Apparition of Jack

My gut tells me it was a neo-Nazi / rabid QAnon groyper who wanted to make a statement against being the “wrong” kind of right-winger. I could be wrong but when he gets captured we’ll get more to the story.

https://x.com/robertdownen_/status/1965923536348053614?s=46 ^ This is a good thread. So it’s looking more and more like the shooter was a disgruntled Nazi (as in, an actual antisemetic, nationalist Nazi) who shot Charlie for being “too soft on Jews” or “not pro-white” enough or any other countless unhinged Nazi talking points. This attack has all the hallmarks of it - accurate shot from long distance (something only gun nuts can pull off), a well-planned escape, a publicised method to cause as much fear and chaos as possible (similar to the anti-Muslim Christchurch shooting), etc. If this turns out to be true, it would be a twisted irony that it was a right-winger who killed Kirk, considering Kirk often justified his college debates by saying he preferred political debate to political violence. The fact that someone from “his” own side - most likely some radical pro-Trump groyper - proves that even if you think you can be “civil” about promoting hatred, you will eventually create monsters that will come back to bite you in the ass. Nazism is a cancer. Nazism is so dangerous that it even gets “normal” right-wing nationalists killed. And Trump supported all of these people. He let Nazis storm the Capitol on Jan 6th. This is why any sort of hatred, no matter how “moderate” or “civil” it is, can never be accepted. Because it can come back to kill even the people who thought they could keep it in check. Nazism must be destroyed. EDIT: Shit, who’s to say it wasn’t some crazy wing it who killed Charlie for saying he “didn’t care about the Epstein files?” Kirk come out with a much-derided video saying that he “Trusts his friends in the Trump administration.” Jesus Christ that would be even crazier

There is some truly twisted within the current American mind. A toxic mix of extreme entitlement, national chauvinism, a lack of any real geopolitical rivals, a history of slavery and oppression that hasnt been fully dealt with yet, a destructive aversion to any sort of public funding as “communism”, an extreme lack of accountability surrounding their part in the destruction of other nations (Iraq War e.g.), and a culture built off aggressive “winner-takes-all” main character materialistic bullshit has lead to a nation fundamentally unable to reform itself when it needs to to prevent mass poverty / polarisation / violence / etc. America needs a massive dose of humility, and they need it now. They can’t keep “destroying” all their political / social / economic enemies and thinking this will lead to a sane, tolerant, peaceful society. Americans need to understand that they’re not the only ones of this planet, that other countries actually DO do certain things better, and that just bombing / murdering / rioting / scheming their way to power won’t fix anything. They’re like a schoolyard bully high on meth.

I don’t know if it’s been posted yet but this is a photo of the (alleged) shooter. If it is then he doesn’t strike me as some radical trans activist to me. This just makes MAGA look even more unhinged. If the shooter was a right-winger then it’s further proof the MAGA movement is an insane death cult that doesn’t even protect its own members. Even more reasons for it to be destroyed.

Hmm. Well I guess my next question is was it someone from the left or the right. Either someone from the left (rightfully) pissed off a Charlie’s hateful, sexist, racist rhetoric but who took it to an extreme degree, or a disgruntled right-wing fan angry thar Charlie wasnt “Nazi enough” or something. I hate to say it I really hope it’s not the first one. The fact that most political violence comes from right-wing nutjobs wouldn’t matter to MAGA if it was a left-winger who shot him. They’re a fascist movement and will use it as an excuse to become as maximum unhinged and oppressive as possible. If it instead turns out to be someone on the right, MAGA will still try and twist and deny it but at least the public opinion wouldn’t be on their side and could actually make their movement look even worse. I fucking despise that this is where we’re at as a society the strength of democracy lives or dies based off the actions of a few violent radicals, but here we are. Just a very stupid and traumatising age. I hope one day people come to their senses and all this bullshit blows over.

My question is, why Charlie? As far as right-wing pundits go hes one of the more “tame” and civil-minded (at least when compared to someone like say, Alex Jones or Nick Fuentes.) Who could’ve possibly had beef with him to point of staging a targetted assassination at a crowded event? This wasn’t some “Internet personality gets harassed at home” thing, nor was it even “Internet personality shot during heated incident”, this was a planned, professional assassination to cause as much chaos and visibility as possible. Something doesn’t add up. If it was a disgruntled fan, what could Charlie have said to piss them off so much, to the point of killing him from 200 yards away in front of thousands of people? If it was someone else, then what did he do to make himself such a big target? Very strange indeed.

Being human is complicated.

Life is fleeting. Cherish what time you have on this earth.

I wonder if Hitler had similar thoughts in 1945

Stay safe Americans. You’re not alone in these troubling times.

Death comes for us all. If nothing else, this is a strong memento mori for all of us.

I understand not wanting to call yourself a Marxist-Leninist or whatever, as you say history tells us that out of control communism never ends well, but at the same time, don’t you think the pendulum has swung too far in favour of laissez-faire capitalism? The welfare state came about as a result of both the unregulated capitalism of the Great Depression and collective experiences of WW2, for instance. Likewise, today’s economic situation of massive wealth inequality and poor worker’s rights is much the result of the neoliberalism pushed by Reagan and Thatcher in the 1980s. There’s also the fact that technology has just in general become far more productive over the last 50 years and we now have the machines, computers etc to adequately give everyone a decent basic standard of living. Even something like car production has become absurdly more productive since the 1970s, so the idea of guaranteeing everyone a car wouldn’t be completely out of the realm of possibility, for instance. That’s why I’m a supporter of people like Bernie, AOC, Mamdani, etc. If you sat them down and asked would there be a place for private enterprise in their ideal future, I think they would truthfully say yes; the idea of Stalinist-style collectivisation seems to be a thing of the past. But we absolutely still can do things like tackle social media corruption, white collar crime, the two-tiered justice system, a severe lack of housing, education, healthcare, etc without turning into radical Stalinists or whatever. The problem is too many elites are too greedy and simply refuse to admit that their wealth is built off the back of millions of workers, often at the expense of those worker’s well-being. There’s no reason why, in 2025, with all the absurd amount of technology we have, a barista or office administrator should never be able to buy a home, repay their education loans, get medical needs fixed without bankrupting them, etc. The social contract states that if people contribute to a society, that society should look after them, not instead try and extract as much wealth from them as possible and leave them with nothing. That’s how you get the French Revolution.

Post-War Europe was basically an equal mix of socialism and capitalism. By which I mean, trade unions, workers, actual communists, etc had immense influence over the government and pushed to create the modern welfare state we know today, which has created some of the most stable and equitable societies on the planet. The public health systems in these countries that America lacks is in large part a result of this movement, for instance. The problem is America is far too embedded in the unrepentant materialism brainrot. Americans genuinely think owning a yacht, owning a Maserati and popping pills your entire life to stave off existential angst is the height of human existence, and will fuck over their fellow countrymen to get there. It completely eludes them that social cohesion, well-being, public health, community spirit etc are their own goods, which is what the countries of Europe, Japan, Canada etc have known for decades.

What about porn about climate change? Like an adult film about two people stuck on a mountain because the coast is flooded who decide to bang because there’s nothing else to do

Without getting into the ethics of it all, I feel like this isn’t really all that surprising in the first place? Take David Pakman for example. While I broadly agreed with his worldview, I always felt his videos were kind of “safe” and corporatised, if that makes sense. Like he was coordinating with people beyond just a handful of independent online leftists. The fact that he is taking money from the Dems seems kinda self-evident all things considered. I really don’t see the problem with it so long as his messages are still reasonable and grounded.

Yeah, just like we’re all gonna get those $5000 DOGE checks any day now, right?

@Emerald Elon Musk net worth: $413 billion Mark Zuckerberg: $270 billion Peter Thiel: $25.6 billion Donald Trump: $7 billion Tucker Carlson: ~$420 million-$2 billion Joe Rogan: $200 million Ben Shapiro: $50 million etc etc. As always, follow the money.

Release the Epstein files.

Discussions like these make clear to me that absolutely no one has any goddamn idea what direction the world is heading (myself included) and any “educated guesses” are no more accurate than throwing darts at a board and seeing where they land, lmao. Things are wayy to influx. I say just enjoy the ride.

https://www.axios.com/2025/07/07/jeffrey-epstein-suicide-client-list-trump-administration This is pretty freaking funny ngl. Seeing MAGA conspiracy freaks twist themselves into knots finding reasons why their god-saviour Trump wouldn’t release the same list he’s obviously on is fantastic.

It kinda feels like the last five years of human history has seen a mass regress of human behaviour towards purely base, self-interested survival / power / ego etc. COVID, Trump 2.0, social media etc all see to have contributed to this. What can be done about this? How do we get people to stop acting in purely selfish, materialistic terms and start acting in thoughtful, human-centric and conscious terms? I feel like we’ll make no real progress until we get people to wake up out of this haze that they’re in.

Commodification, commercialisation and financialisation of society have rotted our brains. Rather than focus on growth, life, beauty, truth, community and connection, we’ve been conditioned and encouraged to see everything as a “me vs them” zero-sum game of ego, dominance, greed and pursuit of individual wealth. We’ve fallen under the delusion that money alone is whats important, no matter the cost to obtain it (social stability? environmental health? human lives?) Our media, entertainment, politics, and just basic common culture is dominated by shallow, narcissistic peacocking and endless culture wars. Rather than see the basic humanity in others, we’re instead encouraged to see everyone as a threat, an enemy, someone to conquer and, fundamentally, someone to destroy. It’s pure social insanity. Something SERIOUSLY wrong has gone on in the human psyche. I don’t know what it is, I don’t know where it began or where it came from, but I know that it’s here and it’s turning even basic, everyday people into unrepentant narcissists. I try not to get caught up in it. I try not to succumb to tribalism and hatred, but it can be hard. My own hope is that eventually something breaks and people wake up to just has insane we’ve all become. But who knows how long that will be. We’ve just got to try and stay sane until then.

Progressives would shift the tax burden heavily to billionaires. The whole point is to get billionaires to actually give back to society that they dramatically benefit from (so better highways, better hospitals, proper trade schools, etc.) and free up the economic productivity the working and middle classes provide. Right now, most of the wealth workers produce goes towards giving Muck Zuckerberg another Hawaiian island. They see no benefit from their labor.

Yeah good point man. Our tax dollars should go to Amazon subsidies and Israeli weapons instead! That’s what real tough-as-nails American workers want 😎

If this were true, why are Trump-AOC voters such a large demographic? You said something about Trump “awakening the lizard brain” in 100 million voters or something. The thing is, Trump and progressives have very similar economic messages - what do you think “drain the swamp” means? The difference is, unlike Trump, progressives are actually sincere in their desire to fix the (incredibly obvious) catastrophic failures of modern American society. Trump isn’t (and will actually make things significantly worse.) Like, are progressives lying when they say income inequality is out of control? Or that it’s borderline murder the US doesn’t have a public healthcare system yet? Etc. Hell, you would be considered a progressive by your voting record, Leo. There are certain ideological blindspots within progressivism but at the end of the day it’s not like progressives popped up out of nowhere. They are a very real and very legitimate response to the insanity of late capitalist society. Of course you could argue that they’re “out of touch” for the common voter or whatever, but I hardly think that makes a difference when that voter then dies of black lung disease at 43 because their local hospital got defunded by Trump. EDIT: Let’s not forget that progressive policies are incredibly popular with the US electorate, it’s just people have been conditioned to oppose them by the insanely influential corporate media. I’m reminded of the time when Bernie Sanders got a room full of Fox News watchers of all people to agree with basically everything he said.