Comment by neartheplain | Hacker News Reader

Comment by neartheplain | Hacker News Reader

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> Honestly, the riots this summer were a bunch of drunk teenagers who were letting off steam.

I also have an archive of this summer’s events. Let’s not use this moment to downplay the violence of people who may share our political sympathies.

25+ people were killed in the riots this summer. Over $2B was done in property damage. Police stations, post offices, libraries, and courthouses were stormed and set on fire.

In Portland, rioters with guns and knives threw bombs at a courthouse and tried to burn down the Mayor’s condo building. In Seattle, militants with assault rifles took over part of downtown for a month, killing and assaulting people. In DC, a mob tried to storm the White House. In Wauwatosa, a mob fired shots into the home of a police officer. People in many cities were dragged from their vehicles and beaten. Hundreds of protestors and police were seriously injured. Many similar incidents which I don’t have the time to dig up and link right now.

There were also many incidents of police brutality, such as the clearing of peaceful protestors in Lafayette Square, which likewise should not be minimized.

Not only that, the CHAZ morons managed to carry out a literal summary excution of a black teenager, caught on numerous livestreams - and the end result was an effort by activists to get those livestreams pulled in order to prevent the perpetrators being identified, including (ab)using YouTube's copyright takedown process to get a video of clips from them posted by the police for this purpose deleted. This is just all so totally, frustratingly, cynically partisan...

> 25+ people were killed in the riots this summer. Over $2B was done in property damage

No excuse for violence or property damage. Prosecute them all.

But keep in mind that "this summer's events" comprise over 7500 protests, all across the country, over a three month time span. And it involved multiple "sides" in various states of cooperation or opposition.

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/515082-over-90-perc...

> And it involved multiple "sides" in various states of cooperation or opposition.

This is a good point that deserves to be reiterated. At its worst you certainly had the stereotypical "pig" cops that everyone likes to ACAB at. The kind that intentionally incite an otherwise peaceful crowd; the kind that may shoot at erstwhile peaceful bystanders (including people standing on their own porch) with rubber bullets; the kind that aim their gas canister launchers directly at people standing nearby, against all common decency, and often department policy/law.

But you also had police departments that merely monitored a situation without forcefully intruding unless necessary. Some even that put away their weapons and peacefully marched with protestors.

In one case, it was proven to be a provocateur firing on police: https://www.startribune.com/charges-boogaloo-bois-fired-on-m...

Mind you, most of those rioters had the sense to not live stream their crimes.

Yes, and one of the people who stormed the Capitol was a known BLM activist [0]. Doesn’t mean the overwhelming majority of people who stormed the Capitol weren’t Trump supporters.

The pro-Trump people saying “antifa stormed the Capitol!” are less surprising to hear when you recall the those who this summer said, “protest violence is the work of far-right agitators!” Arrest records and livestream footage prove both groups wrong in the vast majority of cases.

[0] https://www.deseret.com/utah/2021/1/7/22219733/utah-activist...

That guy is not a BLM activist, but a provocateur called out in November for trying to infiltrate the Seattle protest community. A detailed thread from November (so this isn't post hoc): https://twitter.com/RebellionBaby/status/1331902008765206528

That’s the same group that ambushed and murdered a federal LEO’s in Oakland near a BLM protest, and wrote ‘BOOGALOO’ with the blood of one.

As someone who lives a few blocks from Cal Anderson and ate their regularly during the "occupation" (as is implied), I'll never stop appreciating when someone so quickly shows me that I can safely ignore them. It's not even in downtown, lmao. "killing and assaulting people". What a joke.

But yes, yes, we live in mis-information-hell, so predictably the days following a conservative-led coup were ALWAYS going to contain these elements:

- whataboutism with literally anything to distract and derail (in this case, BLM)

- false equivocation (protesting numerous statistically significant killings of black folks by cops, VS trying to violently overturn the results of a democratic election)

- more false equivocation (implying that storming the nation's capital with weapons, and posting up one block away from the SPD East Prescinct with pink umbrelllas, are the same thing)

- outright lies that enough of their base will pick up and repeat (I've already seen it in multiple threads here), like, "antifa false flag blah blah blah nonsense".

We've banned this account. Creating accounts for political flamewar is not allowed here, regardless of what politics you're for or against.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

>It's not even in downtown, lmao. "killing and assaulting people". What a joke.

Anti-fascist activists murdered an unarmed black kid in the CHOP. They shot him to death with assault rifles. Then they shot and pistol-whipped his critically wounded companion, an unarmed 14-year-old black boy (warning, video is disturbing):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K0tXOBPMHA&t=1m25s

This was one of at least four shootings in the CHOP. Bullets entered the homes of neighborhood residents, a group of whom are now suing the city for neglecting to provide law and order.

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