So, you think right-wing trolls are just harmless little boys having a fun wank on the internet, and that they’d never really hurt anyone? Well, that idea should have died a swift and painful death in Charlottesville (instead of Heather Heyer), but apparently it’s not over yet. People are still in denial as to just how vicious these right-wing shitbags all are. This story, though, should prove to be one more nail in the coffin that’s being hammered as we speak:
Matthew Riehl, the man accused of killing a suburban Denver sheriff’s deputy and wounding four others, is a veteran of the Iraq War who is also fond of posting alt-right memes on his Facebook account.
Forbes writer J.J. MacNab discovered Riehl’s Facebook page, in which he identifies himself as “Matt Gonzo,” and where he has posted multiple memes featuring Pepe the Frog, the cartoon that has been appropriated as a symbol for white nationalists.
Other of Riehl’s Facebook posts include calling former President Barack Obama a “lying piece of sh*t” and shared posts from alt-right website Breitbart News.
As the Associated Press has reported, Riehl seemed to have a grudge against local police officers, and posted multiple complaints about the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department on YouTube.
Specifically, the AP notes that Riehl in a December video called for “the firing of Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock” and attacked him “in highly personal terms.” Riehl also said that during that video that he would be running as a “libertarian” candidate for Douglas County Sheriff.
(Linkage added.)
Oh sure, maybe not ALL “alt”-righturds posting shit on the internet are terrorists. Just as not all men are rapists, right? But enough of them are, by now, that the entire group has more than earned the suspicion that they’re getting. Or SHOULD be getting, rather. And yet I’m sure I’ll still hear, from somebody, that there are very fine people on both sides, that it’s just a bad apple, blah blah.
Well, anyone who’s feeling tempted to tell me that, kindly shove your thoughts right back up the orifice you’re tempted to pull them from, and fucking SIT on them. If this guy was just a “bad apple”, bear in mind what a shitty tree bore that fruit. And bear in mind, too, what bad apples do to entire barrels if left to rot.
Adolf Hitler was just some punk with a grudge too, once upon a time. And so were all his little followers. But their toxic ideology was music to the ears of those who thought the world was getting out of control, and could use a little authoritarianism to bring it back into line. And who took advantage of Weimar Germany’s weak democracy and lax free-speech laws, until it got to the point where the little punk, who was a lowly army boy who went to fight amorphous evil “terrorist” Others, just like this dude (he never made it past the rank of Gefreiter, the German equivalent of private first class, as he was assumed to have no leadership qualities!), ended up ruling the whole fucking roost. His party didn’t win the election, and nobody voted him in as chancellor, but damned if he didn’t have the clout to backroom-bully them into making him that anyway. The rest, as they say, is history.
Would that it would remain history, and never repeat itself. But if there’s one thing about the US of Amnesia, it’s that they never learn from it…and therefore, the vicious cycle spins on, spiralling ever further down each time. I mean, the Daily Stormer is still a thing there, and its style guide reveals how shitposting is actually becoming a paid crapaganda phenomenon. (Albeit shittily paid, at a Hitler-heiling $14.88 US a post; fake-news Nazis being crapitalists, of course they don’t pay their faithful trolls properly by the word, like real professional news outlets are required to do with real, professional journalists. Who’s the Lügenpresse, again? And why are some of the far-right pretending to be anti-capitalists?)
Meanwhile, Germany HAS learned…and is banning shitposting on Facebook and Twitter. Those platforms have 24 hours to remove a hate post from the time it’s reported, or face heavy fines. Russia, too, is following suit (Lord knows they need to), and several other European countries are taking notes. Even the UK, which has a growing fascist problem that’s been left to fester far too long already, is finally starting to crack down. (We’ll have to wait and see if they’re in earnest, but so far things are looking up.)
How ironic that the whitey-white Europe that these so-called white nationalists (supremacists, really; let’s not mince words, because they think their whiteness makes them better than everybody else) crave to mimic and emulate, would actually kick their sorry asses.
We should all do the same.
