Welp…
For all the fuckery going on at DHS, seeing this Twitter thread has only made me want to purchase stock in Alcoa.
Numerology like this can be found in almost anything if you look hard enough for it. It’s hardly indicative of anything.
I’m confused what alcoa has to do with this? (My dad worked for alcoa for nearly his entire career)
That said, I do think the old ways of differentiating conspiracy and coincidence are fucked, considering the psychological tactics used by the alt-right. So much of the base was grown on the bad-faith intentionally horrible joke-not-joke gaslighting troll (e.g. OK sign) that sincerity and good-faith, despite being the only good option, is weaponized against you.
The shitty grammar makes me think someone wasn’t clever enough to make it fit so they just said the hell with it.
Alcoa is one of the top aluminum producers in the world. Aluminum is used to make tin foil hats. Tin foil hats are worn by conspiracy freaks. So yeah, I was making a tin foil hat joke.
I agree the alt-right has blurred the lines between conspiracy and coincidence in many ways. However, they are also smack in the thick of it with so many of them being into the whole Q-Anon BS and all that.
Personally, I think the DHS employee who wrote that press release was just a garden variety moron and the release was never proof read, much like the president’s tweets. It’s not like the best and brightest are particularly attracted to working for the current administration, after all.
Curiously, and I admit this is in tin foil hat territory, the Russian language lacks articles such as English’s “a,” “an,” and “the,” and it’s common for Russian speakers to make this mistake when communicating in English. Note that the grammar errors in the release tend to be of the “missing article” variety.
White supremacists and crypto-nazis have been using their 14 words and 1488 “code” fairly consistently for a long time now to signal to one another. They’re weirdly obsessed with coded language like that. It’s a thing with them.
While it can be coincidental, it’s a big red flag when it occurs. It warrants further investigation.
While a bit of extra scrutiny may be warranted, again, I think this is far more likely to be some variant of the Bible code fallacy.
There is a lot of evidence they do it on purpose and regularly in this particular example. There’s a reason all of my “how to spot the people who are at your event to cause harm” guides specifically call that one out as a direct red flag.
https://www.adl.org/education-and-resources/resource-knowledge-base/hate-symbols
A random paragraph or sentence having 14 words is not in and of itself a red flag. Nor is something randomly having 88 words. No one thinks Area 88: Blue Skies of Betrayal is a white supremacist movie.
But. When the 14 and the 88 are together, in order, the odds are much lower it’s coincidental.
KKK types are obsessed with this stuff. They call themselves grand wizard dragons and have codes and rituals. They’re obsessive morons over it. It’s a big part of their identity. They’ll literally look for ways to incorporate this crap into anything they do. They have weird beliefs about spreading their message.
In almost any other case, I’d agree with you. But when it comes to this particular brand of white supremacy, this is a huge and valid red flag.
You certainly do raise some valid points there.
I guess the question now comes down to, assuming that it was intentional (and your points definitely at least point the odds in that direction), was it done intentionally from on high, or was it done by some lower-level staffer who happened to be a white supremacist and, given the obvious lack of proof reading, decided to slip in that crap knowing that it wouldn’t be proof read.
Edit: of course, whoever did it, high or low level, should be thrown out on their ass for doing so and also, ideally, publicly shamed (unless public shaming would end up garnering sympathy or support for them).
My guess is it was a low level functionary slipping it under the radar. No large organization has the top brass writing press releases, and I have to think even top brass Nazis don’t bother with this crap, its a super secret club handshake for the rank and file to feel “cool”. Whether any of the DHS brass are actual for real Nazis… probably some are?
I agree with you completely there.
DHS is so large and sprawling, just like any of the government organizations, that its makeup is at least somewhat of a reflection of society as a whole. So, sadly it’s likely that there are a number of under-the-radar Nazis in DHS, top brass or not. Same thing with the military and probably every other government organization.
Yowsers…
"A federal judge on Tuesday postponed the sentencing for Michael Flynn after he lambasted President Trump’s former national security adviser for trying to undermine his own country and said he could not guarantee he would spare Flynn from prison.
The stunning development means that Flynn will have to be sentenced at a later date, when he can possibly convince a judge more thoroughly of how his cooperation has benefited law enforcement.
Flynn’s attorneys asked for the delay after U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan accused Flynn of acting as “an unregistered agent of a foreign country, while serving as the national security adviser to the president of the United States” — an allegation he later walked back. Sullivan granted the request and asked for a status report in 90 days, though he said he was “not making any promises” that he would view the matter differently in three months…
Sullivan also asked a prosecutor with the special counsel’s office whether Flynn could be charged with “treason.”
Can’t be trusted to run a charity, but sure, let him run the most powerful country on earth.
Sadly millions of dumbasses and various people of low moral fiber voted for him, which is why we’re stuck with him, though hopefully for not too much longer.
Unless something truly crazy happens, I think we’re stuck with Trump at least until 2020. Hopefully by that point, enough of the country will have come to its senses, the Democrats will have nominated a candidate that can beat him, and the US is able to fend off more Russian cyberattacks.
Otherwise, we’re stuck with Trump until 2024…
Well, it looks like one of the people keeping us from bombing the crap out of people who insult Trump’s haircut is gone now:
Fifteen characters of fuck.