6 ms·

I'm curious why so many Democrats were allowed to encourage the BLM riots (more than 25 dead, $2 billion in property damage) without so much as a peep from Goog

by Nacdor 6y ago

I'm curious why so many Democrats were allowed to encourage the BLM riots (more than 25 dead, $2 billion in property damage) without so much as a peep from Google, Twitter, Facebook or any other tech giant. Kamala Harris said "they should not stop" and helped with a bail fund for the people who were involved with them. I think protest is a fundamental requirement of democracy, and as Chris Cuomo himself reminded us: protest aren't always peaceful [1]. It seems like a lot of Democrats are conveniently forgetting that all of a sudden. https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2020/06/03/chris-cuomo-calls-police-accountability-defends-protests/3133326001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/202...

pstuart 6y ago
I'm curious why you think Democrats encouraged riots at BLM protests. Perhaps you're thinking of the the agents provocateur that were white supremacist: https://www.startribune.com/police-umbrella-man-was-a-white-supremacist-trying-to-incite-floyd-rioting/571932272/ https://www.startribune.com/police-umbrella-man-was-a-white-... Do you have any evidence to back up your claim where any Democratic official agitated for violence in those protests?
guscost 6y ago
BLM riots were not a direct and realistic threat to the establishment. They are scared.
- costsNall 6y ago
  The establishment is you. Country by, of, and for the people. Americans refuse to act collectively except to circle back to their job every morning, propping up “the establishment”. Let’s stop pretending we’re above it all.
- AndrewBissell 6y ago
  Wednesday's riots were not a threat to anything either. They knew it was coming days in advance and allowed it to proceed so it could be used as a pretext for the ongoing crackdown and consolidation of political and cultural dominance (as well as splitting U.S. populist factions onto multiple platforms where they will no longer see each other).
  - guscost 6y ago
    Perhaps. The strongest supporting evidence seems to be the rejection of federal assistance: https://apnews.com/article/capitol-police-reject-federal-help-9c39a4ddef0ab60a48828a07e4d03380 https://apnews.com/article/capitol-police-reject-federal-hel...
    - AndrewBissell 6y ago
      Rejection of federal assistance, Capitol contractors told to stay home days in advance, numerous security barriers left wide open in the buildings, Pelosi is in charge of Capitol Police but left a laptop lying around so that could become a big HN headline ....
  - dang 6y ago
    Sorry for the delay but I've been swamped since this conflagration. Your recent posts have been using HN primarily for political battle. Please don't do that—it's against the rules (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and it's the line across which we start banning accounts (https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=primarily%20test%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...), regardless of which politics they're battling for. The reason is that it basically destroys what HN is supposed to exist for, which is curious conversation on a wide range of topics.
jackson1442 6y ago
Did the BLM riots promote sedition? That's probably why. Also worth noting that there was no property damage or injuries in more than 97 to 98% of protests[1] [1]: https://today.uconn.edu/2020/10/study-2020-protests-shows-difference-reality-perception https://today.uconn.edu/2020/10/study-2020-protests-shows-di...
- billylindeman 6y ago
  Yes. Chaz?
  - jldugger 6y ago
    Wrong capitol hill.
    - monoideism 6y ago
      If creating an "autonomous zone" in the middle of the United States isn't sedition, then I don't know what is. If you want to forgive it because it was a bunch of deluded incompetents, then you should probably forgive the Capitol seditionists for the same reason.
      - jldugger 6y ago
        > an "autonomous zone" in the middle of the United States Well, in the middle of Seattle. It's not clear whether chaz intended to secede from the US or merely Seattle policing; their demands were certainly very local so I suspect they really had no intention of leaving the US itself.
- refurb 6y ago
  Well, they did takeover Seattle City Hall and demand the mayor resigns. Sounds like sedition to me? https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/protests/seattle-protesters-enter-city-hall/281-35cf42b7-c634-4fef-a0df-09ade640a735 https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/protests/seattle-pr...
- 6y ago
mhh__ 6y ago
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-kamala-harris-late-show-rio-idUSKBN27E34P https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-kamala-harris-l... Look things up before you throw fuel on the fire.
germinalphrase 6y ago
For context: Washington Post Fact Check about Democratic support for bail funds - https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/09/03/kamala-harris-tweeted-support-bail-fund-money-didnt-just-assist-protestors/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/09/03/kamala-ha...
indrax 6y ago
One difference is that nonviolent protestors were being gassed and arrested. I see nothing strange in an American politician saying that nonviolent civil rights protests should not stop.
- kfrzcode 6y ago
  Is destruction of property to be considered violence?
- vimy 6y ago
  More often than not the police was told to stand down. Does no one wonder why Trump got 9 million votes more than 2016 and doubled his minority vote? The democrats encouraging and downplaying the riots is why.
jorblumesea 6y ago
I don't think any Democratic politicians literally told BLM to "go forth and riot". That's the difference. If someone is sympathetic to a movement, it's hard to say they had a hand in events. If someone literally says "hey everyone, let's do this thing!" then it's very obvious. You could also argue that Trump's previous tweets, the wink wink nod nod tweets to white supremacists, also fall under a similar category as the BLM tweet. Sympathy and possibly support but not actual incitement. This time was different. Trump was literally inciting sedition. "Go to the capitol and stop the steal" was the message.
rat87 6y ago
It's amazing a person can make such a nonsensical comparison without thought, between a movement for non abusive policing and racial justice to an attempted coup
casefields 6y ago
These people are a little crazy and this is now a declaration of war by big tech. I really hope they're ready because this is a stupid move in my opinion.
- guscost 6y ago
  And I thought Trump’s rambling and angry improvised speech before the riot was a stupid move. It just keeps getting crazier.
- klodolph 6y ago
  So, you’re saying that these people are crazy and presumably dangerous, and therefore we should be more supportive of them?
lallysingh 6y ago
No coup. And quite a few employees from those companies were in those protests. And there are different arguments for merit between those protests. And the vast majority of the BLM protests we're peaceful. This one (sample size 1) was quite the opposite. Pipe bombs, small arms, etc.
- robbseaton 6y ago
  More than 200 BLM protests turned violent. https://acleddata.com/2020/09/03/demonstrations-political-violence-in-america-new-data-for-summer-2020/ https://acleddata.com/2020/09/03/demonstrations-political-vi...
  - pstuart 6y ago
    And who started the violence? And do you think the police responded in an equivocal manner? (Narrator: no, they did not).
greatgirl 6y ago
Most of the damage from BLM was incited by police, who were 500x more aggressive towards black protestors than the terrorists at the capitol.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- blisterpeanuts 6y ago
  Absolutely not true. Actually the police avoided the BLM protests for the most part. "500x more aggressive", my ass! You're just making stuff up.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - shrimp_emoji 6y ago
    They were absolutely more aggressive. Whether that's because they were more prepared in the BLM protests or less professional than in D.C., or whether because they were busy trying to evacuate the inside of the Capitol, or whether the BLM police were responding to the looting, or whether protesters frequently stayed out past curfew, or whether a core tenet of the protest was ACAB and a (justified, imo) loathing of the police, or maybe even because the cops didn't have the precedent of the BLM protests that they might not want to repeat is all conjecture.
adamsea 6y ago
It might be easier to make the comparison if you chose a single “BLM riot” to discuss rather than reduce a months long series of nationwide and international peaceful protests, and related riots, to a single catchphrase. Seriously. I actually think making a comparison like that would be interesting and constructive. Because it’s difficult to compare the events of this summer (a spontaneous response to the murder of George Floyd,choked to death under the neck of a police officer for over three minutes, on video, I’ll remind you) to the armed mob that invaded the Capital, threatening to kill or take hostage the entire Congress and the Vice-President, killed a Capital police officer, and planted pipe bombs in the Capital. I think it would be easier to compare that event, since it’s a singular event, to another singular event, rather than a long series of events as I said. What do you think? [EDIT: Oh yeah the mob was also attempting to stop the process of certifying the results of the Presidential election. So much wrongness to have to remember.]
costsNall 6y ago
BLM is fighting for representation in government. MAGA is fighting for a nihilist controlling government. I’m curious why police let people storm the capital in violation of law. Historical context matters.
wilsynet 6y ago
I don’t think Kamala Harris said “don’t stop rioting”, I think she meant “don’t stop protesting”. And the bail fund is ostensibly for people who were unfairly arrested, which happened quite a lot. I don’t think Democrats should paint all Republicans with the same brush, and vice versa.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
newacct583 6y ago
> protest aren't always peaceful Forcing an evacuation of the VP, house and senate leadership and like 500 legislators while they are in session selecting the next president is a far, far cry from merely "not peaceful". Literally the entire legislative branch of the federal government was attacked, along with the backup president! And, but for a network of cold war escape facilities... they probably would have killed a few or taken hostages.
JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
The vast majority of BLM protests were peaceful. > ...93 percent of the protests associated with BLM were entirely peaceful... Yet our government treats left-wing protests and right-wing protests quite differently. > Between May 1 and November 28, 2020, authorities were more than twice as likely to attempt to break up and disperse a left-wing protest than a right-wing one. And in those situations when law enforcement chose to intervene, they were more likely to use force — 34 percent of the time with right-wing protests compared with 51 percent of the time for the left. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polices-tepid-response-to-the-capitol-breach-wasnt-an-aberration/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polices-tepid-respo...
- rrose 6y ago
  this comment being downvoted really reveals the character of the discussion here.
  - JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
    I think some of the questions posed in this thread are quite difficult and strike to the core of human psychology. This is a difficult moment for everybody. If we observe a somewhat tribal response, we should not be surprised. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22206533 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22206533
  - dang 6y ago
    Please don't break the site guidelines like this. A corrective upvote would have sufficed. Notice that the comment you're talking about is no longer in a downvoted state. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
mumblemumble 6y ago
It's all pretty complicated, but one obvious mitigating factor is the ends being pursued by each movement. Rioting aside, BLM is ultimately pushing for justice and equality. There's also a question of blame - many would argue that most of the BLM rioting was provoked by a disproportionate police response. This movement, on the other hand, is quite transparently rooted in white supremacy, and had an explicit goal of trying to undermine democracy itself, and people showed up quite obviously looking for a fight. I mean, the news over the past few days have been plastered with images of a guy in a weird Davy Crockett the Viking hat, with enormous white supremacist symbols tattooed across his torso, brandishing a frickin' spear.
- war1025 6y ago
  > BLM is ultimately pushing for justice and equality. > This movement, on the other hand, is quite transparently rooted in white supremacy It's almost like people describe their side in the best possible terms, and the other side in the worst possible terms...
- tw600040 6y ago
  //Rioting aside? Aside? isn't that the whole point?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- systemvoltage 6y ago
  BLM was a badly organized movement. I support the cause, not the way they're sending the message. Study Gandhi, MLK, John Lewis, Mandela - I understand BLM is a decentralized movement, but that's the problem. There is no leader and leadership. It has no coherency. It's dividing the society even more instead of pulling the entire populace behind it. Social movement has a singular goal - to change the minds of people that oppose their views. BLM has managed to just bring out people who were already supporting them, it hasn't quite changed the hearts of people that were previously racists. This is not how you make progress in the society. It is "pull", not "push".
  - deleted 6y ago
blake1 6y ago
Please provide a source for your claim that Democrats encouraged riots. To the best of my recollection, no one encouraged riots, except for extremist groups like the “boogaloo boys.” Certainly no mainstream political party encouraged violence this summer. I’d you want, I will provide a source that Republicans encouraged violence this year.
- vimy 6y ago
  Two minute compilation video: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CJvHNANAIPq/?igshid=z8afgms2mdst https://www.instagram.com/tv/CJvHNANAIPq/?igshid=z8afgms2mds... This thread: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1346937852970483714.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1346937852970483714.html Insane articles like this: - https://www.npr.org/2020/08/27/906729976/police-declare-portland-protests-a-riot-but-this-definition-could-be-rooted-in-r?t=1610155369235 https://www.npr.org/2020/08/27/906729976/police-declare-port... - https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/08/27/906642178/one-authors-argument-in-defense-of-looting https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/08/27/906642178... - https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/blm-looting-protest-vandalism/ https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/blm-looting-prote... There's much more but I'm not going to collect links all night.
  - FridgeSeal 6y ago
    The last 3 things you linked: 1. Given BLM was protesting mistreatment and institutionalised racism (especially in the police), do you not think it’s at all plausible that the police response would be racially-charged in how they respond to the protests? 2. The headline it’s literally says “one authors controversial view...”: it is entirely reasonable to entertain an idea for the purposes of analysing it without actually advocating it. 3. “In defence of destroying property”: this is inherently ideological I think, I for one place human lives above that of mere materials, and if people need to smash some windows in order to make their voices heard that is ok: we can repair windows, we can bring unjustly-murdered people back from the dead. Maybe a better way of framing this particular one is in reverse: “why is a window shop-front more valuable/important than someone’s life and human rights?” Edit: Twitter thread: conflating “we wish to overthrow the government and kill our opposition” with “please stop killing us; we will make these protests more uncomfortable until we are heard” is disingenuous at best, and a flat-out mischaracterisation at worst. Nelson Mandela spent time in prison as well: does that mean nothing he said has any value?
johnmaguire2013 6y ago
A few differences I see: - BLM was not trying to replace our government with a new one. (aka a protest is not a sedition) - Many BLM protesters were arrested. Some were charged with crimes. Similarly, any seditionists should be charged. This is probably true whether you agree with the final verdict or not - Those at the capitol essentially held hundreds of lawmakers hostage, using guns and at least one pipe bomb, while Trump said nothing for approximately 2 hours
idiot900 6y ago
> why so many Democrats were allowed to encourage the BLM riots With regard to prominent Democratic politicians, this is factually untrue. They (and me) are good with peaceful protest, whether BLM or MAGA. There is absolutely no problem with peaceful pro-Trump protestors. https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-kamala-harris-late-show-rio/fact-check-kamala-harris-said-she-supports-protests-not-riots-in-late-show-clip-idUSKBN27E34P https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-kamala-harris-l... The invasion of the Capitol was not a peaceful protest - it was an insurrection.
- xeeeeeeeeeeenu 6y ago
  This is AOC during the BLM riots: https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1334184644707758080 https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1334184644707758080 This is AOC during the Capitol riots: https://abc7ny.com/aoc-alexandira-ocasio-cortez-capitol-siege/9445924/ https://abc7ny.com/aoc-alexandira-ocasio-cortez-capitol-sieg... The hypocrisy is astonishing.
  - idiot900 6y ago
    Surely you can do a better job of cherry picking things out of context. In the former link, she was talking about how certain terminology ("defund") made people uncomfortable. In the latter, she denounces a sitting President who incited an insurrection that placed her life personally in grave danger.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
namesbc 6y ago
Did you forgot what happened this summer so quickly? Bad police were maiming innocent civilians with no provocation: https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1266752393556918273 https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1266752393556918273 The protests were to hold those bad police accountable. Do not compare people asking for the rule of law to be applied fairly and justly, to a President directing his rally to violently attack Congress and overthrow a democratic election.
cthalupa 6y ago
If you don't understand the difference between a people that have faced subjugation, systemic racism, and generational poverty for two hundred years protesting - and yes, at times, rioting - upon continued police brutality and a bunch of people promoting sedition and talking about being a part of a revolution as they invade the Capitol building because their favorite person lost a free and fair election, I don't really know what to tell you. I wouldn't give much of a damn if these people had burned down a Target or Quick Stop, either. But they ran into the capitol while many of them were actively talking about it being a revolution. With people talking about grabbing Congresspeople and having military tribunals. People went in with zipcuffs and firearms. Multiple bombs were planted. This was an attempted coup. A poorly thought out one, a poorly executed one, and sure, not everyone that ran in had such grand aspirations. But plenty did, and plenty were open about it. Go check out ParlerWatch on Reddit. Look at what's actually being posted on there. People calling for the violent overthrow of the government. People talking about murdering lawmakers. People cheering on those that invaded the capitol and calling for more.
mzs 6y ago
Because when someone wrote 'kill the cops' and then someone reported it the account was suspended.

by Nacdor 6y ago

pstuart 6y ago

I'm curious why you think Democrats encouraged riots at BLM protests. Perhaps you're thinking of the the agents provocateur that were white supremacist: https://www.startribune.com/police-umbrella-man-was-a-white-supremacist-trying-to-incite-floyd-rioting/571932272/ https://www.startribune.com/police-umbrella-man-was-a-white-... Do you have any evidence to back up your claim where any Democratic official agitated for violence in those protests?

guscost 6y ago

BLM riots were not a direct and realistic threat to the establishment. They are scared.

costsNall 6y ago
The establishment is you. Country by, of, and for the people. Americans refuse to act collectively except to circle back to their job every morning, propping up “the establishment”. Let’s stop pretending we’re above it all.
AndrewBissell 6y ago
Wednesday's riots were not a threat to anything either. They knew it was coming days in advance and allowed it to proceed so it could be used as a pretext for the ongoing crackdown and consolidation of political and cultural dominance (as well as splitting U.S. populist factions onto multiple platforms where they will no longer see each other).
- guscost 6y ago
  Perhaps. The strongest supporting evidence seems to be the rejection of federal assistance: https://apnews.com/article/capitol-police-reject-federal-help-9c39a4ddef0ab60a48828a07e4d03380 https://apnews.com/article/capitol-police-reject-federal-hel...
  - AndrewBissell 6y ago
    Rejection of federal assistance, Capitol contractors told to stay home days in advance, numerous security barriers left wide open in the buildings, Pelosi is in charge of Capitol Police but left a laptop lying around so that could become a big HN headline ....
- dang 6y ago
  Sorry for the delay but I've been swamped since this conflagration. Your recent posts have been using HN primarily for political battle. Please don't do that—it's against the rules (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and it's the line across which we start banning accounts (https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=primarily%20test%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...), regardless of which politics they're battling for. The reason is that it basically destroys what HN is supposed to exist for, which is curious conversation on a wide range of topics.

jackson1442 6y ago

Did the BLM riots promote sedition? That's probably why. Also worth noting that there was no property damage or injuries in more than 97 to 98% of protests[1] [1]: https://today.uconn.edu/2020/10/study-2020-protests-shows-difference-reality-perception https://today.uconn.edu/2020/10/study-2020-protests-shows-di...

billylindeman 6y ago
Yes. Chaz?
- jldugger 6y ago
  Wrong capitol hill.
  - monoideism 6y ago
    If creating an "autonomous zone" in the middle of the United States isn't sedition, then I don't know what is. If you want to forgive it because it was a bunch of deluded incompetents, then you should probably forgive the Capitol seditionists for the same reason.
    - jldugger 6y ago
      > an "autonomous zone" in the middle of the United States Well, in the middle of Seattle. It's not clear whether chaz intended to secede from the US or merely Seattle policing; their demands were certainly very local so I suspect they really had no intention of leaving the US itself.
refurb 6y ago
Well, they did takeover Seattle City Hall and demand the mayor resigns. Sounds like sedition to me? https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/protests/seattle-protesters-enter-city-hall/281-35cf42b7-c634-4fef-a0df-09ade640a735 https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/protests/seattle-pr...
6y ago

mhh__ 6y ago

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-kamala-harris-late-show-rio-idUSKBN27E34P https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-kamala-harris-l... Look things up before you throw fuel on the fire.

germinalphrase 6y ago

For context: Washington Post Fact Check about Democratic support for bail funds - https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/09/03/kamala-harris-tweeted-support-bail-fund-money-didnt-just-assist-protestors/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/09/03/kamala-ha...

indrax 6y ago

One difference is that nonviolent protestors were being gassed and arrested. I see nothing strange in an American politician saying that nonviolent civil rights protests should not stop.

kfrzcode 6y ago
Is destruction of property to be considered violence?
vimy 6y ago
More often than not the police was told to stand down. Does no one wonder why Trump got 9 million votes more than 2016 and doubled his minority vote? The democrats encouraging and downplaying the riots is why.

jorblumesea 6y ago

I don't think any Democratic politicians literally told BLM to "go forth and riot". That's the difference. If someone is sympathetic to a movement, it's hard to say they had a hand in events. If someone literally says "hey everyone, let's do this thing!" then it's very obvious. You could also argue that Trump's previous tweets, the wink wink nod nod tweets to white supremacists, also fall under a similar category as the BLM tweet. Sympathy and possibly support but not actual incitement. This time was different. Trump was literally inciting sedition. "Go to the capitol and stop the steal" was the message.

rat87 6y ago

It's amazing a person can make such a nonsensical comparison without thought, between a movement for non abusive policing and racial justice to an attempted coup

casefields 6y ago

These people are a little crazy and this is now a declaration of war by big tech. I really hope they're ready because this is a stupid move in my opinion.

guscost 6y ago
And I thought Trump’s rambling and angry improvised speech before the riot was a stupid move. It just keeps getting crazier.
klodolph 6y ago
So, you’re saying that these people are crazy and presumably dangerous, and therefore we should be more supportive of them?

lallysingh 6y ago

No coup. And quite a few employees from those companies were in those protests. And there are different arguments for merit between those protests. And the vast majority of the BLM protests we're peaceful. This one (sample size 1) was quite the opposite. Pipe bombs, small arms, etc.

robbseaton 6y ago
More than 200 BLM protests turned violent. https://acleddata.com/2020/09/03/demonstrations-political-violence-in-america-new-data-for-summer-2020/ https://acleddata.com/2020/09/03/demonstrations-political-vi...
- pstuart 6y ago
  And who started the violence? And do you think the police responded in an equivocal manner? (Narrator: no, they did not).

greatgirl 6y ago

Most of the damage from BLM was incited by police, who were 500x more aggressive towards black protestors than the terrorists at the capitol.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
blisterpeanuts 6y ago
Absolutely not true. Actually the police avoided the BLM protests for the most part. "500x more aggressive", my ass! You're just making stuff up.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- shrimp_emoji 6y ago
  They were absolutely more aggressive. Whether that's because they were more prepared in the BLM protests or less professional than in D.C., or whether because they were busy trying to evacuate the inside of the Capitol, or whether the BLM police were responding to the looting, or whether protesters frequently stayed out past curfew, or whether a core tenet of the protest was ACAB and a (justified, imo) loathing of the police, or maybe even because the cops didn't have the precedent of the BLM protests that they might not want to repeat is all conjecture.

adamsea 6y ago

It might be easier to make the comparison if you chose a single “BLM riot” to discuss rather than reduce a months long series of nationwide and international peaceful protests, and related riots, to a single catchphrase. Seriously. I actually think making a comparison like that would be interesting and constructive. Because it’s difficult to compare the events of this summer (a spontaneous response to the murder of George Floyd,choked to death under the neck of a police officer for over three minutes, on video, I’ll remind you) to the armed mob that invaded the Capital, threatening to kill or take hostage the entire Congress and the Vice-President, killed a Capital police officer, and planted pipe bombs in the Capital. I think it would be easier to compare that event, since it’s a singular event, to another singular event, rather than a long series of events as I said. What do you think? [EDIT: Oh yeah the mob was also attempting to stop the process of certifying the results of the Presidential election. So much wrongness to have to remember.]

costsNall 6y ago

BLM is fighting for representation in government. MAGA is fighting for a nihilist controlling government. I’m curious why police let people storm the capital in violation of law. Historical context matters.

wilsynet 6y ago

I don’t think Kamala Harris said “don’t stop rioting”, I think she meant “don’t stop protesting”. And the bail fund is ostensibly for people who were unfairly arrested, which happened quite a lot. I don’t think Democrats should paint all Republicans with the same brush, and vice versa.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

newacct583 6y ago

> protest aren't always peaceful Forcing an evacuation of the VP, house and senate leadership and like 500 legislators while they are in session selecting the next president is a far, far cry from merely "not peaceful". Literally the entire legislative branch of the federal government was attacked, along with the backup president! And, but for a network of cold war escape facilities... they probably would have killed a few or taken hostages.

JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago

The vast majority of BLM protests were peaceful. > ...93 percent of the protests associated with BLM were entirely peaceful... Yet our government treats left-wing protests and right-wing protests quite differently. > Between May 1 and November 28, 2020, authorities were more than twice as likely to attempt to break up and disperse a left-wing protest than a right-wing one. And in those situations when law enforcement chose to intervene, they were more likely to use force — 34 percent of the time with right-wing protests compared with 51 percent of the time for the left. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polices-tepid-response-to-the-capitol-breach-wasnt-an-aberration/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polices-tepid-respo...

rrose 6y ago
this comment being downvoted really reveals the character of the discussion here.
- JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
  I think some of the questions posed in this thread are quite difficult and strike to the core of human psychology. This is a difficult moment for everybody. If we observe a somewhat tribal response, we should not be surprised. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22206533 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22206533
- dang 6y ago
  Please don't break the site guidelines like this. A corrective upvote would have sufficed. Notice that the comment you're talking about is no longer in a downvoted state. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

mumblemumble 6y ago

It's all pretty complicated, but one obvious mitigating factor is the ends being pursued by each movement. Rioting aside, BLM is ultimately pushing for justice and equality. There's also a question of blame - many would argue that most of the BLM rioting was provoked by a disproportionate police response. This movement, on the other hand, is quite transparently rooted in white supremacy, and had an explicit goal of trying to undermine democracy itself, and people showed up quite obviously looking for a fight. I mean, the news over the past few days have been plastered with images of a guy in a weird Davy Crockett the Viking hat, with enormous white supremacist symbols tattooed across his torso, brandishing a frickin' spear.

war1025 6y ago
> BLM is ultimately pushing for justice and equality. > This movement, on the other hand, is quite transparently rooted in white supremacy It's almost like people describe their side in the best possible terms, and the other side in the worst possible terms...
tw600040 6y ago
//Rioting aside? Aside? isn't that the whole point?
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systemvoltage 6y ago
BLM was a badly organized movement. I support the cause, not the way they're sending the message. Study Gandhi, MLK, John Lewis, Mandela - I understand BLM is a decentralized movement, but that's the problem. There is no leader and leadership. It has no coherency. It's dividing the society even more instead of pulling the entire populace behind it. Social movement has a singular goal - to change the minds of people that oppose their views. BLM has managed to just bring out people who were already supporting them, it hasn't quite changed the hearts of people that were previously racists. This is not how you make progress in the society. It is "pull", not "push".
- deleted 6y ago

blake1 6y ago

Please provide a source for your claim that Democrats encouraged riots. To the best of my recollection, no one encouraged riots, except for extremist groups like the “boogaloo boys.” Certainly no mainstream political party encouraged violence this summer. I’d you want, I will provide a source that Republicans encouraged violence this year.

vimy 6y ago
Two minute compilation video: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CJvHNANAIPq/?igshid=z8afgms2mdst https://www.instagram.com/tv/CJvHNANAIPq/?igshid=z8afgms2mds... This thread: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1346937852970483714.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1346937852970483714.html Insane articles like this: - https://www.npr.org/2020/08/27/906729976/police-declare-portland-protests-a-riot-but-this-definition-could-be-rooted-in-r?t=1610155369235 https://www.npr.org/2020/08/27/906729976/police-declare-port... - https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/08/27/906642178/one-authors-argument-in-defense-of-looting https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/08/27/906642178... - https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/blm-looting-protest-vandalism/ https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/blm-looting-prote... There's much more but I'm not going to collect links all night.
- FridgeSeal 6y ago
  The last 3 things you linked: 1. Given BLM was protesting mistreatment and institutionalised racism (especially in the police), do you not think it’s at all plausible that the police response would be racially-charged in how they respond to the protests? 2. The headline it’s literally says “one authors controversial view...”: it is entirely reasonable to entertain an idea for the purposes of analysing it without actually advocating it. 3. “In defence of destroying property”: this is inherently ideological I think, I for one place human lives above that of mere materials, and if people need to smash some windows in order to make their voices heard that is ok: we can repair windows, we can bring unjustly-murdered people back from the dead. Maybe a better way of framing this particular one is in reverse: “why is a window shop-front more valuable/important than someone’s life and human rights?” Edit: Twitter thread: conflating “we wish to overthrow the government and kill our opposition” with “please stop killing us; we will make these protests more uncomfortable until we are heard” is disingenuous at best, and a flat-out mischaracterisation at worst. Nelson Mandela spent time in prison as well: does that mean nothing he said has any value?

johnmaguire2013 6y ago

A few differences I see: - BLM was not trying to replace our government with a new one. (aka a protest is not a sedition) - Many BLM protesters were arrested. Some were charged with crimes. Similarly, any seditionists should be charged. This is probably true whether you agree with the final verdict or not - Those at the capitol essentially held hundreds of lawmakers hostage, using guns and at least one pipe bomb, while Trump said nothing for approximately 2 hours

idiot900 6y ago

> why so many Democrats were allowed to encourage the BLM riots With regard to prominent Democratic politicians, this is factually untrue. They (and me) are good with peaceful protest, whether BLM or MAGA. There is absolutely no problem with peaceful pro-Trump protestors. https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-kamala-harris-late-show-rio/fact-check-kamala-harris-said-she-supports-protests-not-riots-in-late-show-clip-idUSKBN27E34P https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-kamala-harris-l... The invasion of the Capitol was not a peaceful protest - it was an insurrection.

xeeeeeeeeeeenu 6y ago
This is AOC during the BLM riots: https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1334184644707758080 https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1334184644707758080 This is AOC during the Capitol riots: https://abc7ny.com/aoc-alexandira-ocasio-cortez-capitol-siege/9445924/ https://abc7ny.com/aoc-alexandira-ocasio-cortez-capitol-sieg... The hypocrisy is astonishing.
- idiot900 6y ago
  Surely you can do a better job of cherry picking things out of context. In the former link, she was talking about how certain terminology ("defund") made people uncomfortable. In the latter, she denounces a sitting President who incited an insurrection that placed her life personally in grave danger.

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namesbc 6y ago

Did you forgot what happened this summer so quickly? Bad police were maiming innocent civilians with no provocation: https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1266752393556918273 https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1266752393556918273 The protests were to hold those bad police accountable. Do not compare people asking for the rule of law to be applied fairly and justly, to a President directing his rally to violently attack Congress and overthrow a democratic election.

cthalupa 6y ago

If you don't understand the difference between a people that have faced subjugation, systemic racism, and generational poverty for two hundred years protesting - and yes, at times, rioting - upon continued police brutality and a bunch of people promoting sedition and talking about being a part of a revolution as they invade the Capitol building because their favorite person lost a free and fair election, I don't really know what to tell you. I wouldn't give much of a damn if these people had burned down a Target or Quick Stop, either. But they ran into the capitol while many of them were actively talking about it being a revolution. With people talking about grabbing Congresspeople and having military tribunals. People went in with zipcuffs and firearms. Multiple bombs were planted. This was an attempted coup. A poorly thought out one, a poorly executed one, and sure, not everyone that ran in had such grand aspirations. But plenty did, and plenty were open about it. Go check out ParlerWatch on Reddit. Look at what's actually being posted on there. People calling for the violent overthrow of the government. People talking about murdering lawmakers. People cheering on those that invaded the capitol and calling for more.

mzs 6y ago

Because when someone wrote 'kill the cops' and then someone reported it the account was suspended.