Edit: better not to suggest anything specific & give free education on tactics, but I think there's a germ of something here.

[artemis@dice.camp]

Turn their aggression inward. A lot of them are dudes with a perpetual chip on their shoulder. No matter the "enemy", they are going to want to hurt someone. So...if that anger is going to go somewhere, what can we do to direct it onto their own organization?

[mostol@social.coop]

@artemis Listing specific things might put people on the lookout for folks *doing* those specific things, but maybe having zines/printouts someone could grab based on stuff like the Simple Sabotage Field Manual could be smart? And could also potentially provide some…liberatory education?

[angiebaby@mas.to]

@artemis Sorry, I can't sign onto this proposal. They signed up because they are racist misogynists who signed up to do violence - that's what inspired them, the ability to murder, declare their victims terrorists and get away with it. Anyone still clinging to this regime is beyond saving.

[artemis@dice.camp]

I'm not an expert on this type of propagandizing, but I would bet that we could learn a lot from all the vicious manipulation by bad actors across the internet in the last couple decades.

They really played us, y'all. With the bots & the foreign agents, they fucked with our heads. But...now we know how this game is played.

So how do we fuck with these guys? How do we weaponize their victim complexes & resentments?

[msbellows@c.im]

@angiebaby @artemis But I don't think she's talking about saving them. I think she's talking about using them, redirecting them to mess up their own organization.

[sayonaraminasan@urusai.social]

@artemis out of the loop but why should I care about what happens to a gestapo thug? lol they knew what they were signing on for. Even if they sabatoged the whole operation from within, brought the whole org down from the inside out - I would still wanna see them all rot in a cell for eternity lol my own view of course. There’s no redemption for them to be had, and if any of them ARE having second thoughts at this moment - it’s likely that it’s because they feel the walls of justice slowly closing in on them. Fuck all I.C.E agents. It’s not like they were forced to sign up. Again my own view, only. Once you sign with that org, you have crossed a line there’s no walking back from.

[artemis@dice.camp]

@angiebaby
It's not about saving. Trying to convince people "you shouldn't hurt people" is not worth it. They aren't gonna listen. But we should use every lever we can.

But also...I don't know about "beyond saving". I'm not expecting to win anyone over, but some people will leave the cult & be horrified at everything they went along with & participated in. I can't write most human beings off entirely.

[artemis@dice.camp]

@angiebaby
Humans are a bunch of apes with anxiety. We are significantly more susceptible to programming & significantly less rational & enlightened than we would like to imagine. Monkey see, monkey do.

[mungus@jorts.horse]

@artemis based on my experience in Starcraft II team games, these guys will blame their allies for their own failure. they more they're frustrated and inconvenienced, the more they lash out at the the people who are "supposed to be protecting" them

[artemis@dice.camp]

@sayonaraminasan
I'm not saying we should care about them. I'm saying we should *use* them. They did get manipulated so they have reason to be mad. It's not about what they deserve. It's about what we can get them to do.

[artemis@dice.camp]

@petealexharris
The difference between them is not a *moral* one. It's that the hardcore fanatics will hold on longer. If a guy is just some dick who wanted to play out a power fantasy, he doesn't have any particular loyalty.

[artemis@dice.camp]

@petealexharris
The *entire* idea is sand in the gears. I'm not on a mission to save them.

These violent people have been weaponized against us for so long. Why not see if they can be weaponized against someone else?

[artemis@dice.camp]

To be clear: I am not saying "save the ICE agents!" I'm saying we should use their reasons to be angry against the regime.

It IS a fucking raw deal for them! They are the expendable grunts! That fucking sucks for them. But I'm not talking about pity here. I'm saying, these guys are a loaded gun with a hair trigger. Knowing that, can we influence the direction the gun is pointing?

[sayonaraminasan@urusai.social]

@artemis fair point. Still wanna see em all in a cell tho! If they can be useful along the way, added bonus

[artemis@dice.camp]

@sayonaraminasan
Hundred percent! Nobody gets away without consequences on this one. Not if we can help it.

[mungus@jorts.horse]

@artemis to extrapolate, the best kind of actions would be those that produce a sense of frustration. getting away with it is key. produce a sense that the people who annoyed them are not being punished. in the broader strategic sense, use cheap and safe tactics to trim down their growth with impunity, distract them from their goals, let them focus on imagined threats, while we focus on organizing and developing real economic power

[sarae@ecoevo.social]

@msbellows @angiebaby @artemis these are not people who want that

[purrperl@noc.social]

@artemis @sayonaraminasan

I don't know enough history and sociology to answer this, so please help me answer this — what happened in Germany, in 1945? What is the historical precedent for treating pawns and foot soldiers of fascism? At least, it'll give us a first approximation about what works and what doesn't.

Were all German soldiers rounded up and imprisoned and then tried at Nuremberg? Did some casually move back into civilian life? What did civilians think of them? Did they reintegrate?

[sayonaraminasan@urusai.social]

@purrperl why look at precedent? There are still neo Nazis in Germany today, so whatever was done at the end of that war wasn’t sufficient in stopping the rise of wannabe gestapo there today. So I propose we go even further than what was done in Germany 1945. Given American history of pardoning war criminals and covering the crimes of others - my position is that the administration of justice this time around needs to be ruthless and complete. None of this reintegration nonsense. Their plan is to deport us all and or kill us all, you don’t reintroduce that back into society. Too extreme?

@artemis

[artemis@dice.camp]

@petealexharris
The pay is not actually very good & the "signing bonus" was a trap because they would have to pay back IN FULL money they already spent (including the money they never received because of taxes removed). So they are stuck in an awful job that they can't leave.

So they are abused everyday by their own bosses & coworkers, then go out into public to get screamed at by everyone else, & on top of everything else, they are barely able to get any sleep at night.