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On June 08 2020 08:36 Nevuk wrote:
This post is gonna be a grabbag of updates on things currently being discussed. Let me know if that's not good form?
Re: Bari Weiss/NYT
Weiss' depiction of events at the NYT has been publicly called out by many of her colleagues :
(just a couple, out of like, 20)
Also, apparently she wasn't part of the main facebook threads where the majority of the discussion happened when she made those tweets, according to other NYT writers.
Honestly, the fact that 1) the oped editor got fired 2) the actual content of the article was good faith and directed against looters and 3) the first reaction from Sulzberger was approving all tend to support Bari Weiss's take on things, and really detract from her haters. Sulzberger:
I believe in the principle of openness to a range of opinions, even those we may disagree with, and this piece was published in that spirit
It was published, and the first reaction to journalists activists panning the article was defense in name of article. Which makes sense when the NYT publishes the Taliban and Hitler. The second reaction was editor's notes, and an article in the Times anonymously publishing Times activists opinions, and the declaration that the wrong decision was made. Later, the firing. Hence, civil war, two sides, back
I'm gonna conclude that strong evidence points to Bari Weiss having an accurate take on what's happening at the Times, and journalists at the Times are covering for the clash of journalist cultures. Publish + argue about it, censor + fascism avoided. The Times published (imo a troll publish for the start to have it coincide with DDay), then defended while publishing critical articles, then called out the junior editor, then massive editor's notes, then op ed chief quits. I honestly don't think it's even close.
I'm fairly radical regarding more speech as the best response to controversial positions, rather than preventing their publishing and censoring them when found. I think this is pretty much 5 to 10 times worse than anything Trump's personally done to affect journalists and journalistic media publications. Do a struggle session response to a mainstream opinion from a sitting senator from the majority party in the Senate, of an opinion most Americans shared for that week of violent riots. Trump could only pray to discredit the NYT in the way they've done so to themselves. Tom Cotton wins, full stop. What a clown show.
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Honestly, the biggest thing to learn from all of this is that opinion pieces are worthless because you’re able to hide behind the argument that you’re just putting out your opinion. It’s immunity from all criticism. It’s the lowest of the low when it comes to journalism and newspapers that increasingly depend on it for content (like the New York Times) are doing a disservice to themselves and the public. It’s just dishonest arguments from all sides, there’s negative value to poorly reasoned arguments that are worse in quality than TL forum posts.
The New York Times has been trash for a long time but we didn’t need Bari Weiss to convince us of that and I’m not even convinced her internal culture war belief is accurate considering how consistently wrong she is. If it was true, she’d be gone with the editor as a package.
Does anyone remember Bari Weiss’ puff piece about Australia? Everything in that article was factually incorrect, all you had to do is look at any Australian news website regardless of political affiliation to know it was incorrect. There’s no punishment to falsifying an opinion to fit the square peg through a round hole and there’s no benefit to admitting your faults. All it did to serve was mislead the American people about the political reality in Australia. That’s worse than no value, that’s producing negative value.
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It’s probably worth someone presenting the case against running the op-ed. I liked this one.
The core problem with Cotton’s column, it seems to me, isn’t that its arguments are painful or dangerous (though they are those things too). It’s that it’s built on lies. “This week, rioters have plunged many American cities into anarchy, recalling the widespread violence of the 1960s,” it begins, before trotting out hyperbolic (and false) phrases like “the riots were a carnival for the thrill-seeking rich as well as other criminal elements,” “orgy of violence,” and “cadres of left-wing radicals like Antifa infiltrating protest marches.”
In my town, two banks in La Mesa were burned down on one of the first nights. Cops also nearly fucking killed an old lady at a protest (last I checked she’s stable, in a coma or something). Also thousands of people have peacefully protested every day for almost two weeks. I’m fairly confident if you added up all the wanton and unnecessary violence perpetrated by rioters and looters in the last week, and compared it to all the wanton and unnecessary violence perpetrated by cops, the cops’ column would be bigger and it wouldn’t be close.
I’m not sure I’m even opposed to bringing in military. They’re probably in a better position to play peacekeeper than the police right now, cops are often looking more like counterprotesters. Fuck, bring in the national guard and send all the cops home, I’m cool with that.
But stuff like “orgy of violence” and “plunged... into anarchy” is false, and more importantly it’s irresponsible to broadcast that kind of panic-inducing message to an entire political wing. It results in shit like folks from the town from Twilight trapping a family on a camping trip and threatening them with guns because they thought they were Antifa. NYT is committed to free speech (good!), but if somebody writes an op-ed full of lies intended to massively overstate the danger people are in, it’s irresponsible to print it.
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On June 08 2020 13:44 ChristianS wrote:It’s probably worth someone presenting the case against running the op-ed. I liked this one. Show nested quote +The core problem with Cotton’s column, it seems to me, isn’t that its arguments are painful or dangerous (though they are those things too). It’s that it’s built on lies. “This week, rioters have plunged many American cities into anarchy, recalling the widespread violence of the 1960s,” it begins, before trotting out hyperbolic (and false) phrases like “the riots were a carnival for the thrill-seeking rich as well as other criminal elements,” “orgy of violence,” and “cadres of left-wing radicals like Antifa infiltrating protest marches.” In my town, two banks in La Mesa were burned down on one of the first nights. Cops also nearly fucking killed an old lady at a protest (last I checked she’s stable, in a coma or something). Also thousands of people have peacefully protested every day for almost two weeks. I’m fairly confident if you added up all the wanton and unnecessary violence perpetrated by rioters and looters in the last week, and compared it to all the wanton and unnecessary violence perpetrated by cops, the cops’ column would be bigger and it wouldn’t be close. I’m not sure I’m even opposed to bringing in military. They’re probably in a better position to play peacekeeper than the police right now, cops are often looking more like counterprotesters. Fuck, bring in the national guard and send all the cops home, I’m cool with that.But stuff like “orgy of violence” and “plunged... into anarchy” is false, and more importantly it’s irresponsible to broadcast that kind of panic-inducing message to an entire political wing. It results in shit like folks from the town from Twilight trapping a family on a camping trip and threatening them with guns because they thought they were Antifa. NYT is committed to free speech (good!), but if somebody writes an op-ed full of lies intended to massively overstate the danger people are in, it’s irresponsible to print it.
I've seen a fair bit of discussion along those lines. Usually the military is just a straight non-starter for slippery slope reason, but the National Guard tends to get a more favorable concideration because they are normal people in the vast majority of their lives and are held accountable. The fact that cops are supposed to keep things peaceful when people are protesting against them seems entirely backwards to me. It would be like if the RNC or DNC were hosting a presidential debate.
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I mean I saw the film of looters arriving at the fun in a Rolls Royce. I suspect many more observed that too. Whatever some people switching to "but it was inaccurate" deliberately missed the rich participants, and really throw Barr's DOJ statements out the window (the presence of extremist groups, including Antifa, at rioting/looting events). At that point, I'm fine with people that dismiss the evidence telling me he doesn't have evidence. It's a polarized world, and Trump's certainly provoked some derangement out of his critics. I suppose better luck at discourse with the next president?
The other weird thing is the level of outrage was staged around "this article endangers black employees at the Times" and "this article endangers Black protesters everywhere." The main one was pretending that Cotton singled out protesters, when he directly mentioned only looters and rioters, but this one was a close second. I don't ever want to hear that journalists are brave firefighters holding power to account. They're too scared of opposing opinion columns to get even close to the title. It's like some weird left-wing version of Trump--all the bravado, little better diction, no sense at all, no bravery. America is observing this little act at the New York Times. They're trending towards the Pravda end of the spectrum--only the party-approved opposing lines allowed.
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On June 08 2020 14:14 Danglars wrote:
I mean I saw the film of looters arriving at the fun in a Rolls Royce. I suspect many more observed that too. Whatever some people switching to "but it was inaccurate" deliberately missed the rich participants, and really throw Barr's DOJ statements out the window (the presence of extremist groups, including Antifa, at rioting/looting events). At that point, I'm fine with people that dismiss the evidence telling me he doesn't have evidence. It's a polarized world, and Trump's certainly provoked some derangement out of his critics. I suppose better luck at discourse with the next president?
So we just dismiss the FBI report that found zero evidence of Antifa in favour of Trump's favourite legal spokesperson who will literally just lie to everyone's faces over and over again to protect whatever Trump wants to do?
I mean, we could do that.
The other weird thing is the level of outrage was staged around "this article endangers black employees at the Times" and "this article endangers Black protesters everywhere." The main one was pretending that Cotton singled out protesters, when he directly mentioned only looters and rioters, but this one was a close second. I don't ever want to hear that journalists are brave firefighters holding power to account. They're too scared of opposing opinion columns to get even close to the title. It's like some weird left-wing version of Trump--all the bravado, little better diction, no sense at all, no bravery. America is observing this little act at the New York Times. They're trending towards the Pravda end of the spectrum--only the party-approved opposing lines allowed.
Yes you can tell someone cares about journalistic freedom in the US when they basically ignore cops shooting journos in the face with paintballs and have a mass arrest of the press last weekend, and instead get so furious about a dispute about what stories to run at a newspaper.
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On June 08 2020 14:14 Danglars wrote:
I mean I saw the film of looters arriving at the fun in a Rolls Royce. I suspect many more observed that too. Whatever some people switching to "but it was inaccurate" deliberately missed the rich participants, and really throw Barr's DOJ statements out the window (the presence of extremist groups, including Antifa, at rioting/looting events). At that point, I'm fine with people that dismiss the evidence telling me he doesn't have evidence. It's a polarized world, and Trump's certainly provoked some derangement out of his critics. I suppose better luck at discourse with the next president?
The other weird thing is the level of outrage was staged around "this article endangers black employees at the Times" and "this article endangers Black protesters everywhere." The main one was pretending that Cotton singled out protesters, when he directly mentioned only looters and rioters, but this one was a close second. I don't ever want to hear that journalists are brave firefighters holding power to account. They're too scared of opposing opinion columns to get even close to the title. It's like some weird left-wing version of Trump--all the bravado, little better diction, no sense at all, no bravery. America is observing this little act at the New York Times. They're trending towards the Pravda end of the spectrum--only the party-approved opposing lines allowed.
Near as I can tell the only even vaguely responsive things you said were “I saw a video of guys in a Rolls Royce go looting” and “but Barr’s DOJ says Antifa was involved” (contradicted, as Jock points out, by his own FBI). None of which remotely serves to contradict that “orgy of violence” and “plunged into anarchy” talk is false and irresponsible. Put it this way: suppose somebody read that column and thought their city was plunged into anarchy, so they went out with a gun to defend their town, and somebody got hurt as a result. Forget morally culpable, NYT could even be legally liable!
Also, hey buddy, in the midst of journalists getting teargassed and literally losing eyes because police are shooting them with rubber bullets as they hold up their press badges screaming “PRESS”? Bad time to run with your “journalists are cowards” take. Just a tip.
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On June 08 2020 14:23 Jockmcplop wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2020 14:14 Danglars wrote:
I mean I saw the film of looters arriving at the fun in a Rolls Royce. I suspect many more observed that too. Whatever some people switching to "but it was inaccurate" deliberately missed the rich participants, and really throw Barr's DOJ statements out the window (the presence of extremist groups, including Antifa, at rioting/looting events). At that point, I'm fine with people that dismiss the evidence telling me he doesn't have evidence. It's a polarized world, and Trump's certainly provoked some derangement out of his critics. I suppose better luck at discourse with the next president?
So we just dismiss the FBI report that found zero evidence of Antifa in favour of Trump's favourite legal spokesperson who will literally just lie to everyone's faces over and over again to protect whatever Trump wants to do? I mean, we could do that.
The investigations and the rest are ongoing, so we'll see what Barr has in the next weeks.
And compared to outlets like the NYT & WaPo, Barr has done an excellent job and should rest on his record. It's just y'know, partisanship, and everybody bet big on Russia.
Show nested quote +The other weird thing is the level of outrage was staged around "this article endangers black employees at the Times" and "this article endangers Black protesters everywhere." The main one was pretending that Cotton singled out protesters, when he directly mentioned only looters and rioters, but this one was a close second. I don't ever want to hear that journalists are brave firefighters holding power to account. They're too scared of opposing opinion columns to get even close to the title. It's like some weird left-wing version of Trump--all the bravado, little better diction, no sense at all, no bravery. America is observing this little act at the New York Times. They're trending towards the Pravda end of the spectrum--only the party-approved opposing lines allowed. Yes you can tell someone cares about journalistic freedom in the US when they basically ignore cops shooting journos in the face with paintballs and have a mass arrest of the press last weekend, and instead get so furious about a dispute about what stories to run at a newspaper.
The ability of the NYT to send reporters into the field to document police violene was not doubted. I'm talking about the journalists at their famous building getting their panties in a bunch because a Senator voiced an opinion they didn't like. If you can't separate problems at the NYT, we're going to have a very short and strange conversation indeed.
On June 08 2020 14:37 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2020 14:14 Danglars wrote:
I mean I saw the film of looters arriving at the fun in a Rolls Royce. I suspect many more observed that too. Whatever some people switching to "but it was inaccurate" deliberately missed the rich participants, and really throw Barr's DOJ statements out the window (the presence of extremist groups, including Antifa, at rioting/looting events). At that point, I'm fine with people that dismiss the evidence telling me he doesn't have evidence. It's a polarized world, and Trump's certainly provoked some derangement out of his critics. I suppose better luck at discourse with the next president?
The other weird thing is the level of outrage was staged around "this article endangers black employees at the Times" and "this article endangers Black protesters everywhere." The main one was pretending that Cotton singled out protesters, when he directly mentioned only looters and rioters, but this one was a close second. I don't ever want to hear that journalists are brave firefighters holding power to account. They're too scared of opposing opinion columns to get even close to the title. It's like some weird left-wing version of Trump--all the bravado, little better diction, no sense at all, no bravery. America is observing this little act at the New York Times. They're trending towards the Pravda end of the spectrum--only the party-approved opposing lines allowed. Near as I can tell the only even vaguely responsive things you said were “I saw a video of guys in a Rolls Royce go looting” and “but Barr’s DOJ says Antifa was involved” (contradicted, as Jock points out, by his own FBI). None of which remotely serves to contradict that “orgy of violence” and “plunged into anarchy” talk is false and irresponsible. Put it this way: suppose somebody read that column and thought their city was plunged into anarchy, so they went out with a gun to defend their town, and somebody got hurt as a result. Forget morally culpable, NYT could even be legally liable! Also, hey buddy, in the midst of journalists getting teargassed and literally losing eyes because police are shooting them with rubber bullets as they hold up their press badges screaming “PRESS”? Bad time to run with your “journalists are cowards” take. Just a tip.
Kill him for poetry now? I saw crowd upon crowd smashing into any number of retail stores & drug stores. I saw the arson at Minneapolis. The staged rocks etc too. If we dial back the instinctual hatred for poetry, it's very well described as an orgy of violence ... one that many minority neighborhoods and businesses will take years to recover from. It's really a shame that people are focused on the adjectives used to describe the violence that overtook where they live and work, rather than accepting the truth played out on TV screens across the nations. I'd go so far as to say tragic. But this occured in partisan times, and the speaker is a Republican, so it's a little bit expected.
Yes, hard news reporters documenting it, and journos doing opinion and commentary are becoming a really tough distinction, as I'm finding out. Now, unless you did actually see Tom Cotton lobbing tear gas at the reporters in the field, in which case great job, I'm gonna go with you're using reporters to shield journalists at HQ and cushy outposts. And take my word on this: if Tom Cotton was shooting rubber bullets and pushing over old people on the street, I will absolutely sign on to his endangerment of black lives, and the people aren't cowards for screaming and pointing at his op-ed.
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On June 08 2020 12:48 StalkerTL wrote:
Considering the US police do fuck all most of the time except poorly handle domestic disputes, harass people for minor driving infringements (and sometimes killing them because they were “going for a gun” in their wallet pocket) and be used as a weapon when someone doesn’t like a bunch of kids selling water or using a swimming pool, probably not much would go wrong. This is the country where you get stories of police officers shooting at Boxers (the dog breed) every 2nd week, with half of them missing and hitting innocent people.
There has to be a conversation how policing and dispute handling is done in a society where the current implementation of the police system is removed, sure. But the current US police departments need to be wiped out because near all of them respond to everything with violence and extortion. That’s actually worse than organised crime groups as the means of organised crime to entrench themselves into their communities is through providing them with everything the government has not. Even they aren’t so stupid to hold up an uniformed black firefighter leaving work at gunpoint because he looks “suspicious”, like what happened at Rhode Island this week.
The fact people want the police out says a lot of their use in people’s lives. Most people just remember calling for a police officer to a dispute only for the car to arrive 30 minutes later and escalate the issue. Maybe Australian police officers are better, I am not sure but the US police do a better job of acting like a protection racket rather than a force for good. I am willing to say Pablo Escobar has probably invested more into his communities than the NYPD has ever done.
You would think there has to be a conversation about policing and conflict resolution, but the supporters of the status quo have figured out if they just refuse to have that conversation and insist society will collapse without police most people buy it.
There's a spreadsheet with something like 500+ incidents of police brutality caught on video just from the last week or so. They are a terrorist group (I mean lots of proud boys, kkk members, neo nazis, and SS tatts too) as far as I'm concerned.
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On June 08 2020 05:47 Nevuk wrote:James Bennet has resigned as head of the editorial board after the fiasco with the Cotton op-ed, where Cotton called for military intervention against protests. Deputy editorial page editor Jim Dao also is stepping down, but I don't know what this position does. The staff and file at the NYT openly revolted, basically all issuing public statements that the op-ed was dangerous. Afterwards, Bennet admitted he hadn't read the op-ed before publication and a note of "should not have been published" was added. (source for resignation. NY times press release : ) https://www.nytco.com/press/james-bennet-resigns-as-editorial-page-editor-of-the-new-york-times-katie-kingsbury-named-acting-editorial-page-editor/Hopefully the editorial pages get better ... they've issued some insane op-eds in the last few years (didn't they publish one from an open white supremacist? or something like that). There's also been those bizarre David Brooks columns where he threw a hissy fit about being called a bed bug.
The sale of Mein Kampf is prohibited in Germany for it being a manifesto of hate from one of the prime evils of German past that we accepted.
Recently we've seen the publication of a historically annotated volume in which historians comment on all the lies and falsehood in the writing. Which I think at least doubles the size of the book.
Doing exactly that to the warmongering pamphlet of cotton could have been an appropriate way of having him voice his fascist ideas not uncommented. Because if a piece in the NYT opts for breaking the Constitution, well, that's kinda weird.
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On June 08 2020 14:53 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2020 14:23 Jockmcplop wrote:On June 08 2020 14:14 Danglars wrote:
I mean I saw the film of looters arriving at the fun in a Rolls Royce. I suspect many more observed that too. Whatever some people switching to "but it was inaccurate" deliberately missed the rich participants, and really throw Barr's DOJ statements out the window (the presence of extremist groups, including Antifa, at rioting/looting events). At that point, I'm fine with people that dismiss the evidence telling me he doesn't have evidence. It's a polarized world, and Trump's certainly provoked some derangement out of his critics. I suppose better luck at discourse with the next president?
So we just dismiss the FBI report that found zero evidence of Antifa in favour of Trump's favourite legal spokesperson who will literally just lie to everyone's faces over and over again to protect whatever Trump wants to do? I mean, we could do that. The investigations and the rest are ongoing, so we'll see what Barr has in the next weeks. And compared to outlets like the NYT & WaPo, Barr has done an excellent job and should rest on his record. It's just y'know, partisanship, and everybody bet big on Russia. Show nested quote +The other weird thing is the level of outrage was staged around "this article endangers black employees at the Times" and "this article endangers Black protesters everywhere." The main one was pretending that Cotton singled out protesters, when he directly mentioned only looters and rioters, but this one was a close second. I don't ever want to hear that journalists are brave firefighters holding power to account. They're too scared of opposing opinion columns to get even close to the title. It's like some weird left-wing version of Trump--all the bravado, little better diction, no sense at all, no bravery. America is observing this little act at the New York Times. They're trending towards the Pravda end of the spectrum--only the party-approved opposing lines allowed. Yes you can tell someone cares about journalistic freedom in the US when they basically ignore cops shooting journos in the face with paintballs and have a mass arrest of the press last weekend, and instead get so furious about a dispute about what stories to run at a newspaper. The ability of the NYT to send reporters into the field to document police violene was not doubted. I'm talking about the journalists at their famous building getting their panties in a bunch because a Senator voiced an opinion they didn't like. If you can't separate problems at the NYT, we're going to have a very short and strange conversation indeed. Show nested quote +On June 08 2020 14:37 ChristianS wrote:On June 08 2020 14:14 Danglars wrote:
I mean I saw the film of looters arriving at the fun in a Rolls Royce. I suspect many more observed that too. Whatever some people switching to "but it was inaccurate" deliberately missed the rich participants, and really throw Barr's DOJ statements out the window (the presence of extremist groups, including Antifa, at rioting/looting events). At that point, I'm fine with people that dismiss the evidence telling me he doesn't have evidence. It's a polarized world, and Trump's certainly provoked some derangement out of his critics. I suppose better luck at discourse with the next president?
The other weird thing is the level of outrage was staged around "this article endangers black employees at the Times" and "this article endangers Black protesters everywhere." The main one was pretending that Cotton singled out protesters, when he directly mentioned only looters and rioters, but this one was a close second. I don't ever want to hear that journalists are brave firefighters holding power to account. They're too scared of opposing opinion columns to get even close to the title. It's like some weird left-wing version of Trump--all the bravado, little better diction, no sense at all, no bravery. America is observing this little act at the New York Times. They're trending towards the Pravda end of the spectrum--only the party-approved opposing lines allowed. Near as I can tell the only even vaguely responsive things you said were “I saw a video of guys in a Rolls Royce go looting” and “but Barr’s DOJ says Antifa was involved” (contradicted, as Jock points out, by his own FBI). None of which remotely serves to contradict that “orgy of violence” and “plunged into anarchy” talk is false and irresponsible. Put it this way: suppose somebody read that column and thought their city was plunged into anarchy, so they went out with a gun to defend their town, and somebody got hurt as a result. Forget morally culpable, NYT could even be legally liable! Also, hey buddy, in the midst of journalists getting teargassed and literally losing eyes because police are shooting them with rubber bullets as they hold up their press badges screaming “PRESS”? Bad time to run with your “journalists are cowards” take. Just a tip. Kill him for poetry now? I saw crowd upon crowd smashing into any number of retail stores & drug stores. I saw the arson at Minneapolis. The staged rocks etc too. If we dial back the instinctual hatred for poetry, it's very well described as an orgy of violence ... one that many minority neighborhoods and businesses will take years to recover from. It's really a shame that people are focused on the adjectives used to describe the violence that overtook where they live and work, rather than accepting the truth played out on TV screens across the nations. I'd go so far as to say tragic. But this occured in partisan times, and the speaker is a Republican, so it's a little bit expected. Yes, hard news reporters documenting it, and journos doing opinion and commentary are becoming a really tough distinction, as I'm finding out. Now, unless you did actually see Tom Cotton lobbing tear gas at the reporters in the field, in which case great job, I'm gonna go with you're using reporters to shield journalists at HQ and cushy outposts. And take my word on this: if Tom Cotton was shooting rubber bullets and pushing over old people on the street, I will absolutely sign on to his endangerment of black lives, and the people aren't cowards for screaming and pointing at his op-ed.
I never was much for poetry. More to the point, my city has daily protests and very little violence happening (apparently there’s been some fights breaking out with white supremacists out in Santee; East County living up to its rep I guess). Most cities seem to be similar, with the notable exception of violent confrontations with police, most of which seem to be misbehavior on the part of the police, not “rioters”. Presuming Mr. Cotton is not referring to an “orgy of violence” being perpetrated on citizens by police, it seems like the vast majority of Americans would be hard-pressed to locate violence in their city if they tried. Meanwhile, I’ve seen basically no evidence for the Antifa provocateurs narrative, yet Republicans keep repeating it ad nauseam.
Ultimately, the objection to the op-ed is that it makes claims and relies on claims that directly contradict known facts, including the Times’ own reporting. It does so to deliberately overstate the amount of violence and danger happening in order to scare people. That is, and always has been, grounds to not run an opinion piece. I mean, Bret Stephens still has a job, and you’re talking about Pravda. A bit histrionic, don’t you think?
I notice you weren’t so eager to draw nuanced distinctions between journalists just a couple posts ago:
I don't ever want to hear that journalists are brave firefighters holding power to account.
Considering Heather MacDonald’s column was up at WSJ all weekend, is it possible using one decision by one newspaper about one op-ed to condemn the entire journalistic profession was just a tad overbroad?
Question to the thread: do we have any idea how many people have been killed or put in the hospital by rioters since the protests began? How many killed/put in the hospital by police? A quick googling didn’t turn anything up for me.
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I’m at the point that falling asleep before 12-1am is impossible. The daily bangs from police that are happening always starts at that time. I can’t imagine those with heart problems have to deal with and being awoken to what sounds like bombs going off.
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On June 08 2020 15:54 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2020 14:53 Danglars wrote:On June 08 2020 14:23 Jockmcplop wrote:On June 08 2020 14:14 Danglars wrote:
I mean I saw the film of looters arriving at the fun in a Rolls Royce. I suspect many more observed that too. Whatever some people switching to "but it was inaccurate" deliberately missed the rich participants, and really throw Barr's DOJ statements out the window (the presence of extremist groups, including Antifa, at rioting/looting events). At that point, I'm fine with people that dismiss the evidence telling me he doesn't have evidence. It's a polarized world, and Trump's certainly provoked some derangement out of his critics. I suppose better luck at discourse with the next president?
So we just dismiss the FBI report that found zero evidence of Antifa in favour of Trump's favourite legal spokesperson who will literally just lie to everyone's faces over and over again to protect whatever Trump wants to do? I mean, we could do that. The investigations and the rest are ongoing, so we'll see what Barr has in the next weeks. And compared to outlets like the NYT & WaPo, Barr has done an excellent job and should rest on his record. It's just y'know, partisanship, and everybody bet big on Russia. The other weird thing is the level of outrage was staged around "this article endangers black employees at the Times" and "this article endangers Black protesters everywhere." The main one was pretending that Cotton singled out protesters, when he directly mentioned only looters and rioters, but this one was a close second. I don't ever want to hear that journalists are brave firefighters holding power to account. They're too scared of opposing opinion columns to get even close to the title. It's like some weird left-wing version of Trump--all the bravado, little better diction, no sense at all, no bravery. America is observing this little act at the New York Times. They're trending towards the Pravda end of the spectrum--only the party-approved opposing lines allowed. Yes you can tell someone cares about journalistic freedom in the US when they basically ignore cops shooting journos in the face with paintballs and have a mass arrest of the press last weekend, and instead get so furious about a dispute about what stories to run at a newspaper. The ability of the NYT to send reporters into the field to document police violene was not doubted. I'm talking about the journalists at their famous building getting their panties in a bunch because a Senator voiced an opinion they didn't like. If you can't separate problems at the NYT, we're going to have a very short and strange conversation indeed. On June 08 2020 14:37 ChristianS wrote:On June 08 2020 14:14 Danglars wrote:
I mean I saw the film of looters arriving at the fun in a Rolls Royce. I suspect many more observed that too. Whatever some people switching to "but it was inaccurate" deliberately missed the rich participants, and really throw Barr's DOJ statements out the window (the presence of extremist groups, including Antifa, at rioting/looting events). At that point, I'm fine with people that dismiss the evidence telling me he doesn't have evidence. It's a polarized world, and Trump's certainly provoked some derangement out of his critics. I suppose better luck at discourse with the next president?
The other weird thing is the level of outrage was staged around "this article endangers black employees at the Times" and "this article endangers Black protesters everywhere." The main one was pretending that Cotton singled out protesters, when he directly mentioned only looters and rioters, but this one was a close second. I don't ever want to hear that journalists are brave firefighters holding power to account. They're too scared of opposing opinion columns to get even close to the title. It's like some weird left-wing version of Trump--all the bravado, little better diction, no sense at all, no bravery. America is observing this little act at the New York Times. They're trending towards the Pravda end of the spectrum--only the party-approved opposing lines allowed. Near as I can tell the only even vaguely responsive things you said were “I saw a video of guys in a Rolls Royce go looting” and “but Barr’s DOJ says Antifa was involved” (contradicted, as Jock points out, by his own FBI). None of which remotely serves to contradict that “orgy of violence” and “plunged into anarchy” talk is false and irresponsible. Put it this way: suppose somebody read that column and thought their city was plunged into anarchy, so they went out with a gun to defend their town, and somebody got hurt as a result. Forget morally culpable, NYT could even be legally liable! Also, hey buddy, in the midst of journalists getting teargassed and literally losing eyes because police are shooting them with rubber bullets as they hold up their press badges screaming “PRESS”? Bad time to run with your “journalists are cowards” take. Just a tip. Kill him for poetry now? I saw crowd upon crowd smashing into any number of retail stores & drug stores. I saw the arson at Minneapolis. The staged rocks etc too. If we dial back the instinctual hatred for poetry, it's very well described as an orgy of violence ... one that many minority neighborhoods and businesses will take years to recover from. It's really a shame that people are focused on the adjectives used to describe the violence that overtook where they live and work, rather than accepting the truth played out on TV screens across the nations. I'd go so far as to say tragic. But this occured in partisan times, and the speaker is a Republican, so it's a little bit expected. Yes, hard news reporters documenting it, and journos doing opinion and commentary are becoming a really tough distinction, as I'm finding out. Now, unless you did actually see Tom Cotton lobbing tear gas at the reporters in the field, in which case great job, I'm gonna go with you're using reporters to shield journalists at HQ and cushy outposts. And take my word on this: if Tom Cotton was shooting rubber bullets and pushing over old people on the street, I will absolutely sign on to his endangerment of black lives, and the people aren't cowards for screaming and pointing at his op-ed. I never was much for poetry. More to the point, my city has daily protests and very little violence happening (apparently there’s been some fights breaking out with white supremacists out in Santee; East County living up to its rep I guess). Most cities seem to be similar, with the notable exception of violent confrontations with police, most of which seem to be misbehavior on the part of the police, not “rioters”. Presuming Mr. Cotton is not referring to an “orgy of violence” being perpetrated on citizens by police, it seems like the vast majority of Americans would be hard-pressed to locate violence in their city if they tried. Meanwhile, I’ve seen basically no evidence for the Antifa provocateurs narrative, yet Republicans keep repeating it ad nauseam.
The investigation units and prosecutors offices are a tiny bit busy right now, but I expect it won't be too many more weeks until we get a clearer understanding on the involvement of extremist groups in promoting the worst excesses of rioting, looting, and arson thus far. Also, I don't arrive at the presumption that there has been very little violence happening, with the majority on the side of the police. We usually call peaceful protests the ones with signs and stoppage of traffic. And since I mention it, the police in many cities have been showcasing abysmal responses to that side of things and poor leadership on behalf of the department and likely mayors and governors beyond it. But in contrast ... the not peaceful protests involve violent destruction of businesses and property as well as the violent assaults on persons. The footage is quite easy to find. A 77 year old retiree dead in front of a St Louis pawn shot named David Dorn. Officers injured and/or sent to hospitals in ... Albany + Show Spoiler +Bricks are going to be a common theme. Real easy to launch in a crowd in the middle of a mostly peaceful protest. Did it hit anyone, and do you care? ChristianS, this one was hit by a car. I earlier made reference in this thread to a cop tossed into the air like a rag doll, and it was videotaped. I'm afraid the moderator restrictions on just cataloguing violence and my own personal beliefs prevent me from embedding or linking these videos. Yet, I understand a certain will to blind your eyes to "the other side" because you want to believe that nothing can match horrific stories of cops that, more than protesters, ought to know better and should be trained better. Operate in whatever moral even-handedness you desire, but I'm starting to feel like more of these videos should be digested. Posted, seen, shown to others, and digested, in some other venue that this one. Lest we conclude "very little violence happening ... most cities seem to be similar" in the nature of cold, dead statistics. I've seen worse bulk behavior on behalf of police against protesters, and can't justify using anything resembling "very little violence happening" Shot, during a protest. I think we can safely say the protest was mostly peaceful, because it was only one attempted murder in a great throng of peaceful protesters. Las Vegas Review-Journal has him shooting into a group of officeres, so rest assured the particular cop in critical condition wasn't singled out to the individual, and I don't think any of the peaceful protesters accidentally caught a bullet too Worst a fractured skull, perhaps. Couple dozen injuries Burning down a police station, does that make a protest violent? Or lingering fires, whole lengths of storefronts destroyed and looted? I've seen quite a bit of talk about "justified violence" but I have begun to worry that "justified violence" puts the topic out of mind, and a week later it becomes "not violent at all, considering." Police officers reported shot at, but we'll have to see, of course Federal officer dead, Dave Patrick Underwood, providing courthouse security. Oh, and several shots at the Oakland police headquarters, but I'm not sure if that's more or less violent than other mostly peaceful protests involving the burning down of a police station. multiple assaults, we'll see 9 police injured? But at this point you have to ask yourself if you're saying police started the violence, and violence in return just doesn't count anymore 2 officers injured. Baseball bat and beer bottle. Thankfully not critical/dead. Probably mostly peaceful protest though, truthfully 7 police offers injured, thrown objects. Deserved? Violence or counter violence? Mostly peaceful? Police deserved it for their brutal actions? 21 police injured, including one with a baseball bat. No deaths One injured, rest minor, thrown objects. Antifa aint the only ones that like to lob them though, of course Lived and worked there back in the day. Two injured and hospitalized, projectiles y'know I did mention David Dorn already, and names like his stuck out because it was just a pawn shop and he was no longer working. The black victim of violence in the wake of another black victim could've had an interesting story to tell. He is sort of a footnote in mostly peaceful protests, though. In terms of numbers, they were mostly peaceful, and statistics do not lie.
It also caught my attention because also four police officers were shot in the downtown area, no deaths. Their extremeties might not work so good for a while after that largely peaceful protest
I've heard speech can be violence and the like. I take the speakers to be making good faith arguments when they defend it. I'm pretty sure Cotton is also lumping the violence directed at people's businesses and homes through doors and windows as the sort of violence ... the innumerable scenes of running in and out reminiscent more of the orgy than volleys of rocks for me at least ... and he's on the right track. We're usually contrasting peaceful protests against violent protests both in terms of whether or not they used any weapons they brought against whatever they're walking through asa well as whoever they come across. But I'm digressing a little.
Ultimately, the objection to the op-ed is that it makes claims and relies on claims that directly contradict known facts, including the Times’ own reporting. It does so to deliberately overstate the amount of violence and danger happening in order to scare people. That is, and always has been, grounds to not run an opinion piece. I mean, Bret Stephens still has a job, and you’re talking about Pravda. A bit histrionic, don’t you think?
Ultimately, the charge that the article literally endangered lives both was the first one levied, and kind of makes the second one kind of like an afterthought. If you had told me that my post literally put people in danger, and later thought some flowery bits I used to describe real violence against people and property, I'm gonna worry about how people might die, and secondly, how their physical endangerment relates to the quibbles you have on facts. I've already been around the racetrack on what sources you discount and what you pledge fealty to (Maybe I doubt the FBI, given malfeasance from past disgraced directors, and high profile criminal investigations of their upper ranks? If DoJ statements are discounted, let's not stop there!) Suffice it to say, I dispute your "directly contradict known facts." I find it awfully premature to put definitive statements on what's known about things like involvement of hard-left extremist groups, when the investigating departments had stuff like handling ongoing riots to delay things, and not enough time has passed to even see people injured in these riots released from hospital.
I notice you weren’t so eager to draw nuanced distinctions between journalists just a couple posts ago: Show nested quote +I don't ever want to hear that journalists are brave firefighters holding power to account.
Oh yes, the hard news reporters seldom toot their own horn about how brave hey are. It's usually people like Jim Acosta and Yamiche Alcindor that have to suffer verbal exchanges at White House press briefings and angry tweets. There's some extra context for you. There's all this talk about dangerous fascism in the white house, and they rally long columns attacking Donald Trump who just ... I mean does nothing, that fascist layabout! Maybe it's a twitter thing again, but all the journalist self congratulation about bravery increases in direct proportion to how likely they are to face real danger.
Considering Heather MacDonald’s column was up at WSJ all weekend, is it possible using one decision by one newspaper about one op-ed to condemn the entire journalistic profession was just a tad overbroad?
Question to the thread: do we have any idea how many people have been killed or put in the hospital by rioters since the protests began? How many killed/put in the hospital by police? A quick googling didn’t turn anything up for me.
Yes, it is a good idea to contrast some of the stunning light in editorial page against the NYT's recent bowing to the mob (of mostly younger journalists, bringing the anti-free-speech protests previously consigned to elite campuses to the workrooms of august publications). Gigot manages that page well, and James Taranto (editorial features editor) is an excellent twitter follow (albeit not a ton of posts). Last one was a dialogue with Mollie Hemingway on burning cities and local leaders' intransigence, and the retweet before it was of another humorous bit of the New York Times: Although the police fired tear gas and made more than 50 arrests, there were far fewer reports of property damage by Sunday morning. But it's 2 am and I'm digressing again.
The WSJ editorial page does not bow to mobs, it has not indulged such flights of fancy that lead people to declare opinion columns from senators literally endanger black lives, it publishes all varieties on the right-wing of the country and not just the left. It actually puts up and defend a woman that 2019 had just 9 unarmed black men deaths compared to 19 whites, in an article that brings up that the backdrop should be the disparate racial crime rates, rather than disproportional racial populations (how often officers encounter armed and violent suspects).
I don't think the argument is as tight as she makes out, but at least I can read the strongest case she can make in a newspaper that doesn't censor as a matter of course. NYT is promising to publish less editorials in the wake of this. They also had a shameful stealth correction when they incorrectly attacked Cotton for proposing to use the military against protesters, something not part of hihs article. I think this post is too long and it's getting late so I'll leave you there.
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On June 08 2020 19:00 Danglars wrote:The WSJ editorial page does not bow to mobs, it has not indulged such flights of fancy that lead people to declare opinion columns from senators literally endanger black lives, it publishes all varieties on the right-wing of the country and not just the left. It actually puts up and defend a woman that 2019 had just 9 unarmed black men deaths compared to 19 whites, in an article that brings up that the backdrop should be the disparate racial crime rates, rather than disproportional racial populations (how often officers encounter armed and violent suspects).
It would be far more pertinent to your point if you gave us an example of a pro-communism WSJ op-ed
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So is Minneapolis really going to dismantle their police department? I mean we might as well have a city experiment with an alternate public safety system, if that is going to be the public debate. Maybe they'll bring back the posse comitatus?
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Or maybe they'll fund and strengthen community watch orgs, separate out ticketing/fee collecting from general enforcement, and alter the indictment process to include some measure of community involvement.
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I appreciate the time put into cataloguing incidents around the country - didn’t realize how relatively fortunate SD has been. I’ll grant at least that it seems like every violent extremist we’ve got has probably decided this is their moment - relative to the mass protest movement they’re not that numerous, but yes, we should be slow to let those stories disappear in a sea of statistics. They’re real people getting hurt and killed.
Maybe this is a good time to quote the Times’ actual reasoning here:
After publication, this essay met strong criticism from many readers (and many Times colleagues), prompting editors to review the piece and the editing process. Based on that review, we have concluded that the essay fell short of our standards and should not have been published.
The basic arguments advanced by Senator Cotton — however objectionable people may find them — represent a newsworthy part of the current debate. But given the life-and-death importance of the topic, the senator’s influential position and the gravity of the steps he advocates, the essay should have undergone the highest level of scrutiny. Instead, the editing process was rushed and flawed, and senior editors were not sufficiently involved. While Senator Cotton and his staff cooperated fully in our editing process, the Op-Ed should have been subject to further substantial revisions — as is frequently the case with such essays — or rejected.
For example, the published piece presents as facts assertions about the role of “cadres of left-wing radicals like antifa”; in fact, those allegations have not been substantiated and have been widely questioned. Editors should have sought further corroboration of those assertions, or removed them from the piece. The assertion that police officers “bore the brunt” of the violence is an overstatement that should have been challenged. The essay also includes a reference to a “constitutional duty” that was intended as a paraphrase; it should not have been rendered as a quotation.
Beyond those factual questions, the tone of the essay in places is needlessly harsh and falls short of the thoughtful approach that advances useful debate. Editors should have offered suggestions to address those problems. The headline — which was written by The Times, not Senator Cotton — was incendiary and should not have been used.
Finally, we failed to offer appropriate additional context — either in the text or the presentation — that could have helped readers place Senator Cotton’s views within a larger framework of debate.
Maybe you think they’re lying, otherwise it seems like the factual issues are pretty core to their objections. I don’t think that’s separate from the “dangerous” objection at all - painting an overly anarchic picture of the protesters absolutely endangers them.
Of course, the broader backlash was against publishing a piece advocating deploying troops and military tech against civilians, on the grounds that Cotton’s “overwhelming show of force” would endanger civilian lives. Given our track record at avoiding collateral damage to civilian populations elsewhere in the world, that fear hardly seems unfounded, and I certainly think most protests in most cities would be far more dangerous, not less, if the peacekeepers had automatic rifles, tanks, drones, etc.; there’s a Foucault’s boomerang quality to the whole thing for sure. How much of that is just disagreement with his article and how much is an argument against publishing is a bit difficult to tease out though.
You can wax poetic about the WSJ opinion pages if you want to, although I think Heather MacDonald’s column is a poor poster child. In fact it might be a perfect example of the consequences of opinion desks failing to enforce standards of fact-checking. But before you start writing sonnets to James Taranto, maybe at least acknowledge the point? You made sweeping generalizations against the journalistic profession based on one editorial decision the NYT opinion desk, but your judgment clearly doesn’t apply to all journalism, or even everybody but the “hard news reporters,” or even all opinion desks. Near as I can tell, you actually just wanted to tarnish NYT opinion, Jim Acosta, and Yamiche Alcindor (and how you’re lumping in the latter two isn’t clear).
It’s like it’s not enough for you to just disagree with an editorial decision, you need it to somehow be a condemnation of, if possible, the entire left. In fact I think this is the second or third time in just a few weeks you found a way to turn an apparently-irrelevant news story into some version of “this is why the left is just as bad as Trump,” which is perhaps a telling conclusion to feel the need to magnet to.
It would probably help (or at least help keep post length down) to narrow this discussion a bit. Something I wanted to circle back to: you seemed to be saying the Lafayette Park protest was violent. I don’t want to overinterpret; are you saying those protesters were violent, thus justifying the police violence against them?
If so, sourcing would be greatly appreciated. I’ve seen the likes of Bill “Not a Chemical Irritant” Barr insist that the crowd was “rowdy and non-compliant” to justify the use of force, and multiple journalists insisting the crowd was peaceful. If you’ve got video or something to show otherwise I’d love to see it; I certainly hope you wouldn’t just take the administration’s word for it.
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I think one of the most important things to do with police reform is reducing the number of things police do. We need to take away as many of their responsibilities that other groups could be doing as possible. Police should not be handing out tickets, responding to noise complaints or basically anything that doesn't require a gun. We should have a very small number of people with guns and they should be amazingly well trained and accountable.
Police as pillars of a community is disgusting. They are shameful people who we have seen represent among the least ethical of groups in our country. An important part in reducing their cultural significance will be reducing what they do.
Everyone agrees that cops are required to do too much with too little training. The one size fits all solution doesn't make sense. We could replace cops with social workers in a lot of situations. Hell, let the cops re-train if they want, but it is super important the institution itself is drastically reduced in power, influence and numbers. I want every single stat reduced for cops.
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On June 08 2020 23:58 Mohdoo wrote:
I think one of the most important things to do with police reform is reducing the number of things police do. We need to take away as many of their responsibilities that other groups could be doing as possible. Police should not be handing out tickets, responding to noise complaints or basically anything that doesn't require a gun. We should have a very small number of people with guns and they should be amazingly well trained and accountable.
Police as pillars of a community is disgusting. They are shameful people who we have seen represent among the least ethical of groups in our country. An important part in reducing their cultural significance will be reducing what they do.
Everyone agrees that cops are required to do too much with too little training. The one size fits all solution doesn't make sense. We could replace cops with social workers in a lot of situations. Hell, let the cops re-train if they want, but it is super important the institution itself is drastically reduced in power, influence and numbers. I want every single stat reduced for cops. It seems to work in the rest of the world...
The issue isn't 'bad cops have to much influence, we should reduce their job responsibilities'.
The issue is you have bad cops and their not getting removed/punished.
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It's a complex issue, and it's a combination of not just poor, but actively dangerous training, combined with other things such as having too many responsibilities. They aren't just getting a monopoly on violence, they're getting a monopoly on almost all oversight, period. They're overfunded and decked out to the teeth in fucking military gear, and are expected to handle everything from traffic calls, to mental health situations, to social altercations, and beyond, and the social work institutions that should be handling these things are getting defunded instead.
There are a lot of factors here. We can start by taking police off their fucking pedestal, taking away qualified immunity and holding them to the laws they're allegedly enforcing, and not looking to a wannabe soldier with a gun to hold up literally every corner of our communities. We can stop pretending they can do no wrong, and that anyone who dare uses their 1st Amendment rights to protest state violence is scum and vermin. We can stop pointing fingers at Antifa, and pretending this is anything but a police problem. Fucking ridiculous.
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EPT
