I don't understand how people dismiss this either...
No, of course you don't.
And because the Boston bombers just happened to be Muslim, those attacks were religious in nature too, right? Despite there being no evidence whatsoever that the attacks were inspired by their religion.
Why is Boston 'terrorism' but not Aurora, Sandy Hook, Tucson and Columbine?
Can an act of violence be called 'terrorism' if the motive is unknown?
Glenn Greenwald
guardian.co.uk, Monday 22 April 2013
'...even those assuming the guilt of the Tsarnaev brothers seem to have no basis at all for claiming that this was an act of "terrorism" in a way that would meaningfully distinguish it from Aurora, Sandy Hook, Tucson and Columbine. All we really know about them in this regard is that they identified as Muslim, and that the older brother allegedly watched extremist YouTube videos and was suspected by the Russian government of religious extremism (by contrast, virtually every person who knew the younger brother has emphatically said that he never evinced political or religious extremism). But as Obama himself acknowledged, we simply do not know what motivated them (Obama: "Tonight there are still many unanswered questions. Among them, why did young men who grew up and studied here, as part of our communities and our country, resort to such violence?").
It's certainly possible that it will turn out that, if they are guilty, their prime motive was political or religious. But it's also certainly possible that it wasn't: that it was some combination of mental illness, societal alienation, or other form of internal instability and rage that is apolitical in nature. Until their motive is known, how can this possibly be called "terrorism"? Can acts of violence be deemed "terrorism" without knowing the motive?
... It's hard not to suspect that the only thing distinguishing the Boston attack from Tucson, Aurora, Sandy Hook and Columbine (to say nothing of the US "shock and awe" attack on Baghdad and the mass killings in Fallujah) is that the accused Boston attackers are Muslim and the other perpetrators are not. As usual, what terrorism really means in American discourse - its operational meaning - is: violence by Muslims against Americans and their allies.
I don't understand how people dismiss this either...
No, of course you don't.
And because the Boston bombers just happened to be Muslim, those attacks were religious in nature too, right? Despite there being no evidence whatsoever that the attacks were inspired by their religion.
Why is Boston 'terrorism' but not Aurora, Sandy Hook, Tucson and Columbine?
Can an act of violence be called 'terrorism' if the motive is unknown?
Glenn Greenwald
guardian.co.uk, Monday 22 April 2013
'...even those assuming the guilt of the Tsarnaev brothers seem to have no basis at all for claiming that this was an act of "terrorism" in a way that would meaningfully distinguish it from Aurora, Sandy Hook, Tucson and Columbine. All we really know about them in this regard is that they identified as Muslim, and that the older brother allegedly watched extremist YouTube videos and was suspected by the Russian government of religious extremism (by contrast, virtually every person who knew the younger brother has emphatically said that he never evinced political or religious extremism). But as Obama himself acknowledged, we simply do not know what motivated them (Obama: "Tonight there are still many unanswered questions. Among them, why did young men who grew up and studied here, as part of our communities and our country, resort to such violence?").
It's certainly possible that it will turn out that, if they are guilty, their prime motive was political or religious. But it's also certainly possible that it wasn't: that it was some combination of mental illness, societal alienation, or other form of internal instability and rage that is apolitical in nature. Until their motive is known, how can this possibly be called "terrorism"? Can acts of violence be deemed "terrorism" without knowing the motive?
... It's hard not to suspect that the only thing distinguishing the Boston attack from Tucson, Aurora, Sandy Hook and Columbine (to say nothing of the US "shock and awe" attack on Baghdad and the mass killings in Fallujah) is that the accused Boston attackers are Muslim and the other perpetrators are not. As usual, what terrorism really means in American discourse - its operational meaning - is: violence by Muslims against Americans and their allies.
I know the motive, how can someone not know the motive when the Terrorist explained it himself?
Sorry I can't believe a word this man (Obama)says.....and how could he know anything about this, when he constantly admits that he doesn't know a thing about anything .......... spying on the AP, He and Holders lies to illegally go into a reporters private emails....Seems he gets all his information from the news like we do.....this Administration is the most ignorant or the biggest liars of all!
“We the people are the rightful masters of bothCongress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.” Abraham Lincoln
We are the furthest removed from the situation. What about thesurvivors and the victim? They are the key stakeholders here. With exceptions, I'm pretty sure justice that serves the magnitude of the crime is desired.
'Us' being civilised people who don't go around killing people. You don't think that the use of the death penalty can have an effect on social identity?
Pretty easy to say when it isn't your kid, or husband, or father that has just had his head savagely removed from his body in the streets, eh? Must have been pretty tough to not only fathom what had happened to your loved one, but imagine watching the killer afterwards relishing in his glory with your loved one's blood dripping from his hands and weapons. Yah. No need to be excessive with our measure of punishment for this guy. Let him do some time reading books, watching television, and answering letters from like-minded ones around the world that admire him.
And what a thing to say 'Us' being civili(z)ed people who don't go around killing people. How is seeking justice for this man http://news.ca.msn.com/top-stories/slai ... fghanistanrunning around trying to kill someone? Nobody asked for this- we are only left to respond to it.
You don't think the frustrations people have supporting those who must attend parole hearings to protest the release of the animal who murdered their child doesn't have its toll on social identity? I can live much more comfortably living with a savage murderer put to death for his offence than I can a grieving family tortured by being forced to attend parole hearings and read of the prison exploits of the murderer of their loved one.
I know the motive, how can someone not know the motive when the Terrorist explained it himself?
You know the motive for the Boston bombings? That's great, because the F.B.I doesn't.
Care to share it with us?
He wrote his motive on the inside of the boat he was hiding in... he said it was revenge for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying "when you kill one Muslim, you kill all Muslims".
The so-called 'religion of peace' is really a religion that gives an otherwise typical young man a reason to feel at peace when he kills innocent civilians... same goes with other religions...
"I can kill cause in God I trust"
He wrote his motive on the inside of the boat he was hiding in... he said it was revenge for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying "when you kill one Muslim, you kill all Muslims".
That's the first of it I've heard. And there was no mention of the above in any news source four days after they were captured.
But I'll take your word for it.
I realize it's impossible for you to view things through anything other than star-spangled sunglasses, but It wasn't a religious act, it was a political act. Not that murder is something to justify, but we murder people in foreign countries every day, so we shouldn't act surprised when we get a little blow back, from a nutjob or otherwise.
Can't you be on both sides of this equation? Why are they mutually exclusive in this case?
Can't you be on both sides of this equation? Why are they mutually exclusive in this case?
I don't believe the murderers professed religion was responsible for his crime. He said himself on camera it was motivated by British foreign policy abroad. Therefore I see it as a political act. Though I realize it's convenient for many people to use this episode to try and slander Islam and Muslims in general for his twisted behaviour.
He wrote his motive on the inside of the boat he was hiding in... he said it was revenge for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying "when you kill one Muslim, you kill all Muslims".
That's the first of it I've heard. And there was no mention of the above in any news source four days after they were captured.
But I'll take your word for it.
that’s right! Can’t we all just get together and focus on our real enemies: monogamous gays and stem cells… - Ned Flanders
It is terrifying when you are too stupid to know who is dumb
- Joe Rogan
What do we learn when we kill them? We learn that murder is a solution to problems.
I think we've spoke of this before in the dp thread
I just feel that a sentenced death, when a trial is hardly even needed,
Such as the British soldier incident,
Is the punishment for murder,
Not murder.
The whole world will be different soon... - EV
RED ROCKS 6-19-95
AUGUSTA 9-26-96
MANSFIELD 9-15-98
BOSTON 9-29-04
BOSTON 5-25-06
MANSFIELD 6-30-08
EV SOLO BOSTON 8-01-08
BOSTON 5-17-10
EV SOLO BOSTON 6-16-11
PJ20 9-3-11
PJ20 9-4-11
WRIGLEY 7-19-13
WORCESTER 10-15-13
WORCESTER 10-16-13
HARTFORD 10-25-13
I think we've spoke of this before in the dp thread
I just feel that a sentenced death, when a trial is hardly even needed,
Such as the British soldier incident,
Is the punishment for murder,
Not murder.
A natural consequence that shouldn't be that hard to wrap your head around. I'll try and break the two sides to this discussion down to a test question.
Question: If you go rip someone's head off in the street with blunt instruments and then parade about with the victim's blood on your hands afterwards, relishing in your destructive might and yelling like an idiot... society should respond by:
(a) Scorning you and giving you a really long time out with reduced privileges.
(b) Executing you.
Nearly every society (certainly some western societies) has shown the propensity for greater violence with their sometimes eager military activities- resulting in 1000s of deaths for men, women, and children. We have very little problem slaughtering animals held in captivity or in the wild. In the name of industry, we wreak havoc on the environment to the point where our very existence- at some point in time- has become jeopardized. Yet... somehow... some feel better by extending our graces towards the worst society has produced. Let alone in doing so we fail to provide the support for the victim and their survivors that they need and deserve considering these acts are shoved down their throats.
I think we've spoke of this before in the dp thread
I just feel that a sentenced death, when a trial is hardly even needed,
Such as the British soldier incident,
Is the punishment for murder,
Not murder.
A natural consequence that shouldn't be that hard to wrap your head around. I'll try and break the two sides to this discussion down to a test question.
Question: If you go rip someone's head off in the street with blunt instruments and then parade about with the victim's blood on your hands afterwards, relishing in your destructive might and yelling like an idiot... society should respond by:
(a) Scorning you and giving you a really long time out with reduced privileges.
(b) Executing you.
Nearly every society (certainly some western societies) has shown the propensity for greater violence with their sometimes eager military activities- resulting in 1000s of deaths for men, women, and children. We have very little problem slaughtering animals held in captivity or in the wild. In the name of industry, we wreak havoc on the environment to the point where our very existence- at some point in time- has become jeopardized. Yet... somehow... some feel better by extending our graces towards the worst society has produced. Let alone in doing so we fail to provide the support for the victim and their survivors that they need and deserve considering these acts are shoved down their throats.
Bring these two to Canada and we can give them drugs and rehabilitate them like the guy on the Greyhound bus. Must have just been a mental breakdown with these two nice gentlemen that the bleeding hearts have not got ahold of yet.
The poison from the poison stream caught up to you ELEVEN years ago and you floated out of here. Sept. 14, 08
Pretty easy to say when it isn't your kid, or husband, or father that has just had his head savagely removed from his body in the streets, eh? Must have been pretty tough to not only fathom what had happened to your loved one, but imagine watching the killer afterwards relishing in his glory with your loved one's blood dripping from his hands and weapons. Yah. No need to be excessive with our measure of punishment for this guy. Let him do some time reading books, watching television, and answering letters from like-minded ones around the world that admire him.
And yet there is a whole community of relatives of murder victims (in the link I posted on the last page) who oppose the death penalty.
You don't think the frustrations people have supporting those who must attend parole hearings to protest the release of the animal who murdered their child doesn't have its toll on social identity? I can live much more comfortably living with a savage murderer put to death for his offence than I can a grieving family tortured by being forced to attend parole hearings and read of the prison exploits of the murderer of their loved one.
I'm not talking about it taking its toll, I'm talking about the effects state sanctioned murder can have on a nation's identity and ultimately their behaviours. Is it completely unfathomable that someone's perception of life and its value might be indirectly influenced by the fact that its government believe that in certain circumstances it is ok to kill a person? A point perhaps supported by the fact that murder rates are lower in states that don't have the death penalty.
My view, violence breeds violence. You can't expect a society to be peaceful (or relatively so) when even the government are doling out violent punishment, no matter how sanitised it is through legal procedure - the end result is the same. Presuming you are American, do you not question why you are one of the most violent nations on the planet? And do you really think more violence is the solution to the problem?
I think by dismissing the legal procedures it becomes much easier to argue the death penalty is immoral. I think they are very relevant and should not be forgotten in this discussion.
I think by focussing on legal procedures it is easy to direct attention away from the fundamental human aspect of what is actually being proposed - the premeditated ending of a life.
The premeditated ending of a criminal's life, of a murderers life. The only way to be 100% sure that a murderer will not kill again is the death penalty. Not prison and not solitary confinement. Understand, I think the death penalty should only be used in extreme cases when guilt is not in question. No society should be required to keep two who did what these two did alive until they pass away peacefully from natural causes.
Again, this is why I think the legalities are important. We don't have the right to decide whether the accused lives or dies. We do have the right to decide whether the convicted lives or dies.
Why do we have that right? See, the perpetrators of this crime believed they were justified in their actions because people are dying in the middle east all the time at the hands of western nations.
I found this site quite interesting: http://www.mvfr.org/ it's a community of family members of murder victims who oppose the death penalty.
Every society has the right to make laws and to carry out punishments when those laws are broken. No one has the right to ram another human with a car and then butcher him. No matter what these two told themselves, they had no justification for what they did. Again, they do not get to set the bar for what is justified and what is not.
Sorry to interject, but by what measure was this not a religiously motivated act? Why do we even flirt with the idea of doubting it when the men in question are screaming Allah's name as they try to behead someone in public with butchers' knives and meat cleavers? - an act, incidentally, which is anything but a regular occurrence, much less in Woolwich.
How many times will these people have to tell us directly that their personal line of communication with the creator of the universe has told them to kill people before we believe them?
He said it was in revenge for the war in Afghanistan. He may also have been motivated by the targeting of Muslims in drone strikes in Yemen and elsewhere. So it's political as far as I can see.
I'm aware of what he said. I do however, have difficulty imagining how his political agenda differs from his religious one. I dare say this man does not view the two as distinct domains of discourse.
No one has the right to ram another human with a car and then butcher him. No matter what these two told themselves, they had no justification for what they did.
When was the last time an American soldier received the death penalty on U.S soil for murdering civilians in another country?
No one has the right to ram another human with a car and then butcher him. No matter what these two told themselves, they had no justification for what they did.
When was the last time an American soldier received the death penalty on U.S soil for murdering civilians in another country?
I'll be honest... I'm not totally sure what you are getting at, but when was the last time we called a couple of angry punks- with nothing other than a smoldering hatred from the cozy confines of the country they reside in yet hate- soldiers? These guys slithered out of their holes like the snakes they are and killed a countryman of theirs from what we know to this point- let's not give them too much credit here, Byrnzie.
Cowards that ran the guy over before they dared engage him hand to hand- even though they had weapons.
No one has the right to ram another human with a car and then butcher him. No matter what these two told themselves, they had no justification for what they did.
When was the last time an American soldier received the death penalty on U.S soil for murdering civilians in another country?
I'll be honest... I'm not totally sure what you are getting at, but when was the last time we called a couple of angry punks- with nothing other than a smoldering hatred from the cozy confines of the country they reside in yet hate- soldiers? These guys slithered out of their holes like the snakes they are and killed a countryman of theirs from what we know to this point- let's not give them too much credit here, Byrnzie.
Cowards that ran the guy over before they dared engage him hand to hand- even though they had weapons.
I know. They were scumbags. Just seems odd to me that nobody ever called for the death penalty for the soldiers who murdered a family of 24 men, women and children in a house in Iraq.
Also, in my hometown in England last year an 18 year old boy firebombed a house belonging to an Indian family, which resulted in the deaths of the mother and her 5 children. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ha ... ed-1907324 Where's all the outrage about that? I wonder if that act could be described as terrorism? Or is the term 'terrorism' only applied when black or Middle Eastern people attack white people?
I'll be honest... I'm not totally sure what you are getting at, but when was the last time we called a couple of angry punks- with nothing other than a smoldering hatred from the cozy confines of the country they reside in yet hate- soldiers? These guys slithered out of their holes like the snakes they are and killed a countryman of theirs from what we know to this point- let's not give them too much credit here, Byrnzie.
Cowards that ran the guy over before they dared engage him hand to hand- even though they had weapons.
I know. They were scumbags. Just seems odd to me that nobody ever called for the death penalty for the soldiers who murdered a family of 24 men, women and children in a house in Iraq.
Also, in my hometown in England last year an 18 year old boy firebombed a house belonging to an Indian family, which resulted in the deaths of the mother and her 5 children. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ha ... ed-1907324 Where's all the outrage about that? I wonder if that act could be described as terrorism? Or is the term 'terrorism' only applied when black or Middle Eastern people attack white people?
I never opened the link. I think from the description, you describe a racial, hate crime which can easily rival a terrorist act. There should be plenty of outrage over such a crime and obviously you know how I feel about it.
But I will give you this: up here in Canada I never heard a thing about it- yet it didn't take very long for the news of this soldier's death to reach me. I don't want to take anything away from the murder victim this thread is dedicated to, but it is curious that the violent murder of an Indian mother and five of her children, in the same country, doesn't warrant a link on our homepages.
The Haditha incident was a harrowing one for those soldiers, Byrnzie. I'm not excusing their actions... but I couldn't imagine being over there and experiencing what they were experiencing. The US government has set up their young soldiers for failure: from what I have come to understand, their training methodology is outdated and not as relevant given the changes which have occurred in armed conflict. Factions no longer line up opposite each other and start firing away. As such, the young men are ill-equipped to deal with the types of conflict they face and prone to error.
As for the first story... that one is different. That is a homicide of the extremely callous and violent nature. Whether done under the cloak of war or done in the streets of Detroit... it amounts to the same for me.
Pretty easy to say when it isn't your kid, or husband, or father that has just had his head savagely removed from his body in the streets, eh? Must have been pretty tough to not only fathom what had happened to your loved one, but imagine watching the killer afterwards relishing in his glory with your loved one's blood dripping from his hands and weapons. Yah. No need to be excessive with our measure of punishment for this guy. Let him do some time reading books, watching television, and answering letters from like-minded ones around the world that admire him.
And yet there is a whole community of relatives of murder victims (in the link I posted on the last page) who oppose the death penalty.
Good for that community. At the same time there are countless people outraged at the lack of justice for their slain loved ones.
And what a thing to say 'Us' being civili(z)ed people who don't go around killing people.
Well the average human doesn't go about doing this, and would find such a crime abhorrent.
No shit. This is why we are having this discussion and this is why some advocate for a little stiffer sentence than bridge clubs, weight lifting, books, television, and hot meals for savage murderers.
You don't think the frustrations people have supporting those who must attend parole hearings to protest the release of the animal who murdered their child doesn't have its toll on social identity? I can live much more comfortably living with a savage murderer put to death for his offence than I can a grieving family tortured by being forced to attend parole hearings and read of the prison exploits of the murderer of their loved one.
I'm not talking about it taking its toll, I'm talking about the effects state sanctioned murder can have on a nation's identity and ultimately their behaviours. Is it completely unfathomable that someone's perception of life and its value might be indirectly influenced by the fact that its government believe that in certain circumstances it is ok to kill a person? A point perhaps supported by the fact that murder rates are lower in states that don't have the death penalty.
So my point stands, I guess. The statistic you flaunt does not necessarily indicate anything at all about the death penalty. It is convenient, but there are many more variables to consider before attributing it to the one isolate. You mentioned this yourself when you prefaced stating it so I know you know this.
My view, violence breeds violence. You can't expect a society to be peaceful (or relatively so) when even the government are doling out violent punishment, no matter how sanitised it is through legal procedure - the end result is the same. Presuming you are American, do you not question why you are one of the most violent nations on the planet? And do you really think more violence is the solution to the problem?
Not American. And violence breeds more violence is simply fluff. Nobody wants these crimes we are subjected to. Forced to deal with them... well... we have to deal with them. Of our highest priority should be the wronged. Not you or I as we sit on our sofas with our loved ones... but those that have lost theirs and those that rest in the ground with their heads sewn back on to their necks. More often than not... this requires a punishment that meets the crime.
No one has the right to ram another human with a car and then butcher him. No matter what these two told themselves, they had no justification for what they did.
When was the last time an American soldier received the death penalty on U.S soil for murdering civilians in another country?
Are American soldiers ramming civilians and then butchering them with knives? If not I am not following your point.
No one has the right to ram another human with a car and then butcher him. No matter what these two told themselves, they had no justification for what they did.
When was the last time an American soldier received the death penalty on U.S soil for murdering civilians in another country?
Are American soldiers ramming civilians and then butchering them with knives? If not I am not following your point.
Of course, because raping and murdering a 14 year old Iraqi schoolgirl isn't as bad, right? Or torturing them before beating them to death. Or sometimes murdering them in cold blood and then cutting off their heads, or fingers, as souvenirs.
Andrew Sullivan, terrorism, and the art of distortion
Challenging the conventional western narrative on terrorism produces unique amounts of rage and bile. It's worth examining why
Glenn Greenwald
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 25 May 2013
'...He [Andrew Sullivan - Conservative Political Commentator], and so many others, are deeply invested on a psychological and personal level in protecting the narrative that Islam is a uniquely violent force in the world, that Muslim extremists pose a threat that nobody else poses, and that the US, the West and its allies (including Israel) are morally superior and more civilized than their adversaries, and their violence is more noble and elevated.
Labeling the violent acts of those Muslim Others as "terrorism" - but never our own - is a key weapon used to propagate this worldview. The same is true of the tactic that depicts their violence against us as senseless, primitive, savage and without rational cause, while glorifying our own violence against them as noble, high-minded, benevolent and civilized (we slaughter them with shiny, high-tech drones, cluster bombs, jet fighters and cruise missiles, while they use meat cleavers and razor blades). These are the core propagandistic premises used to sustain the central narrative on which the War on Terror has depended from the start (and, by the way, have been the core premises of imperialism for centuries). That is why those most invested in defending and glorifying this War on Terror become so enraged when those premises are challenged, and it's why they feel a need to use any smears and distortions (he's justifying terrorism!) to discredit those who do.
...as was clear from the furor that erupted after the debate over the anti-Muslim views of Sam Harris and company, and as is demonstrated again by Sullivan's unhinged reaction here to what I wrote, the need to maintain the belief that Islam is a uniquely grave danger in the world - and that western violence against them is superior to their violence against the west - is one that is incredibly deep-seated and visceral. That seems to be true for several independent reasons.
First, it's a by-product of base tribalism. Americans and westerners have been relentlessly bombarded with the message that We are the Noble and Innocent Victims and those Muslims are the Evil, Primitive, Savage Aggressors, so that's what many people are trained to believe, and view any challenge to that as an assault on their core tribalistic convictions. The defining tribalistic belief that Our Side is Superior (and our violence thus inherently more noble than theirs) has been stoked by political leaders since politics began to sustain support for their aggression and entrench their own power. It's a potent drive - something humans instinctively want to believe - and is therefore one that is easily manipulated by skillful propagandists.
Second, all sorts of agendas are advanced by maintaining these premises in place. As the scholar Remi Brulin has documented, "terrorism" in its recent incarnation was designed by the US to justify all of the violence it wanted to do in the world from Central America to the Middle East, and by Israel to universalize the vicious and intractable conflicts it has with its Arab neighbors (our wars aren't just our fights with them over land; it's a global struggle to stop a plague that is also your fight: against Terrorism). A great new book by Harvard's Lisa Stampnitzky makes the argument indicated by its title: "Disciplining Terror: How Experts Invented 'Terrorism'". The functional meaninglessness of the term "terrorism" and its highly manipulative exploitation are vital to several political agendas. That fact renders the guardians of those agendas furious when the conventional and highly emotional understanding of the term is questioned, and especially when it's suggested that anti-western violence isn't best understood as the by-product of unique pathologies in Islam but rather in the context of decades of western aggression toward that region.
...Third, and I think most significantly, there is a very potent human need to deny responsibility for our own actions and avoid being shown the worst attributes of our own behavior, and a corresponding "kill-the-messenger" impulse aimed at those who want to focus on (rather than hide) all of that. It's not irrelevant that Sullivan (along with Jeffrey Goldberg, Tom Friedman and Christopher Hitchens) was one of the world's most vocal, most passionate, and most effective media cheerleaders for the attack on Iraq (which he yesterday acknowledged was "a criminal enterprise and strategic catastrophe" even while justifying it on the ground that it "removed one of the most vicious mass murderers of Muslims on the planet"). But Sullivan was not only that: he also led the way (along with Hitchens) in implanting in the public mind the idea that the US and the UK were leading a Grand Civilization War, and he spouted some of the most repellent rhetoric of demonization against anyone who uttered any protest.
,,,I used to wonder how people like Sullivan and other Americans and westerners, who continuously justify any manner of violence and militarism by their own side, could possibly spend so much time pointing to others and depicting them - those people over there - as the embodiment of violence and savage aggression. But at some point I realized that it's precisely because they continuously justify so much violence and aggression from their side that they have such a boundless compulsion to depict others as the Uniquely Primitive and Violent Evil. That's how they absolve themselves. It's how they distract themselves from the reality of what they support and what their governments do in the world. And it's why few things produce quite as much personal resentment and anger than demanding that they first gaze into a mirror before issuing these absolutist denunciations about others.
Are American soldiers ramming civilians and then butchering them with knives? If not I am not following your point.
Of course, because raping and murdering a 14 year old Iraqi schoolgirl isn't as bad, right? Or torturing them before beating them to death. Or sometimes murdering them in cold blood and then cutting off their heads, or fingers, as souvenirs.
Did I read that piece wrong? I thought the guy received 90 years for the crime you describe?
Are American soldiers ramming civilians and then butchering them with knives? If not I am not following your point.
Of course, because raping and murdering a 14 year old Iraqi schoolgirl isn't as bad, right? Or torturing them before beating them to death. Or sometimes murdering them in cold blood and then cutting off their heads, or fingers, as souvenirs.
And where have I ever said the crimes you list are not bad? Exactly nowhere.
The news cycle moves so quickly now that often we learn of an event through other people’s reaction to it. So it was when I arrived in Los Angeles to find my twitter feed contorted with posts of fear and confusion.
I caught up with the sad malice in Woolwich and felt compelled to tweet in casual defense of the Muslim community who were being haphazardly condemned by a few people on my time line. Perhaps a bit glibly (but what isn’t glib in 140 characters) I put “That bloke is a nut. A nut who happens to be Muslim. Blaming Muslims for this is like blaming Hitler’s moustache for the Holocaust”.
As an analogy it is imperfect but I was frightened by how negative and incendiary the mood felt and I rushed. I’m not proposing we sit around trying to summons up cute analogies when Lee Rigby has lost his life in horrific circumstances I simply feel that it is important that our reaction is measured. Something about the arbitrary brutality, the humdrum high-street setting, the cool rhetoric of the blood stained murderer evoke a powerful and inherently irrational response. When I first heard the word “beheading” I felt the atavistic grumble that we all feel. This is inhumane, taboo, not a result of passion but of malice, ritualistic. “If this is happening to guiltless men on our streets it could happen to me” I thought.
Then I watched the mobile phone clip. In spite of his dispassionate intoning the subject is not rational, of course he’s not rational, he’s just murdered a stranger in the street, he says, because of a book.
In my view that man is severely mentally ill and has found a convenient conduit for his insanity, in this case the Quran. In the case of another mentally ill and desperate man, Mark Chapman, it was A Catcher In The Rye. This was the nominated text for his rationalisation of the murder of John Lennon. I’ve read that book and I’ve read some of the Quran and nothing in either of them has compelled me to do violence. Perhaps this is because I lack the other necessary ingredients for extreme anti social behaviour; mental illness and isolation; either economic, social or both.
After my Hitler tweet I got involved in a bit of back and forth with a few people who said stuff like “the murderer said himself he did it for Islam”. Although I wouldn’t dismiss what he’s saying entirely I think he forfeited the right to have his views received unthinkingly when he murdered a stranger in the street. Someone else regarding my tweet said “Hitler’s moustache didn’t invent an ideology that sanctions murder”. That is thankfully true but Islam when practiced by normal people is not an advocacy for violence. “People all over the world are killing in the name of Islam” someone added. This is the most tricky bit to understand. What I think is that all over our country, all over our planet there are huge numbers of people who feel alienated and sometimes victimised by the privileged and the powerful, whether that’s rich people, powerful corporations or occupying nations. They feel that their interests are not being represented and, in many cases, know that their friends and families are being murdered by foreign soldiers. I suppose people like that may look to their indigenous theology for validation and to sanctify their, to some degree understandable, feelings of rage.
Comparable, I suppose to the way that homophobes feel a prejudicial pang in their tummies then look to the bible to see if there’s anything in there to justify it. There is, a piddling little bit in Leviticus. The main narrative thrust of The Bible though, like most spiritual texts, including the Quran is; be nice to each other because we’re all the same.
When some football fans smash up shops and beat each other up that isn’t because of football or football clubs. It’s because loads of white, working class men have been culturally neglected and their powerful tribal instincts end up getting sloshed about in riotous lager carnivals. I love football, I love West Ham, I’ve never been involved in football violence because I don’t feel that it’s my only access to social power. Also I’m not that hard and I’m worried I’d get my head kicked in down the New Den.
What the English Defence League and other angry, confused people are doing and advocating now, violence against mosques, Muslims, proliferation of hateful rhetoric is exactly what that poor, sick, murderous man, blood soaked on a peaceful street, was hoping for in his desperate, muddled mind.
The extremists on both sides have a shared agenda; cause division, distrust, anger and violence. Both sides have the same intention. We cannot allow them to distort our perception.
The establishment too is relatively happy when different groups of desperate people point the finger at each other because it prevents blame being correctly directed at them. Whenever we are looking for the solution to a problem we must identify who has power. By power I mean influence and money. The answer is not for us to move further from one another, crouched in opposing fortresses constructed from vindictive words. We need now to move closer to one another, to understand one another. If we can take anything heartening from this dreadful attack it is of course the actions of the three women, it’s always women, that boldly guarded Lee Rigby’s body as he lay needlessly murdered. These women looked beyond the fear and chaos and desperation and attuned instead to a higher code. One of virtue, integrity and strength.
To truly demonstrate defiance in the face of this sad violence, we must be loving and compassionate to one another. Let’s look beyond our superficial and fleeting differences. The murderers want angry patriots to desecrate mosques and perpetuate violence. How futile their actions seem if we instead leave flowers at each other’s places of worship. Let’s reach out in the spirit of love and humanity and connect to one another, perhaps we will then see what is really behind this conflict, this division, this hatred and make that our focus.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
The news cycle moves so quickly now that often we learn of an event through other people’s reaction to it. So it was when I arrived in Los Angeles to find my twitter feed contorted with posts of fear and confusion.
I caught up with the sad malice in Woolwich and felt compelled to tweet in casual defense of the Muslim community who were being haphazardly condemned by a few people on my time line. Perhaps a bit glibly (but what isn’t glib in 140 characters) I put “That bloke is a nut. A nut who happens to be Muslim. Blaming Muslims for this is like blaming Hitler’s moustache for the Holocaust”.
As an analogy it is imperfect but I was frightened by how negative and incendiary the mood felt and I rushed. I’m not proposing we sit around trying to summons up cute analogies when Lee Rigby has lost his life in horrific circumstances I simply feel that it is important that our reaction is measured. Something about the arbitrary brutality, the humdrum high-street setting, the cool rhetoric of the blood stained murderer evoke a powerful and inherently irrational response. When I first heard the word “beheading” I felt the atavistic grumble that we all feel. This is inhumane, taboo, not a result of passion but of malice, ritualistic. “If this is happening to guiltless men on our streets it could happen to me” I thought.
Then I watched the mobile phone clip. In spite of his dispassionate intoning the subject is not rational, of course he’s not rational, he’s just murdered a stranger in the street, he says, because of a book.
In my view that man is severely mentally ill and has found a convenient conduit for his insanity, in this case the Quran. In the case of another mentally ill and desperate man, Mark Chapman, it was A Catcher In The Rye. This was the nominated text for his rationalisation of the murder of John Lennon. I’ve read that book and I’ve read some of the Quran and nothing in either of them has compelled me to do violence. Perhaps this is because I lack the other necessary ingredients for extreme anti social behaviour; mental illness and isolation; either economic, social or both.
After my Hitler tweet I got involved in a bit of back and forth with a few people who said stuff like “the murderer said himself he did it for Islam”. Although I wouldn’t dismiss what he’s saying entirely I think he forfeited the right to have his views received unthinkingly when he murdered a stranger in the street. Someone else regarding my tweet said “Hitler’s moustache didn’t invent an ideology that sanctions murder”. That is thankfully true but Islam when practiced by normal people is not an advocacy for violence. “People all over the world are killing in the name of Islam” someone added. This is the most tricky bit to understand. What I think is that all over our country, all over our planet there are huge numbers of people who feel alienated and sometimes victimised by the privileged and the powerful, whether that’s rich people, powerful corporations or occupying nations. They feel that their interests are not being represented and, in many cases, know that their friends and families are being murdered by foreign soldiers. I suppose people like that may look to their indigenous theology for validation and to sanctify their, to some degree understandable, feelings of rage.
Comparable, I suppose to the way that homophobes feel a prejudicial pang in their tummies then look to the bible to see if there’s anything in there to justify it. There is, a piddling little bit in Leviticus. The main narrative thrust of The Bible though, like most spiritual texts, including the Quran is; be nice to each other because we’re all the same.
When some football fans smash up shops and beat each other up that isn’t because of football or football clubs. It’s because loads of white, working class men have been culturally neglected and their powerful tribal instincts end up getting sloshed about in riotous lager carnivals. I love football, I love West Ham, I’ve never been involved in football violence because I don’t feel that it’s my only access to social power. Also I’m not that hard and I’m worried I’d get my head kicked in down the New Den.
What the English Defence League and other angry, confused people are doing and advocating now, violence against mosques, Muslims, proliferation of hateful rhetoric is exactly what that poor, sick, murderous man, blood soaked on a peaceful street, was hoping for in his desperate, muddled mind.
The extremists on both sides have a shared agenda; cause division, distrust, anger and violence. Both sides have the same intention. We cannot allow them to distort our perception.
The establishment too is relatively happy when different groups of desperate people point the finger at each other because it prevents blame being correctly directed at them. Whenever we are looking for the solution to a problem we must identify who has power. By power I mean influence and money. The answer is not for us to move further from one another, crouched in opposing fortresses constructed from vindictive words. We need now to move closer to one another, to understand one another. If we can take anything heartening from this dreadful attack it is of course the actions of the three women, it’s always women, that boldly guarded Lee Rigby’s body as he lay needlessly murdered. These women looked beyond the fear and chaos and desperation and attuned instead to a higher code. One of virtue, integrity and strength.
To truly demonstrate defiance in the face of this sad violence, we must be loving and compassionate to one another. Let’s look beyond our superficial and fleeting differences. The murderers want angry patriots to desecrate mosques and perpetuate violence. How futile their actions seem if we instead leave flowers at each other’s places of worship. Let’s reach out in the spirit of love and humanity and connect to one another, perhaps we will then see what is really behind this conflict, this division, this hatred and make that our focus.
I like the highlighted part. I'm completely for directing our outrage directly at the fiends and their actions.
I said this in another thread, but I was amazed at the Tutsi people who placed aside their desire for revenge against the Hutu people who slaughtered them in the Rwanda genocide. Instead of perpetuating the cycle of violence, they chose to take the initiative and work towards peace. The leaders of the genocide were held accountable for their role in the slaughter, but aside from this understandable and necessary measure of justice, the country has taken brave and admirable steps towards peace from what I have come to understand.
Comments
No, of course you don't.
And because the Boston bombers just happened to be Muslim, those attacks were religious in nature too, right? Despite there being no evidence whatsoever that the attacks were inspired by their religion.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... sandy-hook
Why is Boston 'terrorism' but not Aurora, Sandy Hook, Tucson and Columbine?
Can an act of violence be called 'terrorism' if the motive is unknown?
Glenn Greenwald
guardian.co.uk, Monday 22 April 2013
'...even those assuming the guilt of the Tsarnaev brothers seem to have no basis at all for claiming that this was an act of "terrorism" in a way that would meaningfully distinguish it from Aurora, Sandy Hook, Tucson and Columbine. All we really know about them in this regard is that they identified as Muslim, and that the older brother allegedly watched extremist YouTube videos and was suspected by the Russian government of religious extremism (by contrast, virtually every person who knew the younger brother has emphatically said that he never evinced political or religious extremism). But as Obama himself acknowledged, we simply do not know what motivated them (Obama: "Tonight there are still many unanswered questions. Among them, why did young men who grew up and studied here, as part of our communities and our country, resort to such violence?").
It's certainly possible that it will turn out that, if they are guilty, their prime motive was political or religious. But it's also certainly possible that it wasn't: that it was some combination of mental illness, societal alienation, or other form of internal instability and rage that is apolitical in nature. Until their motive is known, how can this possibly be called "terrorism"? Can acts of violence be deemed "terrorism" without knowing the motive?
... It's hard not to suspect that the only thing distinguishing the Boston attack from Tucson, Aurora, Sandy Hook and Columbine (to say nothing of the US "shock and awe" attack on Baghdad and the mass killings in Fallujah) is that the accused Boston attackers are Muslim and the other perpetrators are not. As usual, what terrorism really means in American discourse - its operational meaning - is: violence by Muslims against Americans and their allies.
I know the motive, how can someone not know the motive when the Terrorist explained it himself?
Sorry I can't believe a word this man (Obama)says.....and how could he know anything about this, when he constantly admits that he doesn't know a thing about anything .......... spying on the AP, He and Holders lies to illegally go into a reporters private emails....Seems he gets all his information from the news like we do.....this Administration is the most ignorant or the biggest liars of all!
You know the motive for the Boston bombings? That's great, because the F.B.I doesn't.
Care to share it with us?
Pretty easy to say when it isn't your kid, or husband, or father that has just had his head savagely removed from his body in the streets, eh? Must have been pretty tough to not only fathom what had happened to your loved one, but imagine watching the killer afterwards relishing in his glory with your loved one's blood dripping from his hands and weapons. Yah. No need to be excessive with our measure of punishment for this guy. Let him do some time reading books, watching television, and answering letters from like-minded ones around the world that admire him.
And what a thing to say 'Us' being civili(z)ed people who don't go around killing people. How is seeking justice for this man http://news.ca.msn.com/top-stories/slai ... fghanistan running around trying to kill someone? Nobody asked for this- we are only left to respond to it.
You don't think the frustrations people have supporting those who must attend parole hearings to protest the release of the animal who murdered their child doesn't have its toll on social identity? I can live much more comfortably living with a savage murderer put to death for his offence than I can a grieving family tortured by being forced to attend parole hearings and read of the prison exploits of the murderer of their loved one.
He wrote his motive on the inside of the boat he was hiding in... he said it was revenge for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying "when you kill one Muslim, you kill all Muslims".
Also, there are many clues about his beliefs in his Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/J_tsar
The so-called 'religion of peace' is really a religion that gives an otherwise typical young man a reason to feel at peace when he kills innocent civilians... same goes with other religions...
"I can kill cause in God I trust"
That's the first of it I've heard. And there was no mention of the above in any news source four days after they were captured.
But I'll take your word for it.
Can't you be on both sides of this equation? Why are they mutually exclusive in this case?
2013- Brooklyn2, Philly1, Philly2, NOLA
I don't believe the murderers professed religion was responsible for his crime. He said himself on camera it was motivated by British foreign policy abroad. Therefore I see it as a political act. Though I realize it's convenient for many people to use this episode to try and slander Islam and Muslims in general for his twisted behaviour.
George Galloway on RT addresses this issue: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XLh1ZCWu3s
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162- ... urces-say/
It is terrifying when you are too stupid to know who is dumb
- Joe Rogan
I think we've spoke of this before in the dp thread
I just feel that a sentenced death, when a trial is hardly even needed,
Such as the British soldier incident,
Is the punishment for murder,
Not murder.
RED ROCKS 6-19-95
AUGUSTA 9-26-96
MANSFIELD 9-15-98
BOSTON 9-29-04
BOSTON 5-25-06
MANSFIELD 6-30-08
EV SOLO BOSTON 8-01-08
BOSTON 5-17-10
EV SOLO BOSTON 6-16-11
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PJ20 9-4-11
WRIGLEY 7-19-13
WORCESTER 10-15-13
WORCESTER 10-16-13
HARTFORD 10-25-13
A natural consequence that shouldn't be that hard to wrap your head around. I'll try and break the two sides to this discussion down to a test question.
Question: If you go rip someone's head off in the street with blunt instruments and then parade about with the victim's blood on your hands afterwards, relishing in your destructive might and yelling like an idiot... society should respond by:
(a) Scorning you and giving you a really long time out with reduced privileges.
(b) Executing you.
Nearly every society (certainly some western societies) has shown the propensity for greater violence with their sometimes eager military activities- resulting in 1000s of deaths for men, women, and children. We have very little problem slaughtering animals held in captivity or in the wild. In the name of industry, we wreak havoc on the environment to the point where our very existence- at some point in time- has become jeopardized. Yet... somehow... some feel better by extending our graces towards the worst society has produced. Let alone in doing so we fail to provide the support for the victim and their survivors that they need and deserve considering these acts are shoved down their throats.
Bring these two to Canada and we can give them drugs and rehabilitate them like the guy on the Greyhound bus. Must have just been a mental breakdown with these two nice gentlemen that the bleeding hearts have not got ahold of yet.
The poison from the poison stream caught up to you ELEVEN years ago and you floated out of here. Sept. 14, 08
And yet there is a whole community of relatives of murder victims (in the link I posted on the last page) who oppose the death penalty.
Well the average human doesn't go about doing this, and would find such a crime abhorrent.
I'm not talking about it taking its toll, I'm talking about the effects state sanctioned murder can have on a nation's identity and ultimately their behaviours. Is it completely unfathomable that someone's perception of life and its value might be indirectly influenced by the fact that its government believe that in certain circumstances it is ok to kill a person? A point perhaps supported by the fact that murder rates are lower in states that don't have the death penalty.
My view, violence breeds violence. You can't expect a society to be peaceful (or relatively so) when even the government are doling out violent punishment, no matter how sanitised it is through legal procedure - the end result is the same. Presuming you are American, do you not question why you are one of the most violent nations on the planet? And do you really think more violence is the solution to the problem?
The premeditated ending of a criminal's life, of a murderers life. The only way to be 100% sure that a murderer will not kill again is the death penalty. Not prison and not solitary confinement. Understand, I think the death penalty should only be used in extreme cases when guilt is not in question. No society should be required to keep two who did what these two did alive until they pass away peacefully from natural causes.
Anyone can lie to themselves, sure. That doesn't mean their reasons for committing a crime were justified.
Every society has the right to make laws and to carry out punishments when those laws are broken. No one has the right to ram another human with a car and then butcher him. No matter what these two told themselves, they had no justification for what they did. Again, they do not get to set the bar for what is justified and what is not.
Those families have their opinions. I have mine.
"...I changed by not changing at all..."
I'm aware of what he said. I do however, have difficulty imagining how his political agenda differs from his religious one. I dare say this man does not view the two as distinct domains of discourse.
When was the last time an American soldier received the death penalty on U.S soil for murdering civilians in another country?
I'll be honest... I'm not totally sure what you are getting at, but when was the last time we called a couple of angry punks- with nothing other than a smoldering hatred from the cozy confines of the country they reside in yet hate- soldiers? These guys slithered out of their holes like the snakes they are and killed a countryman of theirs from what we know to this point- let's not give them too much credit here, Byrnzie.
Cowards that ran the guy over before they dared engage him hand to hand- even though they had weapons.
I know. They were scumbags. Just seems odd to me that nobody ever called for the death penalty for the soldiers who murdered a family of 24 men, women and children in a house in Iraq.
Also, in my hometown in England last year an 18 year old boy firebombed a house belonging to an Indian family, which resulted in the deaths of the mother and her 5 children. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ha ... ed-1907324 Where's all the outrage about that? I wonder if that act could be described as terrorism? Or is the term 'terrorism' only applied when black or Middle Eastern people attack white people?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01685.html
No, that's a different incident. I meant this one: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/mil ... 52778126/1
I never opened the link. I think from the description, you describe a racial, hate crime which can easily rival a terrorist act. There should be plenty of outrage over such a crime and obviously you know how I feel about it.
But I will give you this: up here in Canada I never heard a thing about it- yet it didn't take very long for the news of this soldier's death to reach me. I don't want to take anything away from the murder victim this thread is dedicated to, but it is curious that the violent murder of an Indian mother and five of her children, in the same country, doesn't warrant a link on our homepages.
The Haditha incident was a harrowing one for those soldiers, Byrnzie. I'm not excusing their actions... but I couldn't imagine being over there and experiencing what they were experiencing. The US government has set up their young soldiers for failure: from what I have come to understand, their training methodology is outdated and not as relevant given the changes which have occurred in armed conflict. Factions no longer line up opposite each other and start firing away. As such, the young men are ill-equipped to deal with the types of conflict they face and prone to error.
As for the first story... that one is different. That is a homicide of the extremely callous and violent nature. Whether done under the cloak of war or done in the streets of Detroit... it amounts to the same for me.
Not American. And violence breeds more violence is simply fluff. Nobody wants these crimes we are subjected to. Forced to deal with them... well... we have to deal with them. Of our highest priority should be the wronged. Not you or I as we sit on our sofas with our loved ones... but those that have lost theirs and those that rest in the ground with their heads sewn back on to their necks. More often than not... this requires a punishment that meets the crime.
Are American soldiers ramming civilians and then butchering them with knives? If not I am not following your point.
"...I changed by not changing at all..."
Of course, because raping and murdering a 14 year old Iraqi schoolgirl isn't as bad, right? Or torturing them before beating them to death. Or sometimes murdering them in cold blood and then cutting off their heads, or fingers, as souvenirs.
Andrew Sullivan, terrorism, and the art of distortion
Challenging the conventional western narrative on terrorism produces unique amounts of rage and bile. It's worth examining why
Glenn Greenwald
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 25 May 2013
'...He [Andrew Sullivan - Conservative Political Commentator], and so many others, are deeply invested on a psychological and personal level in protecting the narrative that Islam is a uniquely violent force in the world, that Muslim extremists pose a threat that nobody else poses, and that the US, the West and its allies (including Israel) are morally superior and more civilized than their adversaries, and their violence is more noble and elevated.
Labeling the violent acts of those Muslim Others as "terrorism" - but never our own - is a key weapon used to propagate this worldview. The same is true of the tactic that depicts their violence against us as senseless, primitive, savage and without rational cause, while glorifying our own violence against them as noble, high-minded, benevolent and civilized (we slaughter them with shiny, high-tech drones, cluster bombs, jet fighters and cruise missiles, while they use meat cleavers and razor blades). These are the core propagandistic premises used to sustain the central narrative on which the War on Terror has depended from the start (and, by the way, have been the core premises of imperialism for centuries). That is why those most invested in defending and glorifying this War on Terror become so enraged when those premises are challenged, and it's why they feel a need to use any smears and distortions (he's justifying terrorism!) to discredit those who do.
...as was clear from the furor that erupted after the debate over the anti-Muslim views of Sam Harris and company, and as is demonstrated again by Sullivan's unhinged reaction here to what I wrote, the need to maintain the belief that Islam is a uniquely grave danger in the world - and that western violence against them is superior to their violence against the west - is one that is incredibly deep-seated and visceral. That seems to be true for several independent reasons.
First, it's a by-product of base tribalism. Americans and westerners have been relentlessly bombarded with the message that We are the Noble and Innocent Victims and those Muslims are the Evil, Primitive, Savage Aggressors, so that's what many people are trained to believe, and view any challenge to that as an assault on their core tribalistic convictions. The defining tribalistic belief that Our Side is Superior (and our violence thus inherently more noble than theirs) has been stoked by political leaders since politics began to sustain support for their aggression and entrench their own power. It's a potent drive - something humans instinctively want to believe - and is therefore one that is easily manipulated by skillful propagandists.
Second, all sorts of agendas are advanced by maintaining these premises in place. As the scholar Remi Brulin has documented, "terrorism" in its recent incarnation was designed by the US to justify all of the violence it wanted to do in the world from Central America to the Middle East, and by Israel to universalize the vicious and intractable conflicts it has with its Arab neighbors (our wars aren't just our fights with them over land; it's a global struggle to stop a plague that is also your fight: against Terrorism). A great new book by Harvard's Lisa Stampnitzky makes the argument indicated by its title: "Disciplining Terror: How Experts Invented 'Terrorism'". The functional meaninglessness of the term "terrorism" and its highly manipulative exploitation are vital to several political agendas. That fact renders the guardians of those agendas furious when the conventional and highly emotional understanding of the term is questioned, and especially when it's suggested that anti-western violence isn't best understood as the by-product of unique pathologies in Islam but rather in the context of decades of western aggression toward that region.
...Third, and I think most significantly, there is a very potent human need to deny responsibility for our own actions and avoid being shown the worst attributes of our own behavior, and a corresponding "kill-the-messenger" impulse aimed at those who want to focus on (rather than hide) all of that. It's not irrelevant that Sullivan (along with Jeffrey Goldberg, Tom Friedman and Christopher Hitchens) was one of the world's most vocal, most passionate, and most effective media cheerleaders for the attack on Iraq (which he yesterday acknowledged was "a criminal enterprise and strategic catastrophe" even while justifying it on the ground that it "removed one of the most vicious mass murderers of Muslims on the planet"). But Sullivan was not only that: he also led the way (along with Hitchens) in implanting in the public mind the idea that the US and the UK were leading a Grand Civilization War, and he spouted some of the most repellent rhetoric of demonization against anyone who uttered any protest.
,,,I used to wonder how people like Sullivan and other Americans and westerners, who continuously justify any manner of violence and militarism by their own side, could possibly spend so much time pointing to others and depicting them - those people over there - as the embodiment of violence and savage aggression. But at some point I realized that it's precisely because they continuously justify so much violence and aggression from their side that they have such a boundless compulsion to depict others as the Uniquely Primitive and Violent Evil. That's how they absolve themselves. It's how they distract themselves from the reality of what they support and what their governments do in the world. And it's why few things produce quite as much personal resentment and anger than demanding that they first gaze into a mirror before issuing these absolutist denunciations about others.
Did I read that piece wrong? I thought the guy received 90 years for the crime you describe?
And where have I ever said the crimes you list are not bad? Exactly nowhere.
"...I changed by not changing at all..."
http://www.russellbrand.tv/2013/05/woolwich/
Woolwich
May 25th, 2013
The news cycle moves so quickly now that often we learn of an event through other people’s reaction to it. So it was when I arrived in Los Angeles to find my twitter feed contorted with posts of fear and confusion.
I caught up with the sad malice in Woolwich and felt compelled to tweet in casual defense of the Muslim community who were being haphazardly condemned by a few people on my time line. Perhaps a bit glibly (but what isn’t glib in 140 characters) I put “That bloke is a nut. A nut who happens to be Muslim. Blaming Muslims for this is like blaming Hitler’s moustache for the Holocaust”.
As an analogy it is imperfect but I was frightened by how negative and incendiary the mood felt and I rushed. I’m not proposing we sit around trying to summons up cute analogies when Lee Rigby has lost his life in horrific circumstances I simply feel that it is important that our reaction is measured. Something about the arbitrary brutality, the humdrum high-street setting, the cool rhetoric of the blood stained murderer evoke a powerful and inherently irrational response. When I first heard the word “beheading” I felt the atavistic grumble that we all feel. This is inhumane, taboo, not a result of passion but of malice, ritualistic. “If this is happening to guiltless men on our streets it could happen to me” I thought.
Then I watched the mobile phone clip. In spite of his dispassionate intoning the subject is not rational, of course he’s not rational, he’s just murdered a stranger in the street, he says, because of a book.
In my view that man is severely mentally ill and has found a convenient conduit for his insanity, in this case the Quran. In the case of another mentally ill and desperate man, Mark Chapman, it was A Catcher In The Rye. This was the nominated text for his rationalisation of the murder of John Lennon. I’ve read that book and I’ve read some of the Quran and nothing in either of them has compelled me to do violence. Perhaps this is because I lack the other necessary ingredients for extreme anti social behaviour; mental illness and isolation; either economic, social or both.
After my Hitler tweet I got involved in a bit of back and forth with a few people who said stuff like “the murderer said himself he did it for Islam”. Although I wouldn’t dismiss what he’s saying entirely I think he forfeited the right to have his views received unthinkingly when he murdered a stranger in the street. Someone else regarding my tweet said “Hitler’s moustache didn’t invent an ideology that sanctions murder”. That is thankfully true but Islam when practiced by normal people is not an advocacy for violence. “People all over the world are killing in the name of Islam” someone added. This is the most tricky bit to understand. What I think is that all over our country, all over our planet there are huge numbers of people who feel alienated and sometimes victimised by the privileged and the powerful, whether that’s rich people, powerful corporations or occupying nations. They feel that their interests are not being represented and, in many cases, know that their friends and families are being murdered by foreign soldiers. I suppose people like that may look to their indigenous theology for validation and to sanctify their, to some degree understandable, feelings of rage.
Comparable, I suppose to the way that homophobes feel a prejudicial pang in their tummies then look to the bible to see if there’s anything in there to justify it. There is, a piddling little bit in Leviticus. The main narrative thrust of The Bible though, like most spiritual texts, including the Quran is; be nice to each other because we’re all the same.
When some football fans smash up shops and beat each other up that isn’t because of football or football clubs. It’s because loads of white, working class men have been culturally neglected and their powerful tribal instincts end up getting sloshed about in riotous lager carnivals. I love football, I love West Ham, I’ve never been involved in football violence because I don’t feel that it’s my only access to social power. Also I’m not that hard and I’m worried I’d get my head kicked in down the New Den.
What the English Defence League and other angry, confused people are doing and advocating now, violence against mosques, Muslims, proliferation of hateful rhetoric is exactly what that poor, sick, murderous man, blood soaked on a peaceful street, was hoping for in his desperate, muddled mind.
The extremists on both sides have a shared agenda; cause division, distrust, anger and violence. Both sides have the same intention. We cannot allow them to distort our perception.
The establishment too is relatively happy when different groups of desperate people point the finger at each other because it prevents blame being correctly directed at them. Whenever we are looking for the solution to a problem we must identify who has power. By power I mean influence and money. The answer is not for us to move further from one another, crouched in opposing fortresses constructed from vindictive words. We need now to move closer to one another, to understand one another. If we can take anything heartening from this dreadful attack it is of course the actions of the three women, it’s always women, that boldly guarded Lee Rigby’s body as he lay needlessly murdered. These women looked beyond the fear and chaos and desperation and attuned instead to a higher code. One of virtue, integrity and strength.
To truly demonstrate defiance in the face of this sad violence, we must be loving and compassionate to one another. Let’s look beyond our superficial and fleeting differences. The murderers want angry patriots to desecrate mosques and perpetuate violence. How futile their actions seem if we instead leave flowers at each other’s places of worship. Let’s reach out in the spirit of love and humanity and connect to one another, perhaps we will then see what is really behind this conflict, this division, this hatred and make that our focus.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
I like the highlighted part. I'm completely for directing our outrage directly at the fiends and their actions.
I said this in another thread, but I was amazed at the Tutsi people who placed aside their desire for revenge against the Hutu people who slaughtered them in the Rwanda genocide. Instead of perpetuating the cycle of violence, they chose to take the initiative and work towards peace. The leaders of the genocide were held accountable for their role in the slaughter, but aside from this understandable and necessary measure of justice, the country has taken brave and admirable steps towards peace from what I have come to understand.