Good question.
Like with all the mainstream media that 'reported' in front of the federal buildings and businesses that got looted and burned down, the shootings in the CHAZ/CHOP areas and the continuous riots and chaos all over the summer last year as seen on Twitter, they told me that there was 'nothing to see here' and it was a 'mostly peaceful protest' which everyone knows is absolute BS.
Both the GOP and Democrats instantly condemned the Capitol riots, but as for the summer riots, but not a single condemnation from the media of those events or even the Democrats disavowing the summer riots in June that are still continuing to this day.
The outrage did not fit their narrative. Neither did it fit their definition of what they think a 'mob' is, since the main culprits behind it were BLM and Antifa, as usual.
They're "coming for" police reform and transparency.
Please don't misrepresent or generalise very disparate groups of demonstrators.
Same accusations were made against peaceful many time in history.
There is also evidence of police instigating violence: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/26/opinion/blm-p...
At the end of the day, we must also recognize that corporations are still run by humans. Those humans make decisions within the context of their own biases and interests. Those interests are also legal requirements in some cases.
It's a tough situation, but even companies which do not have a legal requirement to do so, should be able to express their own views, and be accountable for them. I believe that actions (or threats) by Trump towards twitter earlier on expresses how the Government at the time thought that social platforms should have some accountability.
> "We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen. We saw what they attempted to do, and failed, in 2016. We can't let a more sophisticated version of that.... happen again." ..... Trump
With the current state of the right wing in the US, there is a clear and present danger of us losing our democracy. When you look at the statements about the election from last _June_, or the purges at the Defense Department last fall, it is clear that this nonsense (and it is nonsense, 59 court cases and counting) about election fraud was premeditated, and so was this coup attempt. This is the Beer Hall Putsch, and it’s a mistake to see how lucky we got and say there is an equivalence to protests against police violence.
Assuming you’re arguing in good faith, what you’re missing is that the outrage from this event isn’t about the five dead people, tragic though that is. It’s about the fact that armed protesters just walked into the Capitol Building while Congress was in session. We are very, very lucky we don’t have dead congresspeople. What do you think the mob that beat a police officer to death with a fire extinguisher in the Capitol building would have done to AOC if they’d gotten to her?
We cannot afford to make the mistake Weimar Germany did. We cannot assume that because this failed the problem is gone. We cannot appease these people, we cannot treat them as benign. They must all be identified and prosecuted, and their enablers in Congress must be expelled from our governing bodies.
[1] https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-nw-capitol-po...
[2] https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/us-capitol-police-a...
Is this really true? I’m tempted to charge the entirety of the post-summer urban bloodbath to the BLM movement. This represents an increase of 3-4000 deaths over the prior year.
> BLM is not about overthrowing the government, and has never posed a credible threat to it. Even if BLM overthrew the government, no one has been talking about mass executions.
This is sidestepping your point somewhat, but Antifa (who figured prominently in the protests) do explicitly avow both these things.
I agree that there is a destroy-the-government black bloc present in some of the BLM protests. It’s a fair thing to point out, but I’ll say this: they’ve never had a chance or a credible threat. It’s really a false equivalence to compare a terrorist attack on the Capitol incited by the ruling party in an attempt to overturn a democratic election with seven months of mass protests against police violence.
> they’ve never had a chance or a credible threat
Agreed. But neither did the Trump rioters.
[1] http://ibgvr.org/philadelphia-shooting-victims-dashboard/
I don’t agree the folks involved in the terrorist attack last week were not a credible threat. If they had succeeding in kidnapping and executing congresspeople, which was both possible and clearly the intent of at least some people who made it into the Capitol, things could have turned out very differently. Something like a third of Congress still thinks we shouldn’t do anything about this - the conditions are ripe for a coup; just because it failed doesn’t mean it didn’t have a chance.
This is, we'll go with dubious. Probably true at this point, but the protests had been going, relatively peacefully for close a day, and then less peacefully, with police having repeatedly tear gassed and fired rubber bullets at protestors who weren't doing anything violent, and didn't appear to have any violent intentions. Reports obviously differ, but many concluded that the actions of the police, in attacking the protestors, are what escalated the situation to violence. Compare from [1], and I think this "who is escalating" question becomes clear and relevant.
Which is to say that while the protest ended violently, I think you'll be hard pressed to find widespread intent that it be violent from the start.[2]
So again I'll ask: do you believe that the protesting in Minneapolis was formed with the intention of committing violence against police officers?
On the other hand, do you believe the insurrection at the capitol, which had participants openly advocating for violence for days, was formed, with the intention of committing violence against elected officials?
I find the attempt to draw a parallel between a situation where it took 3 days of getting teargassed for protestors to become violent and one where it took...a speech from the President.
[1]: https://twitter.com/LiteraryMouse/status/1347873482550468609
[2]: https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/07/us/police-response-black-live...
[3]: https://www.apmreports.org/story/2020/06/30/what-happened-at... is my source for the timeline, which appears to be a fairly evenhanded account, noting that some city council members had already proposed abandoning the precinct for more than a day before it ultimately was.
Can you source these in the case of BLM? That's what I'm missing. Preferably equivalently specific plans, which amount to "our intent is to physically harm police officers and destroy a police precinct" at a minimum.
> how long the violence took to kick off, or who made the first escalation don't strike me as very relevant.
I think they're highly relevant to discussing the goal of the protests. If a group of protestors shows up and demonstrates peacefully, but is eventually goaded into violence by the group they're protesting[0], that's very different from a group that essentially immediately attacks the people they're protesting.
And, of course, all of this entirely assumes that both groups have equally valid concerns, which is just plainly not true and important to realize. If you're going to take a stance that violence is absolutely never valid, that's an interesting opinion that I don't believe I share. But if you're of the opinion that violence may be an acceptable response to injustice, well, there's a whole lot more reason to believe that BLM protestors have justification for their claim of injustice than stop-the-steal protestors.
[0]: I'll reiterate the importance of this, in general, especially with police tactics that escalate and force violence, such as kettling. While I don't think that specific tactic was present at the 3rd precinct events, tactics that escalate violence are often used against BLM protestors, to predictable results. The fact that violence was reached quickly and without any of those tactics at the capitol speaks to, I think, a different mindset.
I'll take a crack at this. I could just site your own post where you say the following:
" If you're going to take a stance that violence is absolutely never valid, that's an interesting opinion that I don't believe I share".
It kinda seems like you are at least implying that you support the violence that happened during those riots. So your post right here would be one example of people endorsing violence.
> people endorsing violence.
Note how you've shifted from "advocating for" to "endorsing" and what I asked for was 'specific plans, which amount to "our intent is to physically harm police officers and destroy a police precinct"'.
So can you explain how my statement that, hypothetically, violence may be acceptable in some situations, is a specific plan to harm police officers? With the added assumption that such people should then, you know, show up and do a violence. All of those things were present with Parler. Unless you're claiming that
1. I made statements specifically advocating for violence against in advance of the 3rd precinct protests
2. I then showed up to those protests and committed acts of violence (or, alternatively, I have a large enough following that my followers did the same)
You haven't done what I asked.
Feels like a weird thing to push back on. You kinda admit that you personally might support the violence. If even you admit this, then really you should not be pushing back hard on this assumption that other people also supported it.
It should not be an out there claim, that other people supported the violence, when you are kinda implying that you support it yourself.
I just don't think that you should act flabergasted, or surprised, or indignant, or demand large amounts of specific evidence, at someone making a claim that other people supported or wanted violence to happen, given that you kinda are saying that you support it yourself.
> The context we're in is advocation for violence prior to the events
"Nobody advocated for violence before it happened, but now that it did happen I definitely think that the violence is justified!" feels like a pretty poor argument to me.
If you are going to imply that the violence was justified, then really you should not push back on this idea that other people thought it was justified to, and endorsed it prior to the event.
> support it yourself.
My (hypothetical!) lack of objection to generic violence is not the same as active planning and encouragement of specific violence. And I find your repeated attempts to equivocate between the two rather confused.
I'm asking for examples of the second, the active specific planning and incitement of violence. You're avoiding engaging with that request, likely because, as I believe, you can't find examples of that kind of behavior.
Yes there are varying levels of support. But frankly if you are going to take a position that is kinda moderately in favor of violence, then you really should not be pushing back so hard at the possibility that there are other people who were a bit more supportive of the violence than you are.
That is what I am pointing out. I'd put you at a 5/10, on the "is this person trying to justify the violence that happen". So if an average/random person such as yourself are going to moderately support the violence, then you really should not be so flabergasted at the suggestion that there were other people that were closer to an 8/10 on the "do they support violence" scale.
My argument is that, well no, both sides aren't the same, as shown by the fact that only one set of protestors was openly advocating for and planning to attack people. The burden of proof is on you to show that they both sides are in fact the same. I obviously can't prove a negative, and so far you haven't provided anything concrete.
Actually, after rereading the original comment, I'd have to say not some people. Instead Id say you specifically. You specifically pretty much tried to said that the violence was justified.
Ex: you said this, which is a not so subtle attempt to justify the violence:
"of the opinion that violence may be an acceptable response to injustice, well, there's a whole lot more reason to believe that BLM protestors have justification for their claim of injustice ".
> well no, both sides aren't the same
Specifically you, kinda do seem at least to be pretty similar to the "other side" actually, after rereading your comment, in that you attempted to imply that the violence actually was justified, and that it therefore "may be acceptable".
Your comment was a pretty clear attempt to say that this violence could have a "justification" that would make it "acceptable".
1. Someone says "lets go attack the police" and then proceeds to go attack them.
2. Someone says "yes I can understand why someone got in a fight with the police after being attacked by the police"
Because I'm asking you to give examples of (1), and you're going on about (2).
No, not "understand". Instead you implied that it would be justified and also acceptable.
In this situation I really would not consider you much different than the other side if you are attempting to say that the violence was justified and acceptable.
If you are saying that it was justified and acceptable, which your comment pretty clearly seemed to imply, then I would consider the difference between you and "the other side" to be very small to the point where the difference doesn't matter that much.
That's pretty close to advocacy for violence to say that it was justified and acceptable.
I want to be absolutely crystal clear about one thing: I have never, not in this comment thread, nor anywhere else, advocated for people to engage in violence against the police. It is frankly insulting for you to insinuate that I would do so, or to state that there is essentially no difference between me and people who planned and executed an attack on congress.
What I pointed out is that you basically said the violence was "justified and acceptable".
Those were your words, when you used the words "justified" and "acceptable" in your original comment to generally describe that violence in general. I didn't make you say that.
Or howabout permanently blinding some of the cops with lasers? Is that violent, or is that just asking for a funding change in the police department?
The pigs in blankets quote is from a peaceful 2015 protest. Trump lied about it in a Presidential debate.
The officers sight returned.
Edit: in response to this, you provided a video that doesn't include
> throwing IEDs at cops while hundreds of people chant "pigs in a blanket fry em' like bacon" and try to set fire to the building the police are in violent?
As far as I can tell, it's someone throwing a firework at the side of a stone building, which while not a great idea isn't endangering anyone. And "fry em like bacon" no where to be found.
Please don't spread lies.
IED: https://youtu.be/dm_lZxmPxUU
As for that chants: go to any of the videos of the various occupations from the summer. If that really does come from a 2015 march instead of 2020, fine, but go to any video and find the same activity (arson, assault, IEDs, lasers) and chants like "no justice no peace".