If Music Could Talk

So the Belgians did it. And French border guards has one of the masterminds stopped at the border, then let him go after checking ID.

But the important thing is the French Air Force had a real cathartic day bombing the everloving shit out of Syria, and a couple dickface Republican governors banned their states accepting any more Syrian refugee assignments because brown for'nrs.


U.S.A.? U.S.A.?

Rat Patrol wrote:So the Belgians did it. And French border guards has one of the masterminds stopped at the border, then let him go after checking ID.

But the important thing is the French Air Force had a real cathartic day bombing the everloving shit out of Syria, and a couple dickface Republican governors banned their states accepting any more Syrian refugee assignments because brown for'nrs.


U.S.A.? U.S.A.?

All western foreign policy is a ravenous snake chomping constantly on its own filthy tail.

So what do we do now? Clearly this was a move to draw the western world into the region for more fighting. As far as I know, brutal dictators like Sadam and Assad are really the only way to keep these groups, "in check" which of course requires massive human rights violations.

Per the Atlantic article that was just posted from awhile back, "slow bleed" is the best of the worst options given the promises of their ideology (re: apocalypse) and that's certainly not how we are approaching now.

I'm really at a loss right now.

matedog wrote:So what do we do now? Clearly this was a move to draw the western world into the region for more fighting. As far as I know, brutal dictators like Sadam and Assad are really the only way to keep these groups, "in check" which of course requires massive human rights violations.

Per the Atlantic article that was just posted from awhile back, "slow bleed" is the best of the worst options given the promises of their ideology (re: apocalypse) and that's certainly not how we are approaching now.

I'm really at a loss right now.

I posted this some time ago, journalist Gwynne Dyer's interpretation of the past few decades in the Muslim world: http://www.straight.com/news/804076/gwy ... is-attacks

The first step before any "positive" action is for the West to account for its own role in all this. Whether it's military adventurism and arming every lunatic that wants a rocket launcher, economic strong-arming, or cozying up to dictators out of short-term convenience, only to discard them after the winds shift, we—the West—are not passive victims in all this. Civilians on any "side" do not deserve the fate delivered by the actions of the powerful and we—in this case, all civilians—would do well to see that our true allies are other civilians, not those who exercise power in our name. As long as we subscribe to the false narrative of a clash of civilizations and that the wealthy and powerful are all that stand between us and annihilation, thereby justifying their lethal game playing, it goes on and on and gets worse and worse. That kind of intellectual and moral reckoning is what is needed, but I don't think for a second that it'll happen while I'm alive.

You ever get the feeling that jihadists understand the West so much better than vice versa? The retracting of refugee admittance/calls for the same, the generalized Islamophobia, the calls for greater military response—isn't that exactly what they want, to divide and polarize and make the West less humane? Them: Pavlov; us: dogs.

Dr. Medulla wrote:You ever get the feeling that jihadists understand the West so much better than vice versa? The retracting of refugee admittance/calls for the same, the generalized Islamophobia, the calls for greater military response—isn't that exactly what they want, to divide and polarize and make the West less humane? Them: Pavlov; us: dogs.

Honestly, I feel like our governments and mainstream opinion have been played like a fiddle since 9/11.

Dr. Medulla wrote:

matedog wrote:So what do we do now? Clearly this was a move to draw the western world into the region for more fighting. As far as I know, brutal dictators like Sadam and Assad are really the only way to keep these groups, "in check" which of course requires massive human rights violations.

Per the Atlantic article that was just posted from awhile back, "slow bleed" is the best of the worst options given the promises of their ideology (re: apocalypse) and that's certainly not how we are approaching now.

I'm really at a loss right now.

I posted this some time ago, journalist Gwynne Dyer's interpretation of the past few decades in the Muslim world: http://www.straight.com/news/804076/gwy ... is-attacks

The first step before any "positive" action is for the West to account for its own role in all this. Whether it's military adventurism and arming every lunatic that wants a rocket launcher, economic strong-arming, or cozying up to dictators out of short-term convenience, only to discard them after the winds shift, we—the West—are not passive victims in all this. Civilians on any "side" do not deserve the fate delivered by the actions of the powerful and we—in this case, all civilians—would do well to see that our true allies are other civilians, not those who exercise power in our name. As long as we subscribe to the false narrative of a clash of civilizations and that the wealthy and powerful are all that stand between us and annihilation, thereby justifying their lethal game playing, it goes on and on and gets worse and worse. That kind of intellectual and moral reckoning is what is needed, but I don't think for a second that it'll happen while I'm alive.

Another thing of note, when I was in Brussels for my honeymoon a few months ago (Paris too, but that's irrelevant to this story), we were in one of the Muslim parts of town (not the one where the terrorists were from) and went to a grocery store. There was a mural on the wall with a photo of a historical part of Brussels. There were various people in the photo carrying bags of the supermarket (Lidl), yet none of the faces were brown people. It got me thinking about how the lack of inclusion into European society cannot be helping the problem.

matedog wrote:Another thing of note, when I was in Brussels for my honeymoon a few months ago (Paris too, but that's irrelevant to this story), we were in one of the Muslim parts of town (not the one where the terrorists were from) and went to a grocery store. There was a mural on the wall with a photo of a historical part of Brussels. There were various people in the photo carrying bags of the supermarket (Lidl), yet none of the faces were brown people. It got me thinking about how the lack of inclusion into European society cannot be helping the problem.

Lord yes. When I went to school in Iowa, one of my classmates was from Norway and she said that she got tired of hearing all these lefty academics both apologize for barbaric American social policy and praise to no end the Scandinavian system. It was great, she said, if you and your ancestors going back upteen generations came from there. If you were a "newcomer" (*wink wink*), not so much. Extremely insular and intolerant. I also seem to recall reading that in Denmark one can only give children names from an official list. Take a guess which ethnicity is sanctioned and which isn't? There's much to admire about Scandinavia and Europe more generally relative to Canada and the US, but being fundamentally immigrant countries, however imperfect (to put it mildly), has provided us with a more tolerant perspective towards newcomers.

Dr. Medulla wrote:

matedog wrote:Another thing of note, when I was in Brussels for my honeymoon a few months ago (Paris too, but that's irrelevant to this story), we were in one of the Muslim parts of town (not the one where the terrorists were from) and went to a grocery store. There was a mural on the wall with a photo of a historical part of Brussels. There were various people in the photo carrying bags of the supermarket (Lidl), yet none of the faces were brown people. It got me thinking about how the lack of inclusion into European society cannot be helping the problem.

Lord yes. When I went to school in Iowa, one of my classmates was from Norway and she said that she got tired of hearing all these lefty academics both apologize for barbaric American social policy and praise to no end the Scandinavian system. It was great, she said, if you and your ancestors going back upteen generations came from there. If you were a "newcomer" (*wink wink*), not so much. Extremely insular and intolerant. I also seem to recall reading that in Denmark one can only give children names from an official list. Take a guess which ethnicity is sanctioned and which isn't? There's much to admire about Scandinavia and Europe more generally relative to Canada and the US, but being fundamentally immigrant countries, however imperfect (to put it mildly), has provided us with a more tolerant perspective towards newcomers.

This complicates the whole refugee issue. I'm not an expert, but a lot of the muslim immigrants to Europe have done so in the general sense, "for a better life," yet many of the terrorist attacks in Europe have been homegrown. So when people say, "the Syrian refugees are escaping this" is shortsighted to a degree. It seems that most domestic terrorists are at least second generation, albeit disenfranchised, not first generation. I guess the Tsarnaev brothers were disenfranchised (particularly the older brother regarding his boxing career) first generation. I don't know.

I saw somewhere reputable (maybe a link from this thread, actually) that one in four French youth have a favorable view of ISIS. Not muslim youth, the broader French population. That's fucking insane. To Matey's point, there's a serious "homegrown" issue developing, where organizations the refugees are escaping are making serious inroads in the native populations in the West. I can't even begin to wrap my head around how to effectively combat any of this; especially when you have to start from a position that the west isn't going to meaningfully change its policies in the Middle East one iota.

On the other hand, terrorism in Europe is actually on a decline over the years so to some extent we need to keep that context in mind.

Flex wrote:To Matey's point, there's a serious "homegrown" issue developing, where organizations the refugees are escaping are making serious inroads in the native populations in the West. I can't even begin to wrap my head around how to effectively combat any of this

It's long been an article of faith that people come to North America to find a better life, that things are so great here that people want to be like us. Americans have historically been more given to this conceit, but I hear it more and more from Canadians nowadays. The homegrown Muslim terrorist question can be evidence of (1) something wrong with them; or (2) something wrong with us (i.e., that we're not as wonderful and worthy of imitation as we'd like to think). I'm certainly not discounting (1)—anyone who can rationalize such violence has allowed abstraction to conquer innate human commonality—but (2) is worthwhile evaluating. Holding ourselves up as an obvious ideal almost certainly impairs our ability to figure out a sensible way forward.

I imagine Christendom could turn to its great book and find a reason.

Psalm 137 wrote:By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.
How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.
Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof.
O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.
Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

According to the Bible, the Jews were a beleaguered religious minority in Babylon for several generations. Succeeding generations can prove more resentful.

Dr. Medulla wrote:It's long been an article of faith that people come to North America to find a better life, that things are so great here that people want to be like us. Americans have historically been more given to this conceit, but I hear it more and more from Canadians nowadays. The homegrown Muslim terrorist question can be evidence of (1) something wrong with them; or (2) something wrong with us (i.e., that we're not as wonderful and worthy of imitation as we'd like to think). I'm certainly not discounting (1)—anyone who can rationalize such violence has allowed abstraction to conquer innate human commonality—but (2) is worthwhile evaluating. Holding ourselves up as an obvious ideal almost certainly impairs our ability to figure out a sensible way forward.

Well, sure, but the second one is never, ever going to happen so you have to start looking for solutions that work around that. Which is impossible. We're fucked.