Old Man: We have 2 people dead in DC. We have 50,000 dead in Gaza. And, how many children starved to death last night? In 1956, Israel invaded Sinai. They invaded Gaza. The United States president at the time, Dwight Eisenhower, put his foot down and he told the French and the British get the heck out of the Suez Canal, and he told Israel to get the heck out of Sinai and out of Gaza. Now, where would we be today if we had a president that could have said that 2 years ago?
Reporter 1: Can you describe again the Elias personality that you met?
Old Man: Quiet and friendly. Quiet and friendly. Yeah. Yeah.
Reporter 2: What’s your age if you don’t mind?
Old Man: 71. Yeah. I’m the guy with all the with all the signs in the window.
Reporter 1: What do you hope happens next?
Old Man: Ceasefire. No more deaths. No more deaths in DC. No more deaths in Gaza.
Reporter 1: What about with your neighbor?
Old Man: I don’t know.
Reporter 3: If you could say something to him right now, what would you want to communicate to him? What would you have said, if you like you said earlier, could talk to him?
Old Man: I would have repeated, what I’ve already said, “Guns and bombs are not going to end this genocide.”
https://xcancel.com/falasteen47/status/1925646565366022303#m
This ordinary guy basically had the entire national press roll up on his doorstep, in the middle of his ordinary life, just after discovering that his young neighbor who he didn’t know that well had shot two people in DC and made international news as well as setting off a global Israeli-pushed political firestorm. And his message is one of empathy, it clearly places the genocide on Israel’s shoulders, highlights his country’s complicity, and keeps message discipline without getting drawn into media spin or distraction.
It really demonstrates how all these lib and ‘left’ politicians and pundits really aren’t worth a damn that they can’t manage this shit.
The old man is wearing a Bernie hat. You can see it in the thumbnail. He tells the press that he’s against violence and he wants more people to vote. I like that he blames Israel for the DC shooting but it seems like he is an institution defender.
He also carries around a bunch of protest signs. He shows one of the signs to the video. The sign reads “Ceasefire Now! No More Deaths”. Then he tells the press that he has many similar signs hanging outside his house. He must have put those signs up in preparation for speaking to the press.
He knew that the press was coming to his house and he decided to make a bunch of protest signs and to put on a Bernie hat. He’s definitely a certain type of guy. He’s probably a Bernie guy, based on the hat.
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Also want to point out that the FBI was raiding the house of the suspected shooter at the same as this interview was conducted. I would suspect that this press didn’t just “roll up on his doorstep”. I think that the press was probably getting footage of the FBI doing the raid and then the old man, named John Wayne Fry, probably volunteered to speak to the press.
His beard is perfectly groomed. It’s an impressive beard. It looks like he cut it right before the interview.
I’m not sure what your point is here, so apologies if I’m missing something.
I’m not saying that he had no idea it had happened or no clue someone might knock on his door to interview him. But I’m pretty sure that if one day you’re just some Bernie guy with an anti-genocide poster in your window, then the next day the FBI is raiding the house next door & the national press wants to interview you about the killing of two Israeli embassy workers, it’s going to feel sudden, unexpected, not something you were really ready for. Not that he didn’t have time to comb his beard.
The point is that lots of ordinary people - including Bernie libs - can talk about Israel, it’s genocide, and even this shooting, without media training, without experience of being interviewed, without much preparation. And they can do it in simple, direct, moral and empathetic terms without getting tripped up or boxed in by the media.
And yet the vast majority of politicians and pundits, even those with the right position, almost universally cannot. I have my suspicions as to why of course, but it says something pretty damning about the ineffectualness of liberal and even actual left politicians and media figures.
Your post says that fake left politicians don’t have messaging discipline. I think you are probably referring to Democrats like AOC, Bernie, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, etc. I don’t disagree with you there. My point is that I don’t think that the guy in the video would agree with your comment. If he put on a Bernie hat to appear on Fox News, the guy probably thinks that Bernie Sander is spitting.
There are things that I like about the interview. My favorite part is that the media asked him what he thinks should happen to the the shooting suspect and he shrugs and says “I don’t know”. The media was baiting for him to call for the shooter to be punished and he didn’t fall for it. I like that he blamed Israel for the DC shooting. I don’t like that he said that voting is more powerful than violence in the full interview
Imagine for a second that what this guy had said was not an interview on Fox News, but instead a comment on Hexbear. If someone had commented on Hexbear that violence is wrong and that voting is more powerful than violence, Hexbear would figuratively rip their head off. If a politician had said this same thing, Hexbear would figuratively rip their head off. The distinction between this man and politicians feels entirely vibes based. Politician is bad vibes. Mysterious old man is good vibes.
The reason that I replied to your comment is that your comment feels exaggerated. You make him out to be a random non-political guy but he printed out paper protest signs and hung them outside his house before the interview. You could see in the interview that the sign was on paper and clearly not waterproof, so it’s not like he hangs them up every day. He seems like a man with existing political convictions, especially if he has a speech prepared about the historical precedent of US presidents putting Israel on a leash.
I’m not saying that the Old Man is good or bad. I liked the interview and I am kind of surprised that people liked the interview so much. I don’t want people to misinterpret the interview. Honestly, it could have just been a fluke that the interview went so well.