edit: just spend a day only looking up the millions peacefully marching, rather than the 10s of right-wing livestreams. (Also, give me some information about the people you've seen attacking and burning private residences, because I don't know of a single example of this.)
After the day you can go back to watching what you normally watch, but if you can't find all of these boring people walking through the streets with signs, I don't know what to tell you. If the millions protesting actually had the aim of burning middle-class people out of their homes, middle-class people would have been burned out of their homes.
If there's any problem imo, it's that the protests are generally unfocused street wandering. If there were a specific focus or target, they would be effective at accomplishing that target. But when the target becomes anything other than generalized racism, the ad-hoc coalitions fall apart.
I mean, mathematically yes, but it points to how this word ‘mostly’ is what journalism teaches is a weasel-word. It renders the statement meaningless.
Seriously pause and reflect since that usually comes up with very severe bigots and is pretty far down the dehumanization ladder.
‘Most of the protestors were non-violent’ is an intelligible and probably accurate statement.
‘Mostly peaceful protests’ first of all intrinsically refers to the protest as a singular entity, not addressing the individuality. That’s not my doing, that’s in the phrase, making the protest the subject, as opposed to the people.
Secondly if you reread what I wrote, my main complaint is that the word ‘mostly’ is what journalistic editors refer to as a ‘weasel-world’. Weasel words make a statement that sounds descriptive but in fact could apply to almost anything.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_word
Moving past semantics, it is worth noting that the violent protestors would be completely ineffectual without masses of nonviolent protestors to hide among.
Anyway, I would love it if this writing falls on receptive eyes, I am concerned that the implication you made: that what I am writing is bigoted, could indicate you are not very interested in what I actually mean.
If fewer than 50% of protestors engage in violence, wouldn't it then be accurate to describe the protest as 'mostly peaceful'?
Some people certainly are, I've heard a few people who attended the riots in Seattle claim the police were the only ones rioting. They're very adamant about that 'only' and any evidence to the contrary is met with "well he's a cop in disguise." It's a case of No True Protestor.
It's very tiresome when people demand you believe their transparent bullshit.
>rather than the 10s of right-wing livestreams.
These aren't "right wing livestreams". It's people, at the protests, with cameras. Some of the bigger ones are people like Unicorn Riot, who has been active in Minneapolis for quite some time, and Regg Ikagnedo.
In some cases, the "press" end up being protestors themselves and end up fighting with the police. I really struggle to understand why you would cast any of this as right wing.
What? Are you seriously claiming that all of the livestreams that display riots are from right wind people? And even if they were, would it mean that they are fake or what?
Anyway, you can just go and see some of the aftermath images that the media publish.
The "good" protestors have no ability nor obligation to remove or control the "bad" ones. It's shameful that some see fit to dismiss the message of them all for the actions of a few. And anyway, the goodness or badness of violent or riotous protests through the lens of history is more than a little bit complicated.
The police do have such an ability and obligation. They are organized and they are in a position of power. It is shameful that some see fit to excuse the entire enterprise because not all cops are bad.
Neither is as simple as that.
I think you would be pleasantly surprised.
Yet all I read about on mainstream news is how it's actually mostly peaceful. I see Facebook friends who live 2000 miles away from Seattle re-posting news articles about how there's nothing really going on in Seattle. But I've seen with my own eyes what's going on.
It's really approaching a 1984 level of situation, where we're expected to just believe whatever we're told, even if we obviously see the problems. Where everybody is supposed to just accept what the media is telling us, rather than what we can see is happening. If they want something to disappear (like rioters throwing molotov cocktails) they just don't report on it, and it ceases to exist. But you can bet if a Republican starting throwing molotovs for their political beliefs it'd be front-page CNN for days on end. It's all so political and so manipulative.
Might be a shill, but more likely just a contrarian who isn’t being well treated on HN.
To watch buildings burning, people chanting that they want to abolish the police, or burn peoples homes "fire fire gentrifier.", "out of your homes and into the streets" (while throwing things at windows, spray painting the outsides of homes, and shooting fireworks at homes), "all cops are bastards" etc.
And then to see reported in the news that these people are "peaceful". It's a sort of paranoid schizophrenia that I think we're seeing. People are watching their own cities burn, then reading CNN say that it's all fake, and that there is such a thing as peaceful arson, or a peaceful riot, that somehow looting is justified, and repeating that.
The news isn't just wrong at this point, they are actively trying to mislead people. It's really, really awful.