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Comment by bufferoverflow | Hacker News Reader

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Colin Kaepernick protested very peacefully and people were irate. The vice president went out of his way to just to walk out of a game. Let's stop with the "I'd be ok if it was a peaceful protest" nonsense. The protests in LA were peaceful until the military showed up. It was intentionally escalated because they know people will believe anything they see on TV. The burning cars didn't happen until after the military started a war.

No military assets were deployed in response to Colin Kaepernick's peaceful protests.

The vice president was. And the head of the military said he should be physically assaulted. The same people calling for "peaceful protests" actively hated people for doing it. The calls are hollow. You know this, and you know what point I was making.

You are naive to think police can’t turn a peaceful protest into a TV photo op for Fox News.

And, it’s also naive to think that all the protesters are on the same side. Instigators are from either no side and the other side.

During the George Floyd protests I was walking home and witnessed agitators turn a peaceful protest violent within minutes. There were at most 10 of them out of a crowd of 500. When I got home, the news described the protest as being a violent one.

You and a lot of people here need to look more critically at what you are seeing online and in the news.

It’s a major vulnerability, but I think a valid solution would be for there to be an organization that wears uniforms and has a strict no-violence policy to perform peaceful protests.

That way when agitators show up they can be seen as visually different and distinct.

If 500 people can't stop 10 from causing violence, then those 500 never believed in peace to begin with.

You should talk to the anti-protest side then because they will discourage any protest. Usually they criticize the size of the protest as a few people. They then will tell you that their cause is dumb because only a few people were there. Or they blocked traffic for a few hours, so their cause is dumb. There are plenty of people that care if people protest. There are people that hate the right to assembly so much they make laws about needing a protest permit...

I have zero problem with protests. You can protest literally anything, that you don't like Trump's haircut, or that Santa didn't bring you good presents last winter.

As soon as your protest interferes with other people, like blocking a road, it's no longer a protest, it's a riot.

Let's not blame the victims here. LA had it's problems but it wasn't a warzone until militarized police showed up. All it takes for a protest to become a riot is one cop firing into the crowd, and that could be caused because of a trigger happy cop, or a single person throwing a rock at the police line.

Oh yeah, it's totally the police that forced the poor democrats to burn cars, to throw bricks, to break in and loot stores. What a believable narrative.

If you honestly believe that 100% of the people burning cars, throwing bricks, and looting stores are Democrats you aren't living in reality. That's not even a remotely believable narrative.

Democrats, socialists, and communists, yes.

It sure isn't Republicans rioting because their candidate is enacting one of the cornerstones of his platform.

It is. Because I see them waving Palestinian and Mexican flags.

Ironically, the two places they don't want to move to.

If they flew the American flag would think they’re immigrants or American? Would you just get mad all just the same?

Flying the flag of countries they're protesting being deported to is a weird flex.

Democrats? Democrats??? Like Karen Bass and Gavin Newsom are out there burning cars. Come on, man. These things are done by impulsive opportunists, not as some kind of political strategy. They happen during sports celebrations, regularly, all over the world.

Yes, democrats. You seem to confused by some basic logic. Protesters and rioters are democrats (in this case). Doesn't mean that all democrats are protesting or rioting. I can't believe I have to explain this.

No, I'm objecting to what I view as a quite extreme reductionism. If the way you interpret events like the protests in LA is first to classify all people as "Democrat", "Republican", and "Other", you greatly impoverish your view of things.

No, I think you're just frustrated that I'm correct, that your side is engaged in violence, again, so you're trying to distance yourself from it, and so you make up all this nonsense.

It's democrats.

what makes you think those people are democrats? A riot is the language of the unheard

they were peacefully protesting, then the cops showed up and escalated the situation. Then there were small amounts of disorder. Then the media does what it does, the rightwing media goes for hyperbole (it's a third word situation, the city is on fire, etc) the leftwing parrots what the cops say 'riots' (two waymos on fire is not a riot, it's a protest with agitators, arrest the agitators, no collection of thousands of people with their blood up is ever going to be perfect. How many fights outside of any stadium after any football game). Then it has spiraled from there. Deploying active duty military into a US city to quell 'riots' won't do anything but get people killed.

During CHAZ/CHOP in seattle, I lived across town, if I didn't watch the news I wouldn't have known anything was happening. My GF lived within two blocks of the 'zone', it didn't effect her one bit. In fact it was a bit of a party atmosphere in the area with all the painting of street murals and all. Eventually some kids decided to agitate the situation by stealing a car (i think that's what the final determination was) and tear assing all over (like literally off roading into the park in and around occupied tents). This riled up the 2nd amendment types who declared themselves the CHOP/CHAZ police and they shot the kids. It was tragic and it sullied the whole situation.

To watch the national news you would have thought that all of seattle was on literal fire and there were roving gangs all over the city. Don't trust the broadcast media narrative of these situations.

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