It's Not About The Dying

It's about surviving and remembering what happened - and why it happened.

It's about making sure we always link the outcome to the causes of the outcome. 

WaPo:

The counterprotesters who had gathered in this city’s downtown were cheering, chanting and hugging one another. The white supremacist rally had been stopped before it was supposed to begin. “These are the happy people,” Marissa Blair Martin remembered thinking, as she, her fiance and her friend Heather Heyer walked to join the marching crowd.

Blair Martin live-streamed the scene on her Facebook page. She said she wanted people to see the celebration, and she wanted friends who were concerned for her safety to know there was nothing to worry about.

Then, she heard the sound of tires screeching, and the joy turned to “moments of terror,” Blair Martin testified.

As the murder trial of James A. Fields Jr. entered its second week here Monday, Blair Martin was among the witnesses who continued to describe the chaos of Aug. 12, 2017, when Heyer — whom Blair Martin described as compassionate, “always outspoken but not argumentative” — was killed.

Fields, a self-professed neo-Nazi who had driven from his apartment in Ohio to the “Unite the Right” rally, roared his car into the counterprotesters, killing Heyer and wounding 35 others, some seriously.

The death capped off a violent day of hate that captured worldwide attention and forever tied this quiet college town to the emergence of white supremacists emboldened by the presidency of Donald Trump.

The Daddy State always rouses the rabble. By now, we have to know 45* will always follow the pattern of Stochastic Terrorism.

He'll always stoke the paranoia. He'll always speak vaguely (and not so vaguely) in terms of violence, intending to impel violent action while maintaining a plausible deniability.

It's what an asshole like 45* does. And so, weirdly enough - though it's not weird at all - he can talk the talk of personal responsibility and self-reliance, having provided himself plenty of Smarm Space to blame a simpleton like Fields for doing something along the lines of  what 45* had in mind the whole time. 

For normal people, what Fields did was almost precisely what we all know 45* expected some "lone wolf" to do.

None of this is new - I've said all this before - lots of people have said it all before. And I don't care if it sounds too familiar or it's boring for you or whatever. 

45* sent his fucking goons to my home town, and they killed Heather Heyer. 

This will not be forgotten and it will not be forgiven - go ahead and talk to Jesus for that one if you feel the need, but you're not gettin' it from me.

We make this about the living only if we survive it and remember the dead.

It Gets Worse

Speaking of the bombs mailed to several of Cult45's favorite enemies, Rush Limbaugh opined, "Conservatives just don't do that sort of thing."

We reached out to Barnett Slepian, George Tiller and several daycare workers in Oklahoma City, but they were all unavailable for comment.

Michelle Goldberg, NYT:

On Wednesday night, after bombs were sent to a number of Donald Trump’s most prominent enemies, he held a rally in Mosinee, Wis. A president with even a pretense to statesmanship would have canceled it — the country was in the middle of what can reasonably be described as a terrorist attack, with someone attempting mass murder against leading Democrats. Trump, needless to say, is not such a president.

At the rally — which featured Trump fans chanting, “Lock her up!” about Hillary Clinton, to whom one of the bombs was addressed — Trump called for the country to come together “in peace and harmony.” Then, in characteristic fashion, he blamed the press for America’s climate of simmering rage. “The media also has a responsibility to set a civil tone and to stop the endless hostility and constant negative and oftentimes false attacks and stories,” he said.

It was an audacious act of misdirection, especially since the attack included a bomb sent to the New York offices of CNN, one of Trump’s favorite punching bags. But while Trump’s words were meant to further derange American political debate, they were, in one sense, clarifying. They demonstrated the rank disingenuousness of conservative complaints about “incivility,” a term that’s increasingly used to conflate expressions of political anger with political violence, equating yelling at politicians with trying to kill them.

- and -

The violent part of the right is integrated into the Republican Party in a way that has no analogue on the left. A few months before the Unite the Right white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., that devolved into a deadly riot, Corey Stewart, now the Republican candidate for Senate in that state, appeared at an event sponsored by one of Unite the Right’s organizers, Jason Kessler. (He’s since disavowed both Kessler and Paul Nehlen, a white nationalist he once described as a “personal hero.”) One rallygoer, James Allsup, had been president of the Washington State University College Republicans. He stepped down amid the ensuing controversy, but was later elected a precinct committee officer by his local party organization. (The Republican National Committee has denounced him.)

- and -

The dubious category of “civility” lets people on the right pretend that mailing a politician a bomb is in the same vein as berating a politician in a restaurant. It’s a sort of right-wing political correctness, treating rudeness toward powerful people as akin to assault.

In June, the actor Robert De Niro cursed at Trump during a speech at the Tony Awards. On Thursday, news broke that De Niro was among those who were sent explosive devices. Only one of these things is a problem. We are in a dark place in this country. The blame belongs with Trump, not those shouting their opposition to him.

Christian Picciolini, LA Times (from 10-07-18):

When four members of the white supremacist group Rise Above Movement were arrested last week on federal charges that they traveled to Virginia last year with the intent to incite a riot and commit violence, many news outlets referred to the group as an “alt-right fight club.” Others called it “a racist social club.”

The Rise Above Movement, or R.A.M., is far more dangerous than these euphemistic labels suggest. An extreme hate group that grew out of California’s skinhead subculture, R.A.M. calls for the extermination of Jews and other “anti-white” enemies, not to mention the overthrow of the U.S. government.

R.A.M. is one of many violent hate groups that espouse such views. Atomwaffen Division, a neo-Nazi group that is organized into cells and whose name means “atomic weapons” in German, openly aspires to terroristic violence. Proud Boys, another group in the white-power ecosystem, has demonstrated a propensity for extreme violence.

Despite the dangers posed by such groups, many Americans tend to view their violent acts as either the work of a mentally deranged individual or the collective anger of misguided young men who are merely lashing out. This outlook is dangerously naive and one we can no longer afford to indulge.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the number of hate groups in the U.S. grew from 784 to 917 between 2014 and 2016. There are now 954 hate groups across the country. Some of these groups include “pro-white” militia that are engaged in paramilitary-style training, learning hand-to-hand combat and guerilla warfare techniques and planning strategic attacks on critical infrastructure.

If jihadists were plotting any of the above on American soil — to kill American citizens and take out U.S. power grids, among other things — our collective response would be far less permissive. Put another way, if these extremists had brown skin, we would call them terrorists.

Instead, we wave away their threats and do so despite this glaring fact: White extremists have committed nearly 75% of all terrorist attacks on American soil since September 11.

SPLC Hate Group Map

- and -

Inspired by the writings of Hitler and the idea of “white jihad,” members of groups like R.A.M. and Proud Boys don’t need much provocation to become violent. Indeed, members of Atomwaffen Division have been charged in five killings over the past two years.

Samuel Woodward, the 20-year-old Newport Beach man charged with stabbing a former high school classmate nearly 20 times, is reportedly a member of Atomwaffen.

In Reston, Va., a 17-year-old Atomwaffen member was charged last year with murdering his girlfriend’s parents, reportedly because they had forbidden their daughter from dating him.

In Tampa, Fla., Devon Arthurs, a 19-year-old former Atomwaffen devotee who converted to radical Islam, was charged last year with shooting two of his neo-Nazi roommates after they ridiculed his sudden transformation.
In a separate case, another of Arthurs’ roommates, Brandon Russell, 22, an Atomwaffen leader, was arrested for possessing radioactive material and bomb-making devices. Among his possessions, police found a framed photo of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.

It is true that the leaders of such groups draw in disillusioned young men who believe the world has sidelined them. But just because their members look familiar to many Americans does not make them less dangerous. Their violence is part of a growing pattern of domestic terrorism and should not be excused as an adolescent blip.


And oh BTW -

White Rise

The Atlantic:

Across the United States, Jewish communities are struggling to deal with this new wave of threats. While none of the bomb threats have led to violence, Monday’s calls came around the same time as another attack: Roughly 170 Jewish graves in a Missouri cemetery were desecrated over the weekend, according to The Washington Post. The calls may be a novel form of intimidation, but the context around them is not. American Jews are victims of more reported hate crimes than any other group in the United States, and have been subject to the majority of religiously motivated offenses every year since 1995, when the FBI first started reporting these statistics. The phone calls may not result in violence, but they contribute to an atmosphere of anti-Semitism already well-established in the United States.

You can't draw a line between any one thing 45* has said that goes straight to any given incident.

President Bannon knows that, because he knows about Stochastic Probability, so he knows he and his merry band have a nice fat lot of plausible deniability.

But this is some more of that shit that doesn't happen by accident, even though it really does, even though it doesn't because Bannon never told anybody to do anything.

In the presence of English Barons, Henry II—who is now utterly vexed by Becket's actions—cries out: Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest? Believing the King meant for Becket to be murdered, four knights ride to Canterbury Cathedral and kill Becket on December 29, 1170.

This Shit Is Not OK

The tweet said this was spotted at a Trump rally in Virginia Beach yesterday (10-22-16).

This goes under the general heading : Stochastic Terrorism.

Stochastic Probability

Applied to politics = 

Stochastic terrorism is the use of mass communications to incite random actors to carry out violent or terrorist acts that are statistically predictable but individually unpredictable. In short, remote-control murder by lone wolf.

It's not like we aren't aware of this shit, Mr Trump.

At each step, plausible deniability increases through the diffusion of responsibility. "Oh, it was just a lone nut, nobody could have predicted he would do that, and I'm not responsible for what people in my audience do."

Trump knows what he's done, even if his intent at the time was nothing more than one of his usual stunts to say something heinously inflammatory in order to generate some free media.

And the statements that have come from his campaign are again the usual bullshit aimed at kicking the news cycle around to keep the coverage going - to give the story legs.

"It's called the power of unification – 2nd Amendment people have amazing spirit and are tremendously unified, which gives them great political power. And this year, they will be voting in record numbers, and it won't be for Hillary Clinton, it will be for Donald Trump." --Jason Miller, Senior Communications Advisor.

That's a near-perfect, classically content-free "explanation".  Notice, there's nothing in there that even tries to pretend that Trump is condemning violence against a political opponent.

Charlie Pierce put up a quote from (I think) Hunter S Thompson, and tag-lined it with this:

What he said on Tuesday is something Donald Trump does every day of his life, on purpose, as a matter of policy and a perfect expression of everything he stands for. It seems one could stoop even lower than Nixon to be president.

And of course, the usual asshole apologists were out to make sure we got a good dose of False Equivalence:

Here's the point on this little piece of your freak show, Mr Halperin: If it was bad for Hillary to say what she said in 2008, then it's bad for Trump to say what he said 2016.

See how that works?  Bad is bad is bad.  You don't get to say Hillary was wrong to do it back then, so it's OK for Trump to do it now. dick

But what riles me now is that neither The Hillary gang nor the Press Poodles are getting after this with any kind of zest or gusto.

"Here's what Americans need to hear from you, Mr Trump, and in no uncertain terms:

- you are not calling for violence

- you condemn violence against any political opponent at any time for any reason

- you reject the support of anybody who'd even think violence against a political opponent is in any way OK

- you understand that sometimes we get a little nutty, but everybody has to leave their guns out of this

- be passionate; be vocal; be steadfast - just don't be a dick"

Are ya getting any of this, Mr Trump?

Bless You, Charlie

Charlie Pierce:

When are people going to realize that the big bag of fucks to give at 1600 Pennsylvania is not only empty, but it's sitting in a back closet somewhere and nobody's going to find it until the midway point of Sasha Obama's second term in the White House? Why does this continue to surprise people?

On Tuesday, right around lunchtime, the president came out and parked He, Trump onto a rooftop across Waveland Avenue. In brief, the president informed the vulgar talking yam that he, the yam, was screwing with the country's heartbeat because he, the yam, is an ignorant, ridiculous man who doesn't know shit from tunafish about anything beyond where to find good-quality, child-sized gloves in a hurry. He made very short work out of the preposterous notion that if he uses the magic conjuring words, then the entire Middle East will turn into Sweden.

And then Mr Pierce quotes Barry Bams:

"That's the key, they tell us, 'We can't beat ISIL unless we call them radical Islamist.' What exactly would using this label accomplish? What exactly would it change? Would it make ISIL less committed to trying to kill Americans? Would it bring in more allies? Is there a military strategy that is served by this? The answer is none of the above. Calling a threat by a different name does not make it go away. This is a political distraction…Not once has an adviser of mine said, 'If we use that phrase, we're going to turn this whole thing around.' It's a political talking point. It's not a strategy. And the reason I am careful about how I describe this threat has nothing to do with political correctness and everything to do with defeating extremism.""We now have proposals from the presumptive Republican nominee for president of the United States to bar all Muslims from entering the United States. To bar all Muslims from emigrating to America. We hear language that singles out immigrants and suggests entire religious communities are complicit in violence. Where does this stop?... These are not religious warriors. They are thugs and they are thieves."

I really hope Hillary's listening.

It Just Gets Worse

And suddenly, this is an older and - though it doesn't seem possible - an even sadder story.

NY Daily News:

Omar Mateen lived a double life.

The homophobic maniac who murdered 49 people inside Orlando’s gay-friendly nightclub Pulse Sunday morning had been hanging out there for three years — and chatted with men via online dating services like Grindr, said multiple witnesses who claimed to have firsthand knowledge of Mateen’s habits.

Mateen’s family said his bloody rampage was sparked by anti-gay hatred.

But his ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, when asked on CNN Monday if he was gay, sat in silence for a few seconds before answering, “I don’t know.”

The Guardian:

His former classmate Samuel King, who also worked at the same shopping mall as Mateen after high school, said Mateen had known that he and many of his friends were gay but never expressed any disapproval. “He had to know it, but I never got any sense of homophobia or aggression from him,” he told the Washington Post.

The information adds to a complex and often contradictory picture that is emerging of the gunman and his motivation for the outrage. His father, Seddique Mateen, hours after the shooting said that Mateen had once become incensed when he saw two men kissing in Miami in front of his wife and child.

I don't know that any of this will matter much because the narrative has been set for the DumFux News crowd - Radical Islamic Terrorism.  So the part about the guy being a closeted gay is secondary. 

Except when it comes to a maybe kind of a subtle little kink for the Rabid TheoCons.  You've got a Muslim with an assault rifle shooting down a buncha QueerFolk.

Forget about all the social toxicity of the Authoritarian shit and the Daddy Issues and Self-Loathing and the Blame-Shifting, and turning that anger outward to keep from totally imploding, while at the same time taking action that will ensure your own demise.

Let's not think about any of that, and let's be sure we don't even try to keep guns away from the nutty people.

The only thing that matters is that we've got a political trifecta for the Right Radicals - a guy they hate is using a weapon they love to kill other people they hate.  It doesn't get any better than that for a modern GOP, where thinking things thru is just not something they wanna encourage.

They don't do anything about it - and they obstruct everything anybody else wants to do about it - because it's working for them.  They benefit from the problem politically, and their Crony Contributors profit from both the problem itself and the false solutions they support.  USAmerica Inc.

These people have no soul and no honor.

John Oliver

And a tweet

pic.twitter.com/G6Ba4zXYr2

— Steve Galluccio (@stevegalluccio) June 13, 2016

Let Them Show

Like a rainbow

Today's Eternal Sadness - Orlando

We can usually expect some jagoff on DumFux News to start spluttering about "where are the moderate Muslims...!!!!"

CAIR to ISIS: "You do not speak for us, you do not represent us. You are an aberration." https://t.co/5HsAkKaqvp https://t.co/xCq4sInXFC

— CBSN (@CBSNLive) June 12, 2016

So now, I guess I have to wonder why we never heard from "the moderate Christians..." when dick-face-what's-his-name shot up that Planned Parenthood joint in Colorado Springs.


But anyway.

9-11
😖Never Again
+ Massive Response
= No more 9-11s

Sandy Hook
😖Never Again
+ Don't Do Shit
= another 998 mass shootings since then

🖕NRA

— Mike Roberts (@eVilleMike) June 12, 2016

Meanwhile:

Connecticut’s U.S. senators blamed Congress for the killing of at least 50 people early Sunday at an Orlando club, saying lawmakers’ inaction on gun control makes them “complicit” in the shooting rampage.

Sens. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal, both Democrats and vocal gun control advocates, represent the community of Newtown, where a gunman fatally shot 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.

“This phenomenon of near constant mass shootings happens only in America – nowhere else,” Murphy said Sunday. “Congress has become complicit in these murders by its total, unconscionable deafening silence. This doesn’t have to happen, but this epidemic will continue without end if Congress continues to sit on its hands and do nothing – again.”

 

Meanwhile

... out there in the world, this, from Juan Cole

The Syrian Arab Army is advancing toward al-Raqqa city, the capital of the phony ISIS “caliphate,” with Russian air support. US Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Christopher Garver confirmed on Wednesday that the US has seen the movement of the troops of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad “to the south and west of Raqqa, and they are heading in that direction.”

Also on Wednesday, the Syrian air force destroyed equipment, fortifications and fighters of Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) in Resafa, 40 miles southwest of al-Raqqa city.

That is also area that the Syrian army is now entering. It is five kilometers from Resafa’s main intersection. The Financial Times speculates that the regime of al-Assad may hope that by taking al-Raqqa away from so-called caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (Ibrahim al-Samarra’i), it will then be able to make the claim that only it can deal effectively with Daesh, gaining support in the international community that is otherwise horrified by al-Assad’s crimes against humanity.

If the US-backed YPG or Self Defense Forces, a unit of Syria’s leftist Kurds, reaches al-Raqqa at the same time as the Syrian Arab Army, there could be a clash between the two over al-Raqqa. The Syrian Army deeply dislikes the YPG and has vowed to put them down.

So, if I'm understanding this - there's a possibility that US forces end up in a fire fight with Russian forces to decide who gets to kill another bunch of 3rd worlders in another thoroughly fucked up part of the middle east.  Like some morbidly stoopid tournament - hey, we're in the semi-finals going for the regional title.  Yay, America.

Donald Trump did a lot of chest thumping during the "debates", saying he'd "knock the hell outa ISIS". OK, but what if Putin doesn't want you to do that?  Your move, Lil Donny - what're you gonna do?

We spent the last 8 years trying to untangle the Gordian Knot monumental clusterfuck left behind by the last know-nothing GOP stumble-bum, and while we may never get good alternatives to choose from in a lot of these situations, can we at least not go out of our way looking for any more door knobs to run into?

Today's Tweet

CNN

After the attacks in Brussels, the home of NATO and the capital of the European Union, leaders inside Belgium and beyond vowed not to back down in their fight against terror.

In Belgium, where officials declared three days of national mourning, Michel offered a resolute message to those who supported and cheered the attackers.

"To those who have chosen to be barbarous enemies of freedom, democracy and fundamental values ... we remain united as one," Michel said. "We are determined to defend our freedoms and to protect our liberties."

In its message claiming responsibility, ISIS noted that Belgium is one of the nations "participating in the international coalition against the Islamic State."

A Twitter post widely circulated by prominent ISIS backers Tuesday featured the words, "What will be coming is worse."

Do you know how many people are wondering whether those responsible are secular humanists?
None. No one is.
There's a reason for that.

— MrOzAtheist (@MrOzAtheist) March 23, 2016

Belgian authorities say the man in white is one of three suspects tied to the airport attack.

The other two died in the explosions, Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon told CNN. But investigators believe the man in white planted a bomb at the airport, then left.

"The third man left a bomb in the airport, but it didn't explode. ... And we are now looking for this guy," Jambon said.

A photograph released by investigators shows the three suspects side-by-side.

Always A Little Perspective Please

Vox, addressing the panic pushers at the GOP "debate":

Again, this by no means obviates the real threat from terrorism generally or ISIS specifically, but it makes the rhetoric on the GOP stage seem a bit hysterical.

For even more perspective: The number of Americans killed per year by terrorism is the same as the number crushed to death by their own furniture.

Obviously one key difference here is that terrorist groups would like to kill many more Americans, and are surely trying to accomplish just that, whereas presumably your sofa is not plotting any major attacks. But the point is that the risk terrorism poses to everyday American lives is not where you might have thought it was from this debate.

America just doesn't have much of a domestic terrorism problem. Incidents like the shootings in San Bernardino are vanishingly rare, as violent extremist groups have very few adherents here. US intelligence operations make it very difficult for foreign terrorist groups to bring operatives into the US and plan an attack.

This Is Just Too Good

From HuffPo:

The gunmen who have seized a federal building in Oregon claim they're patriots.

But on social media, many are calling the self-styled "militia" terrorists -- and mocking the group that has taken over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters with derisive nicknames.

Whomever came up with #YallQaeda to describe the Oregon militia, I take my hat off to you. And then put it back on and take it off again.

— Colin Miner (@cominer) January 3, 2016

The emergence of #VanillaISIS in Oregon sparks fears of radicalizing disaffected hipsters in Portland.

— Khaled Bey (@KhaledBeydoun) January 4, 2016

You know you're a badass Tea Party patriot when your militia takes over an unprotected bird sanctuary

— Stonekettle (@Stonekettle) January 3, 2016

Still others have taken to using terms such as #YokelHaram and #al-Shabubba, and say the group is waging #YeeHawd.

Get all the latest on Y'allQaeda and Vanilla ISIS at Mock Paper Scissors

Say What?

French far right National Front 'routed' in key vote!! https://t.co/PWSNpNHepY

— Eddie Izzard (@eddieizzard) December 13, 2015

So this seems like a big thing.  Lots of us (me too) got kinda puckered when the Paris attacks went down, and it looked like it would play into the hands of the French equivalent of the Right Radicals.

But then they headed out to the polls on election day and the Nationalist Front kinda got their butts kicked.  

Shading back towards Nicolas Sarkozy isn't exactly the best of all possible worlds, but it ain't Marine Le Pen, and that's important.  

In fact this development is so important the American Press Poodles will absolutely be totally forced to ignore it completely.

Until of course the GOP reboots the French Surrender Monkeys thing (or some such), which can translate back to Dems Are Soft On Terrorism or whatever, and then we can look forward to round after round of Red vs Blue Horse Race bullshit back here in USAmerica Inc.

Too much of this is all about the Ad Revenue, kids. Too many MBAs and PR Flacks got too much ridin' on a business model totally dependent on selling a Political Soap Opera.  They can't afford to let too many of us agree on much of anything.

Take The Higher Moral Ground

Here's a picture of "their" guys:

And here's what "they're" doing about it:

And here's a picture of your guy:

And what are you doing about it?

Today's Winner

Ripped from the blogosphere, the rawness of daily reality comes to life in the guise of Mock Paper Scissors:

The Death Of The Media, Bret Baier Edition

THE OTHER DUMB ONE has a mind like a steel trap… let’s be honest here: if video of dancing NJ Muslims existed, Fox would be playing it 24×7. The fact that they are NOT playing it 24×7 is pretty much proof that there is no documentary evidence that NJ Muslims ever danced in the streets.

But that’s not really the Death of the Media news. Let’s go to BRET BAIER’S response:

“The original statement is thousands and thousands of people in Jersey City celebrating. If you’re just going to get technical, that’s – I don’t know if that has been backed up. Yes, people were celebrating, in some number.”

If you’re going to get technical… that’s weasel speak for “I got nothing, but the boss doesn’t want us to concede.” A network news anchor just defended some BS with, if you’re going to get technical. Your job, Bret, is to get technical with everything, and that’s why YOU are today’s Death of the Media.

Tengrain nails it with: "If video of dancing Muslims existed, Fox would be playing it 24x7."

There were people in this country who celebrated JFK's assassination.  I'm not dismissing the probability that there was something shittily celebratory going on somewhere in USAmerica Inc, and I'm not condoning the shittiness, but politics makes for some pretty shitty behavior - let's try to remember at least that much if not much else in terms of details. 

And let's also try to remember that we all have the right to be asshole-ish enough to say "Yay"  at exactly the wrong time in response to exactly the wrong occurrence.

And one more little thing: We have video of the first plane crashing into the WTC, and while Jersey City ain't Manhattan, if there was any truth to the statement about thousands and thousands - or hundreds, or dozens, or handfuls - if any of that was anything more than Munchausen level bullshit, we'd have the fuckin' video.

And one more one more thing: There's a weird aspect about that piece that makes me think DumFux News is trying to give me the impression that they're trying to be all introspective and self-examining; that maybe they're trying to walk back some of the crazier shit.  What clues might that provide us as to the thinking of the apparatchiks there at the GOP Ministry of Misinformation?

Let's Throw A Study Into It

Nobody west of about Cairo knows more than this guy - Juan Cole:

1. Terrorism or hirabah is forbidden in Islamic law, which groups it with brigandage, highway robbery and extortion rackets– any illicit use of fear and coercion in public spaces for money or power. The principle of forbidding the spreading of terror in the land is based on the Qur’an (Surah al-Ma’ida 5:33–34). Prominent [pdf] Muslim legal scholar Sherman Jackson writes, “The Spanish Maliki jurist Ibn `Abd al-Barr (d. 464/ 1070)) defines the agent of hiraba as ‘Anyone who disturbs free passage in the streets and renders them unsafe to travel, striving to spread corruption in the land by taking money, killing people or violating what God has made it unlawful to violate is guilty of hirabah . . .”

2. Terrorism is above all murder. Murder is strictly forbidden in the Qur’an. 5:53 says, “… whoso kills a soul, unless it be for murder or for wreaking corruption in the land, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind; and he who saves a life, it shall be as if he had given life to all mankind,” Qur’an 6:151 says, “and do not kill a soul that God has made sacrosanct, save lawfully.” (i.e. murder is forbidden but the death penalty imposed by the state for a crime is permitted).

The list has 10 items on it, and they all seem pretty clear.

But there's this weird thing going on right now.  The debate over what is or isn't Islam - or Christianity or any other religion - is starting to sound a lot like one giant logical fallacy of "No True Scotsman", with a dash of "False Equivalence".

ISIL is to Islam what the KKK is to Christianity.

Real Christians don't fire bomb Planned Parenthood Clinics, the same as Real Muslims don't hijack airplanes and crash them into American office buildings.

In the end, we're back arguing degrees of fucked-up-edness concerning the other guy's religion.  We're only saying this or that religious nonsense is less bad than this or that other religious nonsense.  --Update: It's all nonsense, and btw, it's not the same as having to choose the lesser of two evils.  Politics gets evil enough all by itself - we don't need the extra layers of bullshit that (really) only religion can bring.

Mostly, we gotta stop pretending that anybody's religion makes for good government.

Government is about law, and law is about what you can prove, out in the open, where everybody can see it.

Let's get the debate back where it belongs.

Speak Of The Devil

Paris

Friday The 13th can't get much worse than the shit that went down in Paris two days ago.

Except that, of course it can get worse - a lot worse - if the Right Radicals are allowed to hold sway.  (Remember that Marine Le Pen and her merry band of Franco-Nasties gained a lot after the Charlie Hebdo thing)

I posted this on my Facebook wall, saying I tho't the French people were pushing back in a good way, and that I hoped they'd keep their shit together.

And wouldn't you know it - as they try to rally and stay together and not let the forces of darkness overtake them, along come the French equivalent of The Trumpkins ...

The banner says something like "Expel The Islamists", but the ralliers chant "fascists go home", and instead of starting any shit (with the help of the cops), they stay together and apply steady pressure until the Brown Shirts back off and quit the scene. 

And it's striking that at the end, we see the "anti-islamists" just kinda dissolving into the crowd - some of them almost acting like they never really had anything to do with anything, and that maybe this whole thing never even happened.  

Run and hide, assholes.