Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

This fight is for everything.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

Everybody saw this coming.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

It’s the corruption, stupid.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

This blog will pay for itself.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

T R E 4 5 O N

Not all heroes wear capes.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Another France Thread

Reader Interactions

160Comments

  5. 5.

    mdblanche

    They’re saying the grocery store terrorist is dead as well, but not before he killed several hostages.

    Merde.

  7. 7.

    Belafon

    @BruinKid: I’m pretty sure he just said that because it sounded better than blaming low gas prices on causing an increase in illegal immigration.

  8. 8.

    Punchy

    “neutralized”? Who uses such basic language with such acidic overtones? It just waters the whole thing down.

  11. 11.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @JPL: at a bare minimum don’t they have four internet/phone networks to follow?

    and the MSNBC terror expert is just now saying that it could take as long as years to trace those “spider networks”. Still, I think the odds that these four were brilliant masterminds is pretty low

  13. 13.

    JPL

    Hollande is going to give a statement in ten minutes. It is being reported that up to four hostages died.

  14. 14.

    ? Martin

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yeah, I don’t see how these guys are any different than our domestic right-wing terrorists that decide to go blow up abortion clinics or shoot up a holocaust museum. There’s no shortage of people willing to tell you who you should be pissed at. That doesn’t constitute a network.

  15. 15.

    mdblanche

    @JPL: They’re now reporting she’s still on the loose. Good news for intelligence gathering, but it might mean this still isn’t all over yet.

  18. 18.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    Now if we could just get the national media to focus on home grown terrorist plots by “real Americans” … but, of course, this is just an isolated group of good ol’ boys.

    Terry Eugene Peace, Brian Edward Cannon and Cory Robert Williamson on Monday waived arraignment and pleaded not guilty to the domestic terrorism charge as well as charges of conspiring to defraud the government.

  19. 19.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @BruinKid: From your link:

    He said that “civilized Islam” needs to speak out and condemn the attacks.

    Well, when is “civilized Christianity” going to condemn the murder of doctors who provide a full range of women’s health services, to include abortion?

    [crickets]

  22. 22.

    Marc

    I’m having a really, really hard time with the equivalences being made here. AQ and ISIS really are a different thing that isolated domestic terrorists. If left-wingers can’t do anything better than minimizing these things (what offense did the patrons of the kosher store perform, for example, aside from being Jewish?) then we deserve to be irrelevant.

  23. 23.

    Southern Beale

    Je ne suis pas Charlie.

    As with “The Interview,” I’m frustrated that it appears the best way we can stand up for free speech is by supporting puerile and offensive hate speech. I get that the Klan has the same right to march down the street as the NAACP, I’m not saying they don’t. But we’ve collectively had ample opportunities to stand up free speech these past few months without offending millions of people. How sad that we let those opportunities slip past but are quick to jump on this bandwagon.

    I think I’m going to leave the internet for a while.

  24. 24.

    Tripod

    @BGinCHI:

    Reports were that there were dead and wounded hostages in the store, so casualties may not be a result of the police assault.

  26. 26.

    Dave C

    @Marc:

    Agreed. Just because all religions have extremists, that doesn’t mean that every religion’s extremists are equally bad. Some are worse than others, it would seem.

  28. 28.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Marc: Because our idiot media plays to the right wing meme that only brown skinned Muslim types are terrorists.

    Terrorism is a tactic that can be used by any disaffected group, to include right wingers. Do you remember the first few days after the Oklahoma City bombing (20 years ago…how time flies!) when our stalwart media was CONVINCED that it had to be dusky-skinned Muslim boogiemen responsible?

  31. 31.

    Elizabelle

    President Obama speech on community college proposal at 1:20 today, per C-Span. Not sure who will carry it live.

    Expect cable will still be all Muslim terrorists all day for a while longer …

  32. 32.

    dedc79

    @Villago Delenda Est: Seems like a concern (a valid one, by the way) best raised when white people commit acts of terror. For example, the coverage (or lack thereof) of the NAACP bombing smacks of the hypocrisy you’re talking about. I don’t see why it’s relevant in the middle of a hostage standoff involving muslim extremists who have apparently just shot four jews because they had the gall to be jewish, a day after related extremists executed twelve other individuals over some cartoons.

  34. 34.

    Betty Cracker

    @Marc: They mean well; it’s true that the media downplays domestic wingnut terrorism, and without voices countering the meme that all terrorists are Muslims, bigots have an easier time demonizing the entire group.

    But yeah, sometimes I wish people would wait until the blood is hosed off the fucking sidewalk, and sometimes it does come across as minimizing horrible atrocities. But I know that’s not the intent.

  35. 35.

    GregB

    I don’t think that anyone should have a problem with anyone pointing out that there is a contemporary strain of fanatical Islam that believes in converting by the sword.

    Both President Sisi of Egypt and Hezbollah’s Nasrallah are saying as much in recent speeches.

    It doesn’t mean that all Muslims are fanatics or terrorists.

    It also doesn’t mean that making such a statement minimizes violent fanatics of other faiths who use violence to push their agenda.

    That being said, good riddance to these shitheels.

  37. 37.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Marc: How isolated are they? The militia movement was/is a network. They’re not as successful as al Qaeda or ISIS, but I’m sure they’d like to be.

  38. 38.

    Cacti

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Because our idiot media plays to the right wing meme that only brown skinned Muslim types are terrorists.

    Meanwhile, Bill O’Reilly still holds down a high paying job with Faux News, after getting Dr. George Tiller murdered with his demagoguery.

  40. 40.

    ? Martin

    @Marc: Nobody is minimizing what they did – just the opposite. We’re demanding that our society stop minimizing what domestic terrorists do and treat them the same. In doing so, maybe we could learn to pull race out of this particular equation.

    Put another way, what international coalition formed to combat bombings and killings at women’s health clinics? None – that was a just a policy disagreement, not terrorism.

  41. 41.

    Marc

    @Matt McIrvin: It’s rational to be more concerned with organized networks than with lone wolves. France has dealt with things like this before – there was a bombing campaign in Paris during the war between the Algerian military and their Islamists in the 1990s (tied to French support for the military regime) ISIS controls a large chunk of real estate in Iraq and Syria, ditto AQ in Yemen, ditto Boko Haram in Nigeria; you can plan and execute much more elaborate and dangerous attacks under those circumstances than if you’re four dudes with a rural barn.

  42. 42.

    Marc

    @? Martin: I do agree that we should take those far more seriously. But there is a better time to have that conversation than in the current circumstances. It’s coming across as remarkably tone-deaf.

  44. 44.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @GregB:

    That being said, good riddance to these shitheels.

    I can only add an “Amen” to that sentiment, Greg.

  45. 45.

    Cacti

    A couple of bad guys are dead. Lots of not bad guys are also dead.

    Since killing the bad guys doesn’t negate the death of the innocents, there’s really no happy ending to this tale.

  46. 46.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    AQ and ISIS really are a different thing that isolated domestic terrorists.

    @Marc: Horseshit they are. Murderers that want to terrify everyone in order to shape society to their will are all filth of the same stripe, no matter the color of their skin or the fictitious sky god they pray to.

  47. 47.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @dedc79: No, I believe anytime there’s a terrorist attack, anywhere, and the media goes into a feeding frenzy, this needs to be brought up.

    Precisely because of what happened in Oklahoma City. That not all mad bombers are pissed because someone dissed The Prophet. Some mad bombers are pissed because people with dark skin aren’t in chains.

    The feet of our worthless media twits need to be held to the fire EVERY SINGLE TIME, until they divorce who the terrorists are from what they did. Because you can expect them to play up the religion of the terrorists ONLY if they happen to be Muslims. Hell, a Faux Noise fuckhead actually said today that ski masks are a problem because you can’t identify the “bad guys” by the color of their skin!

  49. 49.

    schrodinger's cat

    I am not a religious person but it seems to me that many religious people of all stripes are not happy unless they are able to force others to do what they believe is right. Individual Muslims are no more to blame for this incident than individual Christians are for the crazy people who bomb abortion clinics. However, there is something definitely broken in the countries that rule in the name of Islam, with their medieval blasphemy laws and poor treatment women and their own minorities. I am talking about our “friends” like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

  51. 51.

    the Conster

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    there is something definitely broken in the countries that call themselves Islamic with their medieval blasphemy laws and poor treatment women and their own minorities. I am talking about our “friends” like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

    I don’t disagree, but it sounds like a clash of civilizations and I don’t know how to avoid taking sides.

  52. 52.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Southern Beale: Once you give fundies of one stripe the veto to decide what passes the muster of acceptability, you automatically extend it to fundies of all stripes.
    India started with banning Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses for the fear that it may offend some Muslims, and now anything the right wing Hindu zealots find remotely uncomfortable gets banned in India. It truly is a slippery slope.

  54. 54.

    mdblanche

    I feel very bad for the Colorado Springs NAACP. They have a serious cleanup job ahead of them. But they have unquestionably had a better week than the staff of Charlie Hebdo, the French police, the Yemeni police, the Paris Jewish community, and multiple villages in northern Nigeria.

  56. 56.

    the Conster

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Well, of course – but what does that mean in terms of fixing what’s broken on the other side? Do we just have to wait them out, and hope that medieval principles burn themselves out in the flame of enlightened modernity? It hasn’t worked yet, and we’re going on a few hundred years. It seems like the more modernity, the more entrenched and fanatical the extremists become.

  57. 57.

    schrodinger's cat

    @the Conster:The best thing we can do is reduce our energy dependence so we can tell Saudi Arabia to go fuck themselves, and Pakistan too. BTW Pakistan was not this much of a basket case and in the grip of the mullahs until Zia took office.

    Despots use religion to seek acceptability and prove their legitimacy. Not something unique to Islam, either.

  58. 58.

    ? Martin

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    However, there is something definitely broken in the countries that rule in the name of Islam, with their medieval blasphemy laws and poor treatment women and their own minorities. I am talking about our “friends” like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

    Eh. Christian nations were no better until the religion of economics became more powerful. Most Muslim nations were economic backwaters until western nations started exploiting them for oil. Enlightenment is not a rapid process for anyone. Not defending their ways, but it’s also not realistic to expect them to change quickly.

    That’s probably one of the biggest challenges we face – the pace of technology and economic development is vastly faster than the pace of social development. All kinds of friction there.

  59. 59.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Southern Beale: Most Americans had never heard of Charlie Hebdo before Tuesday. This is because yes, it’s puerile and offensive, but it’s ignored. Except by those who DEMAND that their icons be treated with great respect by everyone, and they’ll kill anyone who does not do so.

    Charlie was already in financial trouble because they were not moving product…probably precisely because the market for their form of “satire” is miniscule. Well, the gunmen solved THAT problem for what’s left of the staff. Drawing attention to that which you object to is the classic error of those who want to censor speech they do not like. Fuckhead Donohue does it all the time, with his perpetual outrage over anyone who dares to dis the sacred Mother Church…to include, it appears, that fucking hippie Francis.

  60. 60.

    Marc

    @CONGRATULATIONS!: Different in terms of what they are capable of doing and what impact they have. Charlie Manson and Kim Jong Un are both nuts, but one of them has the capacity to kill a lot more people than the other.

  62. 62.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    The best thing we can do is reduce our energy dependence so we can tell Saudi Arabia to go fuck themselves, and Pakistan too.

    Too much money involved by our Mammon worshiping energy industry for the former, and as for the latter, they’ve got nukes. The REAL reason for our ongoing presence in Afghanistan is the nuclear armed state to the south, and concerns about how much they have their genie under control.

    During the cold war, the US deliberately leaked nuclear weapons protocols to the USSR in the hope that they’d take the hint and use them as well to keep firm control over their nukes, so something like a Dr. Strangelove scenario was made less likely.

    If a nuke was to find its way into the hands of the wrong set of people, like the three gunmen who shot up Charlie the other day, and those who shot up that supermarket in Paris today…well, not good.

  63. 63.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Villago Delenda Est: And that was how the neocons got liberals to sign onto their war project.

    ETA: I’m all for the side of the Enlightenment. Do be careful about the details of what you’re agreeing with.

  64. 64.

    dedc79

    @Betty Cracker: A few years ago, I was sitting at a café in DC owned by Pakistani immigrants, reading The Satanic Verses. One of the owners came over and asked if he could look at the book. I handed it to him, he thumbed through the book for a minute, gave it back to me, shrugged, and said “I’d never actually seen the book before and just wanted to see what all the fuss was about.”

  65. 65.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @? Martin:

    That’s probably one of the biggest challenges we face – the pace of technology and economic development is vastly faster than the pace of social development. All kinds of friction there.

    This, this, this.

    It helps to explain the rise of barbaric fundamentalism in this country…people terrified by the pace of change wrought by technology and a market based economy. The dynamism of both terrifies a lot of people.

  66. 66.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Matt McIrvin: The devil, Matt, is always in the details. And the neocons feign interest in the Enlightment…they’re neo-feudalists at heart.

  67. 67.

    scav

    @? Martin: And it’s furthermore all mixed up and complicated. Religion of any stripe can be a digestible means by which an otherwise unsustainable regime maintains control and power. Religions, esp in hardline form, can be popular because they give clear simple answers in a complex world (added to the justication they provide as to what ‘good’ people ‘deserve’ and the licit cover to punish all those one dislikes) so there’s a grass-roots appeal to be exploited by the currently-in-power economic-political-military elite. The ‘broken’ bit about many of the regimes are eerily close to what some want “back” as ‘their” ‘Merka.

  69. 69.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Drawing attention to that which you object to is the classic error of those who want to censor speech they do not like.

    On the other hand, if your actual aim is just to turn the heat up, radicalize others and drive everyone toward an apocalyptic confrontation, it could be exactly the thing you want to do.

  70. 70.

    Keith G

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Because our idiot media plays to the right wing meme that only brown skinned Muslim types are terrorists.

    Make that point after right wing extremist rack up the same death rate that Muslim extremists have been. Just think back to the days after the OKC bombing. It was wall to fucking wall coverage of Michigan militia groups, disaffected veterans, and their related fellow travelers.

    Most media enterprises seem to care much more about collecting eyeballs and ears than any other factor – even, or especially, the truth.

    Remember Richard Jewell?

    Once our home grown right wing terrorists become a bit better at killing people, I’m sure they will probably be rewarded with appropriate media coverage. Until then unfortunately their story just does not have traction with much of the apathetic American audience.

    Also bear in mind that our media is east coast focused. That means that only those issues that are important to the folks that area hit the first dibs on the media’s attention. And at this point homegrown conservative terrorism is not been much of an issue in New York City to Washington DC. Until it does become an issue in those localities, there’s not going to be a large demand for coverage.

    @Betty Cracker:

    But I know that’s not the intent.

    Assuming facts not in evidence?

  72. 72.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Just think back to the days after the OKC bombing. It was wall to fucking wall coverage of Michigan militia groups, disaffected veterans, and their related fellow travelers.

    Until McVeigh was tripped up on the Interstate, it was nothing but middle-eastern terrorists responsible.

    The media of course did pivot nicely when facts made The Narrative untenable, even for the folks at Minitru.

  73. 73.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Marc: Since Charles Manson is behind bars and likely to stay there until he expires, your point is kind of lost. When Charles wasn’t behind bars he did a fine job of splattering blood all over walls.

  76. 76.

    J R in WV

    @Marc:

    What did you see that minimized the recent horror in France? I didn’t notice any of that.

    Calling attention to other terrorist attacks doesn’t minimize the current situation in France, does it? It just adds more information to a world-wide problem to me.

  77. 77.

    Cervantes

    @shelley:

    The book was about characters struggling with apostasy. Those characters spoke. Stupidly, or diabolically if you prefer, some of their words were taken to be a statement of Rushdie’s opinion. If not for the death threats (Rushdie was by no means the only one threatened or harmed), the whole thing would have been a farce.

    Here is something Rushdie said while he was in hiding:

    Do I, perhaps, find something sacred after all? Am I prepared to set aside as holy the idea of the absolute freedom of the imagination and alongside it my own notions of the world, the Text and the Good? Does this add up to what the apologists of religion have started calling “secular fundamentalism”? And if so, must I accept that this “secular fundamentalism” is as likely to lead to excesses, abuses and oppressions as the canons of religious faith?

    The question is, of course, sadly familiar.

  78. 78.

    Elizabelle

    C-Span 2 live now: will be President Obama’s community college speech. In Tennessee.

    Dr. Mrs. VP Joe Jill Biden is doing the intro now.

    Like we couldn’t see that coming from 30,000 feet.

  81. 81.

    Tenar Darell

    @? Martin: @Villago Delenda Est: I was thinking about something like this earlier today.

    Fundamentalism itself and the techniques being used by many fanatics are actually very modern. Codifying and spreading a certain extremist sect or hate speech via propaganda over the the web via YouTube is taking modernity and using it for retrograde purposes. Outraging the “enlightened” world so we become extreme is not simply a clever tactic, it might be the point. Perhaps it’s even a knee jerk response to the fact that we are now so interconnected that withdrawal from the rest of the world is almost completely impractical.

    (Which makes me think of Mike Resnick’s story series Kirinyaga. Essentially a whole series of interconnected stories of how a withdrawal could take place if we had asteroid habitats).

  82. 82.

    satby

    @Villago Delenda Est: to your point,

    Drawing attention to that which you object to is the classic error of those who want to censor speech they do not like.

    this was put up by a Muslim friend of mine on FB:

    “Innocent people were killed including a Muslim cop, the cartoons you supposedly hated are now published in millions of papers, Islamophobia is now even more widely accepted, Dawah efforts set back immensely, a ‪#‎KillAllMuslims‬ hashtag, Mosques being attacked in France and elsewhere, hate crimes against innocent Muslims and even “Muslim looking” people, and of course this was all conveniently as France was debating recognizing an independent Palestine. And you extremists are proud of these actions? Good luck facing your Lord with all of the above on the Day of Judgment. ‪#‎Notinmyname‬ ‪#‎Savehumanity‬”

  83. 83.

    Elizabelle

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Just kind of Franced out; so very sad for them. And always interested in seeing a PBO speech in real time, because I miss them too often.

    Joe Biden is speaking now.

    Also, very sad to hear of the 2,000 killed by Boko Haram; horrifying. Sometimes it’s good (for me) to dial back. Which does not take away from the gravity of what’s happening.

    ETA: also, watching something like the France attacks play out on cable TV: it becomes wall to wall, and deadens one.

  84. 84.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Elizabelle: yup, theres a reason we had 600+ comments on a “your favorite music sucks!”, in a mostly good-natured way, thread yesterday

  86. 86.

    Paul in KY

    @dedc79: I don’t know why the fuck you would want to live under such monsters. If all the people there just rose up & started killing them (ISIS), they’d be gone in a day.

  88. 88.

    Elizabelle

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    And another reason I was militating for a Charlie Hebdo thread the other day was that (a) it was an enormously newsworthy and — happily — somewhat unusual event (at least for those not living in an area of open conflict) and how hard is it to throw up an open thread? and (b) I am beyond sick of the cheap horserace aspect of American politics. I do not give a fig about Jeb Bush.

    If our careerist corporate media wants to discuss him, ad nauseum, why must we join them in that? Just because it’s here?

    ETA: PBO up now. Speaking briefly on France now.

  89. 89.

    Paul in KY

    @GregB: It’s a powerful meme among dis-affected Muslims. Converting by the sword was how they generally did it back in their golden age…before Hulagu Khan put an end to all that.

  91. 91.

    Calouste

    @Paul in KY: I guess you are also wondering why parts of Europe lived under the Nazis for 5 years or why blacks in the United States lived in slavery for centuries?

    Hint: it might have to do with whoever has more weapons.

  92. 92.

    Paul in KY

    @the Conster: Although they can generally do what they want in their own countries, I think we all need to be against archaic ‘thought crimes’ like blasphemy & the like.

  94. 94.

    Bill

    As happy as I am that the people responsible for the murder of innocent journalists, officers and civilians are no longer able to hurt anyone, I have a hard time cheering more death.

    At some point this shit has to stop. I wish we could figure out how.

  98. 98.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Paul in KY: What exactly would that be? Leaving the Buddhists in Ladakh and the Kashmiri Pundits to the tender mercies of Pakistan? Where does it stop? Should India give up parts of Uttar Pradesh and Assam that are majority Muslim too? That solution was rejected when India became independent. There is no solidarity between the different ethnicities of Pakistan (Sindhis, Mohajirs, Pathans do not get along) though they share the same religion, on the other hand the Indian mosaic has its problems but is one of the few multicultural diverse nations in the world.

    ETA: FYI, India has more Muslims than Pakistan does, should there be another Partition?

  100. 100.

    Roger Moore

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    That not all mad bombers are pissed because someone dissed The Prophet. Some mad bombers are pissed because people with dark skin aren’t in chains.

    And some bombers have legitimate grievances but have resorted to violence because nobody will do anything about them when they pursue them through peaceful channels. Those are the hardest to deal with because even when we recognize the justice of their grievance, we don’t want to reward their methods. Not that I think that applies in this case, but I think it’s always worth checking our assumptions about people’s motivations and trying to see if this kind of violence is an illegitimate expression of a legitimate grievance.

  102. 102.

    Peale

    Well, to balance out the week, they did find another bevy of heads and headless bodies in Gurerro this week, although none of them belong to those 43 missing students. For those worried that we’re spending too much time focusing on the violence of radical Islamic child sex fiends, we could talk about the violence of police and criminal gangs in Mexico instead. Just as a change of pace. No Muslims involved in any way in that one, although the implications are probably just as terrifying.

  103. 103.

    Paul in KY

    @Calouste: Blacks were a small minority (unlike the population of occupied-Syria, in relation to the ISIS goons) and German military was a much stronger force (in general) in occupied Europe (they were loved in Germany, until it all went to shit) so point taken on that.

    The Parthians got rid of the Romans (for a time) by all rising up on the set day & killing them all (by surprise). It can be done.

  104. 104.

    Paul in KY

    @schrodinger’s cat: Pakistan was basically tricked out of the Kashmir when the partition happened. A plebiscite was to be held (that they would have won) and just before, the Hindu absolute ruler made one of his last decrees and put Kashmir with India. You may think that was great (and for those non-Muslims in the Kashmir, it probably was). However, that was a big ‘fuck you’ to the nascent country of Pakistan & has really frosted them ever since.

    If India could be the bigger country here & acknowledge the shenanigans & make some kind of partition of the Kashmir or convince Pakistan to take a huge cash payment in lieu of ever getting back any of it, it would do a lot (IMO) to reduce tensions there.

  105. 105.

    Peale

    @Paul in KY: ISIS I think is very smart to basically enter new terroritory and kill off the types of people who would lead uprisings of any sort immediately. It’s not like they haven’t thought this through. They know killing. They don’t know how to dispose of sewage, but identifying leaders or potential people with connections is something they do quite well. It is tough to organize a day of reckoning when all of the most trusted people in the villages who could pass that information along have been crucified.

  106. 106.

    Elizabelle

    @Peale: Yeah, I’ve gotten more interested in Mexico. That’s a very good suggestion. Can you imagine having to live through some of what happens there? And such a wonderful culture and people, in so many ways.

  107. 107.

    Peale

    @Paul in KY: Pakistan would never take cash payments for Kashmir. That would just be a sign that they had finally lost their claim to be the rightful rulers of India, displaced by those evil Brits and Hindus with their silly democracy.

  108. 108.

    mdblanche

    @Paul in KY: The German military was more popular in occupied Europe than the occupied Europeans cared to admit afterwards. And unfortunately the same is probably true about ISIS.

  109. 109.

    Marc

    Talking about legit grievances: I’d put Jews killed for going to the grocery store in France in that category. Or an entire town gunned down by BH in Nigeria.

  112. 112.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Paul in KY: If India cedes Kashmir, that will shatter India into a million pieces, besides Pakistan can barely manage the territory it has right now. I do agree, India and Pakistan got off on the wrong foot but it was not all due to Kashmir. The blood shed in Punjab and in the then East Pakistan was orders of magnitude worse than what happened in Kashmir. BTW India did give Pakistan monetary concessions, it was one of the reasons that ticked of Gandhi’s Hindu wingnut assassin.

  113. 113.

    Paul in KY

    @mdblanche: Very sad if ISIS is actually popular among those they are ‘governing’. The German occupation wasn’t as harsh to non-Jews, etc. as these wackos are.

  114. 114.

    Calouste

    @ruemara:

    I hope they get useful intel.

    Experience has shown that keeping political hostage-takers alive just results in more hostage situations where the demand is the release of the original hostage-takers. So in these kind of situations the special forces go in with orders to make sure that no hostage-takers survive.

  115. 115.

    Paul in KY

    @schrodinger’s cat: Not the whole thing, of course, but some kind of split agreeable to both sides (in the spirit of compromise).

    Edit: Would take years of negotiations by people on both sides committed to a final resolution.

  116. 116.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Paul in KY:

    Not the whole thing, of course, but some kind of split agreeable to both sides (in the spirit of compromise).

    That will happen right after my dinner date with Godot.

    *shamelessly stealing the line someone else used in the comments a couple of weeks ago.

  117. 117.

    Elizabelle

    @Marc: Headline blurb on NYTimes says Boko Haram victims, hundreds of them, were women, children and the elderly.

    Sporting of them.

  118. 118.

    mdblanche

    @Roger Moore:

    And some bombers have legitimate grievances but have resorted to violence because nobody will do anything about them when they pursue them through peaceful channels. Those are the hardest to deal with because even when we recognize the justice of their grievance, we don’t want to reward their methods. Not that I think that applies in this case

    It could apply as collateral damage. Given how Jews were targeted by some of the hostage takers, I doubt the politically decrepit Hollande has enough political capital to press on with his proposal to recognize Palestine now.

  120. 120.

    Citizen_X

    @Paul in KY:

    If all the people there just rose up & started killing them (ISIS), they’d be gone in a day.

    WTF? People have been “rising up and killing” other people in Syria for a few years now. ISIS has just been very, very good at it, as others have noted.

    It’s not like there’s a shortage of armed factions there.

  121. 121.

    dedc79

    @mdblanche: There are about 500,000 jews in France (and thousands emigrating to Israel and elsewhere each year because of incidents like this) and 6,000,000 muslims. I don’t think Hollande’s political prospects hinge on whether or not he recognizes a Palestinian state.

  122. 122.

    Gin & Tonic

    @mdblanche: Given how Jews were targeted by some of the hostage takers

    Do you have evidence that that was their intent? I have seen no coverage indicating that it was, and I guess it’s possible that they took hostages at a grocery store because that was a soft target, not because it served primarily Jews.

  123. 123.

    dedc79

    @dedc79: Meant to add: Even if you were to assume that the 500,000 jews were unanimous in opposing the recognition of a Palestinian state (which they are not), it’s not like his political prospects will turn on whether he does exactly what he thinks france’s jews want him to do.

  124. 124.

    Marc

    The president of France is calling the attack on the grocery store an appalling anti-Semitic act, so I think it’s likely. There were Jewish children killed by another attack recently in Toulouse. For what its worth, they’re also posting police guards at mosques.

  125. 125.

    mdblanche

    @dedc79: Hollande’s political prospects, assuming he even has any, hinge on whether or not he can get a rally round the flag effect out of these atrocities. I doubt he can afford to do anything that his political opponents, who have long smelled blood, can demagogue as appeasement.

    @Gin & Tonic: It could be a coincidence. Given the track record of explicitly anti-Semitic attacks by Islamists in Western Europe recently it would be as big a coincidence as all those Russian troops getting lost and just happening to march into Ukraine.

  126. 126.

    trollhattan

    @Gin & Tonic:
    Gotta say I believe it’s a safe bet Jews were intentionally targeted in the Paris market. Look at the lengths the Mumbai killers went to target Jews in bloody India, of all places. It’s warped politics but these were as much political acts as they were religious.

  128. 128.

    Paul in KY

    @Citizen_X: I mean everyone, men, women, children old enough to hold a knife, etc.. There are thousands upon thousands of them. If they all started in on them (especially with surprise element), they’d be gone in a day. There would be massive casualties on those uprising, but that goes with this strategy.

  129. 129.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Peale:

    No Muslims involved in any way in that one, although the implications are probably just as terrifying.

    There you go. Doesn’t fit neatly into “The Narrative” of the Village.

  130. 130.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @mdblanche:

    it would be as big a coincidence as all those Russian troops getting lost and just happening to march into Ukraine.

    Oh, great, BiP bait.

    The antisemitism of Muslims (as in darn those Jewey Jews) has a lot to do with the entire Israel-Palestine mess.

    Also ancient grievances with the first people of the Book.

  132. 132.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Gin & Tonic: It was a kosher supermarket. Which is bizarre, halal isn’t too far removed from kosher as far as dietary laws are concerned. A fact that escapes dimwits like Pam Gellar.

  133. 133.

    Someguy

    @dedc79: And, in other news, a street magician in Syria “provoked” ISIS militants into beheading him by pretending to make coins disappear.

    You sure he wasn’t a meme? Because that’d be totally understandable.

  134. 134.

    Someguy

    @Villago Delenda Est: It was a kosher supermarket. Which is bizarre, halal isn’t too far removed from kosher as far as dietary laws are concerned. A fact that escapes dimwits like Pam Gellar.

    Indeed. It’s inexplicable why they’d take hostages in a kosher supermarket, when kosher food is so close in how it is prepared to halal food. This is a huge head scratcher. I simply cannot figure it out. Perhaps the service was really poor, or they didn’t have an adequate gluten-free section.

  135. 135.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Gin & Tonic: Hate speech doesn’t need celebrating. Which, I guess I draw the line somewhere differently than Southern Beale does but I agree in principle. Hate speech, Jew-baiting, Muslim-baiting, FOX News style propaganda and agitation, it ends in real people getting killed. Personally, it seems that Hebdo was specifically taking aim at the extremists. That I am all for. OTOH, I see nothing “brave” or “courageous” about reprinting those Danish cartoons. They’re racist as fuck. Just because Hustler has the right to exist doesn’t mean you should get applauded for carrying it around in public any way other than inside a brown paper sleeve. Standing up for free speech is a funny way of saying “wanking to tribalistic nuttery”. I’m with the commenter on NPR talk yesterday who said, the “secular” French schools just happen to have the day off on Christmas. This is no different from the issues, say, NYCDE has to deal with every year but French people are throwing more of a tantrum over it.

  136. 136.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Dave C:

    Agreed. Just because all religions have extremists, that doesn’t mean that every religion’s extremists are equally bad. Some are worse than others, it would seem.

    Lame. It’s all about who has power. If your religious extremists control the coercive power of the state then they don’t have to engage in organized terror campaigns to get their way.

    It’s funny how quickly we forget. Atlanta bombings anyone? We talk about how nutty our right is every day on this blog. They aren’t less bad, they just get into power a lot and can use the power of the state to imprison pregnant women and kill them through neglect or whatever other sick fuck shit they want to do. Hell, they had a whole presidential admin to get hired to go overseas and do anything sadistic thing their sick minds could think up.

    Terrorist cells and shit like that are tactics of the overmatched minority. But our sickos go straight to terrorism just because they feel their overweening privilege is being reined in, or could be reined in, you know, any day now.

    People are the same pretty much everywhere. If Christianity really was the civilizing force that CS Lewis & Friends want you to believe it is we wouldn’t have so much fascism and domestic terrorism in the bibley-est corners of the USA.

  138. 138.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Marc:

    But there is a better time to have that conversation than in the current circumstances. It’s coming across as remarkably tone-deaf.

    Really? Are any of the victims any less dead?

    This is EXACTLY when to speak about such things. Devolving into xenophobia and reprisals is exactly what the terrorists wanted. Why should we give it to them?

    I, for one, don’t think the way the US responded to 9/11 was a healthy or useful or strategic response. You may differ.

  139. 139.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Cacti: All the upfists to that sentiment. I’m angry. Angry at law enforcement but I’m not French or a security expert so I’ll leave them to it.

  141. 141.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Another Holocene Human: But our sickos go straight to terrorism just because they feel their overweening privilege

    Do you really think that Eric Rudolph or Timothy McVeigh felt a sense of overweening privilege? Or should have felt that sense?

  143. 143.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Villago Delenda Est: The Enlightenment was right and the other side is always, every day and twice on Tuesday, wrong. That’s good enough for me.

    There is no magic “tame, beneficial” religion. There are only religions which have been wedded to state power, that is “established” and religions which have been separated from the business of the secular state. It doesn’t matter what religious tradition and what form of government, any time you establish religion bad shit happens and keeps happening until brave people of good will put a fucking stop to it and disestablish religion again. There is NO religious tradition that will not be corrupted into sadistic authoritarian bullshit once established.

    Note: establishment is more than just gov’t subsidies for religious orgs, plenty of govs do that in one way or another. Rather, it’s allowing religion to infect law–both legislation and the courts–as well as infecting executive or state functions, allowing religious leadership to exercise state or state-like powers over individuals and families. IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW COOL AND EARTH GODDESSY YOUR RELIGION IS, PUT IT IN POWER AND IT WILL CREATE HELL ON EARTH.

  144. 144.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Gin & Tonic: You’re begging the question.

    In the US most forms of hate speech, hate propaganda, etcet, are protected by law. But not every Western country has made that choice. Some here talk of a slippery slope. But it’s only slippery if you have the wrong climbing equipment. Incitements to violence, race hatred, and dog-whistles to violent, racist extremists can be curtailed without otherwise limiting freedom of expression and thought, and need not become open season for narcissistic religious leaders to pursue their enemies using the power of the state.

    The US is NOT #1, and our choice of the most radical position in terms of what you can publish may be hard to untangle from all the other things that cause us to lag the rest of the big Western economies on so many measures. Does our tolerance of terroristic threats and political extremism help exacerbate the inequality that fuels our crime rates, infant mortality, lifetime morbidity, shorter lifespans, etc? Possibly unprovable. However, I can’t say that I found Canada, which made different choices from the US, to be an unfriendly place and it’s hardly the kind of totalitarianism that Americans posit. It’s not China, where you have to be really careful about what you say.

    We can see the negative consequences of the legally protected instigating all around us every day as Americans. I don’t really see where the benefits kick in. Maybe we just don’t trust the government not to become the arm of Pat Robertson. We don’t have experience with distinguishing the two. Maybe that is what would happen. A self-fulfilling prophecy. But if we are committed to this radical path our only hope of inhibition is to use shunning and shame and relentless calling out of the fascists, the instigators, the baiters.

    Not defending them, swelling their ranks, and giving them pats on the fucking head.

    Just because you CAN say something doesn’t mean you SHOULD. Haven’t we said that a million and one times in the liberal blogosphere?

  145. 145.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Gin & Tonic: They perceived the loss of their unexamined privilege as an existential threat.

    This is why they talk about “rights”.

    It’s white supremacy through and through. Just because they’re too dull to see the air which envelops them doesn’t mean it’s not there.

  146. 146.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Someguy: There have been street fights in the last year between radical Jewish teens/young people in support of Israel (right or wrong!) and radical Muslim young people who claim to be supporting Palestinians but are actually dabbling in anti-Semitic rhetoric. Really hard to pick a side, it’s like Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland in the 80s. Pox on both your houses.

    So, there are islamophobic Jewish radicals in France and anti-Semitic Muslim radicals in France, clearly this was the work of the latter.

    It’s the sort of thing to give a lefty a headache, after all, right wing Europeans have been pushing to outlaw both halal and kosher butchery on animal cruelty grounds. It’s been really nasty and both communities should have clear common ground.

    But race wankery is so much easier for some pinheads.

  147. 147.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Villago Delenda Est: Speaking of stochastic terrorism, watch how Gellar constantly spins every time Anders Breivik comes up. Gellar’s website was like his favorite place. She will try to lie and deflect, even blaming the other other Chuck Johnson, even though Breivik mentions him in his manifesto only to call him out as a sellout (because he kicked all of the racists off of his blog).

  148. 148.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Another Holocene Human: I’m not sure it’s possible to draw that bright line. Technically, the UK has an established religion and the US doesn’t, but religious meddling in politics causes far more trouble here than there.

    Edit: I guess it’s actually England (and Wales) that has an established church, not the UK.

  149. 149.

    dedc79

    @Another Holocene Human: This is a gross mischaracterization of what’s been going on between muslims and jews in france. While there were one or two reported isolated instances where the JDL violently confronted people protesting the bombing of gaza, the large majority of violence and assaults has occurred in one direction – muslim against jew. To a radical segment of the muslim population in france – all jews are evil and the enemy. They draw no distinction between french jews and israeli jews.

    “Both sides do it” nonsense doesn’t suddenly become ok when the scene shifts to another country.

  150. 150.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Paul in KY:

    I don’t know why the fuck you would want to live under such monsters. If all the people there just rose up & started killing them (ISIS), they’d be gone in a day.

    Yes, but where’s the confidence to take such an action? Mussolini was dispatched by a committee of concerned Italians but they didn’t do it while Hitler and Dolchfass whatever the fuck his name in Austria were in power. What were the exact circumstances?

    There’s a psychology to such outbursts. Humans aren’t Vulcans and they can’t all just cold-bloodedly decide to cast aside fear and disgust and engage in such actions.

  151. 151.

    Another Holocene Human

    @dedc79: And there’s been accusations by both sides that the police let the attackers do the attacking. I’m condemning the racists, not the rest of the community, a distinction that seems to escape you. Racists don’t get more or less condemnable because there are more or less of them.

  152. 152.

    Matt McIrvin

    …and the issue of whether or not the Church of Scotland is an established church seems to be strangely ambiguous, though the British royal family’s website claims it is.

  153. 153.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Matt McIrvin: To the extent that the state defers to religious authorities they have all the same problems we do.

    It’s not the tax breaks or the subsidies that are the problem (unless they really get outrageous, see US, although the victims tend to be the congregants and not anybody else). It’s letting religious schools pass without any standards or oversight, letting religious authorities enforce religious laws in, say, family matters and not simply in governance of their private worship facilities. Protecting religious practices in law in a way that gives them special rights, a la Hobby Lobby. And so on.

    ETA: There are a lot of controversies in the UK right now with religious schools, NOT church of England affiliate schools, but rather the schools set up by religious minority groups, for failing to adhere to standard curricula among other failings.

  154. 154.

    Another Holocene Human

    @dedc79:

    This is a gross mischaracterization of what’s been going on between muslims and jews in france.

    That could be so. I saw the videos. Looked like a bunch of black bloc hooligans itching for a fight.

    All the internet and street tough-guying failed to make their own communities feel safer, so what was the point? Ego, ego, ego.

  155. 155.

    dedc79

    @Another Holocene Human: Of course racism of all kinds is condemnable. But the fact is that there is a clear pattern emerging of French muslim extremists assaulting and murdering French jews, and not the reverse.

    EDITED: And the far right in france hates jews and muslims alike. In a sane world, jews and muslims would be uniting to oppose the fascist wing of French politics, which ebbs and flows but never disappears.

  156. 156.

    sparrow

    I think this take on it is the most balanced and sane commentary/opinion I have seen. I pretty much agree 100%

    https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/cas-mudde/no-we-are-not-all-charlie-and-that%E2%80%99s-problem

    Second, many people are not Charlie because they believe that democratic debates should be “civil” and not upset people. The problem is that ‘civility’ is a slippery concept, which means very different things to different people. Similarly, it is impossible to measure whether people are upset, let alone objectively compare how upset they are. People can get upset about everything, so why should religious sensitivity have special protection. Who is to say that Charlie’s critique of Islam(ism) upsets a very religious Muslim more than l’Equipe’s critique of Paris Saint German hurts a diehard PSG fan?

  157. 157.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Someguy: Well, I, for one, cannot imagine why they would.

    Of course, then again, I am a bear of little brains. Sort of like Pam. Except I’m far smarter than the average Pam.

    But seriously, and non sarcastically (well, less sarcastically, but not much…), the motivations of these particular criminals probably has a great deal to do with a certain decades long conflict in the middle east that I can’t put my finger on precisely, because there are so many of them from which to choose!

  158. 158.

    Cervantes

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    That will happen right after my dinner date with Godot.

    The Patriot:

    I am standing for peace and non-violence.
    Why world is fighting fighting
    Why all people of world
    Are not following Mahatma Gandhi,
    I am simply not understanding.
    Ancient Indian Wisdom is 100% correct,
    I should say even 200% correct,
    But modern generation is neglecting —
    Too much going for fashion and foreign thing.

    […]

    What you think of prospects of world peace?
    Pakistan behaving like this,
    China behaving like that,
    It is making me really sad, I am telling you.
    Really, most harassing me.
    All men are brothers, no?
    In India also
    Gujaratis, Maharashtrians, Hindiwallahs
    All brothers —
    Though some are having funny habits.
    Still, you tolerate me,
    I tolerate you,
    One day Ram Rajya is surely coming.

    The poet is Nissim Ezekiel, 1924-2004.

  159. 159.

    Cervantes

    @Betty Cracker:

    Some say [Rushdie] had Stockholm Syndrome for awhile but recovered.

    Who are these “some”? Why should we care what they say? I’m missing your point, I’m sure.

Comments are closed.