029 The Erickson Report for January 7 to 19
Insurrection
Showing posts with label terrorism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label terrorism. Show all posts
Friday, January 08, 2021
Saturday, July 27, 2019
The Erickson Report, Page 2: Five Things Noted in Passing
The Erickson Report, Page 2: Five Things Noted in Passing
We have here the first appearance of another occasional feature, this one called Five Things Noted in Passing, five things worth noting, each of which will be addressed in no more than about a minute. In the course of two weeks, there are always a multitude of things that I simply will not have any time to address. This way I can at least mention some of them.
Okay, Number One: Scientists in Iceland are installing a plaque to memorialize the nation’s first glacier lost to climate change. It will be installed next month at the site of the now-extinct Okjökull glacier in Borgarfjörður and will include a “letter to the future” reminding humans to do better at tackling global warming.
Number Two: Sens. Ted Cruz and Bill Cassidy have introduced a resolution to would brand the loose coalition of anti-fascist groups collectively known as Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization.
However, the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism found that domestic extremists killed at least 50 people in 2018, making it fourth-deadliest for extremist attacks in the last 50 years. And "every single" one of those 50 "had a link to right-wing extremism."
Also according to the ADL, over the past 10 years, the far right has killed hundreds of people and accounted for about three-quarters of extremist murders in the US. Number connected to Antifa: 0
Number Three: Speaking to Chris Wallace on Faux News, presidential advisor and repeat winner of “Who Wants to be a Zombie” Stephen Miller said “I think the term ‘racist’ has become a label deployed by left/Democrats in this country to try to silence and punish and suppress people they disagree with, speech that they don’t want to hear.”
Quite true. Because “go back to where you came from” and “send her back” is speech that no decent person would want to hear.
Number Four: On July 20, hundreds of activists rallied in Lawton, Oklahoma to demand Tweetie-pie stop imprisoning asylum-seeking children. Lawton is the site of Fort Sill, where the government intends to stick up to 1400 migrant children, starting next month.
Fort Sill was also the place where members of the Apache nation were imprisoned in the 1890s as their children were taken away and subjected to forced “assimilation” at the fort’s boarding school.
More recently, it is where 700 Japanese Americans were imprisoned during World War II.
And Number Five: Finally, just a thought: There have been increasing attacks on Medicare for All, Medicare for All being defined here as universal health coverage that is not simply a minor extension of the ACA combined with increased subsidies for the private insurance industry disguised as “premium support.” A primary basis for these attacks has been the claim that polls say people are happy with their current coverage.
But here’s the thing: Are those people really happy with their insurance? Are they happy with the premiums, the co-pays, the deductibles, the medically-necessary procedures put on hold until you find out if “insurance will cover it,” the not being able to choose your doctor because they are “out of network?” Or are they just happy that they have insurance?
Put another way, are these polls really about public sentiment or are they truly trial balloons trying to determine which lies would be the most effective in scaring people away from universal coverage?
We have here the first appearance of another occasional feature, this one called Five Things Noted in Passing, five things worth noting, each of which will be addressed in no more than about a minute. In the course of two weeks, there are always a multitude of things that I simply will not have any time to address. This way I can at least mention some of them.Okay, Number One: Scientists in Iceland are installing a plaque to memorialize the nation’s first glacier lost to climate change. It will be installed next month at the site of the now-extinct Okjökull glacier in Borgarfjörður and will include a “letter to the future” reminding humans to do better at tackling global warming.
Number Two: Sens. Ted Cruz and Bill Cassidy have introduced a resolution to would brand the loose coalition of anti-fascist groups collectively known as Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization.
However, the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism found that domestic extremists killed at least 50 people in 2018, making it fourth-deadliest for extremist attacks in the last 50 years. And "every single" one of those 50 "had a link to right-wing extremism."
Also according to the ADL, over the past 10 years, the far right has killed hundreds of people and accounted for about three-quarters of extremist murders in the US. Number connected to Antifa: 0
Number Three: Speaking to Chris Wallace on Faux News, presidential advisor and repeat winner of “Who Wants to be a Zombie” Stephen Miller said “I think the term ‘racist’ has become a label deployed by left/Democrats in this country to try to silence and punish and suppress people they disagree with, speech that they don’t want to hear.”
Quite true. Because “go back to where you came from” and “send her back” is speech that no decent person would want to hear.
 |
| The plaque |
Fort Sill was also the place where members of the Apache nation were imprisoned in the 1890s as their children were taken away and subjected to forced “assimilation” at the fort’s boarding school.
More recently, it is where 700 Japanese Americans were imprisoned during World War II.
And Number Five: Finally, just a thought: There have been increasing attacks on Medicare for All, Medicare for All being defined here as universal health coverage that is not simply a minor extension of the ACA combined with increased subsidies for the private insurance industry disguised as “premium support.” A primary basis for these attacks has been the claim that polls say people are happy with their current coverage.
But here’s the thing: Are those people really happy with their insurance? Are they happy with the premiums, the co-pays, the deductibles, the medically-necessary procedures put on hold until you find out if “insurance will cover it,” the not being able to choose your doctor because they are “out of network?” Or are they just happy that they have insurance?
Put another way, are these polls really about public sentiment or are they truly trial balloons trying to determine which lies would be the most effective in scaring people away from universal coverage?
The Erickson Report, Page 1: Heroes and Villains
The Erickson Report, Page 1: Heroes and Villains
We start this time with a feature we call Heroes and Villains.
Our hero here is CNN.
Back in March, AP released the newest version of its style book, a reference used by a good number of media outlets. One significant change was to say that if something is racist, call it racist. Don't call it "racially charged" or "racially motivated" or "racially tinged," if it's racist, call it racist.
CNN apparently took this to heart because in the first mainstream media example I saw, an article about Tweetie-pie's attack Congresswomen Ayanna Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib - aka “The Squad” - started with "In a series of racist tweets."
Usually, media would only use the word in a direct quote and even then would often prefer to say that "so-and-so objected to Trump's racially-infused language" rather than call it what it was. So it may not seem like much, but for any of the mainstream mass media to skip the euphemisms amounts to a breakthrough too long in coming. For being the first example I saw, CNN is our hero.
Our villain, on the other hand, is CNN.
In the same article, CNN noted a false accusation against Ilhan Omar that she had praised al-Qaeda when in fact she was describing the body language used by a college instructor in talking about the group. She was discussing the idea that terms like al-Qaeda are not translated into English - al-Qaeda means "The Base" or "The Foundation" - because that gives them "a bigger meaning," makes them seem more ominous. She said "You don't say 'America' with an intensity, you don't say 'England' with an intensity, you don't say 'the army' with an intensity. But you say these names because you want that word" - that is, al-Qaeda - " to carry weight."
CNN then said, quoting
CNN made a stab at defending Omar against the racist attacks, but it remains lost in the very same swamp of the phony “balance” of the very sort that made it impossible for so long to call racism by its proper name, and so couldn’t do it without giving the bigots and liars a script for another false attack against her.
And that makes the network a villain.
We start this time with a feature we call Heroes and Villains.Our hero here is CNN.
Back in March, AP released the newest version of its style book, a reference used by a good number of media outlets. One significant change was to say that if something is racist, call it racist. Don't call it "racially charged" or "racially motivated" or "racially tinged," if it's racist, call it racist.
CNN apparently took this to heart because in the first mainstream media example I saw, an article about Tweetie-pie's attack Congresswomen Ayanna Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib - aka “The Squad” - started with "In a series of racist tweets."
Usually, media would only use the word in a direct quote and even then would often prefer to say that "so-and-so objected to Trump's racially-infused language" rather than call it what it was. So it may not seem like much, but for any of the mainstream mass media to skip the euphemisms amounts to a breakthrough too long in coming. For being the first example I saw, CNN is our hero.
Our villain, on the other hand, is CNN.
In the same article, CNN noted a false accusation against Ilhan Omar that she had praised al-Qaeda when in fact she was describing the body language used by a college instructor in talking about the group. She was discussing the idea that terms like al-Qaeda are not translated into English - al-Qaeda means "The Base" or "The Foundation" - because that gives them "a bigger meaning," makes them seem more ominous. She said "You don't say 'America' with an intensity, you don't say 'England' with an intensity, you don't say 'the army' with an intensity. But you say these names because you want that word" - that is, al-Qaeda - " to carry weight."CNN then said, quoting
It is possible to argue that Omar was making light of al Qaeda's crimes in suggesting that its name itself is what makes people recoil, or that she was implying that there is an equivalence between al Qaeda and the US army.No, it's not possible! Not in the real world. Leaving aside the fact that I'm not at all sure that you can't draw some equivalence between al-Qaeda and the US army, there is no way a rational person could argue that she was "making light" of terrorist crimes.
CNN made a stab at defending Omar against the racist attacks, but it remains lost in the very same swamp of the phony “balance” of the very sort that made it impossible for so long to call racism by its proper name, and so couldn’t do it without giving the bigots and liars a script for another false attack against her.
And that makes the network a villain.
Saturday, June 17, 2017
25.6 - Clown Award: Dana Rohrabacher
Clown Award: Dana Rohrabacher
Now for the Clown Award, given as always for meritorious stupidity.
We had two main contenders this week. First up is Missouri state Representative Mike Moon, who if I slip and call Mike Loon, don't be surprised.
On June 12, Governor Eric Greitens called the Missouri legislature into a special session to discuss re-writing restrictions on abortion providers after a federal judge knocked down some of the state's existing laws.
In response, Moon announced the "Missouri Right to Life Act," a bill he filed, that would "require due process of law before the life of any human, born or unborn, is ended prior to natural death," which would of course effectively outlaw abortions in the state.
No, his nomination for the Clown Award did not arise from the "unborn human" crap - unless you call a caterpillar an "unborn butterfly," yes, "unborn human" is crap - but from the fact is that he made this announcement by posting footage of himself beheading and gutting a chicken as he did it, including declaring "we need to get to the heart of the matter here" as he pulled out the chicken's heart and showed it to the camera.
Which is high-quality clownishness and most weeks would take the prize, but unfortunately, this week the competition was too stiff for him. But in fairness to him, he lost out to an old pro at nutbaggery.
So this week, the Big Red Nose goes to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher.
On June 7, gunmen and suicide bombers attacked Iran's parliament and the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, located just outside the capital of Tehran. At least 17 were killed and dozens wounded, leading to an hours-long siege at the legislature that ended with four of the attackers dead.
ISIS has claimed authorship of the attacks, marking the first time that group of Sunni extremists has taken responsibility for an assault in Shiite-majority Iran.
What does that have to do with Dana Rohrabacher? This:
At a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing about Hezbollah the next day, Rohrabacher said the attack in Iran could be a "good thing" and actually proposed that the US government support ISIS in attacking rival groups.
And no, I'm not exaggerating. Quote:
To - to use a great old phrase - cap the climax, Rohrabacher. later issued a statement "clarifying" his position, in which, until it was corrected - a clarification of the clarification I expect - it assumed Khomeini is still alive. He died in 1989.
Dana Rohrabacher: What. a. clown.
Quick Footnote: The TheRump administration's statement responding to the Tehran attack included the statement that "states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote." I wish we had thought of that before 9/11.
Now for the Clown Award, given as always for meritorious stupidity.We had two main contenders this week. First up is Missouri state Representative Mike Moon, who if I slip and call Mike Loon, don't be surprised.
On June 12, Governor Eric Greitens called the Missouri legislature into a special session to discuss re-writing restrictions on abortion providers after a federal judge knocked down some of the state's existing laws.
In response, Moon announced the "Missouri Right to Life Act," a bill he filed, that would "require due process of law before the life of any human, born or unborn, is ended prior to natural death," which would of course effectively outlaw abortions in the state.
No, his nomination for the Clown Award did not arise from the "unborn human" crap - unless you call a caterpillar an "unborn butterfly," yes, "unborn human" is crap - but from the fact is that he made this announcement by posting footage of himself beheading and gutting a chicken as he did it, including declaring "we need to get to the heart of the matter here" as he pulled out the chicken's heart and showed it to the camera.
Which is high-quality clownishness and most weeks would take the prize, but unfortunately, this week the competition was too stiff for him. But in fairness to him, he lost out to an old pro at nutbaggery.
So this week, the Big Red Nose goes to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher.
On June 7, gunmen and suicide bombers attacked Iran's parliament and the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, located just outside the capital of Tehran. At least 17 were killed and dozens wounded, leading to an hours-long siege at the legislature that ended with four of the attackers dead.
ISIS has claimed authorship of the attacks, marking the first time that group of Sunni extremists has taken responsibility for an assault in Shiite-majority Iran.
 |
| Rep. Dana Rohrabacher |
At a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing about Hezbollah the next day, Rohrabacher said the attack in Iran could be a "good thing" and actually proposed that the US government support ISIS in attacking rival groups.
And no, I'm not exaggerating. Quote:
Isn't it a good thing for us to have the United States finally backing up Sunnis who will attack Hezbollah and the Shiite threat to us? Isn't that a good thing?If that wasn't enough, he even suggested the attack was the result of some secret foreign policy of TheRump, saying maybe it arose from "a Trump strategy of actually supporting one group against another."
To - to use a great old phrase - cap the climax, Rohrabacher. later issued a statement "clarifying" his position, in which, until it was corrected - a clarification of the clarification I expect - it assumed Khomeini is still alive. He died in 1989.
Dana Rohrabacher: What. a. clown.
Quick Footnote: The TheRump administration's statement responding to the Tehran attack included the statement that "states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote." I wish we had thought of that before 9/11.
Saturday, December 17, 2016
6.10 - The end of the battle for Aleppo
The end of the battle for Aleppo
On December 13, Russian ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin told the Security Council that military action had ended in eastern Aleppo. A deal had been reached for the rebels to leave the city. The rebels confirmed the deal had been made.
The Battle of Aleppo, the battle and the siege that became the symbol for the humanitarian disaster that is Syria, the battle which since 2012 had pitted the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against an array of disorganized opposition rebels in what was essentially a standoff until massive Russian bombings turned the tide and enabled government troops and Iranian-sponsored militias to break through, that battle appeared to be over.
The news came in the wake of what UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called "reports of atrocities against a large number of civilians," including summary executions and even burning of people alive, atrocities committed by government troops and particularly by the militias in the final days of the battle.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights referred to "butcheries" carried out "every hour" and Jens Laerke of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs called it "a complete meltdown of humanity."
But at least it appeared it was over and the haunting question "What would you do about Aleppo," the question to which no one had a good answer, the question that could only bring the heart-shredding realization that sometimes there is nothing you can do, nothing that will not just increase the suffering, the death, the bloodshed, it appeared that question was finally silenced.
Except - the temptation is to say of course - it wasn't. The ceasefire agreement fell apart in less than a day.
It had been negotiated by Russia and Turkey and apparently Syria and Iran were ticked off they they weren't involved. As a result, the Iranian-backed militias refused to allow the evacuation even of the wounded, much less the rebels, to proceed.
The bombing, the destruction, the death, resumed, even intensified, only for another ceasefire to go into effect a day later, achieved after a concession to - notably - not Syria but Iran, involving arranging for a similar evacuation of two villages where Iranian-supported militias are under siege by rebel forces.
This time, it seemed to work. In the very early hours of Thursday, December 15, the International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed that the evacuation of the wounded from Aleppo had begun and Russia’s TASS news service said the evacuation of 5,000 Syrian rebels and their families was also under way.
So maybe it really is finally over. Over, that is, at least for the moment, at least for a few.
On a more if you will practical level, this is undeniably a military and perhaps more important political victory for Assad, for Russia, and perhaps even more for Iran. Aleppo was the last major urban center held by the rebels against the Assad regime.
But this does not mean in any sense that the war is over. Rebel forces in their varying forms, which include, we need to keep reminding ourselves, a variety of terrorist groups including some - such as the al-Nusra front - the US has supported as "moderates" solely because they say they oppose ISIS, still hold a significant amount of territory and the fact is, Assad is now almost entirely dependent on Russia and Iran for his survival.
Meanwhile, Daesh - that is, ISIS - has retaken the city of Palmyra and launched an attack on a major Syrian airbase.
The future of the war and the future of Syria is a very different question from the end of the battle for Aleppo. The blood continues to flow.
On December 13, Russian ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin told the Security Council that military action had ended in eastern Aleppo. A deal had been reached for the rebels to leave the city. The rebels confirmed the deal had been made.The Battle of Aleppo, the battle and the siege that became the symbol for the humanitarian disaster that is Syria, the battle which since 2012 had pitted the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against an array of disorganized opposition rebels in what was essentially a standoff until massive Russian bombings turned the tide and enabled government troops and Iranian-sponsored militias to break through, that battle appeared to be over.
The news came in the wake of what UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called "reports of atrocities against a large number of civilians," including summary executions and even burning of people alive, atrocities committed by government troops and particularly by the militias in the final days of the battle.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights referred to "butcheries" carried out "every hour" and Jens Laerke of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs called it "a complete meltdown of humanity."
But at least it appeared it was over and the haunting question "What would you do about Aleppo," the question to which no one had a good answer, the question that could only bring the heart-shredding realization that sometimes there is nothing you can do, nothing that will not just increase the suffering, the death, the bloodshed, it appeared that question was finally silenced.Except - the temptation is to say of course - it wasn't. The ceasefire agreement fell apart in less than a day.
It had been negotiated by Russia and Turkey and apparently Syria and Iran were ticked off they they weren't involved. As a result, the Iranian-backed militias refused to allow the evacuation even of the wounded, much less the rebels, to proceed.
The bombing, the destruction, the death, resumed, even intensified, only for another ceasefire to go into effect a day later, achieved after a concession to - notably - not Syria but Iran, involving arranging for a similar evacuation of two villages where Iranian-supported militias are under siege by rebel forces.
This time, it seemed to work. In the very early hours of Thursday, December 15, the International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed that the evacuation of the wounded from Aleppo had begun and Russia’s TASS news service said the evacuation of 5,000 Syrian rebels and their families was also under way.
So maybe it really is finally over. Over, that is, at least for the moment, at least for a few.On a more if you will practical level, this is undeniably a military and perhaps more important political victory for Assad, for Russia, and perhaps even more for Iran. Aleppo was the last major urban center held by the rebels against the Assad regime.
But this does not mean in any sense that the war is over. Rebel forces in their varying forms, which include, we need to keep reminding ourselves, a variety of terrorist groups including some - such as the al-Nusra front - the US has supported as "moderates" solely because they say they oppose ISIS, still hold a significant amount of territory and the fact is, Assad is now almost entirely dependent on Russia and Iran for his survival.
Meanwhile, Daesh - that is, ISIS - has retaken the city of Palmyra and launched an attack on a major Syrian airbase.
The future of the war and the future of Syria is a very different question from the end of the battle for Aleppo. The blood continues to flow.
Sunday, September 11, 2016
259.4 - More media failure
More media failure
I have on a number of occasions described the US public as being uninformed, malinformed, and misinformed by our major news media.
Part of that malformation is the choices as to what drives coverage. Some years back a cousin of mine said that it didn't matter what the media said because she thought what she thought, not what she was told to think. I responded that yes, it is true that the media cannot easily control what you think but it does have a significant degree of control over what you think about, what is and isn't important, what does and doesn't merit attention. That sort of control of the agenda often can control the outcome.
It is with that in mind that I bring up this next story.
A 24-year-old anti-government 9/11 truther named Bryce Cuellar has been arrested and charged with making terrorist threats in a video that was posted on YouTube.
In the 15-minute clip, Cuellar showed off two rifles - AR-15-style gun and a sniper rifle - and was wearing a military flak vest and night vision goggles.
In the video, he says that he is tired of the government trying to take away his First and Second Amendment rights, that he cannot wait to use his guns "as the Founding Fathers intended," that he wants to kill "gays, faggots, lesbians, and satanists," and claims to be a "Christian warrior." Cuellar also says that he is tired of America and would begin killing soon.
Okay, so here is the question: Outside of the Las Vegas area, that being where Cuellar lived before he was arrested, the only major news outlet coverage I could find on this after using two different news aggregators was at the NY Daily News and the Daily Mail, which is a published in the UK.
What do you think the coverage would have been if - with everything else, every word, exactly the same, but instead of being Bryce Cuellar he was, I don't know, Ahmed Muhammed and instead of calling himself a Christian warrior he called himself a warrior for Allah? What do you think would have been the coverage then? Do you think this would have just gone right down the memory hole? Do you think it would have been ignored coast to coast?
But oh, no, we aren't supposed to be afraid of right-wing terrorists, we aren't supposed to be afraid of domestic fascist terrorists, we aren't supposed to be afraid of the people who live their lives in fantasies of the moon landing being a hoax staged by the Illuminati and no I am not kidding and dream of using their AR-15s and AK-47s "as the founding fathers intended," we aren't supposed to be afraid of those for who Orlando was cause for celebration.
Oh no, we're supposed to spend all our time and energy being afraid of anything that can be labeled "radical Islam" even if it isn't, because that is the agenda being pushed by the state, that is the agenda that most serves the interests of the powerful, so that is the agenda that gets advanced by our mass media, which has long since chosen the role of stenographer to power over the far nobler one of, in a slight misquote from Mr. Dooley, comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.
But after all, why should we be concerned with one lone wacko, which is what they always are they are of the right wing? Well, how about because Bryce Cuellar's YouTube page has over 162,000 subscribers?
A wacko he is; lone, he is not. Instead, he is part of, he is emblematic of, what has become known as the "alt.right," a term which has come to greater prominence now that Hillary Clinton has accused Donald TheRump of enabling it.
By the way, a detour here. I was just wondering about people who act or write like the expression or reference "alt.right" is something new or original. Is our institutional memory that short or is all our political commentary now done by millennials?
So just a brief history lesson for those in need of one for whatever reason:
Back in the stone age of the internet, around say, the early '90s, when you still routinely would go to an ftp site to download a file, Gopher accessed one of the biggest parts of the internet, and Mosaic was hot stuff, there were these things called Newsgroups, which were a cross between the even older BBSes (bulletin board systems) and discussion groups. Actually, there still are Newsgroups, but back in the day, they were enormously popular to the point of being ubiquitous. At one point, there were over 110,000 of them.
Newsgroups were - are - organized into hierarchies, where topics were layered from the most general to the most specific and you went down in that hierarchy until you got to the level where you thought it most appropriate to post your comment.
(Sidebar: Did you know that Yahoo! supposedly stood for "Yet Another Hierarchically Organized Oracle?")
One of those hierarchies was the "alt." hierarchy, with "alt" being short for "alternative" and was originally for topics that the administrators of the Newsgroup system would not allow. But once it was established it quickly wound up being for whatever sorts of topics wouldn't comfortably fit anywhere else. I don't specifically remember if there was an "alt.right" newsgroup somewhere down in the alt. hierarchy, but I know for sure that there were "alt.left" ones because I was in some of them.
But, getting back to the subject at hand, alt.right, as the term is used today, does not refer to a newsgroup but rather to I will be sufficiently polite to call it a philosophy - even though mental derangement would be far more accurate - that celebrates what is basest, most destructive, most hating, in our natures and wears its putrid, brain-dead bigotry, racism, xenophobia, and misogyny as a badge of honor. And yet at the same time these same people, who think they are so daring and cutting edge, are so hopelessly lame that they can't even come up with a new expression to describe themselves. Now, that is sad.
But what is even sadder - "sad" here being used in the sense of "deeply distressing" - is the utter failure of our media to take such as terrorist Bryce Cuellar and his cohorts seriously or to consider the danger they represent or even to discuss them - except, you will note, when the subject is raised by someone among our powerful, such as Hillary Clinton.
Because unless it is raised by someone among the powerful, it is not on the agenda. And if it is not on the agenda, it doesn't get attention from the mass media - leaving us uninformed, malinformed, and misinformed. And that is a disgrace and a threat to our democracy.
Sources cited in links:
http://www.ktnv.com/news/las-vegas-man-facing-charges-after-posting-threatening-youtube-video
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/conspiracy-theorist-charged-threatening-terror-attack-article-1.2767259
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Dooley
https://www.youtube.com/user/FisherOfPeople
http://www.care2.com/causes/clinton-explains-exactly-how-trump-is-peddling-hate-in-alt-right-speech.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Transfer_Protocol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol)
http://www.ncsa.illinois.edu/enabling/mosaic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet_newsgroup
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system
I have on a number of occasions described the US public as being uninformed, malinformed, and misinformed by our major news media.Part of that malformation is the choices as to what drives coverage. Some years back a cousin of mine said that it didn't matter what the media said because she thought what she thought, not what she was told to think. I responded that yes, it is true that the media cannot easily control what you think but it does have a significant degree of control over what you think about, what is and isn't important, what does and doesn't merit attention. That sort of control of the agenda often can control the outcome.
It is with that in mind that I bring up this next story.
A 24-year-old anti-government 9/11 truther named Bryce Cuellar has been arrested and charged with making terrorist threats in a video that was posted on YouTube.
In the 15-minute clip, Cuellar showed off two rifles - AR-15-style gun and a sniper rifle - and was wearing a military flak vest and night vision goggles.
 |
| Bryce Cuellar |
Okay, so here is the question: Outside of the Las Vegas area, that being where Cuellar lived before he was arrested, the only major news outlet coverage I could find on this after using two different news aggregators was at the NY Daily News and the Daily Mail, which is a published in the UK.
What do you think the coverage would have been if - with everything else, every word, exactly the same, but instead of being Bryce Cuellar he was, I don't know, Ahmed Muhammed and instead of calling himself a Christian warrior he called himself a warrior for Allah? What do you think would have been the coverage then? Do you think this would have just gone right down the memory hole? Do you think it would have been ignored coast to coast?
But oh, no, we aren't supposed to be afraid of right-wing terrorists, we aren't supposed to be afraid of domestic fascist terrorists, we aren't supposed to be afraid of the people who live their lives in fantasies of the moon landing being a hoax staged by the Illuminati and no I am not kidding and dream of using their AR-15s and AK-47s "as the founding fathers intended," we aren't supposed to be afraid of those for who Orlando was cause for celebration.
Oh no, we're supposed to spend all our time and energy being afraid of anything that can be labeled "radical Islam" even if it isn't, because that is the agenda being pushed by the state, that is the agenda that most serves the interests of the powerful, so that is the agenda that gets advanced by our mass media, which has long since chosen the role of stenographer to power over the far nobler one of, in a slight misquote from Mr. Dooley, comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.
But after all, why should we be concerned with one lone wacko, which is what they always are they are of the right wing? Well, how about because Bryce Cuellar's YouTube page has over 162,000 subscribers?A wacko he is; lone, he is not. Instead, he is part of, he is emblematic of, what has become known as the "alt.right," a term which has come to greater prominence now that Hillary Clinton has accused Donald TheRump of enabling it.
By the way, a detour here. I was just wondering about people who act or write like the expression or reference "alt.right" is something new or original. Is our institutional memory that short or is all our political commentary now done by millennials?
So just a brief history lesson for those in need of one for whatever reason:
 |
| History lesson from the old guy |
Newsgroups were - are - organized into hierarchies, where topics were layered from the most general to the most specific and you went down in that hierarchy until you got to the level where you thought it most appropriate to post your comment.
(Sidebar: Did you know that Yahoo! supposedly stood for "Yet Another Hierarchically Organized Oracle?")
One of those hierarchies was the "alt." hierarchy, with "alt" being short for "alternative" and was originally for topics that the administrators of the Newsgroup system would not allow. But once it was established it quickly wound up being for whatever sorts of topics wouldn't comfortably fit anywhere else. I don't specifically remember if there was an "alt.right" newsgroup somewhere down in the alt. hierarchy, but I know for sure that there were "alt.left" ones because I was in some of them.
But, getting back to the subject at hand, alt.right, as the term is used today, does not refer to a newsgroup but rather to I will be sufficiently polite to call it a philosophy - even though mental derangement would be far more accurate - that celebrates what is basest, most destructive, most hating, in our natures and wears its putrid, brain-dead bigotry, racism, xenophobia, and misogyny as a badge of honor. And yet at the same time these same people, who think they are so daring and cutting edge, are so hopelessly lame that they can't even come up with a new expression to describe themselves. Now, that is sad.
But what is even sadder - "sad" here being used in the sense of "deeply distressing" - is the utter failure of our media to take such as terrorist Bryce Cuellar and his cohorts seriously or to consider the danger they represent or even to discuss them - except, you will note, when the subject is raised by someone among our powerful, such as Hillary Clinton.
Because unless it is raised by someone among the powerful, it is not on the agenda. And if it is not on the agenda, it doesn't get attention from the mass media - leaving us uninformed, malinformed, and misinformed. And that is a disgrace and a threat to our democracy.
Sources cited in links:
http://www.ktnv.com/news/las-vegas-man-facing-charges-after-posting-threatening-youtube-video
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/conspiracy-theorist-charged-threatening-terror-attack-article-1.2767259
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Dooley
https://www.youtube.com/user/FisherOfPeople
http://www.care2.com/causes/clinton-explains-exactly-how-trump-is-peddling-hate-in-alt-right-speech.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Transfer_Protocol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol)
http://www.ncsa.illinois.edu/enabling/mosaic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet_newsgroup
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system
Left Side of the Aisle #259
Left Side of the Aisle
for the week of September 8-15, 2016
This week:
Good News: Massachusetts moves against unsafe guns
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/07/20/mass-attorney-general-says-she-crack-down-assault-weapons/8xmuDyW6DR1tkt7mBNncRK/story.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-06/a-new-legal-assault-on-firearm-makers-some-guns-may-be-dangerous?cmpid=google&google_editors_picks=true
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/08/31/healey-launches-gun-safety-investigation/EqmsKiAIeweTWxbuk0NKNO/story.html
Clown Award: Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Fn36l_z3WY
http://reason.com/blog/2016/09/01/9th-circuit-says-medical-marijuana-cardh
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/increased-access-cannabis-associated-reductions-violent-crimes
http://www.msnbc.com/all/does-marijuana-lower-the-crime-rate
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/25/marijuana-study_n_5711217.html
https://www.weedsta.com/articles/study-finds-marijuana-does-not-lead-to-violent-behavior
Update: phasing private prisons out of the federal system
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2016/08/2582-good-news-federal-private-prisons.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2016/08/2583-not-good-news-phaseout-does-not.html
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-immigration-detention-20160906-snap-story.html?track=lat-pick
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2004/10/in-case-you-missed-it.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2005/06/so-do-tell-whats-been-going-on-while-i_27.html
http://www.desmogblog.com/2016/08/31/profit-pipeline-company-claims-public-benefit-seizing-private-lands-pennsylvania
https://theintercept.com/2016/06/27/private-prison-trump-clinton/
http://www.sfexaminer.com/wheres-pen-gov-brown/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prison#In_the_United_States
More media failure
http://www.ktnv.com/news/las-vegas-man-facing-charges-after-posting-threatening-youtube-video
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/conspiracy-theorist-charged-threatening-terror-attack-article-1.2767259
https://www.youtube.com/user/FisherOfPeople
http://www.care2.com/causes/clinton-explains-exactly-how-trump-is-peddling-hate-in-alt-right-speech.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Transfer_Protocol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet_newsgroup
And Another Thing: dogs understand language
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2016/08/30/confirmed-your-dog-really-does-get-you/
Friday, August 19, 2016
257.2 - Clown Award: Rudy Giuliani
Clown Award: Rudy Giuliani
Now for one of our regular features; this is the Clown Award, given as always for meritorious stupidity.
Okay, picking this week's clown was ... interesting. I had a couple of candidates but one stood out so clearly that days before doing the show I was sure I had my clown. But at almost the last minute he was outclassed by a pro.
So our wannabe clown is one Ken Taylor, mayor of a rural town in the southeast corner of Arizona. He received an invitation to a meeting of the US-Mexico Border Mayors Association to take place on August 24 in Laredo, Texas. The organization aims to have mayors on both side of the border "speak in one voice in Washington, DC and Mexico City," as one put it, on issues affecting them.
Taylor answered in no uncertain terms that he would NOT - in all caps - be attending because he was deeply, deeply offended by the fact that the invitation was written in both English and, quotng him, "Spanish/Mexican."
"One nation means one language," he declared, "and I am insulted by the division caused by language."
Of course, there are two nations involved here, but it seems he couldn't be bothered reading far enough to realize that, being much too busy being outraged by the fact that anyone would or would want to be able to speak a language other than English.
His defense, no surprise, was to blame the media for taking things "out of context."
Okay, so what was the context that he says was ignored? Taylor said his greatest objection is that the by trying to arrange cooperation among mayors on both sides of the border, the organization is "giving away US sovereignty and making America subservient to Mexico."
Oh yeah, well, that's much different.
By the way, Taylor is mayor of Huachuca City, "huachuca" being an Apache word meaning "thunder mountain." And Huachuca City is in Cochise County. Just what is the "one language" Taylor thinks we should all be speaking?
Okay, given that, how in heaven's name could he not be this week's clown? Because it came in the same week as a true gem.
So the Big Red Nose this week goes to perpetual loudmouth Rudy Giuliani.
On August 15, introducing TheRump at a campaign event in Youngstown, Ohio, Giuliani declared that "Under those eight years before Obama came along, we didn't have any successful radical Islamic terrorist attack in the United States. They all started when Clinton and Obama got into office."
Let's recall first that Rudy Giuliani was mayor of New York City on September 11, 2001. Let's recall next that he tried to run for president in 2008 with a campaign that consisted mostly statements that, as Joe Biden famously put it, "contain a noun, a verb, and '9/11.'"
So whose fault was this latest bit of numbskullery? You know already: it was the media, for failing to realize he was using "abbreviated language," that he meant "the eight years since 9/11" even though that's not what he said. And in fact, several outlets actually jumped to his support over the next day, noting that yes, he had mentioned 9/11 in his speech before he had his senior moment.
So yeah, okay, the years since 9/11, those were the "eight years before Obama came along." Except, of course, Obama was elected in November 2008, just over seven years after 9/11, not eight, and became president two months later. So maybe it's not his memory that is failing Rudy, it's his skills at basic arithmetic.
But no, a likelier explanation is that he did not forget 9/11, he forgot when it happened - because, like all good right-wing jackasses, it's part of his religion that George Bush could not have been responsible for 9/11. It had to be somebody else's fault.
But even granting all of that, even cutting him all that slack, he is still a doofus.
After 9/11 but before Obama became president, there were at least four attacks on US soil that were declared by the FBI to be Islamist terrorist attacks or were carried out by people who said they were driven by such an ideology. And there are others from the same period which may have been driven by an extreme Islamist ideology.
On top of all of that there is the fact that Rudy the G deliberately limited his oh-so-deep concern about terrorism to "radical Islamic" terrorism because as we all know, no other sort of terrorism counts, no other sort is worthy of attention, no other sort has victims important enough to be recognized - at least by Rudy Giuliani.
So no matter how you look at it, Rudy Giuliani, who earlier this month found TheRump's statement that Obama is the "founder of ISIS" to be "legitimate political commentary," is exactly what he has proved himself to be over these last nearly 15 years: a total clown.
Sources cited in links:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/huachuca-city-arizona-mayor-ken-taylor-rips-invitation-written-in-spanishmexican/
http://www.bensonnews-sun.com/news/article_a96e6968-63bb-11e6-b143-d7fc825a3dfb.html
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2016/08/giuliani_obama_twitter_forgets_911_islamic_terrori.html
http://www.snopes.com/2016/08/16/rudy-giuliani-911-remarks/
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/aug/16/rudy-giuliani/aside-from-911-rudy-giuliani-wrong-about-no-terr/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States#2000.E2.80.9309
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/08/15/rudy-giuliani-claims-no-successful-terror-attacks-on-us-soil-bef/21452167/
Now for one of our regular features; this is the Clown Award, given as always for meritorious stupidity.Okay, picking this week's clown was ... interesting. I had a couple of candidates but one stood out so clearly that days before doing the show I was sure I had my clown. But at almost the last minute he was outclassed by a pro.
So our wannabe clown is one Ken Taylor, mayor of a rural town in the southeast corner of Arizona. He received an invitation to a meeting of the US-Mexico Border Mayors Association to take place on August 24 in Laredo, Texas. The organization aims to have mayors on both side of the border "speak in one voice in Washington, DC and Mexico City," as one put it, on issues affecting them.
Taylor answered in no uncertain terms that he would NOT - in all caps - be attending because he was deeply, deeply offended by the fact that the invitation was written in both English and, quotng him, "Spanish/Mexican."
"One nation means one language," he declared, "and I am insulted by the division caused by language."
Of course, there are two nations involved here, but it seems he couldn't be bothered reading far enough to realize that, being much too busy being outraged by the fact that anyone would or would want to be able to speak a language other than English.
His defense, no surprise, was to blame the media for taking things "out of context."
Okay, so what was the context that he says was ignored? Taylor said his greatest objection is that the by trying to arrange cooperation among mayors on both sides of the border, the organization is "giving away US sovereignty and making America subservient to Mexico."
Oh yeah, well, that's much different.
By the way, Taylor is mayor of Huachuca City, "huachuca" being an Apache word meaning "thunder mountain." And Huachuca City is in Cochise County. Just what is the "one language" Taylor thinks we should all be speaking?
Okay, given that, how in heaven's name could he not be this week's clown? Because it came in the same week as a true gem.
So the Big Red Nose this week goes to perpetual loudmouth Rudy Giuliani.
On August 15, introducing TheRump at a campaign event in Youngstown, Ohio, Giuliani declared that "Under those eight years before Obama came along, we didn't have any successful radical Islamic terrorist attack in the United States. They all started when Clinton and Obama got into office."
Let's recall first that Rudy Giuliani was mayor of New York City on September 11, 2001. Let's recall next that he tried to run for president in 2008 with a campaign that consisted mostly statements that, as Joe Biden famously put it, "contain a noun, a verb, and '9/11.'"
So whose fault was this latest bit of numbskullery? You know already: it was the media, for failing to realize he was using "abbreviated language," that he meant "the eight years since 9/11" even though that's not what he said. And in fact, several outlets actually jumped to his support over the next day, noting that yes, he had mentioned 9/11 in his speech before he had his senior moment.
 |
| Rudy Giuliani |
But no, a likelier explanation is that he did not forget 9/11, he forgot when it happened - because, like all good right-wing jackasses, it's part of his religion that George Bush could not have been responsible for 9/11. It had to be somebody else's fault.
But even granting all of that, even cutting him all that slack, he is still a doofus.
After 9/11 but before Obama became president, there were at least four attacks on US soil that were declared by the FBI to be Islamist terrorist attacks or were carried out by people who said they were driven by such an ideology. And there are others from the same period which may have been driven by an extreme Islamist ideology.
On top of all of that there is the fact that Rudy the G deliberately limited his oh-so-deep concern about terrorism to "radical Islamic" terrorism because as we all know, no other sort of terrorism counts, no other sort is worthy of attention, no other sort has victims important enough to be recognized - at least by Rudy Giuliani.
So no matter how you look at it, Rudy Giuliani, who earlier this month found TheRump's statement that Obama is the "founder of ISIS" to be "legitimate political commentary," is exactly what he has proved himself to be over these last nearly 15 years: a total clown.
Sources cited in links:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/huachuca-city-arizona-mayor-ken-taylor-rips-invitation-written-in-spanishmexican/
http://www.bensonnews-sun.com/news/article_a96e6968-63bb-11e6-b143-d7fc825a3dfb.html
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2016/08/giuliani_obama_twitter_forgets_911_islamic_terrori.html
http://www.snopes.com/2016/08/16/rudy-giuliani-911-remarks/
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/aug/16/rudy-giuliani/aside-from-911-rudy-giuliani-wrong-about-no-terr/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States#2000.E2.80.9309
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/08/15/rudy-giuliani-claims-no-successful-terror-attacks-on-us-soil-bef/21452167/
Left Side of the Aisle #257
Left Side of the Aisle
for the week of August 18-24, 2016
This week:
Good News: Belize court knocks down anti-gay law
http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21705344-small-caribbean-country-sets-enlightened-precedent-belize-blazes-trail
Clown Award: Rudy Giuliani
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/huachuca-city-arizona-mayor-ken-taylor-rips-invitation-written-in-spanishmexican/
http://www.bensonnews-sun.com/news/article_a96e6968-63bb-11e6-b143-d7fc825a3dfb.html
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2016/08/giuliani_obama_twitter_forgets_911_islamic_terrori.html
http://www.snopes.com/2016/08/16/rudy-giuliani-911-remarks/
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/aug/16/rudy-giuliani/aside-from-911-rudy-giuliani-wrong-about-no-terr/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States#2000.E2.80.9309
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/08/15/rudy-giuliani-claims-no-successful-terror-attacks-on-us-soil-bef/21452167/
Milwaukee: learning the wrong lessons
http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/15/us/milwaukee-violence-police-shooting/
http://abcnews.go.com/US/milwaukee-uprising-shines-spotlight-segregated-city/story?id=41421943
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/15/milwaukee-protests-sylville-smith-segregation-police
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/08/milwaukee-riots-poverty-education-statistics
https://thinkprogress.org/milwaukee-county-sheriff-to-protesters-stop-trying-to-fix-the-police-fix-the-ghetto-b96108d80a96#.o8zrlbu85
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/midwest/ct-milwaukee-police-shooting-protests-20160814-story.html
Some reasons for hope about climate change
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/04/22/five-quick-fixes-to-global-warming-and-why-we-probably-shouldnt-try-them/
http://www.livescience.com/4642-global-warming-fix-earth-cure.html
http://grist.org/climate-energy/icelandic-power-plan-buries-its-carbon-pollution-turns-it-to-stone/
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/06/underground-injections-turn-carbon-dioxide-stone
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/521031/company-makes-co2-into-liquid-fuel-with-help-from-a-volcano/
http://www.care2.com/causes/new-method-for-capturing-carbon-could-be-a-game-changer.html
http://phys.org/news/2016-07-chemists-breakthrough-carbon-capture.html
https://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-too-hard.htm
http://www.care2.com/causes/using-only-renewable-energy-portugal-powered-its-entire-country-for-four-days.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2015/10/left-side-of-aisle-221.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-denmark-energy-idUSTRE7AO15120111125
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/china-carbon-scheme-boost-electric-car-numbers-draft-092222894--finance.html
https://thinkprogress.org/youll-never-believe-how-cheap-new-solar-power-is-7c17051c1152#.yst865xrh
http://www.bloomberg.com/company/new-energy-outlook/#findings
http://www.seeker.com/us-could-have-100-percent-renewable-energy-by-2050-1769933665.html
http://thesolutionsproject.org/
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/publications/climate/2015/Energy-Revolution-2015-Full.pdf
http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2015/0922/Is-100-percent-renewable-energy-possible-by-2050-Greenpeace-says-yes
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2015/03/1946-clown-award-james-inhofe.html
http://www.heraldonline.com/news/nation-world/national/article95670962.html
Saturday, August 13, 2016
256.2 - Footnote: Survey reveals that ISIS is not popular in Arab Muslim world
Footnote: Survey reveals that ISIS is not popular in Arab Muslim world
As a Footnote to that, three researchers recently reported on their efforts to measure the support for ISIS among ordinary Muslims in the Arab world.
They added several questions to the standard Arab Barometer survey to ask a scientific sample of respondents in five Muslim nations - Tunisia, Jordan, the Palestinian Territories, Algeria, and Morocco - these three questions:
- To what extent do you agree with the goals of the Islamic State;
- To what extent to do you support the Islamic State's use of violence; and
- To what extent do you believe the Islamic State's tactics are compatible with the teachings of Islam?
The percent agreeing with Daesh's goals range from 0.4 percent in Jordan to 6.4 percent in the Palestinian territories. Those agreeing with the use of violence range from 0.4 percent in Morocco to 5.4 percent in the Palestinian territories. And those agreeing that Daesh's tactics are compatible with Islam range from 1.0 percent in Jordan to 8.9 percent n the Palestinian territories.
That is, in none of the nations on any of the questions did support for Daesh reach 9%. Daesh is, to put it kindly, not popular in the Arab world or among Muslims.
I'll note in passing that I find it interesting that the highest levels of support on each question are found in the occupied territory of Palestine.
What makes the findings even more significant, however, is that the researchers then allowed for the fact that people might say "I don't know" or decline to answer because they don't want to be seen as supporting Daesh even when they do. So they added those responses together with the pro-Daesh answers and saw that even then, even assuming the non-answers to be pro-Daesh, the highest level of support for Daesh on any of the questions in any of the countries was 13%, that in Algeria on the question of if the group's tactics are compatible with Islam - and that, of course, does not mean you support the group or the tactics, only that they are compatible with the religion, in the same way that someone could say that drone strikes are compatible with Christianity while still opposing them.
The idea that being Muslim means you support - tacitly or otherwise - Daesh or any other form of terrorism is as false in the Middle East as it is here. It's time, well past time, to stop the bigotry.
Sources cited in links:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/07/27/what-do-ordinary-citizens-in-the-arab-world-really-think-about-the-islamic-state/?wpisrc=nl_p1most-partner-1&wpmm=1
http://www.arabbarometer.org/
As a Footnote to that, three researchers recently reported on their efforts to measure the support for ISIS among ordinary Muslims in the Arab world.They added several questions to the standard Arab Barometer survey to ask a scientific sample of respondents in five Muslim nations - Tunisia, Jordan, the Palestinian Territories, Algeria, and Morocco - these three questions:
- To what extent do you agree with the goals of the Islamic State;
- To what extent to do you support the Islamic State's use of violence; and
- To what extent do you believe the Islamic State's tactics are compatible with the teachings of Islam?
The percent agreeing with Daesh's goals range from 0.4 percent in Jordan to 6.4 percent in the Palestinian territories. Those agreeing with the use of violence range from 0.4 percent in Morocco to 5.4 percent in the Palestinian territories. And those agreeing that Daesh's tactics are compatible with Islam range from 1.0 percent in Jordan to 8.9 percent n the Palestinian territories.
That is, in none of the nations on any of the questions did support for Daesh reach 9%. Daesh is, to put it kindly, not popular in the Arab world or among Muslims.I'll note in passing that I find it interesting that the highest levels of support on each question are found in the occupied territory of Palestine.
What makes the findings even more significant, however, is that the researchers then allowed for the fact that people might say "I don't know" or decline to answer because they don't want to be seen as supporting Daesh even when they do. So they added those responses together with the pro-Daesh answers and saw that even then, even assuming the non-answers to be pro-Daesh, the highest level of support for Daesh on any of the questions in any of the countries was 13%, that in Algeria on the question of if the group's tactics are compatible with Islam - and that, of course, does not mean you support the group or the tactics, only that they are compatible with the religion, in the same way that someone could say that drone strikes are compatible with Christianity while still opposing them.
The idea that being Muslim means you support - tacitly or otherwise - Daesh or any other form of terrorism is as false in the Middle East as it is here. It's time, well past time, to stop the bigotry.
Sources cited in links:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/07/27/what-do-ordinary-citizens-in-the-arab-world-really-think-about-the-islamic-state/?wpisrc=nl_p1most-partner-1&wpmm=1
http://www.arabbarometer.org/
256.1 - Muslim group posts "ISIS Sucks" billboard
Muslim group posts "ISIS Sucks" billboard
I always like to start with some Good News but this time it's a bit different and I can't really call it Good News so instead I'm going to call it News to Make You Smile.
A Muslim-American non-profit organization called The Sound Vision Foundation aims to, in its words, "provide Muslims with thinking and talking points to manage crisis, fight against Islamophobia, and challenge extremism and radicalism among Muslim youth." It has started a campaign in response to the on-going Islamophobic bull that Muslims have been "silent" about Daesh, that is, ISIS, an accusation with the implication that such "silence" means tacit support.
So if you're driving down the highway in Chicago, you may come across this: a giant billboard reading "Hey ISIS, you suck!!! From: #ActualMuslims."
The billboard is part of an "ISIS Sucks" campaign the organization has launched.
While this really did make me smile, I can't call it Good News because of the Islamaphobia which made it necessary. Leena Suleiman, the director of creative engagement at Sound Vision, said the campaign was begun "in light of the constant pressure on American Muslims to condemn ISIS," a condemnation, I note, that would never be loud enough or long enough to satisfy the bigots. She also called the billboard "an expression of real human frustration at trying to live peacefully while being associated with a menace that wreaks havoc on mostly other Muslims."
Which is true: The vast majority of the victims of ISIS are themselves Muslim. And most of those fighting ISIS in Iraq and Syria are also Muslim. So while the billboard did make me smile, it shouldn't have been necessary to say.
Sources cited in links:
http://www.salon.com/2016/08/05/muslim-americans-launch-isis-sucks-billboard-campaign-so-called-islamic-state-does-not-represent-islam/
I always like to start with some Good News but this time it's a bit different and I can't really call it Good News so instead I'm going to call it News to Make You Smile.
A Muslim-American non-profit organization called The Sound Vision Foundation aims to, in its words, "provide Muslims with thinking and talking points to manage crisis, fight against Islamophobia, and challenge extremism and radicalism among Muslim youth." It has started a campaign in response to the on-going Islamophobic bull that Muslims have been "silent" about Daesh, that is, ISIS, an accusation with the implication that such "silence" means tacit support.
So if you're driving down the highway in Chicago, you may come across this: a giant billboard reading "Hey ISIS, you suck!!! From: #ActualMuslims."
The billboard is part of an "ISIS Sucks" campaign the organization has launched.While this really did make me smile, I can't call it Good News because of the Islamaphobia which made it necessary. Leena Suleiman, the director of creative engagement at Sound Vision, said the campaign was begun "in light of the constant pressure on American Muslims to condemn ISIS," a condemnation, I note, that would never be loud enough or long enough to satisfy the bigots. She also called the billboard "an expression of real human frustration at trying to live peacefully while being associated with a menace that wreaks havoc on mostly other Muslims."
Which is true: The vast majority of the victims of ISIS are themselves Muslim. And most of those fighting ISIS in Iraq and Syria are also Muslim. So while the billboard did make me smile, it shouldn't have been necessary to say.
Sources cited in links:
http://www.salon.com/2016/08/05/muslim-americans-launch-isis-sucks-billboard-campaign-so-called-islamic-state-does-not-represent-islam/
Left Side of the Aisle #256
Left Side of the Aisle
for the week of August 12-18, 2016
This week:
Muslim group posts "ISIS Sucks" billboard
http://www.salon.com/2016/08/05/muslim-americans-launch-isis-sucks-billboard-campaign-so-called-islamic-state-does-not-represent-islam/
Footnote: Survey reveals that ISIS is not popular in Arab Muslim world
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/07/27/what-do-ordinary-citizens-in-the-arab-world-really-think-about-the-islamic-state/?wpisrc=nl_p1most-partner-1&wpmm=1
A dark overview of the effects of climate change: now
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/21/science/earth/2015-hottest-year-global-warming.html?_r=0
http://www.salon.com/2016/08/04/last_year_was_bad_for_global_warming_2015_set_frenzy_of_climate_records_partner/
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/16/april-third-month-in-row-to-break-global-temperature-records
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/7/19/1545739/-Greenland-bejeweled-with-blue-meltwater-streams-rivers-and-lakes-Waves-causing-seismic-shudders
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/30/sea-levels-set-to-rise-far-more-rapidly-than-expected
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/07/21/1550304/-It-s-getting-very-weird-in-Siberia-as-a-new-phenomenon-of-trembling-tundra-is-discovered
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/oct/13/methane-release-from-melting-permafrost-could-trigger-dangerous-global-warming
http://siberiantimes.com/ecology/casestudy/news/n0681-now-the-proof-permafrost-bubbles-are-leaking-methane-200-times-above-the-norm/
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-13/how-the-1-5-degree-target-overcame-the-odds-in-paris/7024006
http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/26496/20160809/world-will-miss-important-global-warming-target-scientists-warn.htm
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2015/12/dont-worry-the-paris-climate-treaty-is-non-binding-and-ergo-toothless/
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2015/11/2266-outrage-of-week-promises-on-global.html
A dark overview of the effects of climate change: the future
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/16/april-third-month-in-row-to-break-global-temperature-records
https://news.agu.org/press-release/widespread-loss-of-ocean-oxygen-to-become-noticeable-in-2030s/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ocean-s-oxygen-starts-running-low/
http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/10/world/pacific-solomon-islands-disappear/
http://www.livescience.com/55632-deadly-diseases-emerge-from-global-warming.html
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/articles/2016-04-18/doctors-issue-call-to-combat-climate-change
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/study-links-global-warming-rise-waterborne-illnesses-41214334
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/03/07/as-climate-change-decimates-crops-500-000-people-will-die-by-20/21324064/?cps=gravity_4541_-6341662351461506563
http://pacinst.org/publication/drought-equity-san-francisco-bay-area/
http://www.aol.com/article/2015/11/08/world-bank-climate-change-could-result-in-100-million-poor/21261090/
http://www.science20.com/news_articles/exodus_2100_due_to_climate_change-171722
http://www.un.org/en/events/environmentconflictday/
Saturday, June 18, 2016
250.7 - Orlando and terrorism
Orlando and terrorism
[Note: I have broken my discussion of the Orlando shooting into four parts for convenience.]
But as the saying goes, "facts are stubborn things" and I have been somewhat encouraged by the fact that over the past day, that is, as I do this on Wednesday, the storyline is slowly, reluctantly, but clearly being dragged toward describing the heinous event as a hate crime rather than one of terrorism, particularly Islamic terrorism.
The difference matters in more than legal technicalities of what defines either hate crime or terrorism. It matters in understanding what happened and what is means for our society.
Calling something terrorism suggests that it was intended to affect more than the immediate target - that, in this case, it was intended to terrorize the entire LGBTQ community with thoughts of similar fates.
But frankly, I wonder, based on my reading of Omar Mateen, if such terrorizing was part of his motivation. Maybe it was, in which case this reasonably could be called terrorism, but I wonder if it wasn't more strictly, as I described it earlier, an explosion of self-loathing turned outward. An act of pure, unrestrained, blind, hatred.
There is also more than a hint here of what is called "suicide by cop," which refers to situations where someone acts in a way where they appear to be deliberately provoking police to shoot them, to carry out the death sentence they feel unable to impose on themselves.
If Omar Mateen had wished solely to carry out an act of terrorism, particularly one in support of some religious fundamentalism or another, he could easily have fled the scene, as the attackers in Paris, for example, or the Boston Marathon bombers, did. He had more than enough opportunity. But he didn't. Instead he stayed, he holed up, he announced via that 911 call that he was an ISIS terrorist, in subsequent conversations with cops he claimed things like he was going to strap bombs to various people and place them around the building, he did pretty much everything short of saying "Come get me, coppers!"
Until finally, perhaps to his ultimate relief, they did.
So why it is important that we see this more as a hate crime than terrorism? Because as long as we maintain the "terrorism" narrative, we can continue to tell ourselves that it is primarily a case of the "other," the "alien," not by citizenship but by nature, the "alien" in our midst, that it is not about us in any way other than as victims.
But if we face the fact, as we should, that this was not an act of terrorism by any but the most general meaning of the word, that this was an act of hatred based in homophobia, then we have to recognize that for all the strides that have been made over the past couple of decades, for all the celebrations we have been able to have over gains of rights, for all the gains in acceptance we have been able to watch, still, as Phil Ochs sang in a different context but still it fits, "beneath the greatest love is a hurricane of hate."
Orlando was a bursting forth of the hurricane of hate which our LBGTQ brothers and sisters still face, a hurricane of hate perfectly illustrated by a Baptist pastor from Sacramento, California named Roger Jimenez who just hours after the massacre preached to his congregation "Are you sad that 50 pedophiles were killed today? I think that's great. I think that helps society. I think Orlando, Florida's a little safer tonight."
A hurricane of hate of which Orlando is but one gale. A hurricane of hate that despite the gains has yet to blow itself out.
And that is what should be the lesson of Orlando - that, and that we have too damn many guns and they are too damn easy to get.
Sources cited in links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFi7_U1a9VA
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/06/14/baptist-pastor-applauds-orlando-shooting/21395110/
[Note: I have broken my discussion of the Orlando shooting into four parts for convenience.]But as the saying goes, "facts are stubborn things" and I have been somewhat encouraged by the fact that over the past day, that is, as I do this on Wednesday, the storyline is slowly, reluctantly, but clearly being dragged toward describing the heinous event as a hate crime rather than one of terrorism, particularly Islamic terrorism.
The difference matters in more than legal technicalities of what defines either hate crime or terrorism. It matters in understanding what happened and what is means for our society.
Calling something terrorism suggests that it was intended to affect more than the immediate target - that, in this case, it was intended to terrorize the entire LGBTQ community with thoughts of similar fates.
But frankly, I wonder, based on my reading of Omar Mateen, if such terrorizing was part of his motivation. Maybe it was, in which case this reasonably could be called terrorism, but I wonder if it wasn't more strictly, as I described it earlier, an explosion of self-loathing turned outward. An act of pure, unrestrained, blind, hatred.
There is also more than a hint here of what is called "suicide by cop," which refers to situations where someone acts in a way where they appear to be deliberately provoking police to shoot them, to carry out the death sentence they feel unable to impose on themselves.
If Omar Mateen had wished solely to carry out an act of terrorism, particularly one in support of some religious fundamentalism or another, he could easily have fled the scene, as the attackers in Paris, for example, or the Boston Marathon bombers, did. He had more than enough opportunity. But he didn't. Instead he stayed, he holed up, he announced via that 911 call that he was an ISIS terrorist, in subsequent conversations with cops he claimed things like he was going to strap bombs to various people and place them around the building, he did pretty much everything short of saying "Come get me, coppers!"
Until finally, perhaps to his ultimate relief, they did.
So why it is important that we see this more as a hate crime than terrorism? Because as long as we maintain the "terrorism" narrative, we can continue to tell ourselves that it is primarily a case of the "other," the "alien," not by citizenship but by nature, the "alien" in our midst, that it is not about us in any way other than as victims.But if we face the fact, as we should, that this was not an act of terrorism by any but the most general meaning of the word, that this was an act of hatred based in homophobia, then we have to recognize that for all the strides that have been made over the past couple of decades, for all the celebrations we have been able to have over gains of rights, for all the gains in acceptance we have been able to watch, still, as Phil Ochs sang in a different context but still it fits, "beneath the greatest love is a hurricane of hate."
Orlando was a bursting forth of the hurricane of hate which our LBGTQ brothers and sisters still face, a hurricane of hate perfectly illustrated by a Baptist pastor from Sacramento, California named Roger Jimenez who just hours after the massacre preached to his congregation "Are you sad that 50 pedophiles were killed today? I think that's great. I think that helps society. I think Orlando, Florida's a little safer tonight."
A hurricane of hate of which Orlando is but one gale. A hurricane of hate that despite the gains has yet to blow itself out.
And that is what should be the lesson of Orlando - that, and that we have too damn many guns and they are too damn easy to get.
Sources cited in links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFi7_U1a9VA
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/06/14/baptist-pastor-applauds-orlando-shooting/21395110/
250.6 - Orlando and the media
Orlando and the media
[Note: I have broken my discussion of the Orlando shooting into four parts for convenience.]
So it does look like Omar Mateen was a disturbed individual, disturbed in a way that makes him almost a poster boy for our "violence has nothing to do with us" evasions.
But unlike so many other mass killers, he is being denied that narrative as another narrative is foisted on us. And I can tell you exactly when that happened: when we found out his name was Omar Mateen.
Initially, news accounts called the tragedy a "shooting" and continued to do so for hours after officials said it was being investigated as an possible act of terror. But as soon as they knew his name, as soon as they knew that while he is a US-born citizen, his parents are from Afghanistan, the storyline changed.
For example: At 9:01am the morning after the attack, CBS News tweeted that the shooter has been IDed as Omar Mateen. Just 10 minutes later, its description of the event had changed from a "shooting" to a potential case of "Islamic terrorism."
Other media outlets quickly fell in line and what had been a "shooting" became a possible and soon thereafter an unquestioned act of Islamic terrorism. Once they knew the accused murderer was named Omar. That's all they needed.
In fact, an early version of Reuters' article about the shooting (since changed) spent the first two or three sentences going on about "missed red flags" of "Islamist leanings" and the need for "better security," and then immediately thereafter - literally the very next words - said quote "much remains unknown" about Mateen's motives. We don't know why he did it, but so what? Red flags! Islamist leanings! Security! Be afraid!
Every hint of some possible connection to some radical Islamist individual or group was reported breathlessly. Past FBI investigations were mentioned over and over and over. The fact that the FBI investigated him and found nothing there could not be allowed to be an indication that there is nothing there, it had to be proof of "missed red flags."
A big deal was made out of the report that Mateen and his wife Noor Zahi Salman visited Walt Disney World in April. Oh my God! He was scouting the site! The idea that maybe he was just going to Disney World with his wife and kid was beyond the imagining of our media moguls. I'm sure at some point went to local supermarket, another place where there can be a lot of people around with minimal security. Scoping it out!
But of course the big deal was that he claimed to be a supporter of Daeah - of ISIS - in a 911 call he made during the attack. Proof it's Islamic terrorism!
Except: He had previously claimed to be a supporter of both al-Qaeda and al-Nusra front, even though the three - al-Qaeda, ISIS, and al-Nusra are all bitter rivals, in fact the latter two are fighting each other in Syria - but he also claimed to be a member of Hezbollah, even though Hezbollah is Shiite and the other three are Sunni!
FBI Director James Comey said "It's not entirely clear at this point just what terrorist group he aspired to support." Or, as a senior US official put it more pointedly to the Wall Street Journal, "He seems to be looking for any opportunity to associate with the terrorist group du jour." Which sounds less like some religious fanatic and more like someone who feels powerless trying to feel more powerful by connecting to something "big."
Oh, and speaking of religious fanaticism, recall the description of him going to Pulse and getting drunk. You do remember hearing at some point that getting drunk is forbidden in Islam, don't you?
But of course none of that could be allowed to derail the narrative, so we had some "expert" saying that his conflicting claims of loyalty are to be expected from a "low-level" follower. That is, if you claim allegiance to some radical Muslim group, that proves you're an Islamist terrorist. Claim to follow a bunch of different, conflicting, groups, and that really proves you are an Islamist terrorist.
Likewise, the failure to find any connection between Mateen and any group simply proved he had been "radicalized online." The idea that, whatever his political belief may or may not have been, the idea that his murderous was not driven by religious fanaticism or indeed by any fanaticism other than fanatical hatred, hatred of LGBT people, simply was not entertained.
Our media has been, as is all too common, a miserable failure.
Sources cited in links:
http://fair.org/home/when-media-learned-killers-ethnicity-then-they-knew-to-call-it-terrorism/
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-florida-shooting-gunman-idUSKCN0YY11B
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/06/12/fbi-gay-nightclub-shooter-investigated-for-having-ties-to-suici/21393853/
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/06/13/report-orlando-shooter-scouted-disney-world-for-potential-attac/21394481/
http://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/was-the-orlando-shooting-at-gay-nightclub-terrorism-or-a-hate-crime/3375985.html
http://www.opednews.com/articles/If-Omar-Mateen-were-white-by-Trevor-Timm-Guns_Isis_Orlando-Shooting_Shootings-160613-448.html
http://www.businessinsider.com/james-comey-orlando-shooting-omar-mateen-fbi-2016-6
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/06/13/police-orlando-gunman-was-cool-and-calm-during-hostage-standoff/
[Note: I have broken my discussion of the Orlando shooting into four parts for convenience.]So it does look like Omar Mateen was a disturbed individual, disturbed in a way that makes him almost a poster boy for our "violence has nothing to do with us" evasions.
But unlike so many other mass killers, he is being denied that narrative as another narrative is foisted on us. And I can tell you exactly when that happened: when we found out his name was Omar Mateen.
Initially, news accounts called the tragedy a "shooting" and continued to do so for hours after officials said it was being investigated as an possible act of terror. But as soon as they knew his name, as soon as they knew that while he is a US-born citizen, his parents are from Afghanistan, the storyline changed.
For example: At 9:01am the morning after the attack, CBS News tweeted that the shooter has been IDed as Omar Mateen. Just 10 minutes later, its description of the event had changed from a "shooting" to a potential case of "Islamic terrorism."
Other media outlets quickly fell in line and what had been a "shooting" became a possible and soon thereafter an unquestioned act of Islamic terrorism. Once they knew the accused murderer was named Omar. That's all they needed.
In fact, an early version of Reuters' article about the shooting (since changed) spent the first two or three sentences going on about "missed red flags" of "Islamist leanings" and the need for "better security," and then immediately thereafter - literally the very next words - said quote "much remains unknown" about Mateen's motives. We don't know why he did it, but so what? Red flags! Islamist leanings! Security! Be afraid!
Every hint of some possible connection to some radical Islamist individual or group was reported breathlessly. Past FBI investigations were mentioned over and over and over. The fact that the FBI investigated him and found nothing there could not be allowed to be an indication that there is nothing there, it had to be proof of "missed red flags."
A big deal was made out of the report that Mateen and his wife Noor Zahi Salman visited Walt Disney World in April. Oh my God! He was scouting the site! The idea that maybe he was just going to Disney World with his wife and kid was beyond the imagining of our media moguls. I'm sure at some point went to local supermarket, another place where there can be a lot of people around with minimal security. Scoping it out!
But of course the big deal was that he claimed to be a supporter of Daeah - of ISIS - in a 911 call he made during the attack. Proof it's Islamic terrorism!
Except: He had previously claimed to be a supporter of both al-Qaeda and al-Nusra front, even though the three - al-Qaeda, ISIS, and al-Nusra are all bitter rivals, in fact the latter two are fighting each other in Syria - but he also claimed to be a member of Hezbollah, even though Hezbollah is Shiite and the other three are Sunni!
FBI Director James Comey said "It's not entirely clear at this point just what terrorist group he aspired to support." Or, as a senior US official put it more pointedly to the Wall Street Journal, "He seems to be looking for any opportunity to associate with the terrorist group du jour." Which sounds less like some religious fanatic and more like someone who feels powerless trying to feel more powerful by connecting to something "big."
Oh, and speaking of religious fanaticism, recall the description of him going to Pulse and getting drunk. You do remember hearing at some point that getting drunk is forbidden in Islam, don't you?
But of course none of that could be allowed to derail the narrative, so we had some "expert" saying that his conflicting claims of loyalty are to be expected from a "low-level" follower. That is, if you claim allegiance to some radical Muslim group, that proves you're an Islamist terrorist. Claim to follow a bunch of different, conflicting, groups, and that really proves you are an Islamist terrorist.
Likewise, the failure to find any connection between Mateen and any group simply proved he had been "radicalized online." The idea that, whatever his political belief may or may not have been, the idea that his murderous was not driven by religious fanaticism or indeed by any fanaticism other than fanatical hatred, hatred of LGBT people, simply was not entertained.
Our media has been, as is all too common, a miserable failure.
Sources cited in links:
http://fair.org/home/when-media-learned-killers-ethnicity-then-they-knew-to-call-it-terrorism/
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-florida-shooting-gunman-idUSKCN0YY11B
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/06/12/fbi-gay-nightclub-shooter-investigated-for-having-ties-to-suici/21393853/
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/06/13/report-orlando-shooter-scouted-disney-world-for-potential-attac/21394481/
http://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/was-the-orlando-shooting-at-gay-nightclub-terrorism-or-a-hate-crime/3375985.html
http://www.opednews.com/articles/If-Omar-Mateen-were-white-by-Trevor-Timm-Guns_Isis_Orlando-Shooting_Shootings-160613-448.html
http://www.businessinsider.com/james-comey-orlando-shooting-omar-mateen-fbi-2016-6
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/06/13/police-orlando-gunman-was-cool-and-calm-during-hostage-standoff/
250.5 - Orlando, Omar Mateen, and homophobia
Orlando, Omar Mateen, and homophobia
[Note: I have broken my discussion of the Orlando shooting into four parts for convenience.]
But having said all that, the thing is that the more we learn about Omar Mateen, the more the description of "troubled" seems to fit this case.
His first wife, from a marriage that lasted just four months until, in her words, her famiy rescued her, described Mateen as bipolar, as being violent, as having beaten her.
A co-worker at G4S Security described Mateen as "unhinged and unstable" and said he frequently made homophobic and racial comments. The co-worker said he quit after Mateen began sending him multiple texts a day.
A woman who went to middle school with Mateen called him a "troublemaker in school," including having "punched a teacher." Other stories and accounts along similar lines have emerged.
And then there is the issue of his sexuality. Multiple witnesses said Mateen was seen at Pulse, the club where the shooting occurred, on as many as a dozen occasions, with one person saying "Sometimes he would go over in the corner and sit and drink by himself, and other times he would get so drunk he was loud and belligerent."
He is also reported to have used the gay chat and dating app called Jack'd, including exchanging messages on and off for a year with at least one man.
Others reported related experiences, including one man who said Mateen asked him out on a date.
But the same time, there was that co-worker at G4S who said Mateen made homophobic statements and the claim of Mateen's father that Mateen had become enraged a few months before the shooting when they were in downtown Miami and he saw two men kissing each other.
And there of course was the blunt fact of the shooting. The shooting carried out at a LGBTQ nightclub of which he had been a patron.
What all this adds up to, to me, is someone brought up in a home that condemned homosexuality (In a recent video, his father declared "God will punish those involved in homosexuality.") and who hated and struggled with his own homosexual or bisexual desires and leanings until finally his own self-loathing was turned outward.
That is, it seems that this is a case where the label "unstable individual" we like to attach to mass murder actually seems to apply.
Sources cited in links:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/ex-wife-of-suspected-orlando-shooter-he-beat-me/2016/06/12/8a1963b4-30b8-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/283216-former-co-worker-of-orlando-nightclub-shooter-he-was-unhinged
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/06/12/what-we-know-about-orlando-nightclub-shooter-omar-mateen/21393742/
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/14/omar-mateen-gay-men-terrorism-pulse-jackd-sexuality
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-orlando-nightclub-shooting-20160613-snap-story.html
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/ex-wife-pulse-patrons-omar-mateen-was-gay-regularly-attended-lgbt-nightclubs
 |
| Omar Mateen |
But having said all that, the thing is that the more we learn about Omar Mateen, the more the description of "troubled" seems to fit this case.
His first wife, from a marriage that lasted just four months until, in her words, her famiy rescued her, described Mateen as bipolar, as being violent, as having beaten her.
A co-worker at G4S Security described Mateen as "unhinged and unstable" and said he frequently made homophobic and racial comments. The co-worker said he quit after Mateen began sending him multiple texts a day.
A woman who went to middle school with Mateen called him a "troublemaker in school," including having "punched a teacher." Other stories and accounts along similar lines have emerged.
And then there is the issue of his sexuality. Multiple witnesses said Mateen was seen at Pulse, the club where the shooting occurred, on as many as a dozen occasions, with one person saying "Sometimes he would go over in the corner and sit and drink by himself, and other times he would get so drunk he was loud and belligerent."
He is also reported to have used the gay chat and dating app called Jack'd, including exchanging messages on and off for a year with at least one man.
Others reported related experiences, including one man who said Mateen asked him out on a date.But the same time, there was that co-worker at G4S who said Mateen made homophobic statements and the claim of Mateen's father that Mateen had become enraged a few months before the shooting when they were in downtown Miami and he saw two men kissing each other.
And there of course was the blunt fact of the shooting. The shooting carried out at a LGBTQ nightclub of which he had been a patron.
What all this adds up to, to me, is someone brought up in a home that condemned homosexuality (In a recent video, his father declared "God will punish those involved in homosexuality.") and who hated and struggled with his own homosexual or bisexual desires and leanings until finally his own self-loathing was turned outward.
That is, it seems that this is a case where the label "unstable individual" we like to attach to mass murder actually seems to apply.
Sources cited in links:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/ex-wife-of-suspected-orlando-shooter-he-beat-me/2016/06/12/8a1963b4-30b8-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/283216-former-co-worker-of-orlando-nightclub-shooter-he-was-unhinged
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/06/12/what-we-know-about-orlando-nightclub-shooter-omar-mateen/21393742/
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/14/omar-mateen-gay-men-terrorism-pulse-jackd-sexuality
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-orlando-nightclub-shooting-20160613-snap-story.html
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/ex-wife-pulse-patrons-omar-mateen-was-gay-regularly-attended-lgbt-nightclubs
250.4 - Orlando and guns
Orlando and guns
[Note: I have broken my discussion of the Orlando shooting into four parts for convenience.]
The topic of guns just leads us to the elephant in the room: Orlando. Orlando. Which will now be invoked in the same tones as Newtown, Aurora, San Bernadino, Columbine, and the rest.
In the early hours of Sunday, June 12, a man named Omar Mateen walked into a LGBTQ nightclub called Pulse in Orlando, Florida, armed with a Sig Sauer MCX, reasonably described as an "AR-15 type" semi-automatic assault rifle, and a .9mm Glock pistol. He opened fire.
When it was all over three hours later, 50 people, including Mateen, were dead and 53 more wounded.
And once again we have to face up to the reality, the reality we try so hard to ignore, to forget, of mass violence in America. And the reality that the common denominator in almost all of these cases is an "AR-15 type" assault rifle and don't give me any crap about "there's no such thing as an assault rifle" or the fallback that it isn't an assault rifle because it's not fully automatic and the rest of the evasive, self-serving bull. The fact that it can fire repeatedly as fast as you can pull the trigger - about 45 rounds a minute - and the fact that it can carry high-capacity magazines and that it has repeatedly proved its value in committing mass murder are more than enough to overcome those weasel word objections.
The exact number of mass shootings we experience and have experienced depends on how you define the term: how many have to die to call it a mass shooting; how many injured; do any of the victims have to die for it to be a mass shooting since the victims were, after all, shot; does it have to be a single incident or can it be multiple incidents - think the Virginia Tech shooting - and if multiple how close do they have to be geographically or chronologically; the arguments about the details of definitions go on. But what is clear is that by any definition, the home base of mass shootings is the US.
Using its own measure of mass shootings, the FBI found that from 1966 to 2012, just under a third of all the mass shootings that took place anywhere in the entire world too place in the US - even though we have just 5% of the world's population.
We have too damn many guns and they are too damn easy to get.
And even that dramatically understates the daily carnage guns bring to the US, the vast, vast majority of which do not involve mass killings or shootings but are the slow daily grind of blood.
The graphic comes from work compiled by the Washington Post and reflects figures for the US for the year 2015.
25,000 gun-related injuries. That's more than 68 a day.
12,000 gun-related deaths, half of them suicides. That's nearly 33 a day.
But just 39 deaths from mass shootings: just over 0.3% of total gun deaths.
Mass shootings, mass tragedies such as at Orlando, get our attention, but they do not truly reflect the daily death toll of guns.
We have too damn many guns and they are too damn easy to get.
And even when we are faced with the latest atrocity, when we are faced with such as Orlando, we have our escape clause, our one-size-fits-all excuse for gun-enabled mayhem: Oh, the shooter was mentally disturbed, not normal, they were "troubled," and what we really need to do is focus on better mental health treatment, certainly not guns!
But that's largely a myth. A satisfying myth that enables us to ignore the looming presence of guns, but a myth nonetheless.
Best and recent research shows no reliable predictive value in associating mental health and gun violence. Put another way, the research says that people with mental illness are no more likely to be violent toward others, especially to commit mass violence, than anyone else is.
We can't simply dismiss the harsh truth of mass violence with the slogan "better mental health programs." They are justified on their own account - but not because they will address the issue of mass shootings, because they will not. They are a gun lobby-pushed distraction.
Sources cited in links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Orlando_nightclub_shooting
http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/washington-post-gun-used-by-omar-mateen-a-sig-sauer-mcx-not-an-ar-15/2281735
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/san-bernardino-shooting-assault-weapon-is-common-denominator-in-mass-shootings/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_shooting
http://wgntv.com/2016/06/14/us-home-to-nearly-a-third-of-worlds-mass-shootings/
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/23/us/americas-overlooked-gun-violence.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/mass-shootings-in-america/
http://www.care2.com/causes/the-media-is-promoting-a-dangerous-mental-illness-and-violence-myth.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4318286/
[Note: I have broken my discussion of the Orlando shooting into four parts for convenience.]The topic of guns just leads us to the elephant in the room: Orlando. Orlando. Which will now be invoked in the same tones as Newtown, Aurora, San Bernadino, Columbine, and the rest.
In the early hours of Sunday, June 12, a man named Omar Mateen walked into a LGBTQ nightclub called Pulse in Orlando, Florida, armed with a Sig Sauer MCX, reasonably described as an "AR-15 type" semi-automatic assault rifle, and a .9mm Glock pistol. He opened fire.
When it was all over three hours later, 50 people, including Mateen, were dead and 53 more wounded.
And once again we have to face up to the reality, the reality we try so hard to ignore, to forget, of mass violence in America. And the reality that the common denominator in almost all of these cases is an "AR-15 type" assault rifle and don't give me any crap about "there's no such thing as an assault rifle" or the fallback that it isn't an assault rifle because it's not fully automatic and the rest of the evasive, self-serving bull. The fact that it can fire repeatedly as fast as you can pull the trigger - about 45 rounds a minute - and the fact that it can carry high-capacity magazines and that it has repeatedly proved its value in committing mass murder are more than enough to overcome those weasel word objections.
The exact number of mass shootings we experience and have experienced depends on how you define the term: how many have to die to call it a mass shooting; how many injured; do any of the victims have to die for it to be a mass shooting since the victims were, after all, shot; does it have to be a single incident or can it be multiple incidents - think the Virginia Tech shooting - and if multiple how close do they have to be geographically or chronologically; the arguments about the details of definitions go on. But what is clear is that by any definition, the home base of mass shootings is the US.
Using its own measure of mass shootings, the FBI found that from 1966 to 2012, just under a third of all the mass shootings that took place anywhere in the entire world too place in the US - even though we have just 5% of the world's population.
We have too damn many guns and they are too damn easy to get.
And even that dramatically understates the daily carnage guns bring to the US, the vast, vast majority of which do not involve mass killings or shootings but are the slow daily grind of blood.
The graphic comes from work compiled by the Washington Post and reflects figures for the US for the year 2015.25,000 gun-related injuries. That's more than 68 a day.
12,000 gun-related deaths, half of them suicides. That's nearly 33 a day.
But just 39 deaths from mass shootings: just over 0.3% of total gun deaths.
Mass shootings, mass tragedies such as at Orlando, get our attention, but they do not truly reflect the daily death toll of guns.
We have too damn many guns and they are too damn easy to get.
And even when we are faced with the latest atrocity, when we are faced with such as Orlando, we have our escape clause, our one-size-fits-all excuse for gun-enabled mayhem: Oh, the shooter was mentally disturbed, not normal, they were "troubled," and what we really need to do is focus on better mental health treatment, certainly not guns!
But that's largely a myth. A satisfying myth that enables us to ignore the looming presence of guns, but a myth nonetheless.
Best and recent research shows no reliable predictive value in associating mental health and gun violence. Put another way, the research says that people with mental illness are no more likely to be violent toward others, especially to commit mass violence, than anyone else is.
We can't simply dismiss the harsh truth of mass violence with the slogan "better mental health programs." They are justified on their own account - but not because they will address the issue of mass shootings, because they will not. They are a gun lobby-pushed distraction.
Sources cited in links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Orlando_nightclub_shooting
http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/washington-post-gun-used-by-omar-mateen-a-sig-sauer-mcx-not-an-ar-15/2281735
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/san-bernardino-shooting-assault-weapon-is-common-denominator-in-mass-shootings/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_shooting
http://wgntv.com/2016/06/14/us-home-to-nearly-a-third-of-worlds-mass-shootings/
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/23/us/americas-overlooked-gun-violence.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/mass-shootings-in-america/
http://www.care2.com/causes/the-media-is-promoting-a-dangerous-mental-illness-and-violence-myth.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4318286/
Friday, June 17, 2016
Left Side of the Aisle #250
Left Side of the Aisle
for the week of June 16-22, 2016
This week:
Good News: LIBOR suit moves forward
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2012/07/left-side-of-aisle-66-part-1.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2012/07/left-side-of-aisle-65-part-2.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-23/banks-are-ordered-by-court-to-defend-libor-antitrust-lawsuit
Good News: Supreme Court upholds restrictions on mercury pollution
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/06/13/supreme-court-rejects-case-challenging-key-white-house-air-pollution-regulation/
Good News: Court of Appeals says no right to concealed carry
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/9th-circuit-court-appeals-says-no-right-concealed-gun-carry-n589041
https://pacer-documents.s3.amazonaws.com/3/10-56971/009128111226.pdf
http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/09/politics/concealed-carry-second-amendment/
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2012/12/left-side-of-aisle-87-part-1.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_California#Open_carry
[Note: I have broken my discussion of the Orlando shooting into four parts for convenience.]
Orlando and guns
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Orlando_nightclub_shooting
http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/washington-post-gun-used-by-omar-mateen-a-sig-sauer-mcx-not-an-ar-15/2281735
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/san-bernardino-shooting-assault-weapon-is-common-denominator-in-mass-shootings/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_shooting
http://wgntv.com/2016/06/14/us-home-to-nearly-a-third-of-worlds-mass-shootings/
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/23/us/americas-overlooked-gun-violence.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/mass-shootings-in-america/
http://www.care2.com/causes/the-media-is-promoting-a-dangerous-mental-illness-and-violence-myth.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4318286/
Orlando, Omar Mateen, and homophobia
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/ex-wife-of-suspected-orlando-shooter-he-beat-me/2016/06/12/8a1963b4-30b8-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/283216-former-co-worker-of-orlando-nightclub-shooter-he-was-unhinged
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/06/12/what-we-know-about-orlando-nightclub-shooter-omar-mateen/21393742/
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/14/omar-mateen-gay-men-terrorism-pulse-jackd-sexuality
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-orlando-nightclub-shooting-20160613-snap-story.html
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/ex-wife-pulse-patrons-omar-mateen-was-gay-regularly-attended-lgbt-nightclubs
Orlando and the media
http://fair.org/home/when-media-learned-killers-ethnicity-then-they-knew-to-call-it-terrorism/
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-florida-shooting-gunman-idUSKCN0YY11B
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/06/12/fbi-gay-nightclub-shooter-investigated-for-having-ties-to-suici/21393853/
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/06/13/report-orlando-shooter-scouted-disney-world-for-potential-attac/21394481/
http://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/was-the-orlando-shooting-at-gay-nightclub-terrorism-or-a-hate-crime/3375985.html
http://www.opednews.com/articles/If-Omar-Mateen-were-white-by-Trevor-Timm-Guns_Isis_Orlando-Shooting_Shootings-160613-448.html
http://www.businessinsider.com/james-comey-orlando-shooting-omar-mateen-fbi-2016-6
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/06/13/police-orlando-gunman-was-cool-and-calm-during-hostage-standoff/
Orlando and terrorism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFi7_U1a9VA
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/06/14/baptist-pastor-applauds-orlando-shooting/21395110/
Update: what to expect from Hillary Clinton
http://www.salon.com/2016/05/09/hillary_clinton_is_wall_streets_preferred_candidate_financial_execs_pouring_millions_into_her_campaign_to_defeat_trum/
http://www.salon.com/2016/04/26/a_progressive_in_name_only_charles_koch_joins_a_long_list_of_right_wingers_who_have_lauded_hillary_clinton/
http://www.salon.com/2016/06/10/another_neocon_endorses_clinton_calling_her_2016s_real_conservative_and_the_candidate_of_the_status_quo/
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/magazine/how-hillary-clinton-became-a-hawk.html?_r=0
Sunday, March 13, 2016
240.4 - Somalia is proof our "war on terrorism" is not working
Somalia is proof our "war on terrorism" is not working
Just last week, I said of our bombing and drone wars that as effective counters to terrorism they haven't worked, they're not working, and they won't work.
This week brings the news that al-Shabab, the extremist Muslim militants in Somalia, one of the targets of our lovely little war, has regrouped under a new leader, one Ahmad Umar, and is showing signs of a resurgence, despite the billions of dollars being spent by the US to fight them.
They have become a lethal insurgency sufficiently strong that Daesh* is trying to convince them to switch their allegiance to them instead of al-Qaeda, to which al-Shabab has so far remained loyal despite al-Qaeda's flagging position of leadership among the most radical fundamentalists.
It's not working. We have to find, we have to take, another way.
*Daesh: a name for ISIS which ISIS dislikes, which is why I use it.
Sources cited in links:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/despite-us-airstrikes-a-somali-militia-is-rising-again/2016/03/08/2fdeeeb8-e537-11e5-a9ce-681055c7a05f_story.html
Just last week, I said of our bombing and drone wars that as effective counters to terrorism they haven't worked, they're not working, and they won't work.This week brings the news that al-Shabab, the extremist Muslim militants in Somalia, one of the targets of our lovely little war, has regrouped under a new leader, one Ahmad Umar, and is showing signs of a resurgence, despite the billions of dollars being spent by the US to fight them.
They have become a lethal insurgency sufficiently strong that Daesh* is trying to convince them to switch their allegiance to them instead of al-Qaeda, to which al-Shabab has so far remained loyal despite al-Qaeda's flagging position of leadership among the most radical fundamentalists.
It's not working. We have to find, we have to take, another way.
*Daesh: a name for ISIS which ISIS dislikes, which is why I use it.
Sources cited in links:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/despite-us-airstrikes-a-somali-militia-is-rising-again/2016/03/08/2fdeeeb8-e537-11e5-a9ce-681055c7a05f_story.html
Left Side of the Aisle #240
Left Side of the Aisle
for the week of March 10-16, 2015
This week:
Abortion rights under attack
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/rights/landmark_casey.html
http://www.guttmacher.org/statecenter/spibs/spib_TRAP.pdf
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-24/abortion-clinics-are-closing-at-a-record-pace
http://www.salon.com/2016/02/25/abortion_access_is_vanishing_clinics_are_closing_at_a_rapid_pace_and_shameless_conservative_legislators_are_gunning_for_whats_left/
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/08/08/3469232/abortion-safety-trap-laws/
http://khn.org/news/abortion-admitting-privileges-fight/
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/02/us-supreme-court-whole-womens-health-v-hellerstedt/471546/?google_editors_picks=true
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2016/03/03/3756242/70-percent-bills-false/
http://www.utexas.edu/cola/txpep/_files/pdf/Grossman,White,Hopkins,Potter-PublicHealthThreatofAnti-abortionLegislation-Contraception-2014.pdf
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/06/opinion/sunday/the-return-of-the-diy-abortion.html?_r=0
http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/02/politics/supreme-court-abortion-texas/index.html
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/03/supreme-court-texas-abortion-liberal-justices-ginsburg-breyer
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/03/02/3755868/the-incredible-shrinking-supreme-court-showdown-over-abortion/
http://theadvocate.com/news/14687281-84/louisiana-legal-requirement-that-abortion-providers-have-hospital-admitting-privileges-is-unconstitu
http://theadvocate.com/news/14981272-172/5th-circuit-ruling-allows-louisiana-to-begin-enforcing-its-abortion-law
http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/04/politics/supreme-court-louisiana-abortion-case/index.html?eref=rss_politics
Most equal countries for women
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/11/19/us-falls-28th-global-gender-equality-list/76018174/
Footnote: Most literate nations
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/11/19/us-falls-28th-global-gender-equality-list/76018174/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/03/08/most-literate-nation-in-the-world-not-the-u-s-new-ranking-says/
http://www.ccsu.edu/wmln/
Somalia is proof our "war on terrorism" is not working
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/despite-us-airstrikes-a-somali-militia-is-rising-again/2016/03/08/2fdeeeb8-e537-11e5-a9ce-681055c7a05f_story.html
Elections in Iran
http://www.chron.com/news/world/article/In-blow-to-Iran-hard-liners-moderates-win-6859930.php
http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/02/opinions/iran-election-key-takeaways/
http://www.care2.com/causes/irans-reformist-elections-may-spell-change-for-the-islamic-republic.html
Clown Award: Immigration Judge Jack Weil
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2016/03/02/3756017/stupid-kentucky-matrimony-bill/
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2016/0306/Can-toddlers-defend-themselves-in-immigration-court-One-judge-says-so
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/can-a-3-year-old-represent-herself-in-immigration-court-this-judge-thinks-so/2016/03/03/5be59a32-db25-11e5-925f-1d10062cc82d_story.html
Monday, March 07, 2016
239.6 - Outrage of the Week: Islamophobic document to guide development of federal anti-terrorism programs
Outrage of the Week: Islamophobic document to guide development of federal anti-terrorism programs
Last for this week is our other regular feature, the Outrage of the Week.
And this in a way refers back to what I was talking about earlier, both about the knee-jerk Islamophobia that doomed al-Jazeera America from the start and about our lovely little wars exclusively in majority-Muslim nations.
In 2011, the Air Force Research Laboratory released a report titled "Countering Violent Extremism: Scientific Methods and Strategies." It was reissued this past summer and the revised version was made available online in January. A preface says "the wisdom contained in this paper collection is more relevant than ever."
Many of the articles are written by academics and researchers in the field of counterterrorism. But one, titled "A Strategic Plan to Defeat Radical Islam," written by a self-described former Islamic extremist, contains what The Intercept called "a number of bizarre prescriptions for how to defeat terrorism, few of which appear to be supported by empirical evidence."
It was written by Dr. Tawfik Hamid, a fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies.
One of his assertions is that militancy is primarily a product of sexual deprivation - put more crudely, people turn extremist because they don't get laid enough. That is strange enough - I can't help but wonder if Dr. Hamid is generalizing from this own experience - but it's not the only thing to make you blink.
Another claim is that our problem with our poor reputation among Muslim nations is not due to our policies, but to a lack of good PR. So I suppose if we painted smiley faces on our bombs people wouldn't mind getting blown up. And he argues that we shouldn't worry too much about killing innocent civilians in our bombing runs because
But the part that struck me the oddest was his assertion that wearing a hijab, the traditional head scarf worn by Muslim women, is a form of "passive terrorism" - whatever the hell that means - and represents an implicit refusal to "speak against or actively resist terrorism." Wear a hijab and you're an accessory to or at least not an opponent of, terrorism. Put more directly, be a Muslim woman and you are at best a silent supporter of terrorism.
Okay, the guy's a flake. So why the outrage? Because, again, this spluttering concoction of Islamophobic bilgewater undeserving of publication as any sort of research is in an official report that is intended to help government agencies formulate anti-terrorism programs, a report whose preface praises Hamid as offering a "soup to nuts strategic plan" for combating radicalism that "addresses the components of the Islamist terrorism cycle at ideological, psychological, social, and economic levels."
In other words, it is something that appears to be, in the words of one scholar, nothing more than "an attempt to supply national security agencies with bogus surveillance rubrics," rubrics being take seriously by our government.
That is frightening. It is immoral. And it is an outrage.
Sources cited in links:
https://theintercept.com/2016/02/23/department-of-defense-white-paper-describes-wearing-hijab-as-passive-terrorism/
http://www.care2.com/causes/are-hijab-wearers-terrorists-a-military-paper-says-yes.html
Last for this week is our other regular feature, the Outrage of the Week.And this in a way refers back to what I was talking about earlier, both about the knee-jerk Islamophobia that doomed al-Jazeera America from the start and about our lovely little wars exclusively in majority-Muslim nations.
In 2011, the Air Force Research Laboratory released a report titled "Countering Violent Extremism: Scientific Methods and Strategies." It was reissued this past summer and the revised version was made available online in January. A preface says "the wisdom contained in this paper collection is more relevant than ever."
Many of the articles are written by academics and researchers in the field of counterterrorism. But one, titled "A Strategic Plan to Defeat Radical Islam," written by a self-described former Islamic extremist, contains what The Intercept called "a number of bizarre prescriptions for how to defeat terrorism, few of which appear to be supported by empirical evidence."
It was written by Dr. Tawfik Hamid, a fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies.One of his assertions is that militancy is primarily a product of sexual deprivation - put more crudely, people turn extremist because they don't get laid enough. That is strange enough - I can't help but wonder if Dr. Hamid is generalizing from this own experience - but it's not the only thing to make you blink.
Another claim is that our problem with our poor reputation among Muslim nations is not due to our policies, but to a lack of good PR. So I suppose if we painted smiley faces on our bombs people wouldn't mind getting blown up. And he argues that we shouldn't worry too much about killing innocent civilians in our bombing runs because
in war, as in medicine, good cells die when we treat bad ones ... "it is unfair to blame the doctor for killing good cells."
But the part that struck me the oddest was his assertion that wearing a hijab, the traditional head scarf worn by Muslim women, is a form of "passive terrorism" - whatever the hell that means - and represents an implicit refusal to "speak against or actively resist terrorism." Wear a hijab and you're an accessory to or at least not an opponent of, terrorism. Put more directly, be a Muslim woman and you are at best a silent supporter of terrorism.Okay, the guy's a flake. So why the outrage? Because, again, this spluttering concoction of Islamophobic bilgewater undeserving of publication as any sort of research is in an official report that is intended to help government agencies formulate anti-terrorism programs, a report whose preface praises Hamid as offering a "soup to nuts strategic plan" for combating radicalism that "addresses the components of the Islamist terrorism cycle at ideological, psychological, social, and economic levels."
In other words, it is something that appears to be, in the words of one scholar, nothing more than "an attempt to supply national security agencies with bogus surveillance rubrics," rubrics being take seriously by our government.
That is frightening. It is immoral. And it is an outrage.
Sources cited in links:
https://theintercept.com/2016/02/23/department-of-defense-white-paper-describes-wearing-hijab-as-passive-terrorism/
http://www.care2.com/causes/are-hijab-wearers-terrorists-a-military-paper-says-yes.html
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