On Saturday night, when Mother Jones staffers tweeted a report that riot police might soon sweep demonstrators out of the Wisconsin capitol building—something that didn't end up happening—one Twitter user sent out a chilling public response: "Use live ammunition."
From my own Twitter account, I confronted the user, JCCentCom. He tweeted back that the demonstrators were "political enemies" and "thugs" who were "physically threatening legally elected officials." In response to such behavior, he said, "You're damned right I advocate deadly force." He later called me a "typical leftist," adding, "liberals hate police."
Only later did we realize that JCCentCom was a deputy attorney general for the state of Indiana.
I mean, I've enjoyed the solidarity messages coming from North Africa to the American Midwest, but I'd really prefer the similarities end before we have state officials advocating the massacre of unarmed protesters.
UPDATE: The official in question has been fired.
As Grist astutely points out, this would be harmful to the environment:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.grist.org/article/2011-02-23-why-using-live-ammunition-on-wisconsin-protestors-would-be-bad-f
Machetes are definitely more green-friendly.
Christ, between the Pence amendment and this crap, that's twice in the last week I've been massively disappointed by someone in my home state.
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