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Notes -
I am not, give me that angles!
First we have this home surveillance with narration by CNNs Anderson Cooper. It lacks pixels though nd there is a tree in the way:
https://x.com/TheMaineWonk/status/2009506563732676847
Most frustrating is this new film by a neighbour: It has the clearest view and cuts at the exact important moment! Right wingers are retweeting it as it shows Ms Good being obnoxiously honking, but I wonder if it was leaked to them and why it was cut. If it would show the Ice officer only lightly (harmlessly? calculated by him?) being touched by the corner of the car the optics would be bad.
https://x.com/GrageDustin/status/2010037103665787019
There’s a longer video of the honking out there, it kind of pans annoyingly back and forth on the street for several minutes. You’re seeing a cut version because there’s nothing of interest immediately after. She’s on the street honking and dancing him her car, parked perpendicularly and waving through non ice vehicles. At some point (off camera) she pulls back (to let non ice vehicles pass through).
The only think of interest there is that based on how far out the car was on various pans, it’s clear that she was pulling back and forth in the car, to variously obstruct and allow passage. She was not stationary until the attempted peel out. This (minorly) adds context to the agent not knowing exactly what she is doing / her actions being more unpredictable and the alertness / sense of danger being heightened.
I think that alone is a stretch but my point is that every single additional video that dribbles out throws addition drops (at least) into the full picture always looking worse for her.
We’ve moved far beyond “confused and panicked mom just dropping off her kid approached by masked strangers”, yet that remains the “moral” starting point from which every counter narrative tries to gap.
Instead we see that she was actively using her car as a deliberate object of obstruction, moving it strategically to thwart the ice activity, and was using noise to rile up the situation and interfere with ICE apprehensions. She was creating a dangerous scenario intentionally for several minutes, and that context is very relevant to what happened in the heat of the moment 3 minutes later.
At the very minimum she was hoping to help attempted detainees to flee arrest and prevent ICE from safely pursuing and apprehending them. So she was creating deadly conditions from the get.
Suppose she was blocking a SWAT team from a drug raid while also shouting into a loudspeaker to alert the suspects. There would be no question. That she was creating a physically dangerous environment and that would factor into the police’s actions and assumptions and benefit of doubt in those moments. It would be very different than reading the same outcome with the assumption that she had just been walking a dog by the raid and gotten confused.
Yet that initial frame was intentionally set to poison public opinion and create artificial priors in the public to emotionally distort the interpretation
If that is so, it should knock on the head the narrative that "she was only an innocent passer-by, driving home with her wife after dropping her kid off at school, a stranger to the city who wandered into the middle of this by mistake".
This entire situation was a mess, but this does sound like "play stupid games, win stupid prizes". She's moving around with the car, blocking and unblocking, and clearly putting herself into an adversarial position. Doesn't mean she should be shot dead, but she's making herself seem like a genuine risk.
It should, but arguments are soldiers and ONLY that. The comments on the David French column about this demonstrate this pretty clearly.
e.g. from "Cece"
We know from the videos this didn't happen. Doesn't matter. Gets repeated over and over.
from "Niko"
We know from the videos the officer did not draw his weapon until she started going forwards.
From "SD"
No way? She did actually hit him. Whether that was her intent is not proven, but certainly the video does not rule it out. Of course, despite this having been shown from several angles (and heard), plenty of people still insist he wasn't hit.
From "OG MD"
Good thing this wasn't OG JD because that's all false.
From "Don't Think Twice"
No, her choice of a weapon was a Honda Pilot. Even if she didn't mean to hit the officer, she was using it to engage in her blockade tactics.
And from "Back to MN"
We've got video and audio that clearly reveals that the orders she was given were "Get out of the car" and "Get out of the fucking car". These aren't conflicting.
Evidence doesn't matter; there is only narrative.
Normally (i.e. not under Trump) the way this would play out is law enforcement and the administration would refuse to comment. The protestor story would be the only one which got around. Then some months later when the officer was acquitted, people would be shocked and there'd be another round of protests. The Trump administration is trying something different -- backing up their officer to hyperbolic lengths. I'm not sure if that's better, but the old way wasn't working.
I don't know a delicate way to put this, so I'll just bull ahead. How effin' stupid do you have to be to turn up to a protest where you are facing "This is Fascist Dictator Disappearing Torture Regime", believing in the dogma that the cops/ICE/jackbooted thugs have carte blanche to shoot anyone they like particularly the black and brown, that you are putting yourself in real danger, and yet... not expect that anything bad will happen? "We have whistles and they have guns" - then either get guns yourself or have realistic expectations of injury or death.
I thought the guys in the Rittenhouse case were fools but even they (or at least one of them) turned up with a gun. That's criminal, but it's not entirely stupid and is at least consistent with what you believe: the pigs and their lackeys have guns and intend to shoot us, we're gonna shoot back.
The answer is that they believe ICE isn't allowed to do anything to US citizens. This is wrong; they can arrest US citizens who interfere with their operations. But they don't really believe this is what they say it is.
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These Leftists have their own discussion forum / echo chamber, and anyone who raises this kind of point will be instantly banned/shadowbanned/excommunicated/etc. That's the price you pay for assabiyah - obvious inconsistencies and other flaws in your group's reasoning get swept under the rug.
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From a Certain Point of View, them turning up to #Resist despite the real danger only further illustrates how Stunning and Brave they are, that they as the plucky outgunned underdogs had the courage to go up against the Fascist Dictator Disappearing Torture Regime that has license to kill, that their presence and white privilege could at least make the Stormtroopers hesitate before gunning down black and brown bodies. Outnumbered Rebels with lightsabers against a Galactic Empire with spaceships and laser blasters.
I can respect protesters who show up even where they do realise they're in actual danger. I don't know what to think of protesters who think they can claim it's the Evil Evil Stormtrooper Show which they are protesting, and yet at the same time that they can behave with maximum irritating nonsense but nothing can or will happen to them, because - that's not fair? "I can yell abuse, slurs, make loud noises, throw things, and behave worse than a four year old having a sugar-fuelled meltdown, but they have to be nice to me and stand there and take it even though they are the low-IQ violent murder monsters who are going around murdering and assaulting people"????
I genuinely don't get it.
Perhaps they think that ICE are paper tigers - not actual Stormtroopers but wannabe-Stormtroopers who are in truth no better than schoolyard bully, and will fall apart if someone is on hand to puncture their delusions of grandeur? Perhaps they take the "white privilege" stuff a little too literally, and genuinely believe that although they have no scruples about assaulting innocent blacks and Hispanics, ICE's own white-supremacy forbid them to ever lay a finger on a white blonde?
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