New York Times column calls for U.S. military to suppress protests with "overwhelming force"

The most charitable interpretation I can come up is that the NYT is handing Cotton a long piece of rope with which to hang himself.

But I’ll admit that’s a stretch.

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I’d say for shock value and clicks.

Maybe both IDK

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I didn’t realize that Tom Cotton was a commanding leader in the Pentagon and a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Since when does he decide if the military is ready or not?

Sit down and shut the fuck up.

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People are delicious on both sides!

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(Old piece but, you get the gist.)

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No, it really isn’t.

the Times invests a bit in some good journalists to string the libs along, but their goal is to promote racism and classism amongst well-off liberals by putting their finger on the scales and carefully arranging where the emphasis of the paper lies.

They are praying for the day when there is a military takeover so that they can be the “voice of principled liberal opposition”, while using their power to keep as many liberals as possible quiescent.

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It’s about time to suppress Tom Cotton with overwhelming force.

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Why did Cotton even submit it to the Times? Did Twitter reject it due to higher editorial standards?

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From 2017:

The NYT has always been a right wing paper; the vaguely leftish aspects of its public persona are just camouflage for the rest of it.

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I think instead perhaps they can just go to the archives to give us Adolf Hitler’s opinion on what to do about the “Jewish Problem”. Just helping to create the conversation!

Regular Reminder

Cancel your subscription to that fucking newspaper.

No I’m not going to link the latest.

…adding, it’s Tom Cotton. It’s gross. No they don’t have to publish it. No they don’t publish everything a federal lawmaker wants to publish. No they don’t publish everything a senator wants to publish. No they don’t think ALL IDEAS are worth publishing. They have have their lines. By publishing that stuff they endorse it as a piece worthy of being published in the paper they think is vital to democracy or whatever.

by Atrios at 17:18

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No, I think this shows that they know exactly how precarious their situation is. Dividing the non-rich population into the “look at what the ungrateful poor are doing” and the “look at what the cultural elite are dictating to Real America” classes is the first weapon in their arsenal.

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The Tiannamen Square anniversary was apt, and should be brought up over and over when Trump or Cotton or your crazy uncle starts talking about using troops against US citizens.

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Alas, Tucker Carlson is trying to define this current distraction a class war.

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Everything he said here is absolutely true…if he were referring to the cops instead of the the protesters. We’re in this situation because cops have taken innocent lives. We’re in this situation because the rest of us haven’t done enough to change the system. Many poor communities still bear scars from past, unpunished murders by police officers and lack of reform resulting therefrom, as well as the rampant culture of treating large portions of the population as criminals and enemy combatants instead of citizens whose rights should be respected and protected. We do need a show of force dispersing the militarized police forces who break the law with impunity.

I don’t cotton to Cotton.

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That’s the one angle that jumps out at me from this. Sure, they’re publishing a controversial op-ed, but it’s got Sen. Cotton’s name on it, it’s going to a wide subscriber base, and it’s forever memorialized in history. I personally find what Sen. Cotton says to be horrifying and essentially treasonous toward the citizenry, but I consider that the NYT had three choices:

  1. Do nothing and ignore it - which will result in a gap in the historical record and a later point of editorial strife (“Why didn’t you report this abhorrent behavior?”).
  2. Publish a standard story about what Sen. Cotton was tweeting and saying - which would likely result in more fuel on the faux fires from the right (“Yet more ‘fake news’ from the MSM, claiming Sen. Cotton would say such things which are clearly lies because he now says he never said those things and he definitely wouldn’t lie to us about it!”).
  3. Invite Sen. Cotton to write out exactly what he wants to say and put his name all over it - which sets it in stone in the record in Cotton’s own voice for perpetuity and for all people, whether or not our little experiment manages to survive this facist invasion.

Two of these choices avoid short-term strife but do nothing to help in the long term. One of these choices comes off as odious at first blush, but makes a permanent entry in the library of history.

I only edited a Jr. High “newspaper” for a few months and I only took a couple journalism classes in college, so I’m not claiming to know what the NYT editor was thinking or anything else, but as someone who tries to do periodic long-view thought exercises in an effort to get out of my head, my gut says that’s probably why this happened this way. Maybe I’m wrong… not at all uncommon, really. But even if so, I believe history has been best served this way, regardless of the editorial intent that got us there.

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Hmmm. Why would the “honorable” Senator want to publish his views on a FAKE NEWS platform?
ETA: Failing FAKE NEWS platform

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But, if you print his vile little screed not because you agree with it, but rather to call him out on it, aren’t you morally obligated to very clearly state that this is not the paper’s position?

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TYPO: You have an errant period after the “nytimes.com”, before the backslash.

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Mainstream media reports on protests. Mainstream media is fake news. Therefore no protests are occurring, right? :confused:

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