Your first response to this news might be “What do I care what that ridiculous troll says?” or “Oh, so you’ve finally discovered wetness in the water have you?”
On a certain level, I would agree, but on another tip there is always some value in setting the record straight — for posterity and all that.
Here’s the meat of things: after AOC sent out a tweet calling for members of Congress who aided and abetted the Jan 6th Insurrection to be “expelled” from Congress — as the 14th Amendment demands — MTG clapped back.
Rep. Greene complains "ALL of the thousands of Antifa/BLM foot soldiers of the Democrat Communist Party that attacked innocent Americans, looted & burned private businesses, & more crimes have not been properly charged yet & many were let off."
Just for sake of being truthful as of June of 2020 over 10,000 people were arrested in connection to various Black Lives Matter protests. It is doubtful that all of those people were “violent foot soldiers” who “looted and burned” private businesses. Most of them had their charges dropped, but 120 were convicted sometimes with harsh sentences. Some of those were actually right-wing Boogaloo Bois who were trying to create violence to discredit BLM.
MTG Continued.
She claims AOC and other Democratic lawmakers engaged in a "civil war that was waged in the streets of America during the communist revolution of 2020," which is a flat-out lie.
Greene also falsely calls U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) a "terrorist sympathizer," and claims the BLM protests caused over $1 trillion in damage, which is wildly false.
Figures vary but the worst-case scenario is that the damage caused $1-2 Billion in insurance claims. Also, studies indicate that 96% of George Floyd protests — were peaceful.
So, she can’t do the math. But it's worse than that.
AOC does support Black Lives Matter, but it’s not like we have evidence of her being involved in planning sessions for weeks helping set up and promote the protest. She has been connected with the movement in several ways. For example, when BLM put out a statement criticizing U.S. policy toward CUBA, Fox News first wanted to know why AOC and Ilhan Omar hadn't already commented on it.
Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Cori Bush of Missouri have yet to weigh in on Black Lives Matter declaring its support for Cuba's communist regime, even though the congresswomen have been vocal BLM supporters in the past.
Later that same day, AOC did comment.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., broke her silence Thursday on anti-communism, pro-freedom protests that have broken out in Cuba by partially blaming the suffering of "everyday people" on the historical legacy of the U.S.’ 60-year-old embargo.
"We are seeing Cubans rise up and protest for their rights like never before. We stand in solidarity with them, and condemn the anti-democratic actions led by President Díaz-Canel," the self-proclaimed Democratic socialist said in a statement.
She called the communist government’s suppression of media, speech and protest "gross violations of civil rights."
But she then evoked the United States’ "contribution" to what is turning out to be Cuba’s worst crisis in decades.
"We also must name the U.S. contribution to Cuban suffering: our sixty-year-old embargo," she said.
So let me get this straight, AOC the “Communist” began her statement by first criticizing a Communist Regime? Huh, Interesting.
She also later gave BLM credit for Joe Biden’s Presidential Win and she has called out corporations for failing to support the movement, but I'm not sure she’s ever even attended a single rally or protest. She was ripped by the Socialist party for attending the Met Gala while BLM protestors were being arrested outside.
I can understand that with MTG’s tiny mind when she sees someone criticize the rich and corporations for how they treat citizens she immediately thinks "Communist" because that's simpler than actually engaging things intellectually. Just like when you see a woman in a headscarf you immediately assume “terrorist sympathizer" — even though Ilhan Omar may have criticized Isreal and AIPAC she's said nothing to sympathize with terrorists like Hamas, ISIL or Al Qaeda.
But you get the point, this is “I know you are, but what am I?” It's misdirection and projection. It’s whataboutism.
Let's not look serioulsy at the actual attempt to overthrow the government — as would occur during an real “Civil War.” Let’s pretend that January 6 was merely a non-violent protest despite over 100 cops being injured in the various melees. Let's compare the BLM protest, where there were widows broken, fires set and some looting, but which again mostly were non-violent, where police used pepper-spray, tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse non violent crowds to thousands of MAGAs who used flags, poles, shields, pepper-spray, bear-spray, barricades and other weapons to smash through the defending police, smash locked doors and windows and physically force their way into the Capitol on a mission to disrupt the counting of electors, and if they could, kill Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi.
During the course of thousands of BLM protests in 140 cities there were 2000 police officers injured.
More than 2,000 law enforcement officers were injured in the first weeks of protests over the summer following the police killing of George Floyd, according to a report released in October.
The Major Cities Chiefs Association, a professional association comprised of local law enforcement heads from the 69 largest police agencies in the United States and nine in Canada, detailed the unrest and compiled data from protests between May 25 and July 31 in MCCA member cities.
During that period, there were 8,700 protests nationwide; 574 were declared riots with violence and other criminal acts. The violence was limited to 7% of protests, the report said.
Let me repeat, if 574 events were “declared riots" then the other 8,200 protests — were not. That averages to two officers being injured per “riot.” The MAGAs had just one event which injured over 50 times as many officers.
MTG claims that Democrats “funded, encourage and participated” in a Civil War.
There is no evidence to that effect. There is no evidence that any Democrat specifically encouraged or participated in any act of violence. This is where the right-wing loses the plot.
They oppose BLM, they oppose their protests, arguing that they are “Marxist” and “Terrorist” while pretending that the growing mountain of stats indicating increased police violence against minorities doesn't exist.
Police violence is a leading cause of death for young men in the United States. Over the life course, about 1 in every 1,000 black men can expect to be killed by police. Risk of being killed by police peaks between the ages of 20 y and 35 y for men and women and for all racial and ethnic groups. Black women and men and American Indian and Alaska Native women and men are significantly more likely than white women and men to be killed by police. Latino men are also more likely to be killed by police than are white men.
But they have no problem when their anti-mask, anti-vaccine, anti-CRT, anti-immigrant, anti-election protests which so easily escalate into death threats and assaults. They punch breast cancer patient in their surgery scar. They tell school boards members “We know who your are” and “You will not be allowed in society” -— they plot to kidnap and kill a Governor, they kill the family of a judge, they stage a mass shooting at Walmart, and they implement many more violent attacks and shootings. They attack and have murdered Asian-Americans over the “Wuhan Virus” even when they aren’t Chinese and have nothing to do with the Chinese government or Wuhan. They don’t hesitate and show no remose to use intimidation, threats of violence and actual violence to accomplish their ends. They act as though they’re entitled to use violence. Then they have whined that they’ve been targeted as “Domestic Terrorists” by the DOJ for merely complaining to their school boards when that is simply not the case.
In a memo released this week, Garland instructed the FBI and U.S. Attorneys to meet in the next 30 days with federal, state, and local enforcement agencies to discuss strategies to combat what the DOJ described in a press release as an “increase in harassment, intimidation and threats of violence against school board members, teachers and workers in our nation’s public schools.”
School board meetings across the country have been disrupted by parents angry, sometimes violent so, about local directives for mask coverings to protect students and educators from COVID-19.
[...]
“Threats against public servants are not only illegal, they run counter to our nation’s core values,” Garland wrote. “Those who dedicate their time and energy to ensuring that our children receive a proper education in a safe environment deserve to be able to do their work without fear for their safety.”
That’s it. It was just a memo. Not exactly a sweeping and oppressive edict from King George III. No matter. The folks on the cultural right quickly responded with the modern-day equivalent of the Boston Tea Party.
The activists insist that Garland—by unleashing federal agents and federal prosecutors—is treating them like domestic terrorists.
[...]
Spoiler alert: Garland is neither “criminalizing parenting” nor trying to “squelch dissent.” He is not “weaponizing the DOJ” or attempting to “intimidate individuals based on their views.” He’s not even “nosing the Justice Department into debates at local school boards.”
Protest are a constitutionally protected activity under the 1st Amendment right to “redress greivances” with the government. Stoking, instigating, inciting, promoting and implementing violence is not.
No Democrats promoted violence, they promoted protests. Also, even if you argue that the violence was “extensive” with a $1 Billion price tag, it is far short of the violence and damage that could have been done by BLM if that was indeed the intent of the movement. Considering the size of the movement it could have been $1 Trillion in damage, but it wasn’t. It was 1/1000th of that.
The problem for those who wish to deflect from the Jan 6th Insurrection with the BLM protests is the fact that they put their plan down on paper. And this plan doesn't work unless they could somehow intimidate Mike Pence into going along with it.
People quietly protesting outside the Capitol doesn’t get the job done. Even a riot outside the Capitol doesn’t do it. That doesn’t move the needle. They have to go in, they have to smash through the barricades, shove back and beat the police, smash through the locked doors, break the windows, enter the Capitol stop the counting of electors and make a point to Pence that he has to reverse the electors for the contested swing states — as indicated by the plan outlined in the Eastman memo — OR ELSE.
The entire plan makes no sense without the assault on the Capitol.
They had to get Pence to play ball or the entire gambit is a bust. Trump sat on his hands, watching the protest turn into a riot and threaten the Capitol — never placing a call to deploy the National Guard — for over three hours while the MAGAs battled with police. Remember, he tried to set the National Guard on BLM protestors just weeks before, even though they were nonviolent and tear-gassed them to oblivion. What exactly was the excuse not to call them back out again this time? It all comes down to what Trump told Kevin McCarthy when Kevin called him to call off his mob — “I guess these people care more about the election than you do.” These people were his people, and they were intent on giving him the election — no matter how they had to do it.
There was and is nothing equal to that critical moment within the BLM movement. There was no point where a single protest, or a single act of violence, was going to “turn the tide.” At no time were they a threat to the functioning of Congress, the Speaker or the Vice President. And also, the George Floyd Bill still hasn’t been passed by Congress.
Trump, Giuliani, Eastman, Bannon and all their little Congresscriters including Greene didn’t just stage a “protest” — they tried to violently overthrow the government, they did implement a “Civil War” against the nation.
Fortunately, they lost. This time.
