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MLK said that violence was the language of the unheard. The silenced will turn to violence. That's not surprising in the least.

by donatj 6y ago

pmiller2 6y ago
Oh, please. The people who elected the man who was President for the past 4 years are "the unheard?"
- amanaplanacanal 6y ago
  To an extent they are, in that they elected him hoping to get something out of it, and he didn’t deliver much of anything useful. He conned them. Such is the way of politics sometimes.
  - pmiller2 6y ago
    Well, they saw that over the past 4 years and then voted for him again, so, I have no sympathy, and neither should anyone else.
    - war1025 6y ago
      Then again, the other side voted for Biden, so it's not like we've got stellar options here.
      - pmiller2 6y ago
        True enough. I voted for "not Trump." That just happened to be spelled "Biden" on the ballot. :/
        war1025 6y ago
        In the same way, in 2016 a lot of people voted for "not-Clinton".
        pmiller2 6y ago
        Clinton was a terrible candidate. I have no idea if she would have been a good President, but she was the exact wrong person to go up against Trump.
        MrMan 6y ago
        She is a really bad candidate and it was clear Trump would destroy her on TV. I think she would have been a really decent president, even though I think she has an unpleasant media personality.
      - MrMan 6y ago
        I am very unhappy that Biden was the candidate on the other side. But I saw the alternative as fascism and sectarian violence. I predicted Trumps 2016 win and no one took me seriously. I predicted the rise to prominence of white nationalism and even the Cville event. I think Biden is a terrible candidate but the alternative is worse. If there is ever a non racist non violent Republican party I will join it but right now everything is off.
tjr225 6y ago
This is absurd. You must know it to be so. They are angry because they lost and they are being told that they didn't lose. If you can be told that anything you don't like is the case then you will always be "unheard." MLK didn't make this statement so that anyone who was unhappy could justify violence. You can't just live in unreality and pretend you're a victim. Either you can't see it for some reason or you do see it and you're pretending you don't.
- donatj 6y ago
  The anger started a long time before they lost the election. If you didn't see it, blame your filter bubble. It started well _before_ the 2016 election. The anger is what got Trump elected in the first place. > MLK didn't make this statement so that anyone who was unhappy could justify violence. No, but it's a reflection of a common symptom, not a justification. Silencing begets violence _because_ it's all that's left. The pen is mightier than the sword, but when you take the pen away, what are they left with?
  - loopz 6y ago
    Anger about what though?
    - nwienert 6y ago
      If you want to genuinely understand the other side and not comfort yourself by relying on simple slanderous slurs to do the work, this is worth at least an hour of your time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm5xxlajTW0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm5xxlajTW0
    - adventured 6y ago
      I can explain that one. Stick with me on this dear HN reader, as your gut reaction may be to trigger downvote, but I'm going to actually explain it for real, I'm going to tell you exactly why (I'm not going to filter it for everyone so it feels better or sounds better). Jobs. Opioid deaths. Suicides. Life expectancy. Standards of living. Manufacturing erosion. Lack of a future. Lack of wealth creation. Rural and middle class erosion. Education costs. Healthcare costs. Endless war. Shitty rotting infrastructure. Mismanagement of the US fiscal house by worthless political elites obsessed with their own petty bubbles in DC. A mediocre social safety net despite enormous government spending. Corporate-government-lobby coordination to endlessly pillage the people (eg per capita healthcare costs in the US being 2x what they should be). Being lied to for generations by the elite political class while things haven't gotten better for half the country for 50 years. Everyone is starting to look around and ask good questions. Like, why do US taxpayers & citizens fork over $8.2 trillion (directly or through debt/inflation) every year, equal to ~40% of the economy, and have so little to show for it? Why is there no money in Social Security? What did they do with what should be the world's largest sovereign wealth fund? Why does nobody call them out on the lie that is the non-existent Social Security lockbox? Why do we keep burning trillions of dollars in the Middle East? Insert 487 other lies from the political class. Trump got their attention because he brought up some of these lies - including the endless war aspect - and was one of the first leading candidates to ever do so. It's a similar reason why Bernie Sanders came so close to the Presidency twice, a large group of people on both sides are very angry and have had enough of the same old status quo (which the elites in power have an interest in perpetuating forever). Those trillions of dollars wasted in the Middle East should have been in a Social Security wealth fund, and some of it should have been put toward infrastructure. Tens of millions of white people - those core Trump voters - are getting increasingly angry about all of it. Most of them probably have no idea what to do, so they're flailing for something different (if you're not an experienced fighter and you get hit in the face, your only capable reaction may be to flail). Those voters are not supposed to be upset about anything (so goes the fantasy social theory), because of their privilege. How is their privilege looking compared to a white person in Canada, Germany, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Britain, France, the Netherlands or Sweden? I'd say many of them are increasingly worse off and they know it when they look around. Those standards are what white people in the US look at to compare their well-being, and that's where they start to get increasingly upset. Michael Moore was right about what he said about Trump voters prior to the 2016 election, why they were seeking to elect him. Those voters wanted to throw a molotov cocktail at the system. And they were not thinking particularly rationally, angry people rarely do. People tend to vote for radical options when they're desperate. One can think less of them for voting for Trump, say they chose wrong, shit all over them, call them stupid, mock them, call for their arrest or purging, call for them to be blacklisted, try to suppress their speech and so on. One can shake one's head and proclaim that if they only voted Democrat they could have all of those things they want (which also begs the question on how the Democrats screwed up so badly that they lost the poor and lower class white voter that they used to have). Those voters feel attention-abandoned by the Democrats - which is an ongoing mistake by the Dems - and Trump scooped them up by paying attention to them. They're angry regardless of anyone's thoughts about them, they're increasingly lost regardless, and they're going to get more so as time goes on and as things fail to improve, as their lot in life fails to improve. They're angry because their point of comparison isn't what some people think it should be, it's what they think it should be. White lower & middle class people are never going to bounce around happy because they're better off than a poor black person in the US (which is what the premise of throwing white privilege statements at them is meant to accomplish), that is never going to be their point of comparison no matter what anybody says to them; their point of comparison is going to be other affluent white people around the world (that is not a politically correct thing to say, of course, it's the actual truth of their perspective and what's really going on). Telling people that they shouldn't be angry does not work, particularly when they've been dealing with decades of standard of living erosion and have little hope for the future being better. The elites have been conspiring against their interests forever at this point, it's little wonder they're staggering around in a daze with little clue as to what direction to go. It's a mistake for the Democrats to obsess over blaming and castigating those people, instead of focusing on convincing them, swaying them, educating them, peeling away voters and ultimately delivering real life improvements (the big part of that) if they truly believe they have a better path to offer for their future. The Democrats have power again (narrowly), and they need to deliver a lot better than they did in 2009-2010 with their mostly squandered super majority.
vharuck 6y ago
In the case of Tuesday's attack on the Capitol, the crowd thought they were unheard because a group of Republicans and right-wing conspiracy nuts have told them so. They were being heard for the last four years, with a Republican President and Senate. But some Republicans, including Trump, had invested so much in the underdog victim persona they lied to keep it up.
reddog 6y ago
It makes you wonder what will happen ofter the tech cartel completes its project of silencing half the country.
- longtimegoogler 6y ago
  That's why right wing topics dominate on twitter and Facebook by a large margin. It couldn't be that the "tech cartel" is concerned about a specific subset of speech designed to insight violence.
- LarvaFX 6y ago
  The cartel belongs to the right wing guys. Peter Thiel is in part owner of facebook.
rodgerd 6y ago
Ahh, yes. The unheard such as <checks notes> CEOs, the sons of state supreme court judges, the wife of a US supreme court judge, retired millitary intelligence officers, general counsels, and state legislators.

MLK said that violence was the language of the unheard. The silenced will turn to violence. That's not surprising in the least.

by donatj 6y ago

MLK said that violence was the language of the unheard. The silenced will turn to violence. That's not surprising in the least.

pmiller2 6y ago

Oh, please. The people who elected the man who was President for the past 4 years are "the unheard?"

amanaplanacanal 6y ago
To an extent they are, in that they elected him hoping to get something out of it, and he didn’t deliver much of anything useful. He conned them. Such is the way of politics sometimes.
- pmiller2 6y ago
  Well, they saw that over the past 4 years and then voted for him again, so, I have no sympathy, and neither should anyone else.
  - war1025 6y ago
    Then again, the other side voted for Biden, so it's not like we've got stellar options here.
    - pmiller2 6y ago
      True enough. I voted for "not Trump." That just happened to be spelled "Biden" on the ballot. :/
      - war1025 6y ago
        In the same way, in 2016 a lot of people voted for "not-Clinton".
        pmiller2 6y ago
        Clinton was a terrible candidate. I have no idea if she would have been a good President, but she was the exact wrong person to go up against Trump.
        MrMan 6y ago
        She is a really bad candidate and it was clear Trump would destroy her on TV. I think she would have been a really decent president, even though I think she has an unpleasant media personality.
    - MrMan 6y ago
      I am very unhappy that Biden was the candidate on the other side. But I saw the alternative as fascism and sectarian violence. I predicted Trumps 2016 win and no one took me seriously. I predicted the rise to prominence of white nationalism and even the Cville event. I think Biden is a terrible candidate but the alternative is worse. If there is ever a non racist non violent Republican party I will join it but right now everything is off.

tjr225 6y ago

This is absurd. You must know it to be so. They are angry because they lost and they are being told that they didn't lose. If you can be told that anything you don't like is the case then you will always be "unheard." MLK didn't make this statement so that anyone who was unhappy could justify violence. You can't just live in unreality and pretend you're a victim. Either you can't see it for some reason or you do see it and you're pretending you don't.

donatj 6y ago
The anger started a long time before they lost the election. If you didn't see it, blame your filter bubble. It started well _before_ the 2016 election. The anger is what got Trump elected in the first place. > MLK didn't make this statement so that anyone who was unhappy could justify violence. No, but it's a reflection of a common symptom, not a justification. Silencing begets violence _because_ it's all that's left. The pen is mightier than the sword, but when you take the pen away, what are they left with?
- loopz 6y ago
  Anger about what though?
  - nwienert 6y ago
    If you want to genuinely understand the other side and not comfort yourself by relying on simple slanderous slurs to do the work, this is worth at least an hour of your time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm5xxlajTW0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm5xxlajTW0
  - adventured 6y ago
    I can explain that one. Stick with me on this dear HN reader, as your gut reaction may be to trigger downvote, but I'm going to actually explain it for real, I'm going to tell you exactly why (I'm not going to filter it for everyone so it feels better or sounds better). Jobs. Opioid deaths. Suicides. Life expectancy. Standards of living. Manufacturing erosion. Lack of a future. Lack of wealth creation. Rural and middle class erosion. Education costs. Healthcare costs. Endless war. Shitty rotting infrastructure. Mismanagement of the US fiscal house by worthless political elites obsessed with their own petty bubbles in DC. A mediocre social safety net despite enormous government spending. Corporate-government-lobby coordination to endlessly pillage the people (eg per capita healthcare costs in the US being 2x what they should be). Being lied to for generations by the elite political class while things haven't gotten better for half the country for 50 years. Everyone is starting to look around and ask good questions. Like, why do US taxpayers & citizens fork over $8.2 trillion (directly or through debt/inflation) every year, equal to ~40% of the economy, and have so little to show for it? Why is there no money in Social Security? What did they do with what should be the world's largest sovereign wealth fund? Why does nobody call them out on the lie that is the non-existent Social Security lockbox? Why do we keep burning trillions of dollars in the Middle East? Insert 487 other lies from the political class. Trump got their attention because he brought up some of these lies - including the endless war aspect - and was one of the first leading candidates to ever do so. It's a similar reason why Bernie Sanders came so close to the Presidency twice, a large group of people on both sides are very angry and have had enough of the same old status quo (which the elites in power have an interest in perpetuating forever). Those trillions of dollars wasted in the Middle East should have been in a Social Security wealth fund, and some of it should have been put toward infrastructure. Tens of millions of white people - those core Trump voters - are getting increasingly angry about all of it. Most of them probably have no idea what to do, so they're flailing for something different (if you're not an experienced fighter and you get hit in the face, your only capable reaction may be to flail). Those voters are not supposed to be upset about anything (so goes the fantasy social theory), because of their privilege. How is their privilege looking compared to a white person in Canada, Germany, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Britain, France, the Netherlands or Sweden? I'd say many of them are increasingly worse off and they know it when they look around. Those standards are what white people in the US look at to compare their well-being, and that's where they start to get increasingly upset. Michael Moore was right about what he said about Trump voters prior to the 2016 election, why they were seeking to elect him. Those voters wanted to throw a molotov cocktail at the system. And they were not thinking particularly rationally, angry people rarely do. People tend to vote for radical options when they're desperate. One can think less of them for voting for Trump, say they chose wrong, shit all over them, call them stupid, mock them, call for their arrest or purging, call for them to be blacklisted, try to suppress their speech and so on. One can shake one's head and proclaim that if they only voted Democrat they could have all of those things they want (which also begs the question on how the Democrats screwed up so badly that they lost the poor and lower class white voter that they used to have). Those voters feel attention-abandoned by the Democrats - which is an ongoing mistake by the Dems - and Trump scooped them up by paying attention to them. They're angry regardless of anyone's thoughts about them, they're increasingly lost regardless, and they're going to get more so as time goes on and as things fail to improve, as their lot in life fails to improve. They're angry because their point of comparison isn't what some people think it should be, it's what they think it should be. White lower & middle class people are never going to bounce around happy because they're better off than a poor black person in the US (which is what the premise of throwing white privilege statements at them is meant to accomplish), that is never going to be their point of comparison no matter what anybody says to them; their point of comparison is going to be other affluent white people around the world (that is not a politically correct thing to say, of course, it's the actual truth of their perspective and what's really going on). Telling people that they shouldn't be angry does not work, particularly when they've been dealing with decades of standard of living erosion and have little hope for the future being better. The elites have been conspiring against their interests forever at this point, it's little wonder they're staggering around in a daze with little clue as to what direction to go. It's a mistake for the Democrats to obsess over blaming and castigating those people, instead of focusing on convincing them, swaying them, educating them, peeling away voters and ultimately delivering real life improvements (the big part of that) if they truly believe they have a better path to offer for their future. The Democrats have power again (narrowly), and they need to deliver a lot better than they did in 2009-2010 with their mostly squandered super majority.

vharuck 6y ago

In the case of Tuesday's attack on the Capitol, the crowd thought they were unheard because a group of Republicans and right-wing conspiracy nuts have told them so. They were being heard for the last four years, with a Republican President and Senate. But some Republicans, including Trump, had invested so much in the underdog victim persona they lied to keep it up.

reddog 6y ago

It makes you wonder what will happen ofter the tech cartel completes its project of silencing half the country.

longtimegoogler 6y ago
That's why right wing topics dominate on twitter and Facebook by a large margin. It couldn't be that the "tech cartel" is concerned about a specific subset of speech designed to insight violence.
LarvaFX 6y ago
The cartel belongs to the right wing guys. Peter Thiel is in part owner of facebook.

rodgerd 6y ago

Ahh, yes. The unheard such as <checks notes> CEOs, the sons of state supreme court judges, the wife of a US supreme court judge, retired millitary intelligence officers, general counsels, and state legislators.