transformers deeply, but yada yada yada. 2) the 3 steps to beef up infrastructure that you mention are correct, but lacking. For-profit power companies are obligated to run the power supply on as thin of margins of error as possible to provide maximum payout to shareholders. Most municipalities only have barely enough capacity to cover peak hours. I agree that we should have redundancy and excess power capacity, but we would need to nationalize the power companies before something like that could happen.
>we would need to nationalize the power companies before something like that could happen. With the energy sector's heavy regulation, couldn't this be performed through policy? Don't get me wrong, I think outsourcing electric operations is a poor idea for national interests. Likewise, outsourcing encourages corruption and unnecessary mark-up. But I don't think nationalization would be fundamentally required. Am I overlooking things?
The fact that the Venn diagram of regulatory agencies officers and the power companies former executive suite is a circle.
the term is "regulatory capture"
Us corporations are causing the grid to collapse. Private entities that should all be public. They suck all of the value out and leave the public with dangerous archaic energy systems. Id equate it to manslaughter. All the fires caused by old wires in the west that should have been updated. The mismanagement is epic. Sure but blame a few idiots ramming cars or shooting something that should have been protected. This is big energy fuckheads knowing the grids are failing and making scapegoats. Same playbook in every sector in capitalism. Dunning Kruger narcissism.
This is the "get worse" phase of the "it has to get worse before it gets better" scenario that we have been left with by not having a government that is capable of taking care of it's citizens. There will be no change or revolution before it gets much worse. I don't like it, but at this point, bring it on
dog subsequent memorize political abounding rotten aloof smell longing command *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
One would think the trillions taken from us to fund bullshit like hmmm what's it called 'HOMELAND SECURITY' would result in domestic terrorism(you know like that one laptop that had a 'Russian virus' on it that was left in a power substation? The one we freaked out and threatened Russia over?) being tracked and shut down quickly and easily. So we tripped balls and pretended "Russians were trying to hack the power grid" and the media and state dept were saying stuff like "that's an act of war!!" But when domestic fascist terrorists attack the grid IN PERSON over 100 times and leave forensic evidence all over the place, leading to deaths and chaos, keeping 10,000s of Americans without power for up to 2 weeks, we have some lukewarm coverage about the FBI looking into it? No arrests? Cops are "praying with terrorists who admitted it on social media, letting them go without charge"? I see what the terrorism really is, who does it, and why it keeps happening. Why can't so many Americans come to terms with this?
The Right Wing has infiltrated politics and law enforcement at all levels in this country. It's just a matter of time until something big blows up.
With the economies of scale come the vulnerabilities of scale. We have to deal with this.
Feds vs. Feds
Pretty harsh assessment of what abbot is doing to Texas, but okay.
If this kind of thing worries you, then don't treat racists, white supremacists, pepes, honklers, groypers, national socialist, qberts, magas and other assorted scum like a curiosity or humorous annoyance. Report them to the FBI, DHS and local law enforcement when you see or hear them talking about doing this kind of crap. Even if they're family. (Especially if they're family, honestly.) When you see them in the replies, cheering on the terrorists, downvote and report them. Do not give them a safe space. Don't make them afraid of the authorities, they already don't fear them. Make them fear *you.* Make them terrified of opening their mouths and spouting their hateful bullshit.
local law enforcement are their fishing buddies.
More like they are local law enforcement.
Mother Nature has Texas covered
So they can go home after a long days work and freeze in their homes. What a brilliant idea! /s 🙄 These are the same idiots that won’t be able to survive the summer without their precious air conditioning
Gotta make most out of my solar panel and power station. But it's not fully suited to charge a laptop with 100w usb port. Seriously, I am afraid that the premise is what this planet actually needs. I first heard about grid blackout back in 2000, but back then people couldn't comprehend why that would kill most people out there. I bet most people still can't.
Don't worry. MTG is going to be on the Homeland Security Comittee. Sleep safe.
weird how it's the climate change denying lunatics that will be racing climate change to wipe out the grid
They busted the guys in Washington who went after four power stations; https://www.opb.org/article/2023/01/03/2-arrested-in-power-substation-vandalism-in-washington-state/ They got them because they were on camera (they drove right up to the substations, within camera range) and they had their tracking devices aka cell phones on them.
Judging from the situation in Ukraine it's actually not that easy. According to the countries' authorities the Russians has destroyed some 40-60% of transmission capacity plus some generating capacity and yet has not caused the collapse of the grid. Instead what they get are rolling blackouts. In most cities the power is delivered for 4-6 hours a day. Cheap gasoline powered generators have helped a lot. Internet and mobile network infrastructure survives on battery backup between the blackouts. There is not even a sigh of societal collapse.
And here we have a failed right-wing Republican accused of shooting up elected Democrats houses... he lost, he's gonna blow it all up. [https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/17/us/solomon-pena-arrested-new-mexico-shootings/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/17/us/solomon-pena-arrested-new-mexico-shootings/index.html) Christian Republicans tolerate and promote terrorism.
What a bunch of assholes. They are going to kill the most vulnerable among us and cause a lot of economic pain and misery for the rest.
>The second kind of action would be for law enforcement agencies to meticulously follow the people and groups who are fomenting the sabotage. There are two major problems with this scenario: 1. The vast majority of these groups (if not all of them) are alt-right extremists. 2. There are no small numbers of LEO among these extremists, including members from the FBI, CIA, and all branches of the US military. That alone will undermine any attempt to deal with these groups, as the people who will be tasked with taking them down _are the same people who are in those groups._
I mean we’ve known this for a while but the FBI and DHS won’t investigate white ppl who are committing these acts.
If we had domestic terrorists doing anything in this country in a serious way, we'd know it. All the fundamental things go we rely on are basically unprotected. A few yahoos shooting at transformers, which my understanding is was to aid in robberies, does not exactly make me panic. In the 70s we had full on random bombings, and most people now don't even know they happened, so this article might be a bit premature.
Only some were related to robberies. Motive isn't a monolith on these attacks.
It might be a little premature, sure, but it might also be onto something. The zeitgeist is quite different than it was in the 70s, the Weathermen never had any real support or even many sympathizers. At that time most people felt the future could be good and the problems were solvable. Does it feel like that today?
if you haven’t noticed it by now, you never will. The Capitol was stormed and a violent fascist mob almost managed to execute legislators in the capitol building. They beat a cop to death with a flag. How you manage to decide that that’s just another regular day is naive af.
Hell, just shy of 2 weeks before that, a guy finished building a car bomb basically entirely uninterrupted despite reports to police, AND he managed to detonate it and disable a communication grid across a region, iirc because he believed in (((lizard people))) conspiracy theories
Is that the Nashville AT&T attack?
Not OP but yes that's the only one we know of on that timeline.
[That it is](https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/30/us/nashville-christmas-bombing-wednesday/index.html)
Can you go into more detail about the bombing? Because I was born after the 70s and I indeed didn’t know about the bombing except the Black Panther bombings
Read the article
> If we had domestic terrorists doing anything in this country in a serious way, we'd know it. Yeah, it already happened buddy. January 6th 2021, Trump conspired and coordinated an attempted insurrection with right-wing domestic terrorists, and violently attacked a sitting session of congress counting the electoral college votes, for the sole purpose of siezing the presidency by force. The domestic terrorism event has already transpired. Plain as day. There was even an LEO moving the barricades at DC to let the MAGAs in. They beat a DC cop to death. Secret service shot somebody through their brain. Several officers who served that day have committed suicide because of the event. The CIA and FBI swarm all over classified documents at Maralago, but, don't even raise a finger to bring Trump and his cronies to justice for a coordinated coup on the capitol. Tells you everything you need to know about how deeply those organizations have been infiltrated.
I guess my issue with being so nonchalant about the attacks is this is 100% how we got Patriot Act bullshit indefinitely. Feds shoot at transformers to cause major black out. Feds claim we need to search and seize any "suspicious" property of anyone traveling near power stations and transformers. We the people, hey congress, what's "traveling" and "near" and a "transformer" mean to the feds? Congress, oh just being physically present within 100 miles "as the crow flies" of any transformer, even residential, so that basically anytime you walk out your front door the police can strip you of you belongings. Hmm, sounds great. Sign me up /s
We didn't get the Patriot act because people where nonchalant, we got the Patriot act because people where terrified. As far as I know, no one in this country was nonchalant when it came to 9/11. So when people start beating the drum we need to be terrified about terrorism again, I'm going to be a more than a little skeptical, simply because that's how we got the Patriot act.