Traitors.
That’s the word that everyone in the United States can call four of the Proud Boys who were found guilty by a jury of their peers for taking part in the insurrection conducted in the Capital on Jan. 6, 2021. They reached the verdict on 31 of 46 counts following seven days of deliberation in Washington DC and nearly 15 weeks of courtroom proceedings.
- “Seditious conspiracy” is defined as treason in America.
- Four defendants were convicted of that offense, while all five went down on obstruction charges that are punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
- The verdict concludes the last of three seditious conspiracy trials that stemmed from what had become the largest prosecution in U.S. History. Attorneys for the Proud Boys tried to blame the violence on Trump and not his followers.
- They cast themselves as “defenders of the constitutional right to protest” according to the Washington Post.
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But all of us who watched the presidential debates will never forget what then-President Trump said when questioned about his contacts and/or knowledge of the Proud Boys. “Stand back” and “Stand by.” I got a chill – a cruel and vicious premonition of something lurking in the future – when I first heard those words and kind of figured that he was sending a message to the White Nationalist group.
Legal scholars said the convictions would send a necessary signal of deterrence to extremists contemplating violence. I hope so. Perhaps the action will spur the Special Counsel to speed up the investigation of Trump and those around him who broke the law to hold onto power by their Big Lie claims and pressure on state and federal officials to assist them as well as sending thousands of supporters to take part in the insurrection.
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I feel as if all of America has just gotten hit by the so-called Chinese expression where someone offers the ironic wish “May You Live in Interesting Times.”
Why do I feel this is just the beginning of more interesting things to come?
Contoveros 
I took a break from work and went and got my car’s oil change. I started reading your post. I don’t know how to state this, but the ache in my heart watching and listening to people proclaiming to love this country but clearly living in hate and violence churns my soul. I hate these people. They are the least American of all of us. They disgust me. And every time I hear Trump’s voice — the stand back and stand by crap — I realize, painfully, how far we are from decency in this country. Continuing to vote in these Republicans, these fools, is disgusting. I can’t even say I love my country any more. My disappointment in who we’ve become, is deep.
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Yeah, with that comment Trump legitimised them as the brown shirts of the MAGA movement.
I’m sorry to say you can expect a lot more of this sort of thing as the US empire collapses over the next 5-10 years. I reckon that like George W Bush, Reagan and Nixon before him, within a few election cycles Trump will be looked back on nostalgically as a relative moderate.
If the country you no longer love doesn’t take the whole world down with it in a nuclear Ragnarök I think we’ll all have reason to be grateful.
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Crazy as it sounds I think someday we will actually feel grateful that Americans rose to the occasion and sought justice against the scumbags of our nation.
But it ain’t over until the fat lady sings and there are a number of tunes the whole world is hoping to soon hear played against the Trumpster.
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😔
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Hang in there my dear Carmen. I too loathe the actions of Trump and his most violent followers that have placed America in its most perilous position since the Civil War when armed rebellion swept the nation.
But, our justice system caught up with these Proud Boys and I believe that we will soon be turning another page and getting the real culprits that instigated this insurrection to include the Maga leader himself and his Republican cohorts.
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I hope you’re right about our justice system. I have lost a lot of faith in it, but I’m still hanging on… barely, but still hoping for justice to prevail. For right and good to win. 😔
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Wish your sense of justice finally done was shared by all. America (and now, increasingly in Canada) the rightful convictions merely feed a martyr mentality, and enhances the oft-repeated nonsense “we need to DO something”. We have our own brand of Proud Boys here in Canada, and our version of the Jan. 6 nonsense was mirrored here by the “Freedom Convoy” takeover of Ottawa. And let me tell you: those folks have the same opinions as the fringe groups. Up here we even saw people with Confederate Flags, flags supporting Trump and of course the ever-popular MAGA hats, with zero awareness of the irony these symbols illustrate.
I’m convinced society’s meltdown isn’t nearly over – no matter how much we all dearly wish it was – and there’s more to come.
On the flip side – there’s a mostly silent crowd of people for whom there’s no fight. They have different names, but “light workers” is fairly common. They don’t fight because they see the “God particle” in all. And they really have no desire to fight – just to keep their lights raised high, knowing the darkness can’t stand it.
My hope is that when the meltdown finishes, and people wonder what, if anything, they’ve “won” – the light will be inescapable and ubiquitous. I long for the day when former enemies realize they’ve allowed themselves to be deceived by the MSM and social network companies, and they regain lost friendships. A day when get-togethers and campfires and comraderies instead of politics and religion rule the day. Dear God may it come soon.
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I am afraid you might be right about the convictions giving the Proud Boys a “martyr” look for their actions. I just hope that each gets at least 20 years in jail for all the world to see what a price a person will have to pay for such activities.
Too bad more members of the old Republican Party here in America can join forces in condemning groups of hate and violence.
And I do believe you are correct in stating that society’s meltdown is far from over. We still have some interesting times to get through.
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Speaking as a criminal justice activist who was once pretty well linked in with US campaigns I can tell you that the long sentences handed out to people like Leonard Peltier and Mumia Abu Jamal were big factors in them being seen as unjustly imprisoned martyrs right around the world and drew a lot of positive attention to the political causes perceived to be the real reasons for their legal persecution.
I don’t imagine social psychology and campaign politics works all that differently on the right than it does on the left.
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It won’t. Quite the contrary in fact.
The Proud Boys are a gang of white supremacist thugs and most of those who stormed the Capitol are guilty of criminal acts that carry adequate sentences on conviction. And that’s how they should have been prosecuted.
By invoking ‘seditious conspiracy’ laws (which fall short of treason, BTW) prosecutors have elevated them from criminals to political prisoners and put them in the company of those previously convicted under those very broad charges – including 19th century inciters of slave rebellions, suspected Confederate sympathisers during the Civil war and members of Puerto Rico independence groups (the latter accounting for most US seditious conspiracy convictions during the 20th Century).
Seditious conspiracy is defined as “two or more people conspiring to oppose, by force, the government’s authority or to delay the execution of any law of the United States”. The “force” need not be violent and can include non-violent obstruction or the sabotage of buildings or equipment.
By invoking authoritarian political laws against the Proud Boys prosecutors have lent credibility to their delusions of being plucky rebels against state oppression and enhanced their appeal to like-minded neo-fascists across the US. Really they’re just a mindless rabble of criminal sociopaths, all too ready to suck up to bigoted authoritarians like Trump if it advances their agenda and puffs up their fragile egos. They sh0uld be treated as such.
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I don’t care what section of the law the United States uses against such traitors but I am so gratified to see that little by little justice is catching up to these thugs.
But you may have a point about them being considered “political prisoners” by MAGA followers. Perhaps martyrs for the Big Lie cause that Trump is still trying to perpetuate years later.
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