Maybe, Just Maybe, This Could Have Been Avoided
In 1966, Senator Robert Kennedy said the following on the floor of Congress:
A revolution is coming — a revolution which will be peaceful if we are wise enough; compassionate if we care enough; successful if we are fortunate enough — But a revolution which is coming whether we will it or not. We can affect its character; we cannot alter its inevitability.
Four years earlier, President John Kennedy said the following to a group of Latin American diplomats:
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
I think about these quotes often when I read the news about the riots going on in response to the murder of George Flyod. Especially considering it came so soon after the murder of Ahmaud Arbery — another black man murdered at the hands of the McMichael’s.
On 6/1/2020, Josh Hammer tweeted the following:
A small silver lining to the current mess ought to be the fact that there is complete unanimity of opinion about the horrible injustice that was George Floyd’s death.
There is no mix of opinion or dispute of facts, as with Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown. Everyone condemns this.
I remember something similar happening after the death of Eric Garner back in 2014. A murder that helped launch the Black Lives Matter movement into public light, and everyone agreed was wrong — except for the NYPD, the New York Justice Department, and the Federal Justice Department, of course. The main argument after the death of Garner was not rather he was murdered, we all understood he was, it was rather or not it was an issue or race or an issue of taxes going too far.
Now, after the riots in response to the death of George Floyd, we’re not even allowed to talk about the issues at hand. Instead, the President is allowed to same things like this:
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!
Now you may think that sounds violent, but National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien made this clear on This Week:
What he said about those tweets is he wants to deescalate violence and he doesn’t want looting.
So saying “when the looting starts the shooting starts” is trying to deescalate violence? Does the President also recommend people do heroin to deesculate their addiction?
Was it also deescalation when Rep. Gatez tweeted this:
Now that we clearly see Antifa as terrorists, can we hunt them down like we do those in the Middle East?
Or when Senator Tom Cotton said this:
What the president can do is say that justice will be done in accordance with law for George Floyd and we will always respect the right of peaceful protests … but the rioting, the anarchy and the looting ends tonight. If local law enforcement is overwhelmed … lets see how these anarchists respond when the 101st Airborne is on the other side of the street.
Of course, the riots we are seeing was always the end goal of the mainstream Republican Party. Ever since Barack Obama was elected, the Republican establishment acted like we were just one comment away from a race war. Of course, quite a large amount of comments took place in the meantime, and we did not have a race. Then we had Trayvon Martin get killed by George Zimmerman, and we did not have a race war. Then we had many examples of black people getting killed by police officers, and we did not have a race war. Even after this, we are not having what most people would consider a race war.
The Republican Party wanted this to happen, that I have no doubt about. Hence why when peaceful protests did prop up, they were already labeled “terrorists” by the likes of people like Bill O’Reilly. If you call somebody violent enough times, they’ll at some point grow to meet expectations.
The Republican Party made a peaceful revolution impossible, so they made a violent revolution inevitable.
