Paypal Hates Gays, Loves Censorship and "MAPs"

Update Oct 8th, 2022:  Effective November 3rd, Paypal will be enacting its new "acceptable use policy" that allows the company to charge users a $2,500 fine for spreading "misinformation" or offending one of their arbitrary protected groups.  More specifically, they can steal your money for alleged infractions that:

“Involve the sending, posting, or publication of any messages, content, or materials that, in PayPal’s sole discretion, (a) are harmful, obscene, harassing, or objectionable … (e) depict, promote, or incite hatred or discrimination of protected groups or of individuals or groups based on protected characteristics (e.g. race, religion, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation, etc.) … (g) are fraudulent, promote misinformation … or (i) are otherwise unfit for publication.”

They do not have to tell you which of these rules you violated, and there's no defined appeals process.  Escalated quickly, didn't it?

Update Oct 9, 2022:  Paypal has allegedly walked back this new policy after a wave of customer pushback, claiming that the email was "sent out in error," though there are posts on Reddit dating back to 2020 discussing this very topic.  Either it's been happening in other countries for a while or they've quietly been trying out a "beta" version on select Americans to test the waters.  In either case, proceed with caution.  

I'm not a right wing Christian conservative.  I don't believe in Satanic Ritual Abuse nor have I ever fallen into the Pizzagate rabbithole or taken part in the #SavetheChildren campaign or other moral panics.  

I'm stating this upfront because these are some of the tactics used to discredit anyone who takes issue with the modern trans rights movement's push to funnel children into the Pronoun-to-Hormone pipeline.  Another is lumping trans people, 'queer' folks, asexuals and the "plus" in the LGBTQIA+ (whatever horrors the "+" might entail) in with the Gay Rights Movement that was born of oppression & struggle in 1969 after the Stonewall Riots, siphoning credibility into what is an otherwise unrelated & often dodgy cause.  And perhaps their most insidious tactic is claiming a monopoly on progressive values while going to insane lengths to shut down dissenting opinions via censorship & intimidation--two things that are anathema to the progressive cause.  

I'd hoped to be done with this topic after my exhausting series of Kiwi Farms/Keffals articles, but the hits just keep coming.  Recently a group of Lesbian, Gay & Bisexual advocates called "Gays Against Gr00mers" had their Paypal, Venmo & Gmail accounts locked for "violating the terms of service" with no further explanation given.  This is their website.   And the cherry on top of the shit sundae?  Paypal AND Venmo openly do business with Prostasia: a "support group" for MAPs, aka Minor Attracted Persons.  

Minor. Attracted. Persons.  Take all the time you need.

Twitter post from Gays Against Gr**mers

No matter your position on Gays Against Gr00mers, it should concern you a-fucking-shitton that these giant corporations are able to hold people's money hostage & refuse them service based on personal views on social issues totally unrelated to their business contract.  Another gender-critical account (Colin Wright) had both his Paypal and Etsy accounts shuttered for the same reason.  There are others, such as the The Free Speech Union, UsforThemUK (children's organization) & Law or Fiction (lawyer's organization).  While I don't endorse the views promoted by all of those groups, in no sane universe--let alone open democratic society--should they have their financial accounts frozen for simply holding an opposing view to that of said financial institution.  

Biologist Colin Wright discusses Paypal, Etsy banning

Wrong Views, Wrong Think, No Service

Since when do businesses have the right to discriminate against customers based on their sincerely held personal beliefs?  It's complicated (and depends on where you live), but it seems these businesses are in violation of the law if they're terminating customers on the basis of deeply held religious, political or moral beliefs.  The affected parties should definitely lawyer up if they can afford to.  Losing a Twitter account is one thing... having your income stream or the account in which you store your money shut down is another entirely.  These customers were not forcing Paypal, Gmail or Etsy to decorate a gay wedding cake; they were simply using their site to hold their money or run a business while exercising their right to freedom of expression.  Nothing violent or illegal was stated or implied.  A boycott is good but direct legal action is needed by those affected to show them this is not okay.  And in the long term we must get laws passed to prevent this kind of coordinated attack against law-abiding citizens.  

If we don't, where will it end?  With the support of an unpopular political candidate?  Belonging to an unpopular faith?  Support for the "wrong" side in a war?  If this behavior is allowed to continue, eventually you could be refused entry into Walmart if they don't like the shirt you're wearing or the fact that you're in an interracial relationship--not that they'd have to tell you that.  They could just say you're "violating their terms of service".  Not like you'd have the money or time to fight a huge corporation like Walmart in the courts.  And where are our federal regulators?  These companies have become too powerful and need to be regulated like a public utility like the phone companies were back in the day.  Imagine having your phone service disconnected because they don't like your tone of voice in a phone conversation.  That's where we're at. 

The fact that this is the hill they're choosing to die on--the right of concerned people to critique the drugging of children whose brains aren't yet developed & the motives of those doing it--makes it all the more terrifying.  We should be in the streets like the Belgians after the Dutroux Affair.  This is how Epstein, Jimmy Savile & Lawrence E. King of the Franklin Credit Union got away with their crimes against children, except this time they're doing it in broad daylight under the guise of "private business freedoms".  

Who's the Extremist?

Seattle child's gender spectrum worksheet from 1st grade

Teaching pseudoscientific hokum like the "gender spectrum" and self-ID pronouns in elementary school as well as having "Drag Queen Storytime" at libraries where very young children congregate is the exact type of behavior that homophobe Anita Bryant used to justify getting gay teachers fired during her "Save Our Children" campaign in the 1970s.  Those things weren't happening back then so it was just empty rhetoric.  The gays of that era who were fighting for basic human rights like equal housing, job & marriage opportunities would've been horrified that these things are now being done in their name.  (Spoiler:  Many of us are).  We had to defend ourselves against claims that we wanted to "recruit" or harm children, which is what's happening today at the hands of this insidious movement that seeks to make permanent medical patients out of kids before they can cognitively consent to such decisions.  We have every right to say "not in our name".    

These gender-regressive concepts did not exist at any perceptible level in society 20, 15 or even 10 years ago.  The rapid rise of trans ideology has all the makings of a cult; it even comes with its own lingo & symbolism.  Anyone who questions the faith is labeled a transphobe, equivalent to a suppressive person or apostate in Scientology or the FLDS Church.  They're also above the law, particularly as it pertains to sex... a classic sign of a cult.  Openly admitting to raping a disabled woman (underage girl?); engaging in group sex chats with minors as Keffals did with Catboy Ranch, the whole Reddit pedophilia debacle involving Amy Challenor's rapist partner--these things go unpunished while a non-trans person would be carted off to prison for them.  

Not only are they not punished, critics are silenced or banished from the internet for speaking out about them.  As participation in organized religion falls in America, a sense of directionless isolation has crept in, creating a vacuum in which extreme ideologies like this can take hold.  We essentially have two competing religions in the West:  radical conservative Christianity and the Trans Rights movement.  Both are equally harmful & should be rejected in favor of rational thought, skepticism & moderation.  

When ANY adult takes an intense interest in an unrelated child you should always question their motives, be it a Catholic priest, a Hollywood talent agent or an overzealous member of the trans rights community.  Instead, the very people reminding society to be mindful of this are being deplatformed & having their businesses closed by America's biggest corporations.  After living through the Stranger Danger era & learning that actually, most child abusers are people known to the child who have had an opportunity to carefully gain the trust of both the child and their parents, you'd think we would've learned.  But no.  Now the very word "gr00mer" is verbotten (notice the annoying way I stylized it?  Welcome to the Brave New Web).  Youtube creators have to self-censor words like "sexual abuse" and "rape" in order to avoid de-monitization as well.  The rabbithole goes very deep indeed.

Anita Bryant accused gays of trying to "recruit children" in the '70s.

Who do you think they're protecting here?

Not us.  Whether transitioning, self-identifying as the opposite sex or various medical interventions are the best approach should be left to medical professionals, not school staff & corporations.  And it's beside the point.  The real question is WHY ARE SO MANY STRANGE ADULTS SUDDENLY SO DAMNED INTERESTED IN CHILDREN?  Is it because they see dollar signs?  Lifelong patients who will be reliant on hormones & "corrective" surgeries to fix the complications of the experimental surgeries they're trying out with almost no government oversight?  Or do some of them have even darker intentions?  

Likely all of the above.  

The modern trans rights movement provides the perfect cover for men with sick fetishes like autogynephilia, cross dressing & pedophilia to force their illness on the public under under the cloak of progressiveness.  It also enables the pharmaceutical lobby to push drugs & surgeries on the most lucrative demographic:  children.  Misogynysts and Men's Rights Activists in womanface can break women's sporting records while guilting lesbians into sleeping with them by creating terms like "cotton ceiling" and "lady dick" and colonizing lesbian dating apps as our few remaining female-centered festivals are shut down in the name of "inclusivity".  And it's perfect for homophobic/conservative parents with gay or gender non-conforming kids who just want them to "fit in" while still making it to heaven one day (the Quran also provides a loophole for this according to Iran officials).  Narcissistic and Munchausen parents can use their transed kids to earn internet fame or maybe even score their own TLC series a la Jazz Jennings.  And now it's become the government's tool du jour to drag the censorship trojan horse through the trap door (pun intended).  

Ironically, the one group lost in all this are the homosexual transsexuals who comprise a minority of the modern trans movement.  They actually suffer from gender dysphoria & want only to be perceived as the opposite sex without forcing some bizarre ideology down everyone's gullet.  They go to great lengths to look like their desired sex (which often includes obtaining sex reassignment surgery), engage in functional relationships minus the paraphilias/public exhibitionism & live productive lives.  In general they're not a threat to women or children & have never caused a problem due to their lack of Cluster B personality traits the Western trans movement is entirely powered by.  

And how does the loving trans rights community refer to them?   As "truscum":  an awkward melding of the words "true" and "scum".   😔

Forces Too Big?

Absurdly slanted coverage of the Keffals story in the media. (Click for full size).

The corporate censorship taking place now is unprecedented.  Never in my 24 years on the web have I seen this many unaffiliated & diverse companies--from internet security firms like Cloudflare that exist to prevent illegal DDoS attacks, to social media giants like Twitter & Reddit to online payment processors like Paypal & Venmo to archives like the Wayback Machine--engaging in such blatant, coordinated silencing of law-abiding citizens.  All while the mainstream media twists & distorts the actual story beyond recognition.  I've seen plenty of drug sites and research chemical forums go down in realtime, but never discussion forums and organizations that simply shared an unpopular viewpoint or archived the actions of others.  Quite frankly it terrifies me.  Oh, and on September 21st the creator of the comic strip Dilbert, which has been in publication since 1989, was dropped from 77 newspapers due in part (or in whole) to his joking remarks about trans people.  So this isn't just limited to online content.  

Now is the time to back up all your files & get ready for a move to the Dark Web.  Nothing on the clearnet is safe.  I fully expect this blog to get zapped any day now.  If I knew anything about hosting my own domain I'd be working on it now but alas, I'm a techtard.  Move your money out of Paypal, use a VPN, pay with cash or Bitcoin when you can & familiarize yourself with sites like Pastebin, Privnote, Safenote, Protonmail & others.  They're imperfect but better than nothing.  

This is not a drill:  the Thought Police (and maybe even the actual police) are coming for anyone who speaks out against this dystopian nightmare.  Null of Kiwi Farms says Bloomberg journalists are digging through his attorney's dumpsters, ffs.  It's gone beyond internet drama when financial institutions can close your accounts because of your belief that kids should not be subjected to adult situations to which they can't consent, be they racy drag shows (sometimes performed by convicted child sex offenders), medical procedures that cause irreversible infertility or unsafe unisex bathrooms that put them at risk of being raped at school.  

In the words of the late intelligence officer William Colby, "sometimes there are forces and events too big, too powerful, with so much at stake for other people or institutions, that you cannot do anything about them."

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Outstanding Documentaries: Children of Chernobyl (1991)

Sick of glossy Netflix documentaries that are more about selling an edge-of-your-seat thriller storyline than documenting reality?  Me too.  While interest in the genre is at an all-time high, it's harder than ever to find unbiased documentaries that do what they're supposed to do:  present raw, factual information in a gripping manner without injecting a bunch of special effects, emotionally manipulative gimmicks or the producer's own foregone conclusion on the subject.  

Thus I'm announcing my Outstanding  Documentaries series in which I'll share reviews of films that fit into the "actual documentary" category.  These flicks will come from all eras & cover social, political & personal topics with as little extraneous tampering from the filmmaker as possible.  (With an emphasis on obscure & banned films, government cover-ups, medical/psychology topics & things that are generally NOT uplifting.  I like my documentaries dark.  Consider this your trigger warning).  Spoilers will be minimal.

Child with alopecia caused by radiation poisoning

First up is Children of Chernobyl directed by Clive Gordon.  Filmed in the immediate aftermath of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant disaster of 1986, Children of Chernobyl provides a unique window into the last days of the Soviet Union & the ghastly effects of radiation poisoning that the Soviet government tried to cover up.  (Though Wikipedia's pages on this subject are also disturbingly gaslight-y, accusing survivors of "radiophobia" & downplaying the chronic health effects of this carcinogenic mutagen in the soil, air, water & food).  The success rate in Kiev for treating childhood leukemia at this time was less than 15% due to the state of their run-down hospitals.  The radiation released into the atmosphere from Chernobyl was equivalent to 400 Hiroshima bombs which was bad enough, but the suffering was compounded by the lack of basic medical necessities like painkillers & disposable needles, which led to gruesome preventable infections.

While this film is a hard watch at times due to the heartbreaking scenes of children suffering, there's enough hauntingly beautiful shots of the countryside around the Exclusion Zone to break up the doom & gloom. This juxtaposition makes for an unforgettable documentary, one that proves no system of government whether communist or capitalist is above sacrificing its citizens when the shit hits the fan.  It's films like this that make one contemplate the place of assisted suicide in medicine & whether forced treatment of people like children who can't consent to such treatment--particularly when it's almost certain to be futile & cause more suffering--constitutes cruel & unusual punishment.  It also drives home the utter powerlessness of everyday people when a large environmental crisis occurs. 

If you liked HBO's 5-part miniseries Chernobyl, this is a must-see.  No dramatization could come close to the real thing.  

Teacher recounts the horrors she witnessed while being told all was well

#DropTwitter

After my last few articles on the Kiwi Farms trainwreck, I shouldn't have to spell out my stance on censorship (but I will since, you know, goldfish memories).  As long as nobody's selling nuclear weapons, trafficking humans or engaging in other dangerous activities that infringe on the rights of others to pursue life, liberty & happiness with their physical safety intact, I fully support the right of any website to remain on the clearnet.  Words are not violence & information obtained by legal means is not justification for nuking an entire website.  The End.

However.  What's good for the goose is good for the gander.  Or should I say the bluebird.

As a leftist, it pains me to see the stance the liberal idpol crowd has taken on the issue of free speech on the internet.  Their hypocrisy is every bit as glaring as the "pro-lifers" who call for the heads of abortion doctors while reeing about getting "big government" out of our lives.  Yes, the same crowd who mocked Christian conservatives in the early 2000's for banning Harry Potter books are now doing the same thing, going straight to the source with their venom by making the author's name trend nearly every day because of her radical belief that "woman" is defined as an "adult human female" and sex-based rights are important.  Neither liberals nor conservatives care to hide their naked hypocrisy any longer--both are willing to sink to any depth in the name of a temporary "win"... even if it fucks us all over in the long term.   

At every turn of this embarrassing Kiwi Farms drama, the useful liberal Twitiots have sided with the greater evil by: 

1.)  Supporting DDoS attacks (a federal crime) against a site they dislike while denouncing an internet security firm (Cloudflare) for doing what internet security firms do--providing protection against DDoS attacks to a paying customer; 

2.)  Siding with the FBI & other 3-letter agencies which have a well-documented history of violent oppressive behavior and even forming an alliance with right wing extremist Marjorie Taylor Greene (who is possibly the worst transphobe in the annals of congressional history) simply because she called for the removal of the same website they happen to hate;  

3.)  Conveniently ignoring that their alleged hero in this crusade is a self-admitted child groomer & underage sex cult leader who gives home-brewed hormones to minors without a parent's consent in states where it's illegal while lazily calling Kiwi Farms a "trans hate site".  Oh, and Keffals also followed a self-confessed pedophile on Twitter named ShotaDysphoria whose vile posts can be read here.  🤮

4.)  Ignoring the crimes of sites like Twitter, which have a far wider reach & allow the same or worse behavior including doxxing, violent threats against women, ratioing, targeted harassment & swatting while hiding behind a culture of self-righteous hashtag campaigns like the one meant to "take down" Kiwi Farms.  See for yourself:

Recent doxxing/threats by "the Barbz" (Nicki Minaj fans) on Twitter

...more violence from the parasocial parasites.

Rampant misogyny on the bird app

Racism with a dash of wtf. 

Misogyny + supporting terrorism

Never seen this level of evil on Kiwi Farms.  Just sayin'.

Ahh yes.  Direct, specific threats of rape & violence.  #DropTwitter

Some murderous tweets from Twitter's trans activists to cleanse your palate.

The "Two Equal Sides" Fallacy

It's not so shocking that the paid shills at CNN & MSNBC are getting this wrong.  What's really alarming is that every 2-bit libertarian blogger & "logical" fair-and-balanced tech bro (and even a good number of archivists) seems hellbent on presenting "both sides" as if the existence of Kiwi Farms & the arbitrary banishing of every trace of it from the internet are equally newsworthy.  They make sure to emphasize that they find KF disgusting & think it has no place on the internet for like 5 paragraphs before getting around to "...buuuuuut, this DOES seem a tad heavy handed, what with the Internet Archive scrubbing all traces of The Farms & Google Voice terminating the administrator's account with no warning or explanation... even though Kiwis are evil Nazis with no souls who totally deserved it.  But it might set a dangerous precedent for the rest of us.  In theory.  Some day."

Fuck out of here.

Any idiot with eyes can see that Kiwi Farms contains a lot of forbidden words that the PC police have deemed off limits in recent years.  These words are banned on most other internet forums, and I actually prefer it that way seeing as how I belong to a few of the marginalized groups to which they refer.  And because those words are banned on most of the web, you have an infinite number of other places where you won't be exposed to them.  It's called the free market.  Make use of it.  If you don't like the program, change the channel.

The bigger issue is that many of you seem more bothered by the unpretty words on an obscure internet forum than actual sex crimes against children--i.e. a 28-year-old man setting up a chat room on Discord & knowingly engaging in sex talk with kids as young as 13 and telling a 16-year-old girl "Damn ya ass fat" (among other repugnant things).  If this describes you, it's time to take a step back & have your head, your moral compass & your computer's saved files checked because you're probably up to no good yourself.  (Also, the majority of oh-so-offended critics of the language used on Kiwi Farms are white hetero liberals taking offense on behalf of groups they don't belong to & haven't even asked how they feel on the issue.  I guarantee many Black, gay & other actually-oppressed minorities do not support your push to ban this forum because they know it's likely to bring together unlikely bedfellows like right wing Trumpers & leftist TERFs while galvanizing the previously apathetic lurkers who just used the site for lolz.  Because oppressed people generally learn from history unlike you privileged soyboys who got your social justice degrees from TikTok University).  

And here's the killing part:  You can see all those slurs and more in their full hateful glory on Twitter & other social media platforms.  They're being spewed by the very bigots who claim the moral high ground & play the victim when receiving the slightest bit of criticism.  It's all about who's on the giving and receiving end that counts.  Hypocrisy is the name of the game.  When you can't win with facts & evidence, simply silence your opponent via deplatforming & illegal DDoS attacks.  Does nobody see how Orwellian that is?  

If the hack journos who wrote all those hit pieces on Kiwi Farms had spent 5 minutes there instead of acting as Keffals' personal fluffer, they'd know what the rest of us know:  that this malignant narcissist who would've been tackled to the ground after enjoying some "tea and cookies" with Chris Hansen only a few years ago is now being portrayed as an underdog hero because he belongs to their current crop of Sacred Cows® & is a convenient tool for advancing the government's censorship agenda.  (What's Perverted Justice up to these days, anyway?)  They'd also have a fuller picture of the alleged "suicides" & swattings that were wrongly attributed to members of the forum.  But that would require actual research so forget it.  

Since this is the information dystopia you losers want, save your tears when the crimes of your least favorite politician, billionaire or celebrity criminal are memoryholed 2 minutes after they happen.  You might even be penalized in the future for trying to archive the misdeeds of some of them.  Hopefully you're not personally victimized by someone with more wealth & power or you could end up being prosecuted for trying to document it online.  When sites as big as the Internet Archive start hiding/erasing content without even attempting to give a logical explanation, where does it end?  

If Kiwi Farms was shut down for doxxing and harassment, Twitter should be shut down for the same reason.  I implore you angry armchair activists to use the hashtag #DropTwitter in your social media posts along with examples of their violations.  Steal the tweets posted on this page if need be.  I have no delusions that a social media giant of that magnitude will actually be "dropped," but maybe someone out there will see the hypocrisy for what it is & grow a pair.  

And like I said in my 2021 Reddit censorship piece, stay tuned because this is just the tip of a very ominous iceberg. 

On Marilyn Buck: Only White Member of the Black Liberation Army

What is a terrorist?  According to the Oxford dictionary, a terrorist is "a person who uses unlawful violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims."  By that definition and almost any other, the people in this article would most certainly qualify.  My intention is neither to glorify nor demonize them but to simply share their story as part of the larger cultural context of political violence in America & hopefully spark a conversation on how we view terrorism committed by our own citizens.  

Remember when I said that violent, radical crime was utterly ubiquitous throughout the late 20th Century?  For instance there was one bank robbery every HOUR in Los Angeles in the 1980s.  That's to say nothing of all the airplane hijackings, government office break-ins, domestic bombings, kidnappings & assassinations of prominent figures. Violent crime was so common that many of the stories of those who committed it were almost completely lost to the sands of time.  Well, here's one of those little known stories of a woman whose life was deeply intertwined with some of the most notorious characters in the radical Leftist groups of the 1970s.  Enjoy.

Marilyn Jean Buck was a white middle class woman born to a nurse mother & Episcopal minister father in Midland, Texas circa 1947.  Despite these WASP-y beginnings, Marilyn became radicalized after her family was harassed with burning crosses on their lawn because her father opposed segregation.  She became involved in anti-war, anti-racist activities on her college campus as well as supporting Palestinian liberation, women's lib, Native American movements & other progressive causes of the day... all totally honorable & normal for the time.  It wasn't until 1973 that she incurred her first legal charge for purchasing ammunition with a fake ID, earning her a 10 year prison sentence from which she absconded & went underground in 1977 while on furlough.  

And this is where the story goes left.  Far Left.

May 19th Communist Organization 

(L to R):  Susan Rosenberg, Judy Clark & Betty Ann Duke of May 19th Org

Around this time Marilyn joined the May 19th Communist Organization, referred to by Politico as the "first all-female terrorist group in the U.S.A."  Their objectives were threefold:  free all political prisoners in the U.S., appropriate capitalist wealth via armed robberies to fund the 3rd stage and initiate a series of bombings & attacks leading to a revolution that would spark the switch from capitalism to a communist state.  Pretty lofty. 

The group was comprised of former Weather Underground members as well as members of the Black Liberation Army, the Black Panther Party & the Republic of New Afrika.  This multi-racial collective, loosely referred to as "The Family," was armed, highly organized & not fuckin' around.  Notably, Marilyn was also the only white member of the Black Liberation Army.  Despite their eventual turn to violence the May 19th ladies started off benignly as the Madame Binh Graphics Collective, whose job it was to produce propaganda posters like the one shown below.

Poster by the May 19th Communist Organization in Chicago, 1977

May 19th was organized & led entirely by women, who made the bombs, picked the targets & implanted the devices themselves.  Working alongside Marilyn were Susan Rosenberg (student of a progressive private school on the Upper West Side, and also a lesbian), Judy Clark (daughter of a high-level member of the Communist Party in NY) & Laura Whitehorn, a Brooklyn-born activist with a Master's Degree from Brandeis University.  This faction of The Family referred to themselves as "the white edge," but leader Mutulu Shakur allegedly called them "the crackers".  In any case, they largely paid for the safe houses & drove the getaway cars so as to throw police off the scent of the group.  Mutulu ran an acupuncture wing in a radical methadone clinic where he preached leftist propaganda, telling addicts that methadone was "poison" to the Black community.  That's where he met & trained Susan Rosenberg in acupuncture & various revolutionary terrorist tactics.  

After a couple successful armored car robberies, Marilyn Buck & Co. were successful in another big way:  helping Joanne Chesimard--better known as Assata Shakur, godmother of the legendary Tupac Shakur--escape from Clinton Correctional Facility & flee to Cuba where she resides to this day as a political refugee.  Assata was being held in a male prison, the only female inmate to ever be housed in such conditions, after being convicted of shooting a New Jersey State Trooper in 1973.  (Though there's serious debate about whether Shakur was actually guilty of the murder.  While she was definitely on the scene of the crime, she claims her hands were in the air at the time of the shooting & no gunpowder residue was present on her body according to the State Police's own investigation.  Also, none of her fingerprints were found on any of the weapons at the scene).  

The group took two guards as hostages in the melee; Marilyn Buck acted as the getaway driver.  The book "Tonight We Bombed the U.S. Capitol" by William Rosenau goes into greater detail on how they pulled off their daring prison break & got Assata out of the country.  In 2017, President Trump placed Assata Shakur on the FBI's Most Wanted List, making her the first woman in history to ever make the list.  He did so on Tupac's birthday.  

North wing of U.S. Capitol bldg. after '83 bombing (left); May 19th members on right

The Family's next couple of Brinks truck robberies were unfortunately very violent, with 2 police officers & 2 guards being killed in 2 separate robberies in 1981.  They were also very lucrative, netting around $1 million--equivalent to $3 million in 2022 currency.  

Sufficiently funded by this point, the collective turned their focus to the final "revolutionary" leg of their plan:  the bombings.  They started in 1983 with the U.S. Capitol (photo above) & National War College in D.C.  They would commit their final attacks in 1984 at the Washington Navy Yard followed by the South African Consulate in NYC.  Paranoia had set in hardcore by this point as it tends to do when committing federal crimes at this level.  The group were living in run-down apartments in Baltimore, New Haven & other cities, earning their living doing office work & other semi-skilled labor.  They were constantly changing wigs & aliases in an attempt to avoid detection.  

But it all came crashing down in 1985.  

Flashback: Bombing of the U.S. Capitol

The Fall

...our dreams

will be the shell casings

that pierce the enemy

as our love, and resistance

continue

--- Companera, Susan Rosenberg (Fall 1986)

Like most terrorist organizations, May 19th & the rest of The Family didn't have a clear vision for what life on the other side of "the revolution" would look like or how to actually implement it.  Their unrealistic dream of an ideal world free of racism, sexism, capitalist greed & other forms of oppression neglected to factor in more practical considerations.  What would happen after the overthrow of capitalism?  Who would feed & clothe the people?  They didn't know exactly, and this is where things started to fall apart.  

The first 2 members of May 19th were arrested in 1984, with Susan Rosenberg going down in November of that year.  She & comrade Timothy Blunk were indicted on Federal charges after a giant cache of explosives was found in their possession.  This led to a safehouse raid & the discovery of numerous damning documents including personal info on two dozen corporate execs & top NY & NJ police officials.  They even found a detailed file on former President Nixon's houses(!)  By 1985 all members were arrested.  All except Elizabeth Duke & a woman named Donna Joan Borup, who the FBI has referred to as "highly intelligent with a photographic memory."  Duke remains a fugitive & Borup is on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist List as of 2022.

As for Marilyn Buck, she would remain incarcerated on an 80-year sentence from 1985 until 2010 when she was released due to advanced uterine cancer.  She died only 3 weeks after release.  While locked up she was allegedly a model prisoner, receiving a Bachelor's degree in Psychology & writing much poetry.  She also contributed interviews & articles on solitary confinement, women in prison, political prisoners & other topics to a number of publications including Monthly Review & Sojourners Magazine.  The articles can be read at the links above.  

Marilyn with Stokely Carmichael (aka Kwame Ture) circa 2001

Who Is a Terrorist?

U.S. terrorists from 2018-2019 (all white males) - Source: FBI

Circling back to the original question, it's clear that the tactics Marilyn & the other "Family" members used were indeed those of terrorists.  Nobody's disputing that.  From shooting cops to bombing national landmarks in order to "send a message," these are the actions of a textbook terrorist.  If they'd done those things in our post-9/11 world they likely would've gotten even harsher sentences including potentially the death penalty.  

Maybe the better question would be who is NOT being labeled a terrorist by our media & government, and why.

When clinic bombings, doctor assassinations or other forms of violence are carried out against law abiding abortion providers in the U.S, the perps are referred to as "pro-life radicals" or "right wing extremists" rather than terrorists or representatives of the much larger problem of Christian fascism festering in our Christian community & Republican party.  The list of these incidents is long yet they're mostly swept under the rug & into the dustbin of history, likely because the perpetrators are white American men just doing what their pastors are firing them up to do every Sunday.  And said pastors belong to one of the 2 major parties that run this country--the so-called "Moral Majority" or religious right.  Some of them are cash cow campaign donors who deliver a reliable voter base to the polls like clockwork too.  All a candidate has to do to win their support is run on a platform of "traditional family values" plus some combination of God, patriotism & other Christ-like values such as tax breaks for the rich & the "freedom" of U.S. citizens to be outnumbered by firearms.

Not only are these Christian leaders violating the Johnson Amendment with this obscene blurring of church-and-state boundaries, they're being given preferential treatment by our media & powerful parts of the D.C. establishment (see: The Fellowship, National Prayer Breakfast).  Compare this to Muslims who are often portrayed by our media as rabid Jihadists led by fatwa-issuing imams like Ruhollah Khomeni.  In reality, the conservative wings of these Stone Age Abrahamic religions have a lot in common.  A LOT.  Despite the widespread violation of the tax code, only one church has ever had its tax exemption revoked by the IRS.  One.

American Heretics: The Politics of the Gospel (Christian Nationalism)

And what of all the mass shootings committed by manifesto-writing "lone nut" racists & incels like Payton S. Gendron, Elliot Rodger & Jake Davison who commit their crimes with the explicit aim of triggering a race war or killing off those deemed inferior (women, gays, etc)?  In the vast majority of instances, they're not actually lone nuts but members of larger communities who share their twisted views.  But the media stops short of calling them terrorists, as does the FBI & other agencies.  If that isn't terrorism, I'm not a socially awkward shut-in with an affinity for drugs.  

Then there's the bioterrorism caused by burst oil pipelines on public lands, polluting the water & killing native species of birds, fish & other marine life while the guilty corporations ban journalists from filming the fallout.  This is not unlike when generations of Indigenous Canadians are poisoned with mercury by industrial pollution that could've easily been prevented by just NOT dumping it into the water, contaminating the fish they relied on as a food source.  These & other large scale environmental crimes certainly would be labeled terrorism a foreign nation was doing it.  

And we can't forget our warlike military & police.  When cops racially profile as a matter of policy, participate in brutal murders of unarmed minorities & throw protesters in unmarked vans before hiding behind a blue wall of silence, what is it if not terrorism?  This is gang culture to a T, from the "no snitching" mentality down to the shared badge & gang colors, yet it's allowed to occur in broad daylight all over this country.  Meanwhile the perpetrators are portrayed as a domestic army of valiant troops who are practically beyond criticism... the opposite of terrorists.  All over the world our (actual) military drone-bombs innocent civilians while we starve their citizens with cruel sanctions (example:  Yemen).  Again, not a peep about terrorism.  Right now our country is backing a nation whose military is filled with openly racist neo-Nazi soldiers.  Ukraine was described by Vice News as a "cultural hub for the extreme right" in this 2021 piece.  Need I go on?

War!  (What Is It Good For)?

The distinction between "radical extremist" and "terrorist" is vital.  We don't have a War on Those Things, we have a War on Terror.  Being labeled a terrorist is perhaps the only thing worse than being called a racist.  Don't think so?  Ask yourself which one you'd rather be labeled by the FBI.  If you only consider some forms of politically-motivated violence to be terrorism but make exceptions when it's done in the name of a cause you believe in, it's time to check yourself--you may be on the path to enabling a terrorist or becoming one yourself.  It's all bad & we should be more evolved as a species by now, dammit.   

The mid-to-late 20th Century was entirely too violent, and for what?  Most of the lasting good created by groups like the Black Panthers came from their altruistic programs like the Free Breakfast Program, which is now commonplace in all our public schools (despite the Panthers generally getting none of the credit).  All these bombings achieved was to increase the security state's surveillance of us & accelerate the loss of our freedoms.*  While it may feel damn good to even the scales of justice by "offing a few pigs," it accomplishes nothing in the long run.  

Groups like Antifa should remember the fate of these folks the next time they feel like "punching a Nazi".  All you're doing is contributing to the climate of hyper-masculine violence that ends with atrocities like the Charlottesville car attack & the inevitable police state crackdown that always follows.  Women, children, the elderly & disabled are always the first casualties when men start careless wars.  Everyone has the right to express their views with words, even if they're abhorrent.  No one has a right to commit physical violence against another.  This is a basic tenet of a free & civilized society.  Any view worth holding can be effectively promoted with fact-based arguments & positive actions such as leading by example.  If you have to resort to imposing your will on others through violence like Hadi Matar--the Muslim terrorist who stabbed author Salman Rushdie--or Robert L. Dear, the Christian terrorist who shot up a Colorado Planned Parenthood, it's because your beliefs AND your method of selling them are shit.  

Reflections

If one positive thing can be said about the May 19th & BLA members who carried out these plots, it's that they were extremely dedicated to their cause.  It would've been much easier to take that $1 million (worth $3 million today), run off to another country like Cuba with their comrade Assata & live like kings.  Or for one of the members to snitch on the others in exchange for a reduced sentence... or steal ALL the money from the others in a stick-up & use it to buy drugs & other vices.  (It's said Mutulu had a taste for cocaine, which he called "sniff", though it never rose to the level of a serious addiction).  

But they held true to their original plan well into the mid-'80s, a time of staunch conservativism & greed under the Reagan regime.  This was long after the revolutionary Age of Aquarius was over & even the most devout Yippie, Hippie, SDS member, Black Panther & White Panther had settled into suburban domestic life.  The BLA & M19CO knew that their revolutionary actions would land them in prison (or worse), but they did it anyway rather than compromising their beliefs for a little personal comfort, something you see far too little of these days.  You have to admire that in this age of hollow, performative TikTok influencers & fragile sjw's.  The true Left didn't let identity politics or differences in immutable traits like sex, race or national origin stand in the way of their organizing & getting goals accomplished, even if those goals weren't always rational, positive or even sane.  

Marilyn Buck (Spring 1989)

* Make no mistake, I don't mean to imply that all Black Panthers or other Leftist groups were engaged in these extremist tactics.  Far from it.  These factions were a minority within a minority.  Fred Hampton himself denounced the violence in this video.  He summed it up perfectly, referring to the radical Weathermen as "well-intentioned but reactionary, militaristic & pig-like" in their approach.  Of course Fred was later drugged by an informant & gunned down by Chicago police with 90+ shots as he slept, so we see which way the violence flowed in that situation.  His murder, which was orchestrated by Herbert Hoover's FBI under the brutal COINTELPRO operation, was one of the contributing factors that set groups like May 19th on the path to violent revolution.  The same was true of the ATF's aggressive handling of Waco in 1993, which radicalized Timothy McVeigh & inspired the Oklahoma City Bombing 2 years to the day later.  One could argue that terrorists aren't born, they're made.  

Marilyn Buck, right, with family

With attorney

Talking Mural (La Lucha Continua, San Francisco)

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