Last Wednesday, Lux Claridge planned to speak out against a proposed 1,000 acre data center in their town of Emporia, Kansas. They left in handcuffs after a city commissioner ordered them arrested for clapping.
In the novel Soft Apocalypse, radicals planted bamboo to disrupt infrastructure. Not sure why this trivia popped into my head suddenly.
United States of Cringe
arested for clapping at a meeing? Sounds like some local government needs to be out on thier asses
They were even yelling at people who were waving their hands in Sign Language, so it wasn’t the noise, or the interruption, or the delays that were the issue, they simply didn’t want the audience to show support for each other, which is insidious.
When I was in high school, the School Board did something unfair to the band, so all the musicians showed up to multiple school board meetings to try to change their mind, and we were treated worse than disrespectfully each time, for daring to care about school policy that directly affected US.
At the last meeting we attended, I pointed to each member of the Board, and told them that we would replace them in the next election, except for one, who had two kids in Band, and was on our side.
We didn’t forget. When election season came, we spread across the city, and knocked on doors. There were are least 250 kids in band/orchestra/chorus, and every parent, and older sibling, relatives, etc. were on our side, and we could count on their votes. Beyond that, there were a LOT of residents that counted their band experiences as some of the best they had in school, and weren’t happy to hear about the band being screwed by the School Board.
Every single one of those disrespectful school board members was voted out by a wide margin, except our own guy, and everyone coming in had learned not to fuck with the band. We proved ourselves to be a powerful and effective voting block in that town.
First amendment no good? Try the second.
The 2nd Amendment exists for when ALL the other amendments fail.
Boy howdy, when that 27th amendment fails, someone’s getting holes in them!
When the 2nd amendment was written, only the first amendment even existed. That’s why it’s the 2nd.
Who told you that you aren’t allowed to exercise rights until you are so disempowered you couldn’t exercise them anyway? What do they gain from that?
The first 10 were added simultaneously. It’s called the Bill of Rights.
So far, they’re flouting every other amendment too.
So…
I’m sorry, who made you the judge to make this here determination?
What is going on with this world that this needs to be stated
If you have to state this then you should have realized by now statements aren’t the solution, engaging in the system that led to this isn’t the solution
Breaking down Flock cameras is, slashing cop car’s tires is, road blockades are, even throwing marbles on the ground cartoon style would be more useful than more peaceful statements that previous peaceful statements were legal
Shouldn’t there be more guns in the US than people, peaceful protesting this far into fascism is not just unproductive(everyone already knows that they want their rights back) but counter productive
Part of the issue is that when something like you suggest is done, it’s not mentioned in the media. You heard about bryan thompson of course, and you heard about one warehouse being set ablaze (“all you had to do is pay us enough to live”) but you haven’t heard about Wesley LePlatner. You didnt hear about the ice agent getting hit by a car in new jersey, and nobody being able to find who did it. You didnt hear about any of the other warehouse fires.
“The revolution will not be televised”
There were like what 9 more copy-cat warehouse fires? And when my friend was working for a company that did Tik-Tok moderation, he had mentioned how he had to censor news on like 3 other CEO’s having either an attempt made, or actually gunned down. Should have drilled them for more answers at the time.
You’re not wrong, we aren’t see the whole picture online, there is a lot of data missing while the data they want us to see gets amplified.
Or as it has been put in the past: The Revolution will not be televised.
Its been going on for a few years now. There was someone who put some rounds in a substation to stop an event at a gay bar or some other equally silly reason, and while that was stupid and bad, they never found out who did it and quietly stopped talking about it.
Is that the one that happened up in Sacramento or something where the security camera caught the bullets hitting the chain link fence or are you referring to a different instance?
It was in North Carolina. Moore county I think.
Hey ‘Murica, you’re getting pretty ridiculous. Please put an end to it. Sincerely, The World.
We are going to need international help. France, please send guillotines.
I actually wouldn’t mind some cake but that is going in the opposite direction.
The key is having cake and guillotines. Its just a treat with a treat.
We’re going the route of Germany; I sincerely doubt we’re just going to snap out of it and return to normal on our own.
I agree that this is ridiculous and hope the guy wins a hefy lawsuit over this. That said, you can’t seriously tell me that other parts of the world don’t also have corrupt, power hungry people who make it to local office here and there who do asinine stuff like this, can you? We have a lot to fix. I’m just not sure that this particular thing is what makes America ridiculous. There are so many more ridiculous things that impact so many more people.
The good news is that after the lawsuit, he’ll own the town, and can make all the decisions himself.
Clapistan bans clapping!?
God I was so embarrassed watching the king of fucking england cringe at our clap obsession in congress a few months ago…
The precedent is set. In the near future a polite, muffled cough will allow them to clear the room so they can proceed in secret.
They don’t even have to do that. They can just do what my local politicians do and schedule it at the end of the meeting, limit testimony to 4 or so people, ignore that there’s hundreds of others that came to speak and 90% registered as opposed and then hastily vote and adjourn.
When silenced, it’s time for violence.
Americans are fucking weird man, not normal at all.
Pretty normal in a lot of places for a government to crack down on speech and protests.
I really am tired of people pretending like this kind of thing is purely an American problem and that Europe has no issues with authoritarianism. coughHungarycough (might be coming to an end, (maybe not, we’ll see) but living in 16 years of it… some stuff here would make Republicans blush). Incidents in the UK with pro Palestinian movements are similarly discouraging…
I’ll go one step further, I’m tired of pretending like the people causing problems in America didn’t come from Europe. As a Native American I firmly believe that Europe needs to clean up its colonial mess.
Europe exported most of its problematic behavior and now likes to pretend it’s the model of civilization
The only continent they didn’t directly fuck up is Antarctica, and that’s just because it wasn’t profitable to colonise
@atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works these are both very good points, QFT.
Those places don’t call themselves shit like “land of the free” tho
I think they overwhelmingly do, and it’s a good comparison to make. Democratic People’s Republic of Korea?
“Land of the free”
Free labour, free data, free from consequences…
Only for the oligarchs of course. The pesants aren’t people
Some terms and conditions apply
They could go the religious persecution route:
“Clap your hands, all you nations; shout to God with cries of joy!” – Psalm 47:1
The Bible only works in the US when it comes to persecuting minorities.
Bigots only have the OT quotes about hatred barrelled, book, chapter, and verses. They cannot recall where a single passage talks about love and mercy and generosity.
Please clap
Those council members will need to lock thier doors and and board up thier windows. This one ain’t going down quietly. (do note I’m not in thier area, I am not a threat. Don’t be evil.)
Freedom of speech does not mean you get to exercise it anywhere at any time any way you want. I’m disappointed that 404 is just leaning in to the outrage economy clickbait, I thought they had potential.
Like no shit, if you’re warned multiple times to comply with procedural rules or be removed they’re going to have you removed. You might even be arrested for refusing to comply when a sheriff is giving you a lawful order to leave, crazy.
*I guarantee you unprincipled hypocrites wouldn’t be crying about muh freezepeach if this was some chud getting dragged out of a seattle city council meeting for the exact same thing.
How’s that boot taste
Suck my dick moron. You’re not being crushed under the boot of tyranny by a county government meeting’s procedural rules. You hypocritical idiots just think that because somebody is on your side that they should be exempt from the rules. To go a step further and call them not getting special treatment oppression is astoundingly stupid.
everyone and their dog knows if someone clapped for the opposite talking points it would have been permitted
Bullshit. Prove it. If you could do that you’d win an easy lawsuit against the county.
If they were so pro datacenter they’d be willing to get sued over unequally applied procedural rules then why did they put a moratorium on datacenter permitting.
Oh weird no response. Everybody knows it but apparently there’s no evidence and nobody wants the massive payout.
The pro-datacenter people won’t be making public comment, they are smoozing privately with the decision makers and making them sign NDAs.
You’re talking out of your ass. This county commission put a moratorium on datacenter permitting the same week.
I’m saying broadly, like that other council meeting where the simple question of ‘are you bound by NDA with the company’ was only answered by two of the council members and the rest refused to answer. Every municipality is a bit different, and the one where I grew up pretty blatantly held a meeting, everyone said no, the council said they were rolling with it anyway. Why in the world would a city council go against unanimous expressed public opinion? Because private opinion spoke loader, probably with dollars.
I’m simply stating that none of the public expressions are in support of the datacenters, so there’s no way to compare.
