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I urge everyone to search out longer videos for all of these clips being shown. Every "attack" by the federal agents is preceded by some form of provocation by

by pharke 6y ago

I urge everyone to search out longer videos for all of these clips being shown. Every "attack" by the federal agents is preceded by some form of provocation by the protestors-cum-rioters that start by refusing repeated warnings to disperse after the protest has been declared an unlawful (not peaceful) assembly, generally after someone starts destroying property or committing arson. The federal agents can be seen tolerating long periods of harassment and in every instance I've seen where they do respond it is when a protestor crosses the line by striking an agent or engaging in destruction of property. The spin on this information is so heavy it's terrifying.

happytoexplain 6y ago
Even if I were to agree that every rioter who destroyed property (or, even less, provoked an agent) "deserved" the exact response they received, which I don't, still I find all the spin with the politically opposite motivation - to legitimize violence by the government against citizens who didn't do anything to "deserve it", to be much more terrifying. For example, I personally know people who think the tear-gassed peaceful protesters outside the church "deserved it". Why? "They're Antifa". Our society is desperately in danger if that's not much more "terrifying" to you than spin whose "terrifying" crime is omitting the property damage a rioter just committed before being violently attacked by federal agents.
- pharke 6y ago
  I'm sorry if it came off like I was saying "they deserved it", I didn't intend it that way. What I was trying to illuminate is that this is a much more complex situation that is being papered over for unknown reasons. News should not have a political spin in any direction, we need to see clearly everything that happens from start to finish to make our own judgements. I doubt that there is even much political difference between us but we've all been trained to categorize each other when we should be establishing the points on which we agree. I agree that our society is in danger, it is under threat from all sides at the moment. The terror I feel is not that of facing an opposing viewpoint, it is the fear that the centre cannot hold[0] and our grip has loosened so that we cannot catch the end of the rope. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_Coming_(poem) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_Coming_(poem)
  - mercer 6y ago
    I honestly don't see how the threat is from 'all sides', but I honestly do want to try to understand that point of view. From my perspective, the US is run by right-wing nutjobs, for many of whom the 'quacks like a duck' applies in regards to racism. Their primary opponents are marginally better, but still at best center-right from my European perspective. It's mind-bogglingly weird to me that universal health care is relatively well-supported, but in the democratic upper echelons a no-go. It's mind-boggling that the very best democratic candidate is not only someone who clearly seems to be suffering from old-age ailments, but someone who historically has been basically a republican democrat. News generally reports within the spectrum provided to it, I believe. I'm becoming more and more convinced that news just mostly regurgitates and chews on whatever the politicians and lobbyists provide them with. They /react/, more than anything. But if the range of discussion, whether defined by politicians or the media, is all much further right than what would be considered reasonable in most of Europe, what does it even mean to be 'reasonable' and hold a 'center' position? Again, I liked your comment and am absolutely not trying to be antagonistic, but to me it's just really confusing to hear reasonable people here and reasonable people there consider the 'reasonable' thing to be wildly different. I'd have to conclude that either Europe or the US has gone mad, but they can't both be 'reasonable' and 'center'.
stunt 6y ago
You can turn any peaceful protest to a chaos if you overwhelm the protest with riot control or law enforcement officers that look like battlefield soldiers. Obviously what you get after it is more chaos and vandalism. But, is it fair to blame protesters for it? The argument isn't that there is no chaos happening right now, or that there was zero vandalism before this. The argument is that it was mostly peaceful before. And question is what turned that into this chaos? This requires root cause analysis. There are some big criticism against riot control tactics in general. Lots of experts are discussing it. You build wide streets and invest less in public transport. What you get is traffic. Now, is it fair to blame drivers for it?
- pharke 6y ago
  I would implore you again to please find full length streams that start before the declaration of an unlawful assembly and watch them all the way through. A 1 minute clip that starts with an officer hitting someone is not giving you the full story. I'm also not sure what the proposed solution is here. Should we have police that do nothing or simply no police at all? I don't see how that is workable in any situation, I don't want to strawman your position though so please explain what response police should have to destruction of private and public property or assaults upon their person. > You build wide streets and invest less in public transport. What you get is traffic. Now, is it fair to blame drivers for it? I think this is a bad analogy, traffic is to streets as protests are to freedom of assembly not to police presence. I don't agree with the implied argument that riot police cause riots. For one, truly authoritarian countries have much more brutal riot control tactics and generally have fewer riots. Iran is probably a good example. My guess would be unemployment would have a stronger correlation to number of riots.

by pharke 6y ago

happytoexplain 6y ago

Even if I were to agree that every rioter who destroyed property (or, even less, provoked an agent) "deserved" the exact response they received, which I don't, still I find all the spin with the politically opposite motivation - to legitimize violence by the government against citizens who didn't do anything to "deserve it", to be much more terrifying. For example, I personally know people who think the tear-gassed peaceful protesters outside the church "deserved it". Why? "They're Antifa". Our society is desperately in danger if that's not much more "terrifying" to you than spin whose "terrifying" crime is omitting the property damage a rioter just committed before being violently attacked by federal agents.

pharke 6y ago
I'm sorry if it came off like I was saying "they deserved it", I didn't intend it that way. What I was trying to illuminate is that this is a much more complex situation that is being papered over for unknown reasons. News should not have a political spin in any direction, we need to see clearly everything that happens from start to finish to make our own judgements. I doubt that there is even much political difference between us but we've all been trained to categorize each other when we should be establishing the points on which we agree. I agree that our society is in danger, it is under threat from all sides at the moment. The terror I feel is not that of facing an opposing viewpoint, it is the fear that the centre cannot hold[0] and our grip has loosened so that we cannot catch the end of the rope. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_Coming_(poem) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_Coming_(poem)
- mercer 6y ago
  I honestly don't see how the threat is from 'all sides', but I honestly do want to try to understand that point of view. From my perspective, the US is run by right-wing nutjobs, for many of whom the 'quacks like a duck' applies in regards to racism. Their primary opponents are marginally better, but still at best center-right from my European perspective. It's mind-bogglingly weird to me that universal health care is relatively well-supported, but in the democratic upper echelons a no-go. It's mind-boggling that the very best democratic candidate is not only someone who clearly seems to be suffering from old-age ailments, but someone who historically has been basically a republican democrat. News generally reports within the spectrum provided to it, I believe. I'm becoming more and more convinced that news just mostly regurgitates and chews on whatever the politicians and lobbyists provide them with. They /react/, more than anything. But if the range of discussion, whether defined by politicians or the media, is all much further right than what would be considered reasonable in most of Europe, what does it even mean to be 'reasonable' and hold a 'center' position? Again, I liked your comment and am absolutely not trying to be antagonistic, but to me it's just really confusing to hear reasonable people here and reasonable people there consider the 'reasonable' thing to be wildly different. I'd have to conclude that either Europe or the US has gone mad, but they can't both be 'reasonable' and 'center'.

stunt 6y ago

You can turn any peaceful protest to a chaos if you overwhelm the protest with riot control or law enforcement officers that look like battlefield soldiers. Obviously what you get after it is more chaos and vandalism. But, is it fair to blame protesters for it? The argument isn't that there is no chaos happening right now, or that there was zero vandalism before this. The argument is that it was mostly peaceful before. And question is what turned that into this chaos? This requires root cause analysis. There are some big criticism against riot control tactics in general. Lots of experts are discussing it. You build wide streets and invest less in public transport. What you get is traffic. Now, is it fair to blame drivers for it?

pharke 6y ago
I would implore you again to please find full length streams that start before the declaration of an unlawful assembly and watch them all the way through. A 1 minute clip that starts with an officer hitting someone is not giving you the full story. I'm also not sure what the proposed solution is here. Should we have police that do nothing or simply no police at all? I don't see how that is workable in any situation, I don't want to strawman your position though so please explain what response police should have to destruction of private and public property or assaults upon their person. > You build wide streets and invest less in public transport. What you get is traffic. Now, is it fair to blame drivers for it? I think this is a bad analogy, traffic is to streets as protests are to freedom of assembly not to police presence. I don't agree with the implied argument that riot police cause riots. For one, truly authoritarian countries have much more brutal riot control tactics and generally have fewer riots. Iran is probably a good example. My guess would be unemployment would have a stronger correlation to number of riots.