O/T:- Covid Trump

[Ayeayeskipper]

No I don't.

Well?

[Ayeayeskipper]

You don't have to answer that Swale, I'm well aware that free speech has been oppressed if you don't swallow the BLM sh1t, hook line and sink.

[SwalePie]

Well?

?

[SwalePie]

You don't have to answer that Swale, I'm well aware that free speech has been oppressed if you don't swallow the BLM sh1t, hook line and sink.

I think I answered already with 'No I don't'. Unless I've misunderstood the question perhaps?

[BigFatPie]

Well my original post openly states that the riots last week were "triggered by the words and actions of Donald Trump", which is pretty unequivocal, but that is of course opinion and could be an example of rigid political ideology. It’s perhaps most surprising is that we might have the same one!

If you read what I actually wrote in my original post, rather than whatever BFP thinks I said or meant through his warped perspective, then the two points I'm making are not unreasonable (in my view):-

1. That Donald Trump and George Floyd have become the current 'representatives' of the grievances of two different groups in United States society, but those grievances actually long precede and will outlast both of them, so the long-term focus should be on the grievances rather than these two temporary symbols who are already fading into history (a thought incidentally that Donald Trump would probably hate because he always thinks it’s all about him!)

2. That irrespective of the degree to which a protesting group’s (i.e. any group’s) grievances are judged to be legitimate or not, if enough people believe them to be true then this can potentially become dangerous, and in order to avoid that outcome you have to hear out such concerns even if you don’t necessarily accept them. If you ignore or try to silence the view of any significant group of people in society rather than engage with them, then you only feed that resentment and isolation and increase its appeal to anyone who has a “beef” with their life.

If you disagree with my conclusions then fair enough, but I don’t see why I should have to put up with someone misrepresenting what I’ve written to suggest I really meant whatever preconception was in their brain before they even read my words … if they ever did.

‘Included in Twitter’s statement, explaining why it banned Trump: “Plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off-Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021.”’

Maybe if President-Elect Biden just sat down with these lads and listened to their ‘grievances’ they might not go ahead with their plans for secondary attacks on the US Capitol. They might even stop wearing their t-shirts celebrating the Holocaust.

Oh no, they wouldn’t talk to him would they, because they claim he stole the election.

[magpie_mania]

‘Included in Twitter’s statement, explaining why it banned Trump: “Plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off-Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021.”’

Maybe if President-Elect Biden just sat down with these lads and listened to their ‘grievances’ they might not go ahead with their plans for secondary attacks on the US Capitol. They might even stop wearing their t-shirts celebrating the Holocaust.

Oh no, they wouldn’t talk to him would they, because they claim he stole the election.

But surely if Twitter allowed him to continue he would be able to ask them to play nicely.

[jackal2]

Yes I use ‘false equivalence’ because apologists try and use ‘false equivalence’ to compare what happened the other day with the George Floyd protests.

I’m certainly not “an apologist” for what happened the other day. Why would I need to be? I didn’t cause it and I wasn’t involved in it. I don’t even live in the United States and I certainly don’t condone violence there or anywhere. My point was that both protests reflect the anger of two (or more) groups of American people, whether their cause is deemed to be “legitimate” or not.

Those [George Floyd] protests wouldn’t have happened if George Floyd hadn’t been murdered.

Obviously. I said that in my post. And I also stated very directly that the protest on Wednesday wouldn’t have happened without Donald Trump’s actions and words.

What would have prevented what happened on Wednesday?

A good question with an answer that illustrates my point.

The protests on Wednesday would not have happened if the political establishment (Democrat or Republican) had not ignored the views of a sufficient swathe of American citizens to the point where they voted to select Donald Trump as a Presidential candidate and then elect him as President in 2015 with his “clear the swamp” message.

Donald Trump’s bunch of “cranks and loonies”, as viewed by the establishment, turned out to be sufficient in numbers and votes to put Trump in power, and weren’t far from returning him again this year, because a lot of them obviously still don’t believe their views and fears are heard by anyone else.

People protesting against long term systemic discrimination isn’t the same as what happened the other day.

The results are the same – anger, violence and a degree of anarchy. So arguing subjectively about the relative moral legitimacy of one protest compared with another doesn’t solve anything, and certainly doesn’t lessen the threat of ‘extremism’.

If sufficient numbers of people feel their views are ignored by the national or international political establishment, then it isn’t unknown for them to overthrow that establishment, irrespective of which political wing the dissenters come from, or how “right” or “wrong”, or “good” or “evil”, or “genuine” or “false” their feelings and intentions are in their own right or in equivalence to any others. I can almost hear Basil Fawlty’s words: “This is exactly how Nazi Germany started!”

Speaking of which…

You yourself have refused to even try and explain what they were protesting/rioting about, because there is no rational explanation. It’s got nowt to do with ‘subjective judgment’. What was going through this chap’s mind for example?

Attachment 18025

I would guess he’s either a Nazi or someone pretending to be a Nazi. Media photographers with a certain agenda love to pick out such distinctive individuals as being typical of a huge group of protestors, much like the right-wing media picked out images of the angriest, most militant-looking left-wing protestors when they wanted to paint a simplistic picture of strikers back in the 1970’s and 80’s.

In any case, it matters not a jot what value judgements you or I make of this protestor, or any group of protestors. The fact remains that if enough people feel they have a grievance that is not being heard, or even that their view is being suppressed, then they are liable to become ever more angry and radical.

I appreciate that the “moderate” political establishment (as they see themselves) might find it distasteful to communicate with groups who have “radical” or “extreme” views, or try to understand why they feel the way they do, but if such conversations do not take place and solutions aren’t found, these groups do not go away. They recruit others who feel marginalized, grow in size, and potentially become the new political establishment.

Ironically, your apparent opinion that the current political establishment should only regard certain types of protest as legitimate, and that others should be ignored or presumably suppressed, is far more likely to cause the eventual triumph of extremism than if ALL groups with grievances feel they are able to express their view and be heard. That’s far more likely to begin the immense task of resolving the divisions in America than ignoring parts of the country, whichever parts they happen to be.

[BigFatPie]

Jackal, Your post raises a few questions.

Regarding Wednesday’s events, who listens to whose concerns or grievances and what do you think they are? And what do you think will happen if they’re not listened to? (the obvious answer being they might launch an attack on the legislative and try to overthrow an election but we’ll forget about that for the time being).

[Disturbed]

What Biden needs to do is allow the voting machines to be looked into (forensics) and the ballots audited. This would then prove who was telling the truth and shut the other side up once and for all.

[BigFatPie]

Jackal, Your post raises a few questions.

Regarding Wednesday’s events, who listens to whose concerns or grievances and what do you think they are? And what do you think will happen if they’re not listened to? (the obvious answer being they might launch an attack on the legislative and try to overthrow an election but we’ll forget about that for the time being).

Jackal, you seem uncharacteristically reticent to reply to that, so to help you think about the people whose grievances we should be listening to, here’s a picture of them beating a policeman. It’s from a video that’s been widely circulated.