
Armed civilian roadblocks in Oregon town fuel fears over vigilantism - AndrewBissell
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/16/oregon-fires-armed-civilian-roadblocks-police
======
jussij
> Reports of vigilante activity in rural Oregon have multiplied as first
> responders struggle to keep up with the wildfire emergency, and baseless
> rumors that “antifa” arsonists are to blame spread rapidly on social media.

It is amazing to read how people are so quick to accept conspiracy theories as
the cause of these fires, yet they fight tooth an nail to deny the real cause,
man made climate change and global warming.

Here in Australia, last year we too suffered mouths of horrendous bush
fire/wildfire destruction and sure enough we had the exact same 'the arsonist
did it' conspiracy response.

[https://www.vox.com/2020/1/9/21058332/australia-fires-
arson-...](https://www.vox.com/2020/1/9/21058332/australia-fires-arson-
lightning-explained)

[https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-11/australias-fires-
reve...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-11/australias-fires-reveal-arson-
not-a-major-cause/11855022)

~~~
082349872349872
Given a saner stateside society, I'd be tempted to photoshop extracts from
Goebbels' Sportpalast speech[1] over the top of Trump on a Tank graphics and
attempt to circulate them in ill-regulated militia[2] circles, but Poe's
law[3] almost certainly guarantees they would be taken at face value, with, as
has already been demonstrated, fatal consequences.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24409361](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24409361)

[2] are yanks aware of the symbolism of skull motifs in the "are we the
baddies?" sketch? _cough_ Punisher _cough_

[3] I investigated some FB-circulated Donbass memes for a US colleague. Of the
set, I only found one in the wild on RUnet, and even it had a comment along
the lines of "who made this, a primary schooler?"

------
themodelplumber
> The men who stopped her, most of whom were armed, were dressed in “hunting
> style clothes, camouflage”, she said, and did not identify themselves or
> mention any legal authority under which they were acting.

...

> Robinson said she was questioned by a “heavily armed” man carrying a AR-
> style long gun and a visible sidearm. She said the man asked at one point:
> “You’re not from around here, are you?” which Robinson, who is African
> American, understood as having racist overtones.

Jesus.

It's evidently a law of nature that vigilante groups are oblivious to the
ramifications of their choice of clothing, equipment, and communication style,
which is a handy blind spot for anyone who knows how modern civilization is
supposed to work, and is capable of wielding a phone camera and driving
themselves to a town hall meeting to ask wtf is going on.

And to cause this kind of pain in another human being in the middle of a
natural disaster--what a disgrace.

> [Sheriff] Reese would go on to issue another statement on Friday’s events
> later that night, saying: “The sheriff’s office will not tolerate illegal
> activity of any kind, including illegal roadblocks.”

Translation: Game over for the local doomscroller militia...turns out their
late actions are incompatible with modern civilization. The fact that local
law enforcement also managed to get their reputation tangled up in this is
just embarrassing.

