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Spencer Ackerman
@attackerman.bsky.social
Journalist & author of REIGN OF TERROR: HOW THE 9/11 ERA DESTABILIZED AMERICA & PRODUCED TRUMP, contributor to Zeteo, WALLER VS WILDSTORM. Up next: IRON MAN for Marvel. Subscribe to FOREVER WARS for ‘natsec’ journalism: www.forever-wars.com
24.7k followers980 following1.4k posts
SAattackerman.bsky.social

These are my words, not Elle’s, from the intro to the Q&A

I would also say this: Beware anyone who speaks casually about violence and war who has had no experience of it. My (limited) professional experience seeing such violence up close robs it of any Hollywood romanticism. Violence creates reactions that its advocates, and indeed its practitioners, do not anticipate. People who have had to live through such violence tend not to wish for it to recur, except as vengeance—which then creates incentives to further vengeance. In my experience, many such people cast blame not only on those who committed the violence, but on those who could have stopped it and didn't.
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SAattackerman.bsky.social

Here’s Elle:

“The most disturbing pattern I see repeating is the way people in a group chat can talk themselves into committing violence. They start by talking about how evil the enemy is—antifa or whatever—and how they supposedly assault women and children and the elderly. Then they start talking about self-defense, how they'll protect themselves against the enemy. Then they talk about what weapons they'll use to do so. That's how they give themselves permission to do violence.”
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Spencer Ackerman
@attackerman.bsky.social
Journalist & author of REIGN OF TERROR: HOW THE 9/11 ERA DESTABILIZED AMERICA & PRODUCED TRUMP, contributor to Zeteo, WALLER VS WILDSTORM. Up next: IRON MAN for Marvel. Subscribe to FOREVER WARS for ‘natsec’ journalism: www.forever-wars.com
24.7k followers980 following1.4k posts
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