January 6 was a violent insurrectionist riot- "NOT ordinary citizens"

https://tulsaworld.com/opinion/letters/letter-we-need-to-educate-ourselves-about-disinformation/article_83b82e62-8de4-11ec-bd70-9bc7094fa489.html

Tulsa World echo opinion letter- Voting makes America a strong democracy!

OPINION- I am increasingly dismayed about actions being taken to weaken our democracy.

They include legislation making voting more difficult; new laws that give state legislatures the ability to overturn election results; continuing false claims that the 2020 election was “stolen”; new state laws making it difficult to teach the American history in schools; and an unwillingness by many to accept science in regard to climate change and the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines.

I now read that well-educated people in national leadership positions have described the January 6, 2021, events as “…ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.”

January 6 riot and insurrection on January 6, 2021

What? Do these people read newspapers, watch TV news, or look at actual footage of the assault on our Capitol? We have survived a civil war, the Jim Crow years, assassinations of our national leaders, McCarthyism, the Vietnam War protests, and more, so perhaps we will also survive the current threat to our democracy.

To do so we must educate ourselves on how to sort out facts from false information and conspiracy theories. We need to wean ourselves off social media where much of our disinformation originates. We must protect ourselves against autocratic leaders and false prophets.

Our forefathers gave us a great form of government. We have experienced numerous adversities, but the ideal of "freedom and justice' for all was always the goal. Let's continue this quest. Democracy is fragile. Let's continue to stand for freedom and against tyranny.

From David Kroll, in Tulsa, Oklahoma