https://news.yahoo.com/california-doj-targets-leaderless-blm...
Pretty sure it would be unfair to dismiss the entire movement over the obvious massive corruption of its leaders.
Does it boggle your mind that many people who support BLM and believe that black lives matter aren't literal communists like that movement's leaders? People can support the general goals of a protest without being fully on board with the entire agenda of everyone involved.
Obviously his own morality and ethics play into it, but the crux of the matter is that we understand why people have beliefs like this, and how to resolve the problem. See the efforts of Daryl Davis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Davis
Daryl realized that most members of the KKK are down on their luck people who've been abused by the system for most of their lives. These people tend to look for scapegoats that they can rally their anger against. They have legitimate grievances that they channel into illegitimate beliefs, because of various failures of reasoning. These are not highly educated and powerful people with agendas.
The same kind of issues can be attributed to most anyone in a chronically bad situation.
It's about as much of a "gotcha" as attacking incels for being inept, frustrated, and lonely. Well, yeah.
That's why many people "overlook" things like this. Not because they agree with the sentiments that people like Pat King express, but because they understand three things:
1) The convoy protest isn't about Pat King's racist paranoia. It happens to be about a real problem that disenfranchises people. If anything, that could help people like Pat let go of their racist beliefs by realizing it's not just them with the problems.
2) Pat King is in no position to manifest his paranoid beliefs.
3) As condescending as it may be, poor and disenfranchised people tend to have problematic beliefs and behaviors; that doesn't mean they should be exiled. Otherwise, we'd wrongfully criminalize the homeless, drug addicted, and the mentally ill - which we often do, actually.
So, painting the convoy movement as fundamentally racist because you found out that there are vulnerable people involved is disingenuous and does nothing to solve the real issues that caused it. We all know what the goal of the convoy is: to drop the covid mandates.
That said, the convoy does lose it's legitimacy by not addressing the problem of people like Pat King, even as a propaganda smear. What I've just said is probably the gist of what they're thinking about it, but they haven't articulated this in public. However, I've heard them arguing about this on their Zello channel and from what I've heard they want to remove Pat King and are strongly against any racist sentiments.
The efficacy of his approach is worth investigating beyond the just-so descriptives used in your comment and the wikipedia article. Many of the people he claims to have converted are still avowed racists and klansmen.
> Many of the people he claims to have converted are still avowed racists and klansmen.
Where in the article did you get that? I'm sure some have "relapsed" for one reason or another, but that's not what was said here.
Also, what are you expecting exactly? 100% efficacy where they all turn into boy scouts? Have you ever worked with the homeless, or any kind of damaged people, gangs, etc. before? The "just-so" candour I use in this is because it's a well known and practiced approach in urban outreach programs that actually works to help people.
He's aiding and abetting the neo-Nazi movement by working to get many of them to doubt their negative beliefs - and putting in a good word for a couple of them in court?
This is golden bullshit, let's see the stats!
you say "let's see the stats"-- I agree, I'd like to see them. I'm skeptical. The stories in the article I linked (that racists he "converted" are actually using him as a shield while laughing at him in private) directly contradict your point. Maybe those stories are wrong. I'm open minded to that. But you and the wikipedia article you linked certainly haven't convinced me. When I say his story as told by you is "just-so", what I mean is that it's reductive, incurious, inch-deep.
"Candour" is an odd way to describe stenographical repetition of the same blurbs he uses to get booked as a paid speaker.
There's a real telling moment where he takes the time to straighten a klansman's white hood. People who are reading this comment are probably wondering if I'm joking right now. I encourage you to look into it
I’ll take a pass on the political stuff, but this is similar to what Michael Moore was saying prior to the 2016 elections in the US. Paraphrasing, he said we were about to see how many upset, middle aged, white people feel like they’ve been disenfranchised because a lot of them would vote for Trump with the sentiment that if no one is trying to fix the system for them they figure it might as well be broken for everyone.
That was the first time I realized Trump might get elected. I understand the sentiment, but breaking the system completely will just make things worse for those people. Wealthy people can capitalize on instability. Poor people can’t.
There are many reasonable people involved in this, and those are the people we should be focusing on. Seriously, unless you want more Trumpism then the valid issues need to be addressed.
My comment was not meant to be pedantic, I don't think its ridiculous to use the term Nazi to refer to someone that espouses ideas like that guy. I think its a misrepresentation to classify this entire thing and all the people donating to it as Nazis. Maybe there is some overlap in the types of people who would donate to something like this, but there are also a ton of completely valid other reasons to support these people or take an interest in their cause and dismissing all of them as Nazis is just wrong in my opinion.
Pat King had 50,000 followers on social media and helped organize this convoy. Surely some of these thousands of followers agreed with his message, and surely many of those showed up, along with other white nationalist sympathizers.
I agree that most people are ignorant this aspect of the convoy, and most people on the ground would not agree with his racist views, but I want to highlight that the number of white supremacists showing up to a convoy organized by a white supremacist would not be a trivial number.
> No guns, no fires, no looting, no deaths
It has been fairly peaceful in terms of physical harm, but there has been one fire set in a residential building with fireworks, and the arsonists taped the front doors shut. There have been a few assault arrests as well. While I'm not sure anyone has been arrested for gun charges, I'd be willing to be money on long haul truckers keeping firearms nearby.
Hopefully things stay peaceful during the looming counter-protests.
> Yet they are being demonized as if they are literally attempting to overthrow the government.
The organizer of the original GoFundMe that got cancelled, Tamara Lich, was one of the original members of the Maverick party. This party is a proponent of breaking off western Canada into its own nation. Organizing a blockade at Canada's capitol while collecting millions of dollars lays good groundwork for future separatist plans.
This has bloodied the waters, and on a lighter note, the "Queen of Canada" has shown up to reaffirm that Justin's government isn't legitimate.
https://twitter.com/CarymaRules/status/1489326612139151369
While there's no way this person is going to actually overthrow the government, she kind of wants to, and so do the dozens of fringe supporters you hear cheering her on during her speech.
So I guess in summary while it isn't a Nazi rally, there be nazis, and while they aren't literally attempting to overthrow the government, there be overthrowers.
Pat King is on record saying there is a plot to depopulate white people because they have the "strongest bloodline".
https://twitter.com/VestsCanada/status/1159997274900041729
Folks can be pedantic about him not being an actual Nazi, what without the snazzy uniform and all, but he is a white supremacist.
Not everybody throwing money at this campaign will be of the same mentality, but enough of them will be to warrant further investigation, and while that investigation should be more formal than this hacktivism, I shed zero tears at the thought of every dollar stripped from whatever goal this white supremacist has in mind.