Those were the days.

!macacos !historychads is this accurate

On September 7th 1822, the Crown Prince Pedro proclaimed Brazil's independence on the shores of the Ipiranga river becoming Emperor Pedro I !historychads

Ladies and gentlemen, dramatards and dramatardettes, please stand up for the National Anthem of the Federative Republic of Brazil!

Ouviram do Ipiranga as margens plácidas

De um povo heróico o brado retumbante,

E o sol da Liberdade, em raios fúlgidos,

Brilhou no céu da Pátria nesse instante.

Se o penhor dessa igualdade

Conseguimos conquistar com braço forte,

Em teu seio, ó Liberdade,

Desafia o nosso peito a própria morte!

Ó Pátria amada, Idolatrada, Salve! Salve!

Brasil, um sonho intenso, um raio vívido

De amor e de esperança à terra desce,

Se em teu formoso céu, risonho e límpido,

A imagem do Cruzeiro resplandece.

Gigante pela própria natureza,

És belo, és forte, impávido colosso,

E o teu futuro espelha essa grandeza

Terra adorada, Entre outras mil,

És tu, Brasil, Ó Pátria amada!

Dos filhos deste solo és mãe gentil,

Pátria amada, Brasil!

Deitado eternamente em berço esplêndido,

Ao som do mar e à luz do céu profundo,

Fulguras, ó Brasil, florão da América,

Iluminado ao sol do Novo Mundo!

Do que a terra mais garrida

Teus risonhos, lindos campos têm mais flores;

"Nossos bosques têm mais vida",

"Nossa vida" no teu seio "mais amores".

Ó Pátria amada, Idolatrada, Salve! Salve!

Brasil, de amor eterno seja símbolo

O lábaro que ostentas estrelado,

E diga o verde-louro desta flâmula

Paz no futuro e glória no passado.

Mas, se ergues da justiça a clava forte,

Verás que um filho teu não foge à luta,

Nem teme, quem te adora, a própria morte!

Terra adorada Entre outras mil,

És tu, Brasil, Ó Pátria amada!

Dos filhos deste solo és mãe gentil,

Pátria amada, Brasil!

!macacos

Thanks JFK, you are a hero for homeless neighbors everywhere

https://www.nps.gov/places/fazendeville.htm

This is from a mass arrest of mafia bosses, who were all gathered in the same place to discuss the mafia. No one believed that these guys were actual criminals.

heres a newspaper article about the 1957 mass arrest

it spends its entire length ridiculing the notion that a mafia exists immediately after the heads of the mafia have been arrested en masse at a gathering and while they are all locked in the same jail pic.twitter.com/HZaeELqMWB

— eigenrobot (@eigenrobot) March 1, 2023

!germs

!historychads @Aevann

Thread theme btw if anyone knows more Chappell Roan songs like this let me know, I love this song

When Kennedy ran for President in 2024, he was a joke. The very weird failson of a famous dead politician throwing a strange tantrum because Joe Biden was too pro-vaccine. His announcement speech in 2023 would get taken down by YouTube because of his strange rants about vaccines, and the Brandonslide in the Democratic primaries was too powerful to be stopped - Kennedy couldn't stop Biden, Phillips couldn't stop Biden, Williamson couldn't stop Biden, not even my GOAT Jason Palmer could stop Biden.

Remeber this? That was so awesome. Anyway, Kennedy was a weird joke like Marianne Williamson or Dean Phillips - until he announced he was going to run third party, then he became a very serious threat. His early polls were incredible - some (obviously bollocks ones) were at 15%, and he was generally polled at around 8% - 10% near the start of his run. Of course, fate would not smile upon RFK. After a graveyard shaped closet was unleashed, he eventually gave up and endorsed Trump. Kennedyheads, who had given up there time and money to a real outsider, saw Kennedy give up and endorse a former President. They need to be talked off the rooftops, but are they dumb stupid morons? When has a third party candidate ever really mattered? Three, arguably five, times;

1924: Calvin Coolidge (R) v John Davis (D) v Robert La Follette (P)

1968: Richard Nixon (R) v Hubert Humphrey (D) v George Wallace (AI)

1992: Bill Clinton (D) v George H.W Bush (R) v Ross Perot (I)

These third parties were either marginal influences in the party that had a great amount of regional influence, but a marginal voice if any at all in the party they were associated with - so they struck out and walked their own path, and enthralled millions with their unique messaging. This longpost will look at what they did right, and where Kennedy went wrong.

There are two other third party runs that did very well, but I'm not counting them for a few reasons

The election of 1912 had Progressive Teddy Roosevelt comfortably humiliate Republican Howard Taft in the best ever performance for a third party, coming second with 88 EVs to Howard Taft's 8 EVs. I'm not counting Teddy because he was a former president - I think any third party run would be made stronger by the candidate being a former President.

The election of 1848 had Martin Van Buren win 10% of the vote with the Free Soil party, an anti-slavery party - impressive, but he's not included because he is both a former President, and his third party run had him compete against the Democrats and the Whigs. Around 1896 is when the two party system as we understand it emerges, and the cut-off point to studying third party runs begins.

1924 - Robert "Fighting Bob" La Follette, Progressive Party (Wisconsin)

"Men must be aggressive for what is right if government is to be saved from men who are aggressive for what is wrong."

Wisconsin has always been a liberal state - meaning that in the early 20th century, it was a Republican strong hold, dominated La Follette and his son, Robert La Follette Jr. La Follette's progressivism was the old school, prairie kind - born and raised on farms, with a conservative "got mine" bent to it that pleasingly led to a dedication to civil liberties and isolationism.

Come 1924, and the Democrats and Republicans both nominate conservatives. Calvin Coolidge won re-nomination as the Republican, while after 103 ballots John Davis was settled on when delegates at the convention started to run out of money had to leave. If you think the duopoly is bad today, Coolidge and Davis aligned on nearly every issue, differing only on condemning the Klan (Davis did so, Silent Cal did not) and on tariffs (Davis liked them low, Coolidge liked them high). Otherwise they agreed on a limited government, deregulated industry and tax cuts. American conservatism has never had it so good, the uniparty in fundamental agreement.

La Follette, not a man loyal to any particular party despite being a Republican, was angry that neither party had nominated any kind of liberal. At the 4th Conference for Progressive Political Action, 1,200 delegates composed of union members, socialists, liberals but not communists, frick off Foster , nominated Robert La Follette and Burton Wheeler, a ticket that called for mass nationalisation of companies, tax hikes and support for labour unions. And he did amazingly - despite what the map may tell you.

"Well winning one state is impressive for a third party, but is it really that good?"

Yep. He won 16.6% of the vote, nearly half the votes of Davis, won his home state of Wisconsin and beat Davis (coming in second) in the following states; Oregon, California, Washington, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming, Iowa, Minnesota and both the Dakotas . These are some pretty astonishing results, located mostly in the Western plains with a higher amount of farms then normal. So, how on earth did La Follette do so well?

It can't be denied that his unique politics played a role. When both parties have so much in common, it's clear there's an unheard voice in that election and La Follette was able to amplify that voice. There was so much frustration that he near totally unified the left, leaving only the communists out in the cold. Another advantage he had over Coolidge and Davis is that he was actually the one to campaign. Coolidge had a pretty understandable reason - his son Calvin Jr died in a freak tennis accident, when he got a blister that turned sepsis. Obviously in a deep grief, Coolidge rarely left the White House and his campaign speeches were mostly about his theory of governance rather than addressing the issues or his opponents. By contrast, Davis just didn't like campaigning much and in his meeting with party bosses would need his arm twisted to say to he supports them because showing affection in any way was simply not his character. Equally valid reasons, I'm sure one would agree.

Coolidge was always going to defeat to Davis thanks to the booming economy, but La Follette turned Davis into a joke - to this day, Davis' 28.8% amount of the vote is the worst a Democrat has ever done in the Popular Vote, isolating his support near entirely in the Jim Crow South where votes were tightly controlled. To explain just how lacking Davis' support was, electoral votes in the electoral college are determined by population. California had 13 EVs, Alabama had 12. California, won by Coolidge, had 1,263,413 votes with about 400,000 going to La Follette. Alabama, won by Davis, had 157,971 votes, with 45,005 going to Coolidge. Underscoring just how catastrophic Davis' loss was, during the 1864 US election, the South was not able to vote in the election due to the "rebellion" thing - and McCellan still got 44.9% of the vote against Lincoln.

La Follette would die in 1925 at 70, meaning he never got to see his work vindicated by the Democratic party. In 1928, Al Smith would win the Democratic nomination. A progressive, urban Catholic, the south would abandon him in droves due to fear of Papal influence while the north continued to bet on the Republicans - with President Herbert Hoover winning in one of the biggest landslides at the time. Hoover would be left holding the bag when the economy crashed, New York Governor Franklin Roosevelt would unite the Democrats and the country to implement many of La Follette's ambitions - except of course, without the isolationism.

1968 - George Wallace, American Independence Party (Alabama)

George Wallace standing in the doorway of the University of Alabama to block the entrance of black students. "I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!"

From a left wing populist to a right wing populist, George Wallace was about as anti-La Follette as you could get. With Hubert Humphrey supporting measures to integrate society and Nixon opposing de-jure segregation, George Wallace, who had built a national profile as one of the top opponents to integration, ran third party to appeal to the raving bigots. The Wallace campaign plan was to win enough states to prevent Nixon from getting 270 Electoral Votes, force the election to the House and work out a deal where Nixon would uphold Segregation and Wallace released his EVs to let Nixon become President. His plan was to speak aggressively and passionately, decrying the elitism of the mainstream parties and "handouts" from the Great Society like Nixon did.

But he also mimicked Humphrey with his support for unions. He had no issue with an honest days pay for an honest days work - but wasn't it so unfair you were paying for lazy people? While he struck a middle ground economically, he went in a different direction for the war - Nixon was "peace", Humphrey was for status quo, and Wallace was ramping it up. An infamous quote of his is "We win in 90 days or we pull out", which sometimes misinterpreted as a peace plan. Wallace wanted to destroy North Vietnam, to teach Red China and the Soviet Union a lesson . More importantly, he didn't talk about segregation unless pressed about it, where he would of course defend it. Wallace's victory plan was to build a coalition of single issue voters, racists, anti-welfare union workers, warhawks and people that enjoyed him picking fights with hippies, to cause the deadlock.

Trust me, picking fights with hippies is critical to the central thesis regarding Kennedy. To generate enough media attention, he used inflammatory language to create controversy. "The only four letter words don't know are W-O-R-K and S-O-A-P!" he would say of his protestors. When it came to the Lyndon Johnson's protestors? "If any anarchists lie in front of my automobile, it'll be the last automobile they ever lie in front of." Sometimes he'd even get into shouting matches with his protestors. When called a fascist, he boasted "I was killing fascists while you were in diapers!" Another memorable line was when he grinned and chatted to a heckler. "I love you, I really do. Because when you come to me, I get another million votes." People loved it. While Humphrey was in full shill mode, trying to pick up the pieces of the Democratic party, and while Nixon was chilling not doing anything at all because he was winning massively, Wallace was the man in the arena, ranting and raving in a way people loved.

Wallace at his peak was polling at an astonishing 20% of the vote, but crashed out pretty badly during LeMay's first press conference. "We seem to have a phobia of nuclear weapons" LeMay began. He would continue with "it doesn't make much of a difference to me if I have go to a jungle in Vietnam and get killed with a rusty knife or get killed with a nuclear weapon. As a matter of fact, if I had the choice I would lean towards nuclear weapon." Wallace, visibly panicked, steps in to say "General LeMay hasn't advocated for nuclear weapons, not at all. He discussed nuclear weapons with you, he is against the use of nuclear weapons and I am too." Moments later, LeMay was asked if he would use nukes on Vietnam. "If I found it necessary." Like a fricking sitcom.

The consequences were swift and brutal, with Wallace plateauing from 20% of the vote to around 14%-12%, and he would ultimately get 13.5% of the vote and a far better EV count than La Follette.

301 EVs is a pretty respectable amount from Nixon, but Wallace's defeat was a lot closer then one might think. The Midwestern states had the powerful union votes split between Wallace and Humphrey, letting Nixon sweep the anti-union vote easily. But Nixon only won several Southern states with less then 40% of the vote. Had Wallace preformed better or rather, not suffered from the LeMay fiasco, he could have won North Carolina or Tennessee due to thinness of Nixon's victory. The margin for Nixon's victory goes from 301 - 191 - 46 to 289 - 191 - 58, still a win but a narrow win when you need 270 to win without a deadlock.

In turn, Missouri and Ohio both have Nixon with a margin of roughly 1% over Humphrey. If Wallace didn't have the nuke comments weighing him down, he could have tapped better into the Conservatives of the state and allowed Humphrey to win them both. If those states went blue but Nixon got every vote from North Carolina, the margin of victory is 269 - 229 - 45, just one EV from preventing Wallace's actual victory of forcing Nixon to end integration. Granted, this is all a lot of what ifs. But Wallace's defeat was a very narrow thing.

After the election, Wallace crawled back to the Democrats and became a bizarrely accepted part of it - to the point there were rumours of a Humphrey/Wallace ticket in 1972. He would ultimately come third in the 1972 primaries, despite being shot, and managed to outlive both Hubert Humphrey and Richard Nixon, despite being shot. His legacy is of interest only to historians, his riot having accomplished nothing at all. De-jure segregation is illegal, and de-facto segregation remains commonplace all over America - no thanks to Wallace's tantrum.

1992 - Ross Perot, Independent (Texas)

"The budget should be balanced, the treasury should be refilled, the public debt should be reduced and the arrogance of public officials should be controlled."

After dealing with two populists, it only makes sense our final candidate before Kennedy is Ross Perot - an anti-populist. A man who went on TV, promised to raise taxes and cut benefits, and soared to the top of the polls.

That's not an exaggeration - Gallup had at one point Ross Perot leading with 39% of the vote, to Bush's 31% and Clinton's 29% of the vote, past the 4% margin of error. As well as these other candidates have done, none of them have ever been polled at outright beating both candidates.

His key policy was going against the grain, and embracing protectionism when Bush and Clinton were both enthusiastic supporters of NAFTA. During the debates, he eerily prophesied "there will be a giant sucking sound going south" if NAFTA passes due to Mexico's lax environmental and labour laws. His other

Those were his most notable policies, and what he really railed against Bush and Clinton on. Bush had got them in this mess, and Clinton's liberal policies weren't gonna get them out. But he also had an eclectic series of other policies - like "Direct Democracy" through electronic town halls (fitting for a CEO of a company that specialised in computers), and a less involved America (although not isolationist).

Also unique was his messaging. While Clinton used platitudes and uplifting advertising, and Bush viciously attacked Clinton as a philandering communist plant, Perot's defining ads would be him buying 30 minutes of air time and frankly explaining what he thought was right for the country and how he would do it, with CHARTS BABY!

It's goes against every single populist idea there's ever been. Perot had policy that didn't have "popular" aspects of it, delivered in a frank, clear and detailed manner. By nearly any political junkie's understanding of the American electorate, he should have flopped, his advertisements discovered by pathetic teenagers saying "so true!" and calling themselves Perotstans in the new 20s.

There is a lot more to the story then this, worthy of it's own article (I haven't even mentioned Perot thinking the CIA was sabotaging him or dropping out of the race), but that is the short version when it comes to analysing Perot's place in third party history.

With Bush losing, the Republicans generally considered Perot to have stolen votes from Bush and handing Clinton the election - the facts don't reflect this, Perot generally took from both bases, but the Republicans grudgingly took notice and for the midterms introduced the Contract With America, an ambitious set of reforms that included the Balanced Budget Amendment to outlaw deficit and term limits for members of Congress - all of which failed to pass.

Perot would try his luck again in 1996, forming the Reform Party and couping it's nomination from Richard Lamm, and getting decent results - 8.4% is nothing to sneeze at, and more then enough to win the party federal funding. The party's apex would be in 1998, when former pro-wrestler Jesse "The Body" Ventura won the Minnesota Gubernatorial race. The Reform party would crumble shortly afterwards, as Progressives and Paleoconservatives feuded with each other over which way to take the party - ultimately the Paleoconservatives won, nominating Pat Buchanan and getting less then 1% in 2000. Ross Perot for his part endorsed George Bush.

2024 - Robert Francis Kennedy Jr, Independent (California)

"Why should somebody be able to pollute the air, which belongs to all of us, or destroy a river or a waterway, which is supposed to belong to the whole community?"

What does a left wing populist, a right wing populist, and centrist anti-populist have in common? Why did they succeed when the Greens, the Libertarians, the Communists, and my GOATS the Prohibition Party fail, time after time?

I narrowed it down to three factors.

• A wedge issue

• A wide coalition

• A unique voice

A Wedge Issue

The first and most important step is the wedge issue. La Follette had progressivism, Wallace had segregation and Perot had NAFTA and the deficit. You need to be saying something that no one else is saying, that really resonates. Chase Oliver of the Libertarians fails because his socially progressive message is being used by the Democrats, and his fiscal conservatism is being used by the Republicans. Perhaps there are voters that prefer his message as a whole, but most consider one issue more important and back the party likely to win to accomplish this goal.

It's called the marketplace of ideas, and you need to operate like a business. You can't walk in with a mishmash of policy both party's are offering, you just enter a saturated market. You need a unique selling point no other competitor is offering, or else you'll just be overshadowed by your better funded competitors. (Glad to put my diploma in business to good use).

Did RFK Jr have these unique ideas? In a sense he did. As he pointed out frequently, the COVID-19 vaccines came from one Donald J. Trump's project Warpspeed.

This didn't matter. Despite starting as a hippie thing, of which RFK is a remnant of, vaccine scepticism has become firmly an stance of the fringe right, who Donald Trump commands. They may not like that Trump is pro-vaccine (here's Trump being booed for saying his crowd should take the vaccine) , but he is still their guy. Saying "uhhhh I don't trust those vaccines" doesn't fly when Q is warning people if they don't back Trump JFK Jr will stay dead or whatever.

A Wide Coalition

This is important, third party or first. No single issue is ever popular enough to propel someone to the finish line just on that single issue. You need to have a stance on everything that's in the public consensus as "important". La Follette's sheer uniqueness gave him the widest coalition of the American left there's ever really been, while George Wallace flirted with Warhawks and the unions. Ross Perot's top concern was the economy, but he also had the most non-interventionist foreign policy and some eccentric ideas on general governance.

I conducted a small (tiny) poll asking random people why they thought RFK Jr was running and to assume it was in good faith. The vast majority of the answers I got were "vaccines". I had three other answers of the dozen or so people I asked - one included Bobby's issues with the FDA, which is technically different but ranting about the chemicals in our food is on a similar wavelength to anti-vaccine rhetoric, two answers included opposition to the duopoly, and one came from an outright Bobby fan who correctly identified Bobby has having the most anti-corporate, pro-environment platform in the race (aided by Biden and Harris not actually having a platform).

No one mentioned his isolationist foreign policy, his shockingly progressive stance on race, his transphobia, or his ties to crypto currency. Because he never really talked about it! It was all about the Duopoly, the FDA, or the Vaccines. He seemed to be trying to build this wide net on his policy page, but gave up when it came time to campaign and focused on his most nutjob stances.

Opposing the Two-Party system isn't enough. If it was, Gary Johnson would be included in this list. Remember him? The 2016 Libertarian candidate, running against two of the least popular mainstream candidates ever. He won 3.28% of the vote, not a terrible result for a third party, but hardly what you would expect from arguably the least popular race of all time.

So RFK Jr doesn't really have a wedge issue, and he doesn't really have a coalition. Surely such a wacky candidate has the final part?

A Unique Voice

He sure did have a unique voice! Because spasmodic dysphonia and he does seek treatment for it, it's very insensitive to make fun of it.

But when it comes to how he campaigned, he was rather standard. He appeared on podcasts… and that was about it

Sitting down and explaining your crank beliefs on a podcast may have been unique in 2010, but it's really not that different from sitting down and explaining your crank beliefs on a TV show these days. In fact, Donald Trump has been the one experimenting with messaging, doing a "X Space" and going on a livestream with popular r-slur Adin Ross.

There is one exception to this. One instance where he had a truly message that wasn't about chemicals, delivered in a manner that was unique and appealed to people outside of his eccentric circle - his Superbowl ad, wherein all that was advertised is that a Kennedy is running for president, and he's younger than Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

The same fricking duopoly message that doesn't work.

In all three factors, Kennedy came up short. He couldn't wedge an issue, he refused to expand his circle, and his campaign style was far blander then his bizarre campaign ideas.

Kenndy and his scandals

The Scandals

Scandals are part of any good campaign, and Kennedy is no exception. His campaign may be more famous for the constant, bizarre scandals then any of his very silly beliefs.

All I can say is Kennedy is very, very lucky that the outlandish scandals overshadowed his dark past.

In the same day he was accused of eating a dog, he was accused of sexually assaulting a woman he hired as babysitter, allegations he responded to with a blasé "I am not a Church Boy". These very serious criminal allegations were overshadowed by the ludicrous ones, a reoccurring theme. The fact he literally had a brainworm overshadowed how this information got out - it was disclosed during divorce proceedings where he was so callous to his ex-wife during and after the marriage, he drove her to suicide. There is a real darkness in Kennedy, overshadowed by the utter farce much of his campaign seemed to be.

The future of third parties

It's hard to not view the future of third party politics as bleak. The party's are more unified then ever, but that's come with polarisation increasing loyalty to the parties. Wedge issues are by their nature impossible to predict, and in the age of mass media, what's unique is generally a very fleeting thing.

Joe Biden dropped out of the race, Donald Trump got shot about two months ago, and the world has just continued to chug with those events just being part of the news cycle. The third party uniqueness vital for them to stand a chance seems like they're much more likely to just be a fad, rather than anything impactful.

I hope I'm wrong. But more likely, you'll see outsiders - like former Reform party member Donald Trump or Independent Bernie Sanders work within the party, and force compromises along inside the system.

☦️🇷🇺🙏🏼 Tsar Nicholas ii was the Greatest leader of the 20th century. pic.twitter.com/J8HVUJBPa1

— Orthodox Canonist (@OCanonist) September 2, 2024

YOU GOT PSYOPED AGAIN:

I am of the very strong conviction that the ‘pencil signed’ abdication never took place.

Just another PSYOP in a chapter of history which is full of conspiracy, crime & fraud.

The fact that the ‘original document’ was mysteriously found by Talmudic Bolsheviks is…amusing. pic.twitter.com/3JiB4aKJij

— Orthodox Canonist (@OCanonist) September 3, 2024

Tsarism is the real socialism:

🚨🇷🇺JUST HOW AMAZING WAS RUSSIAN Tsar Nicholas II? He ruled from 1894-1917!

🇷🇺The total per capita taxes in the Russia of 1913 was half of that in France and Germany and a quarter of that in Great Britain. The Russian population kept getting richer. The wages of Russian workers… pic.twitter.com/j07DGjha9i

— Truth_teller 🇷🇺 (@Truthtellerftm) September 2, 2024

Etc

Russia was one of the best countries in the world until the Judeo-Bolsheviks destroyed it in 1917! Now they’re making a coming back!

— Truth_teller 🇷🇺 (@Truthtellerftm) September 2, 2024

Which j✡️ish commie wrote that?
And how many famines were there between 1917-1991 since you’re a know it all?

— Truth_teller 🇷🇺 (@Truthtellerftm) September 2, 2024

Poor African countries regularly see their populations double in size in less than twenty years. I'm not sure what your point is.

— no to blue 🇮🇪 Z (@shanemulvey) September 3, 2024

The "revolt" wasn't "russian", it was jews IN Russia that revolted against Russia/Russians.

It was a jewish genocide, not a "Russian revolution".

It's like calling "Israel" a Palestinian revolution.

To "revolt", implies that the natural citizens revolted, not foreigners.

— OriginalIntelligence (@UnArtOfficial) September 3, 2024

Identifying jews is now easier than ever!:

The Bolsheviks were scum in many regards, but killing this inbred piece of biological waste and his inbred children was necessary. Otherwise - with heirs alive - the inbred Windsors would still be trying to re-install Monarchy in Russia.

— Juri_Bark (@Juri_Bark) September 2, 2024

You sound jooish the way your are seething about one of the greatest men of the 19th century. Maybe they did with their cousins, but other royalty who cares what does that matter

— Thanks History (@thanks_history) September 2, 2024

NOOO NOT HILTERINOOO:

Controlled opposition. Read Tragedy and Hope, he was given billions in gold by English and American banks

— Adonis (@GnomeHyperborea) September 2, 2024

!historychads

!anticommunists

Joshua Ryne Goldberg (born May 14, 1995) is an American internet troll,[1] convicted of attempting a bombing on the 14th anniversary of the September 11 attacks[2] while posing as an Islamic terrorist affiliated with ISIS.[3][4][5]

Goldberg first received law-enforcement and media attention under his Twitter handle "Australi Witness" following the Curtis Culwell Center attack, a terrorist attack on a Garland, Texas exhibit featuring images of Muhammad in May 2015, in which two assailants died in a shootout with police.[2] The "Australi Witness" persona had, posing as a Perth jihadist, called for an attack on, and posted maps of, the center where the exhibit was taking place. "Australi Witness" was retweeted by one of the assailants before the attack, and praised the jihadist attackers in its aftermath.[6] Goldberg claimed credit for the attack;[7] he also allegedly planned terrorist attacks in Australia.[8]

Initially charged with distributing information about bomb-making techniques in connection with a planned attack on a 2015 Kansas City 9/11 memorial event,[10] Goldberg's trial was suspended pending efforts by doctors to return him to competence[11] after it emerged that he had a history of mental illness.[12] Goldberg was returned to competency and on December 20, 2017, pleaded guilty to federal charges of attempted malicious damage and destruction by an explosive of a building.[2][13] On June 25, 2018, Goldberg was sentenced to ten years in federal prison and lifetime supervision.[14]

_________________________________________

I have alluded to this historic individual for weeks as I feel this is a slow motion time bomb that I apparently only I can prevent.

But only you guys have the the power.

We have a literal convicted terrorist in our midst and he is out plotting his next move.

@Aevann this is an effortpost thank you.

!historychads

Women lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat.

Began as a reply to this.

[Disclaimer: This is I'm sure inaccurate in a lot of places. It's based off of stuff that I watched and read over my entire much too long life , so don't assume all the details are right. But I'm very confident that it's more a accurate depiction of these events than what you'll ever hear in the Anglosphere, which is absolutely nothing.

If you are French and offended by something, please speak up. One of my purposes here is to provoke because I am a francophile and I'm saddened by our lack of representation. If there's a frog lurker out there, please correct me about something. I'll probably call you an r-slur and tell you keep yourself safe but those are terms of endearment here.]

"One could call Algeria France's Vietnam were it not for the fact that France's Vietnam is also Vietnam."

-- World's Most Dangerous Places, it has multiple authors and I can't remember who wrote that chapter

Sick burn.]

Yeah, the eurotrash love to whine about the US role in coups in Guatemala, Iran, etc. back then but are extremely extremely reticent about ever mentioning what happened in France in that era. I wouldn't even know about half this stuff if not for my dad being alive at the time and explaining how serious it really was.

The army officers in Algeria were butthurt as they felt the civilian government wasn't backing them up enough and were probably going to kitty out and surrender. These guys had just come back from losing in Vietnam and they really did not want to lose again. Especially in Algeria, which had a large French population and was officially not a colony but an integral part of France. They're led by the paratroopers. If you remember the French chad character from Battle of Algiers, he's a composite of a few of them. Like Jacques Massu, who admitted that they tortured people, and that this is a really horrible thing to do, but electrocuted his own nards on live TV or something to prove that he doesn't dish out anything he can't take himself. (Critics would point out (rightly, trust me on this one) that the worst thing about torture isn't your nards getting electrocuted, it's the terror of having no idea how long your nards are gonna continue to be electrocuted, because the torturer can keep it up forever if they want.) And Roger Trinquier, best known for writing Modern Warfare, which goes into the theory behind the French counterinsurgency campaign including why it's okay to torture people. It's not too long and (pdf link) worth a read. I'm not pro-torture in general but these guys make a lot of really good points that I think we have to take seriously when we think about the subject.

They're also total fricking psychos. Like Trinquier wanted to protect France from communism by... having a totalitarian police state with neighbors spying on each other like East Germany. One justification they pointed out is that many of them had been tortured by the Nazis so that makes it okay. But one of the long term effects of torture (trust me on this one) is that it's been normalized for them. There's a kind of subconscious attitude that "I got it really bad so I'll just hurt this person a little bit. It's not so bad. I got through it just fine without it having any lasting effect on me, I swear. I've been through it so I know how to not hurt them too bad. The guy who tortured me was a bad person, but I'm going to torture my victim in good faith." Torture victims have a lot to tell us and we definitely need to learn the facts of it from them, but their judgement about it is skewed so I don't think they should making policy.

People who are making policy, which in a democracy should include all voters, can learn some things without actually getting electrodes attached to your nipples. I mentioned the movie Battle of Algiers earlier. A lot of us are getting to an age where, if you're not a complete frickup like me you have kids by now. (Which again is oddly enough something that I know a lot about but I'm not going to explain other than saying trust me bro.) So how do you teach your kids about torture? My chad dad did this exactly the right way. He had me watch Battle of Algiers when I was, I dunno maybe 12. I see the scene where they take a kid about my age and push his head underwater until he talks. That scarred me for life. I will never forget that. Because you're not supposed to forget things like that. Sometimes scar tissue is good. My scar tissue from seeing that was that I'm always going to tend to be anti-torture for the rest of my life. And I didn't have to actually get tortured to learn that on a deep level. You gotta be really careful about exactly when, but you should be showing your kids some of these images when they're old enough to handle it. Also my dad had a policy of making me watch lots of foreign movies from a young age, which everyone should do. Much of my ability to shitpost about 50 different countries now I owe to that. (Just for God's sake, nothing Soviet, that shit literally (I mean literally literally) bored me to tears. )

Anyway, it's one of the most important movies of all time and I would say literally everyone needs to see. Made by Italian commie Gillo Pontecorvo. Now I'm not a fan of commies, but he was more a commie in the sense that he disagrees with me about certain economic issues that we should be debating about, not that he wants the NKVD to put a bullet in my head because I called a Star Trek character "gay" once when I was 13 years old. He once slapped down some whiny f-slur (note how much more sophisticated my language has become ) who was calling everyone he didn't like fascists. And he was like "Bro, calm down, don't just throw that around. I unironically fought against fascists in WW2 alongside all kinds of people." So I imagine him to be a leftoid who is actually intellectually honest, or at the very least someone like Prince Kropotkin who you could have a conversation with. (Pinknames maybe I'll explain this if you ask. ) But I hope he's not like Costa-Gavras who made Z one of my favorite movies of all time but then went on to make absolutely insane shit that would make Leni Reifenshtal blush. (Greeks please fight with me because I lost a real friend over this, so even if I don't win I'll at least feel nostalgia .)

It was filmed in Algeria (Z was too btw). Pontecorvo's partner is Saadi Yacef, a major player in the FLN and a bombmaker (This cameo is him playing himself He doesn't try to hide what he did. He sent women to blow up kids. So this is a rare case where the veterans of both sides actually own up to what they did and how bad it was. They just say that they were justified. Which makes it extremely valuable from a historical perspective. There's more gossip that comes out after the movie, all kinds of drama, but I'm running out of energy tbqh.

So it's 1958. You got these French guys who are highly motivated for a number of reasons. They think the civilian government are a bunch of kitties who are too busy listening to Sartre or something to win the war. So they decide they'll overthrow it and replace it with DeGaulle. The paratroopers fly out to Corsica. I'm guessing the critical moment here is when the military in Corsica makes no attempt to stop them. This makes it clear that if they fly on and land in Paris the troops around there won't oppose a coup. So the government resigns and DeGaulle becomes dictator. And very soon he's like "Oh, you thought I was an extremist on the Algeria issue? LOL." He negotiates with the FLN to grant independence.

The paratroopers go apeshit. They did a coup for this guy and he stabbed them in the back. But it's not so easy to just go back and do it again. Most of the officers in the army had served under DeGaulle in WW2 and a lot would back him. (Again I cannot emphasize to zoomers enough that the shadow of WW2 still hung over everybody. It was (and is to this day) the biggest thing that has ever happened on Earth by far.) So the extremists among the paratroopers can't just do another coup. So they form a terrorist organization, the OAS. They figure that if the FLN got what they wanted through terrorism, they'll just do the same thing.

That's as much as I can do right now but if you zoomers want I can continue later. Modern people have come up with the hilariously r-slurred idea of "reimagining" The Day of the Jackal (a really good movie into you're into more serious spy stuff) into a contemporary setting. Oh yeah, and gender swapped. I can give you some talking points to absolutely fricking destroy your IRL friends who like it by explaining that actually stuff happened back then that's a heck of a lot more interesting than any screenwriter in 2024 could come up with.

[Again: If you actually care about this, don't take my word for it. Look it up in your local library.

And if you're French or Algerian and offended in any way, please let your hatred flow and tell me how stupid I am and in what ways.]

[Some of my ancestors came from the Netherlands and kept in touch with the old country over following generations. This is a letter one of my people wrote to tell our family here what happened to them back there during WW2. I've tried to keep everything exactly except for the paragraphs but this was typed up, put in a pdf, and typed up again by me so it might have some errors. And I redacted a few things because yes, I am afraid that someone someday could be autistic enough to try to dox me through this. !historychads ]

[a village near Utrecht]

7, August '45

[Note: This is the day after Hiroshima, two days before Nagasaki.]

Dear Cousin,

Knowing you've always been interested in your Dutch family and haven't heard much news since the war started, I thought it is a good job for me to tell you something of the happenings in that time, of the family and of Holland in general. I know that you read Dutch as well as English, as my father told me, but as it's a good exercise for myself, I take the liberty to write in English. Which you will forgive, I hope. But first I want to present myself: I'm the son of your cousin, [redacted], (my name is [redacted], age 26) [redacted some more family members]

No doubt he was wearing these as he wrote.

I'll only tell you about the children of my Aunt [redacted]. The son, [redacted], was a government civil engineer in the Dutch East Indies and he was called up by the army when the situation in the Far East grew tight. He was married and had one little child. Since the Japs overran the Indies, we never had a word from him, so we don't even know if he is still alive. His sister, [redacted], [?] was a teacher but as that isn't very well paid over here, she quit and got a better job in an office. But after the liberation she left there, too, in order to get the job of leading some underfed children to England [?], an enviable job as no one can get out of the country so far as it is at the moment. She will leave very soon, with impossible orders of every member of the family to buy bicycle tires, fountain pens, and I don't know what not, as there is nothing for sale in this country.

Tijdeng concentration camp, Java. About 17,000 of the 100,000 interned Dutch civilians died in the camps.

Now I'll try to give you a short survey of what happened to Holland and to ourselves up to now. Perhaps, when you'll have read it through, you'll think that our hatred against the "Nazis" is a bit exaggerated, but I'll tell you, you've got to live through a German occupation to know what it is like. So I hope you'll take it at face value, and I've got to add that I ddin't see very much yet of their low doings, but more than enough to have learned what hate is. Well here I go:

Controversial opinion.

As you know the Germans came in May 1940, when they started their big drive towards the Channel and France, by means of fifth columnists and other traitors, merciless bombardments of Rotterdam and their overpowering numbers of troops, material, etc.

Kraut paratroopers landing in The Hague, May 10, 1940. This force was overrun by the Dutch, losing almost 2000 captured who were quickly sent to Britain.

Bombing of Rotterdam, May 14.

They started immediately to take our immense foodstocks away; cars, trucks, ship, in short everything they could lay their dirty paws on. They suppressed every political activity, except of the treacherous Dutch national-socialists, who got all the important jobs. The only thing they did to try to win our sympathy was releasing the prisoners of war. But that didn't last very long because notwithstanding their elaborate preparations for the in invasion of England, they couldn't get there after they lost the Battle of Britain and gradually with the first R.A.F. raids the underground activity sprang up, giving England information about ship consentrations, etc. by way of secret transmitters.

Portable radio of the kind dropped by the British SOE to Allied resistance in occupied Europe.

Then they regretted to have released the prisoners and so they planned to take at least the professional officers back to Germany again, considering them the most dangerous. To give you an example of their treacherous methods I'll tell you how they did it. They gave a proclamation to the newspapers ordering the professional officers to register in a certain place, all in one day, promising their safe return home. They even got return tickets paid. But on coming there they were taken into custody and a day later were brought to Germany to a Prisoner of War camp. This had the wrong effect, of course, and secret activity doubled, in which I had my little share. But it wasn't very well organized yet and lots of the workers were captured and some of them shot. Of my group for instance, only two escaped detection, another guy and myself. Sheer luck of course; the others were all brought to Germany, some of them shot. So the situation grew worse, hostages shot, Germans shot, vigorous reprisals again etc.

Hendrik Seyffardt, traitor who commanded the Dutch SS. Shot and killed at his front door in The Hague, Feb 5, 1943.

One time 72 people shot in one day. But time went on and the Gerries came to know they couldn't take Russia. America joined the Allies and they feared an invasion in the West. So they started their construction of the Atland wall which had grave results in our home town, The Hague, being the biggest town on the coast.

Kraut occupiers in The Hague.

Twenty-five per cent of the town fell in the fortification area. Two thousand houses were broken down to make a wide corridor through the Hague strengthened by a concrete wall and a big sand ditch. Big fortifications were made in the dunes, in parks, etc. About twenty per cent of the inhabitants had to be evacuated. As father is a pensioned schoolteacher, my parents had to go too. They came to this village, [redacted village near Utrecht], but had to leave furniture and everything in the Hague, all heaped up in one room. Luckily, we knew the people who came into our house so nothing was stolen, as often happened to less lucky people. This happened in December of '42. My brother and I stayed in The Hague to continue our study, engineering. At the time I had nearly finished it, but I didn't want to pass the last exam, as there was a big danger of being sent to Germany. My brother, [redacted], who is 21 now, wanted to go to Delft's Technical high school, but couldn't as the Germans demanded 6 months "labor services" of new students and that was something he didn't want to do. So he went to another school, but afterwards he had to do the labor service nevertheless. But because of his change of address they couldn't fine [find?] him, though they thoroughly tried. But nobody knew where he was of course. He was lucky and never got caught and is going to start in Delft this autumn, having done nothing at all for the Huns. I was less lucky. The students had to sign a loyalty declaration to the Germans which of course I didn't do. But something was going to happen and we knew it. I had secured 5 addresses of people at whose houses I could hide, so I was pretty sure to pull through. But then the students who hadn't signed that declaration were called up for forced labour in Germany, the parents were held responsible for their going. And then all 5 addresses let me down, couldn't risk it, they said, penalties were too heavy. Well, I tell you I was a bit downhearted and really didn't know where to go. And as the biggest part of my friends had the same experience we had the stupidity to go! Knowing we had nothing better to do. Regretted it immediately, of course but too late. So we went to Berlin on the 6th of May '43.

A 14-year old Ukranian slave repairing motors in a German workshop, 1945.

That summer I tried to fine [find?] my way to Sweden [?], but didn't succeed. Then the winter came and the big bombardment of Berlin started, rather unpleasant I assure you. Came through unscathed, though we had several casualties at the factory. In spring I got a chance to go back to Holland on false papers, but two weeks before it was my turn (we were placed on a list) the Gestapo got wind of it and the whole organization was blown up. Then the invasion came and I thaught I'd have to stay to the end. But in August I got another chance and this time it came off. I spent 20 hours lying under the floor of a railway carriage and got to Amsterdam without being seen. The underground movement, better organized this time helped me get false papers and I was free again as far as possible at the time.

Literally this guy.

Meanwhile the situation hadn't altered very much, only grown gradually worse. But the worst was still to come. In September the Allied parachute landing at Arnhem came and in Holland the railways striked to hamper the German supply route. But they couldn't get across the Rhine and that meant that northern and western Holland had still some months to wait. But then the real looting started.

Allied paratroopers landing in the Netherlands, Sep 17, 1944.

British tanks meet the gigachads of the 101st Airborne Div.

Liberation of Eindhoven, Sep 18, 1944.

In Arnhem, where the civilians had to go away because of the fighting, several German cities got a part of the city where they were allowed to take what they could. And they did. Long columns of trucks went to and fro taking everything away you can think of. No civilian could enter the city until everything was gone. And in the months between September and May of this year they took everything they could to Germany: machines, tools, locomotives, trains, ships, cars, trucks, carts, horses, cows, and other cattle, literally everything, from the wire for electric trains to sewing machines, from our last food to blankets and clothes. Everybody had to give a blanket, a set of underwear, a pair of socks, a blanket, a coast etc. and after years without textiles [?] distribution. And if you didn't bring it to them they searched your house and took it and some more. All bicycles weere ordered up and so on. And then they stopped all food transport to the west as a revenge for the railway strike. People lived on sugerbeets and tulip bulbs. Daily you saw people falling down in the streets from sheer starvation, thousands were starved to death. Every man from 17 to 40 was called up for labour in Germany. They held big searches for men in the big cities. Tens of thousand had to walk to Germany, half starved as they were. And so I could go on and on, but I would bore you probably. It was really unbelievable when at last the end came that you were free to go where you wanted and the hated Germans really had got it in the neck. The food situation was soon cleared by the Allies. Big American and British bombers dropped millions of kilos of the best food when the roads weren't free yet. People were crying in the streets for sheer job. They did a wonderful job bringing us all that. Now every ration has gone up. Only meat is still scarce (an ounce a day) and fat isn't high enough yet. But we're very content.

A British bomber dropping food over the Netherlands.

And now the situation is still chaotic of course. The coal problem is the greatest of all. This winter we had nothing of course, no light, no gas, nothing to cook on. So all trees and even bushes have gone. Parks don't exist anymore. Empty houses were absolutely broken down for the wood only. Practically all factories can't work. No coal or no machines. It'll really last sometime before everything will be all right again. I think Europe is done and out for the first five or ten years and I hope to get away as soon as possible. Only I shall have to finish my study, which will take me about a year, I think.

Boom.

The Pacific war'll be over soon, I hope, after the invention of the "atomic bomb". It is really astonishing the quantity and quality America has been producing. Practically all the war material in the west is American--fantastic. We really owe the Americans a lot. But has this been the last war? I have my doubts. Or will the atom bomb be so terrible that war will be impossible. Doubtful too. What'll be the end, complete destruction or everlasting peace? It looks like an easy choice, but who knows? Well, I hope, I ddin't bore you too much with my story. Father will tell you about the family so I will end this rather long letter, hoping you'll receive it in good health. Send my respectful greetings to your wife, daughter, and brothers.

Your unknown cousin, [redacted]

PS The old house Bezuidenhout [redacted number, maybe a street] was heavily damaged by an Allied raid, when they mistook one part of the town for another. This error destroyed another ten per cent of the Hague. It was rather a pity, as it happened just before the end (3 March) of the war. But that's fate, nothing doing.

The neighborhood after this raid.

Japan is going to quit. There'll be peace on earth in a few days at last. Let's hope mankind has enough of war for a long, long time.

We don't talk enough about the rise of chicken. Before the 1950s America was basically a beef and pork country. In the 70 years since, chicken has risen to become America's most preferred meat - by a decent margin. pic.twitter.com/Enmqey9ozb

— Hunter📈🌈📊 (@StatisticUrban) August 24, 2024

!poll_voters !goyslopenjoyers