← Back to context

Comment by quietthrow

5 years ago

Once again! Bravo Jack and the Twitter team! Thank you taking a stand against bullying.

Now if only they would crack down on the huge wave of Chinese bullshit they allow.

Is the POTUS clearly inciting violence or is it another instance of people having a wild interpretation of what he said? I'm so tired of this dynamic that I don't even bother anymore.

  • Judge for yourself, the exact tweet is:

    > These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!

    Worth noting that this is a quote from former Miami Police Chief Walter Headley. In '67, he said the phrase "when the looting starts, the shooting starts" during racially charged protests.

  • > Is the POTUS clearly inciting violence or is it another instance of people having a wild interpretation of what he said?

    The POTUS unambiguously quoted racist Miami police chief Walter Headley who called for violence against African Americans during the civil rights movement of the 1960s. This couldn’t be a more clear example of inciting violence.

  • really? wild interpretation? it's a weird construction that's widely known to have been used by the police chief during similar circumstances? how big does the donkey have to be before you pin the tail on it? i wager there could be a video of trump composing the tweet with a biography of the police chief in view and open to the page with those words and you'd still claim to doubt the intent.

    it's exhausting having to take this kind of bad faith skepticism seriously.

If you truly believe in what they are doing, then buy their stock and prop up the price, because it is plunging right now. Words alone are about as useful as clapping for healthcare workers.

  • Wouldn't call a 1 percent drop "plunging".

    Regardless, stock comes back up. These are reputation points that will stay for a while.

Now if only they'd give Kaepernick's tweet [0] equal treatment, to be even-handed.

[0] https://twitter.com/Kaepernick7/status/1266046129906552832?s...

  • Even nonviolent protest was never intended to be peaceful. Not in they way many people would use the word “peace”, anyway.

    “I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action’; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.’”

    That’s MLK in his letter from a Birmingham jail. Who was completely devoted to nonviolence. Even he made abundantly clear that nonviolence does not equal a lack of pressure or tension.

  • I don’t see Kap mentioning shooting anyone in that tweet? Either you linked the wrong one or you’re trying to paint a false equivalence.

    • Sure reads to me like it’s advocating for violent revolt, albeit far more eloquently. I think this is the fundamental problem: it’s all subjective.

      1 reply →

  • There’s such a thing as a peaceful revolution. Portraying this as similar to the President calling for shooting people is disingenuous.