Quark, Rom, Nog and Odo await you if you are! Just wondering if people take the facility seriously, along with the proposed storming of it. Hopefully there won't be a hail of bullets awaiting them, too, for trespassing...
What depresses me is the sudden desire to rush Area 51, while real concentration camps filled with tens of thousands of immigrant men, women, and children, exist.
I just saw this whole thing in some news articles today, so I actually know what you're talking about! I assume most of the 500,000+ people are just goofing around and have no intention of actually trying to storm the facility. (And if they actually do, well... they've already told the government what day to expect them, so I'm not exactly sure what they expect here...) But at least we get the memes, which I'm sure is the point anyway!
It doesn't matter. People start talking about storming a government facility, and what's the joke? It's Area 51. Meanwhile, in the real news, concentration camps will be filling up with more immigrants and refugees as news agencies continue to debate over whether or not these are really concentration camps, or just detention facilities. I know the Area 51 rush is a joke, but that doesn't make it any less depressing in light of the context.
Well, I imagine the joke is that if a bunch of Pokemon hunters who had previously only descended into their mother's basements decided to hike 20 miles down from the mountains into a 120 degree desert and dry lake bed through barbed wire, rattlesnakes, machine gun mounted SUVs and helicopters, it wouldn't turn out so well, so most people aren't taking it too seriously and are having some fun with it. Taken on top of all that, if you were to get through all the defenses and natural barriers, it's not as if the top secret aircraft (which is all that's there) are just sitting out in plain view for anyone to see in broad daylight. They're inside closed reinforced concrete hangars. So you wouldn't see jack shit anyway. So go organize a rush on an immigration concentration camp if you feel that strongly about it instead of just being self-righteous about unrelated pranks on the internet. But you're not going to do that because you (understandably) don't want to suffer the legal consequences of such an action as yet, which is why you're just going to pout about jokes. You know, at the height of World War II fun didn't stop happening. People need humor and distractions from the awfulness of the world sometimes in order to cope and function.
I made a comment, and a number of people got what I was saying, but that wasn't good enough for you. I can't ignore you, so could you please just leave me alone?
Hmm well not the path I expected the conversation to go in, but regardless, I think it's inevitable that some people will line up for a chance to storm A-51. Part of me is nervous that the whole thing will actually switch from being something silly into something confrontational & violent, even if it ends up only being 500 people who heed the call as a serious call to action for truth-through-trespassing.
That is a genuine concern, yes. One man attempted to destroy transport vehicles at the Tacoma, Washington concentration camp and was killed in the process. Imagine if thousands of people tried the very same thing.
We should storm the facilities where the US government is illegally detaining aliens and denying them rights afforded to human beings. You know, the immigrant concentration camps.
This was what made me so depressed. It was frustrating because we have actual concentration camps here in the U.S., but people are joking about storming Area 51 saying things like "they can't get all of us" and such? It just felt like they were making light of a truly deplorable situation. That being said, in truth a bunch of civilians storming the camps would be a bad idea. The military has weapons, lots of weapons, and they will have no compunctions about killing an assload of citizens. It might even cause Trump to do something horrific like declare Martial Law, and then we're all fucked five ways from Sunday. Believe me, I want this atrocity to end, and I want it to end now. We're going to have to do it another way for now, though.
And my point was that you were making an assumption that the stupid Area 51 prank and the immigrant concentration camps were linked and that one was being dismissive and disrespectful of the other when it's just an unrelated joke. For the reasons you (and I) pointed out above, launching such raids on the concentration camps as a serious plan would be dangerous (both to the raiders and to the children), impractical / ineffective at ending the program, wind up with the people behind the raids going to prison, and most likely with even more drastic and draconian conditions for the children as a result. For the time being, the legal options opposing the camps are still the best ones. It's depressing, yes, and a tragedy every minute these camps remain open, but as well meaning as the intentions may be, I don't think we're quite at the storm the gates in violent uprising stage just yet. It's not the best option for either the children or the protestors at this time, IMO.
Of course just a bunch of civilians attacking the concentration camps would be a bad idea, but any kind of mass nonviolent civil disobedience is justified. Or normally immoral tactics like setting up underground railroads, maybe bribing someone with access, would be justified when children are being tortured and dying of neglect and malnutrition.
There's power in numbers. I seriously doubt that if 500K plus people lined up at Area 51 that the military would just slaughter them like Tiananmen Square or something. If they did, and we laughed it off, it would say a lot about our dwindling empathy in the age of memes and outrage-culture.
This is the first I've heard of any this. As someone who has poked around the Great Basin desert, my feeling is that if this was really serious (and I get it's a joke), it would end up being only a tiny number as people realized how far they would have to be from any support or services. "The middle of nowhere" becomes more than just an expression when you have to drive two hours to fill up a water bottle.