macventurede

elledark:

No We Can’t

Yes comedy fans, the 2012 election curtain will be going up soon in Americas political theatre of the absurd and doesn’t it bring a tear of nostalgia to your eye as you recall previous shows that had us all on the edge of our seats ?

Remember the one where Obama was the knight in shining armor who would deliver us all from the clutches of the evil Bush ogre ? When he stood in the spotlight and gave the ‘yes we can’ speech, we believed and applauded. Sadly the show didn’t live up to the hype and it became abundantly clear that ‘no we can’t’.

- we can’t run the country for the benefit of its people rather than corporations
- we can’t end the bone-headed Afghan war draining the countries lifeblood
- we can’t slash the crippling military budget and use the money more wisely
- we can’t abandon killing innocent civilians abroad with cowardly drone attacks
- we can’t abandon the use of secret prisons, kidnapping and torture
- we can’t prosecute those to blame for illegal wars, corruption and torture
- we can’t stop persecuting and imprisoning whistleblowers and truth-tellers
- we can’t dismantle the worst excesses of the Bush surveillance state
- we can’t repeal the hideously unpatriotic and draconian ‘Patriot Act’
- we can’t regulate the banks and big corporations in the public interest
- we can’t give every American  a fair, value-for-money health-care system
- we can’t stop the gap between the rich and the poor getting ever bigger
- we can’t get rid of the corporate lobbyists poisoning the political process
- we can’t create jobs rather than wealth for speculators and financiers
- we can’t secure any change that is not approved of by big business
- we can’t have a government representing the hopes and dreams of America

….

Ellie

kforkallisti:

HANDBOOK FOR BLOGGERS AND CYBER-DISSIDENTS
Download the PDF here.

(via OpESR)

Reporters without borders for press freedom.
Nicht mehr lange und wir werden uns das in Europa “unterm Ladentisch” durchreichen.

(Quelle: kforkallisti)

whiporwill:

Apparently, terrorism is only terrorism if committed by a Muslim. Otherwise, it’s extremism.

For much of the day yesterday, the featured headline on The New York Times online front page strongly suggested that Muslims were responsible for the attacks on Oslo; that led to definitive statements on the BBC and elsewhere that Muslims were the culprits.  The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin wrote a whole column based on the assertion that Muslims were responsible, one that, as James Fallows notes, remains at the Post with no corrections or updates.  The morning statement issued by President Obama — “It’s a reminder that the entire international community holds a stake in preventing this kind of terror from occurring” and “we have to work cooperatively together both on intelligence and in terms of prevention of these kinds of horrible attacks” — appeared to assume, though (to its credit) without overtly stating, that the perpetrator was an international terrorist group. 

But now it turns out that the alleged perpetrator wasn’t from an international Muslim extremist group at all, but was rather a right-wing Norwegian nationalist with a history of anti-Muslim commentary and an affection for Muslim-hating blogs such as Pam Geller’s Atlas Shrugged, Daniel Pipes, and Robert Spencer’s Jihad Watch.  Despite that, The New York Times is still working hard to pin some form of blame, even ultimate blame, on Muslim radicals:

Terrorism specialists said that even if the authorities ultimately ruled out Islamic terrorism as the cause of Friday’s assaults, other kinds of groups or individuals were mimicking Al Qaeda’s brutality and multiple attacks.

“If it does turn out to be someone with more political motivations, it shows these groups are learning from what they see from Al Qaeda,” said Brian Fishman, a counterterrorism researcher at the New America Foundation in Washington.

Al Qaeda is always to blame, even when it isn’t, even when it’s allegedly the work of a Nordic, Muslim-hating, right-wing European nationalist.  Of course, before Al Qaeda, nobody ever thought to detonate bombs in government buildings or go on indiscriminate, politically motivated shooting rampages.  The NYT speculates that amonium nitrate fertilizer may have been used to make the bomb because the suspect, Anders Behring Breivik, owned a farming-related business and thus could have access to that material; of course nobody would have ever thought of using that substance to make a massive bomb had it not been for Al Qaeda.  So all this proves once again what a menacing threat radical Islam is.

Then there’s this extraordinarily revealing passage from the NYT — first noticed by Richard Silverstein — explaining why the paper originally reported what it did:

Initial reports focused on the possibility of Islamic militants, in particular Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami, or Helpers of the Global Jihad, cited by some analysts as claiming responsibility for the attacks. American officials said the group was previously unknown and might not even exist.

There was ample reason for concern that terrorists might be responsible.

In other words, now that we know the alleged perpetrator is not Muslim, we know — by definition — that Terrorists are not responsible; conversely, when we thought Muslims were responsible, that meant — also by definition — that it was an act of Terrorism.  As Silverstein put it: 

How’s that again? Are the only terrorists in the world Muslim? If so, what do we call a right-wing nationalist capable of planting major bombs and mowing down scores of people for the sake of the greater glory of his cause? If even a liberal newspaper like the Times can’t call this guy a terrorist, what does that say about the mindset of the western world?

What it says is what we’ve seen repeatedly: that Terrorism has no objective meaning and, at least in American political discourse, has come functionally to mean: violence committed by Muslims whom the West dislikes, no matter the cause or the target.  Indeed, in many (though not all) media circles, discussion of the Oslo attack quickly morphed from this is Terrorism (when it was believed Muslims did it) to no, this isn’t Terrorism, just extremism (once it became likely that Muslims didn’t). 

Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups. Currently proven by the GOP, cut taxes for the rich and social benefits for the poor.

Nein George, nicht Jesus wird die Opfer sortieren, sondern die Richter am Internationalen Strafgerichtshof.