I had MSNBC on most of yesterday. I can't stand the sight of Wolf the Weasel and what other choice is possible?
I'm disappointed. When the evening network news came on I began to learn facts the cable guys never mentioned, That the FBI had investigated these boys, for instance and they managed to give us the facts without the constant theme of "you can see that it's been worth it to give up our privacy." Cowards! Is this what it means to be a Liberal today? Sacrificing freedom for some imagined and miniscule increase in safety?
Needless to say, I don't think so. I don't think this gruesome incident is anywhere near the calamity it's being made out to be. It's no worse than a good part of the world has to put up with all the time and that it's being made out to be something on the order of WW III it's only because giving up our privacy is only a taste of what some would have us give up. The Right, predictably, is growling about Miranda rights because we can't go around thinking that this crime is a crime and a US citizen is entitled to civil rights if he's motivated by some sick religious doctrine that isn't Christian. Is this pathetic teenage loser an "enemy combatant" while Tim McVeigh, David Koresh and Jim Jones weren't?
It has to be a WAR because then all's fair therein including making a mockery of our Bill of Rights. It has to be a war so that they can find yet another reason to attack Obama as a weakling, or perhaps a clandestine Muslim for trying to fulfill his oath to preserve and defend the same Constitution the Republicans have seen as a stumbling block for years.
Of course the NBC reporter who told us last night that we'd just witnessed "the greatest manhunt in American history" needs to go back to school if indeed he's ever attended or at least read up on Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger, Jesse James and of course John Wilkes Booth, but such idiocy is all part of the effort to make everything seem like a catastrophe and every crime an apocalypse.
I have to be impressed however with Boston and Massachusetts law enforcement, both for their efficiency and their restraint. Supporters of the "government can't do anything right" battle cry should take this opportunity to shut the hell up.
Missions are hard things to stop. The WND crowd is on a mission. Pull up a chair, grab the popcorn, it's going to be a very long show.
ReplyDeleteToday (Saturday), I hear on Lamestream Media that investigators are investigating possible motives behind the Boston Marathon Bombing. To label the kid an “enemy combatant” is to miss a point – a recurrent theme that appears many of these massacres.
ReplyDeleteWhat do Boston, Newtown, Aurora, and Tucson have in common besides death and destruction? Are these always driven by a mental illness? Delusional thoughts? Or terrorism? Please bear with me here.
What we know about the perpetrators: In the Tucson and Aurora incidents, the shooters were known to be suffering from a schizophrenic disorder; Newtown – Asperger’s Syndrome; Boston – the brothers have been described as “athletic” and “intelligent” with no known psychological pathology. No discernable pattern, you say? Yet there is one, and here is a clue:
According to news accounts, Tamerian Tsarnaev (the older brother) wrote: “I don’t have a single American friend, I don’t understand them.”
In all cases, you will find some expression of cultural alienation, estrangement, indifference or outright ostracism by peers, feelings of being odd or strange and apart from society. Yes, in all cases, regardless of differential psychological profiles.
To dismiss these brothers as "enemy combatants' is to miss an aspect of these cases worthy of study.
Good points (O)CT(O)PUS, perhaps multiculteralism is an unrealistic goal given the human condition. Or perhaps in another millennium the world will be ready. I have my doubts.
ReplyDeleteMulticulturalism has nothing to do with a need for the kind of psychosocial investigation I am talking about. The common thread in these narratives is estrangement, social alienation, rejection or ridicule, desperation, and rage that culminate in violence against oneself (suicide) or others (killing rampages).
DeleteI mention suicide in the context of mass murder because I believe these phenomena are connected. This story, for instance: Canadian teen commits suicide after alleged rape and bullying. Or this example: Rutgers student committed suicide after his roommate secretly videotaped dorm sex and posted it live on the Internet.
There is an urgent need for psychosocial research to identify early warning signs and symptoms among specific at-risk population groups.
When I read of hack politicians insinuating themselves into this story with bullshit (such as Lindsey Graham, John McCain, Kelley Ayotte, and Peter King), it frankly disgusts me. We don’t need more political grandstanding; we need an empirical understanding of phenomena that is wasting lives. Empirical data - something Republicans avoid as assuredly as vampires avoid a mirror.
I understand and agree with your analysis. Understanding the phenomena is the logical path to setting in motion action to address the situation.
DeleteMy point was that differences between cultures, religion, and races has resulted in the situation you brought up. As wrong as it is I am not optimistic that even given the empirical data of which you speak things would change quickly.
Call me the cynic.
Just for clarification purposes. Do not take my prior comment to mean we shouldn't undertake the task of seeking the understanding. We certainly should.
DeletePoliticians insinuating themselves into this and every story are the story most of the time. One of the first things we heard was the bastards making it all about Obama by bleating about how he didn't use the word "terror' fast enough. The important thing being to make sure we elevate fear to the point where more indecent liberties can be taken with liberty itself. Now they're not sure this guy "deserves" his rights and they hope you're scared and/or angry enough not to ask about who gets to say who 'deserves' what and when. The GOP? The mob they have enraged? Yes, I'm a linguistic fuddy-duddy, but I swear I'll strangle the next person I hear using 'terror' to describe an act instead of the emotion it produces and I'll so worse to anyone who insists that any time some bozo lights off a firecracker we all have to be terrified.
ReplyDeleteBut yes, it's always important to know why humans are a defective lot of monkeys because the modern world gives us all more power and opportunity to create mayhem. We're more densely packed, more mobile and have more access to information - and of course more able to be manipulated by sinister sources of propaganda who enjoy unprecedented communications technology.
Lots of us feel, or have at times felt alienated and angry and all that. It's almost standard for teenagers with a desperate need to belong and who join all kinds of stupid, idiotic things. Some wags have suggested that everyone be locked up until they're 40, since young men commit nearly all the crimes. But while I agree that the science of psychology is still inadequate for the task of identifying dangerous people, I don't look forward to the attempts that will surely be made to sort and analyze and probe and investigate and most of all to watch us all, all of the time. How many ordinary people will be harmed in the attempt? How much suppression and oppression will be justified in the name of safety?
It scares me because, as you say, politicians and authoritarians of all types will insert themselves into this and because, according to my grand theory, authoritarianism grows like a cancer in all governments if the impediments to it are not steadfastly maintained. The promise of safety, of protecting the people, protecting the children is the bait on the hook and always has been.
I worry more about the proliferation of hate -- scientifically, artfully and powerfully promoted around the world than about the few of us crazy enough to put firebombs in our underwear. Someone gave those brothers the idea, sold them the idea that doing this would be a good thing -- a righteous and justified thing for which they would be rewarded. Someone else is selling us the idea that a one in a million chance of being harmed necessitates giving up our 4th amendment rights and a host of others.
Could it be that much of what's wrong with the young and alienated and confused and lost has to do with the older, greedier and nastier people they listen to?
They are playing the same game that Kim Jong Un is- keeping the populace so frightened that people put up with having vast sums stolen from them to support a largely functionless military.
ReplyDelete