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Bannon’s actual quote: > I’d put the heads on pikes. Right. I’d put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats. You either
by goodside 6y ago
Bannon’s actual quote:
> I’d put the heads on pikes. Right. I’d put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats. You either get with the program or you are gone.
It’s silly to summarize this as Bannon urging Fauci to literally be beheaded. To “put [someone’s] head on a pike” is a figure of speech meaning to punish someone publicly as a warning to others, and the next line corroborates that intent.
- wavefunction 6y ago>I’d put them at the two corners of the White House That's not a figure of speech though.
- AaronFriel 6y agoWhich part of the sentence "Calling for Execution of Dr Fauci and FBI Director Wray" is a silly figure of speech? That's how Steve Bannon's Facebook page reported on his banning. That's a verbatim quote. Which part of the words "Calling for Execution" is a playful, fun idiom that former White House officials get to use?
- chrisco255 6y agoIt's not the middle ages any more, no one puts heads on a pike, literally. It's a figure of speech. Just like "getting the axe" is a figure of speech for getting fired.
- AaronFriel 6y agoIs "Calling for Execution" a figure of speech for something?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- alessivs 6y agoDo we rely on Bannon's account (which is available, and different from these three words that keep being repeated, as stated by others), or the choice of words of a click-baity editorial summary of the Fan Page, or Reuters' alternative choice: "urged beheading"? EDIT: As noticed below, I have edited this comment to include Reuters.
- AaronFriel 6y agoA Facebook Fan Page is a business page that behaves similarly to a Facebook Profile. In this case, it is a verified Facebook Fan Page that represents and hosts content by Stephen K. Bannon. It is equivalent to an official YouTube channel or Twitter account. It is not a "fan page" in the sense that you mean. Edit: It looks like you may have edited your comment. I think it's important to emphasize that this isn't some random Facebook "fan page", but the official page of Steve Bannon, and it's a verified business page.
- chrisco255 6y agoIt's hyperbole. Right now, people in government don't really face a lot of consequences for the things they mess up. In fact, the worse thing that seems to happen to them is they get reassigned to some other branch in the bureaucracy, maybe a slightly less prestigious title. A lot of people have that kind of frustration and express it in that way.
- amadeuspagel 6y agoI'm guessing that Bannon's facebook page reported that this is what facebook gave as justification for banning him, not that that's what he actually meant.
- oh_sigh 6y agoThe original post starts with the phrase "I’d actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England." before getting into the beheading bit. Do you believe Bannon is actually pining for a time machine as well?
- dragonwriter 6y ago> Do you believe Bannon is actually pining for a time machine as well? No, I think Bannon is actually pining for (and has, in fact, had notable success in producing, though not to the extent he clearly prefers) a regression of social norms in the area of politics, including and especially around political violence.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- imgabe 6y agoWhat do you think should be done with the activists who erected a guillotine in front of Jeff Bezos' house in DC? Should they be put in jail for attempted murder? The only possible interpretation is that they literally intend to drag Bezos from his house and publicly behead him. How about Kathy Griffin, who posted a video of herself beheading Trump in effigy? She still has a Facebook account as far as I can tell.
- AaronFriel 6y agoPerhaps they should also be banned from Facebook.
- awb 6y agoUS citizens have broad rights to public free speech. Corporations have broad rights to self-regulate their platforms. No one is saying Bannon broke the law. It's just interesting how Twitter and FB are making different decisions about the kind of platforms they want to have.
- imgabe 6y agoIn your estimation, if Facebook doesn't censor this speech, then that makes them a certain "kind" of platform? It means that Facebook is pro-beheading? So how come if the US government doesn't censor it, it doesn't make the US a pro-beheading country? Empirically, compared to other countries the US manages to be pretty anti-beheading despite tolerating speech about beheading. Do you think that any failure to censor speech constitutes an endorsement of that speech? Is it not possible to allow speech you disagree with? Does Facebook the company have to endorse every opinion someone posts on it?
- awb 6y agoI didn't attempt to answer any of those questions, but instead simply tried to illustrate that Bannon went beyond metaphor in his words. I don't like censorship and I don't like public speech that encourages violence. Unfortunately, those two stances are at odds sometimes and there are warnings from history on both sides.
- isoskeles 6y agoYou keep bringing this up. It's disingenuous considering I can google that exact phrase and find other headlines. The fact is, these were headlines on other sites, that were then linked to populist.press (I assume Steve Bannon has some affiliation with the site). https://web.archive.org/web/20201106150453/https://populist.press/ https://web.archive.org/web/20201106150453/https://populist.... The second headline, "Calling for Execution", links to this article: https://www.thewrap.com/steve-bannon-suspended-by-twitter-after-calling-for-execution-of-dr-fauci-and-fbi-director-wray/ https://www.thewrap.com/steve-bannon-suspended-by-twitter-af... As such, the headline is, without question, someone else's description of the events.
- vecinu 6y ago> I’d put them at the two corners of the White House How do we interpret this next sentence as a continuation of the figure of speech? I can't seem to wrap my head around it sounding anything other than explicit.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- crpatino 6y agoThe "two corners of the White House" part is totally in line with the "heads on pikes". It is all part of the same figure of speech. The part everybody is missing is "I'd actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England", which provides the context to understand the stuff people is having a meltdown about. This is not "heads on pikes" by a bunch of salvages; it is "heads on pikes" as part of the official policy of an absolutist State. The way I read it, Bannon said: "I would have them face the death penalty, if there was a legal way to do so. And I would use their cases as deterrence from other would be traitors." I don't see it as a call to have civilian supporters attempting against the lives of those two high ranking officials; but could be interpreted as a declaration of intent to pursue and extend draconian powers for the (Executive Branch of the) US Government. I will let you decide which of the two interpretation is gravest.
- ZeteticElench 6y ago"I'd actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England" You know, when they ACTUALLY CUT OFF PEOPLE'S HEADS.
- okr 6y agoWe also have that in german, "es werden Köpfe rollen". No biggie.
- amadeuspagel 6y agoIndeed, saying that "heads will roll" is common even in english.
- aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 6y agoCommon but only when used in an abstract, nonspecific sense. Not when one is referring to specific individuals.
- scintill76 6y agoAlso, the equivalent would be “Heads should roll. Just right onto the carpet of the Oval Office, as a warning to federal bureaucrats.” When you elaborate graphically, it becomes much more of an actual call for violence. At the very least it’s in poorer taste than the idiom usually is...
- ZeteticElench 6y ago"Heads on a pike" is not a common expression in English.
- tatersolid 6y agoNot supporting Bannon at all here but I knew what “head on a pike” meant immediately: “to be made an example by those in power”. So did my 13 year old, so it’s not generational. He also mentioned something about a Harry Potter reference. It’s not an uncommon phrase at the very least. I know I’ve heard people use it in business settings, just like folks sometimes use phrase “heads will roll” in otherwise polite conversation.
- fivre 6y agoThere's plenty of figurative or suggestive speech that's not literally "I will kill so-and-so" or "Someone should kill so-and-so". As other commenters have noted, Bannon's actions and other statements suggest he's intentionally dancing around the issue. Facebook have previously removed, for example, suggestive posts from Ramzan Kadyrov, which, while they did not make direct statements, were threatening: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2016/02/02/instagram-removes-kadyrovs-video-of-russian-opposition-in-the-crosshairs-a51666 https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2016/02/02/instagram-removes-... While Kadyrov has a more established history of following through on his threats than Bannon, I don't think it's unreasonable to come to the conclusion that Facebook does have a double standard: if you or I post "<prominent government official>'s head should be on a spike", do you think their moderation team would apply the same leniency? I wager they would not: what we see here is part of an established pattern where Facebook's executives, and Zuckerberg in particular, do not want to be seen as biased against the right wing sentiment, because remaining in the good graces of those with political power is more important than actually upholding their supposed community standards.
- justaguyonline 6y ago>I think I would of agreed if I hadn't read a larger quote giving the actual context here. It's very hard to brush it off in the same way: BANNON: Second term kicks off with firing Wray, firing Fauci. Now, I actually want to go a step farther, but I realize the president is a kind-hearted man and a good man. I'd actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England, I'd put the heads on pikes, right, I'd put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats. You either get with the program or you're gone -- time to stop playing games. blow it all up, put Ric Grenell today as the interim head of the FBI, that'll light them up, right. JACK MAXEY (CO-HOST): You know what Steve, just yesterday there was the anniversary of the hanging of two Tories in Philadelphia, these were Quaker businessmen who had cohabitated if you will with the British while they were occupying Philadelphia. These people were hung. This is what we used to do to traitors. BANNON: That's how you won the revolution. No one wants to talk about it. The revolution wasn't some sort of garden party, right? It was a civil war. It was a civil war. >The call to replicate actual specific events in the American Revolution really makes it feel real, along with the mention of a civil war being on.
- goodside 6y agoThanks — I agree that’s a bit worse. But it’s still pretty clear he’s speaking in the context of what the President should do, and obviously the President can’t have his enemies’ heads displayed Tudor-style on the White House fence. He’s not bringing up Tudors as a sincere suggestion, he’s arguing that any (realistic) punishment would be mild by historical standards.
- ZeteticElench 6y agoWhy are you defending Bannon?
- boublepop 6y agoSo he’s calling for the president to murder a person and your defending his position by saying “obviously the president can’t have people murdered”. Let’s say someone was calling for the gassing of Jews, would you also defend their position with a sentiment of: “ but that’s ok, because obviously a state can’t just start rounding up Jews and gassing them”? Or perhaps his speech should be judged on his stated intent ?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- awb 6y agoIn the Twitter video (https://twitter.com/FrankFigliuzzi1/status/1324485819042705408 https://twitter.com/FrankFigliuzzi1/status/13244858190427054...), Bannon immediately goes on to talk about executing traitors and justifying it with historical examples. So, he's not just talking about "putting heads on pikes" metaphorically, but also doubling down on why execution is a viable tool historically. And Bannon knows that these comments come with the context of Fauci needing 24/7 security after receiving multiple death threats. You might come down on either side of the censorship / free speech argument, but Bannon knows exactly what he's doing with his words here, and it went beyond a one-off bad-taste metaphor.
- rorykoehler 6y agoI cannot disagree more with this. We cannot accept these "figures of speech" in a political environment driven by bad faith.