Terrorism In America

Now that John McCain is saving the world from his suspended campaign's offices, using an ingenious device recently introduced by that young scamp Alexander Graham Bell, we can turn our eyes to other, admittedly less important and compelling, stories.

Stories such as the one coming out of Dayton, Ohio, where a person or persons "sprayed an irritant" into the mosque of the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton while approximately 300 people were worshiping.  The "irritant" - GOOD GOD PEOPLE, IT'S A FUCKING TERRORIST WEAPON WHATEVER IT IS - was sprayed into the nursery.

You know, the place where people put their babies and toddlers while they go into Big Church. 

Chris Rodda has a diary at DailyKos about this.  Rodda received permission to publish an email received from a person who spent the day after the terrorist attack with one of the targeted families.  This email describes the horror and fear of parents for their children, their babies, a fear that now is their constant companion here in America: land of the free and beacon of hope to oppressed peoples around the world.

Rodda links this attack to the recent distribution of the repugnant propaganda film Obsession, thousands of copies of which were distributed in Dayton.  This is exactly right.  Once again Melissa McEwan's words are apt:  this shit doesn't happen in a vacuum.  Obsession is explicitly designed to incite and inflame, to induce extreme fear in American citizens.  I firmly believe that the people who created this film not only anticipated the violence that would occur as a result of it, but intended it to be a catalyst for such violence.  To preempt some comments, let me ask this:  when will liberals stop assuming the best about a movement which has already spawned clinic bombings, doctor assassinations, which glorifies war and makes a fetish of soldiers, for which no criminal sentence is enough, which fills op-ed pages with outrage about the idea that prisoners shouldn't have to live in constant fear of rape and other abuse, whose members have and continue to call for the nuclear obliteration of nations and peoples who have not been proven ever to have done anything to us?

If Obama is elected this November, right wing violence will increase, just as it always does when these lunatics don't think they have one of their own in the White House.  We need to get ready for it now, and start figuring out what we are going to do to combat it now, not after the terrorist attack in Dayton over the weekend is replicated all over the country.

Comments

[Blitzgal]

The first step is having the public at large understand that these incidents ARE terrorist attacks, because all to often they are ignored by the MSM.

[low-tech cyclist]

GOOD GOD PEOPLE, IT'S A FUCKING TERRORIST WEAPON WHATEVER IT IS

I hope you didn't ridicule the assorted bogus 'terrorist' attacks like those guys in Miami who were going to bring down the Sears Tower, or the guys who were going to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge with acetylene torches.

I did, so if these guys were spraying Windex or something, I'm afraid I can't exactly call it "A FUCKING TERRORIST WEAPON" without applying one mind-blowing double standard.

[Corvus9]

"A FUCKING TERRORIST WEAPON" might be over the top, if it is Windex*, but describing it as a terrorist attack is not. If it incites fear and distrust, it's a terrorist act, and should be labeled as such.

And yes, fuck these people. Treat them as monsters. While I think it would be wrong headed to demand the banning of the film or something (Free-speech reasons, you know the drill), we do need to express that such activity is shameful and not condoned or socially acceptable. Burn them in effigy, I say. What are their names?

*Yeah, there is a sense in which even if it was Windex it would a "terrorist weapon," a weapon used by terrorists, but there is a matter of labels and emphasis in which certain descriptions are rhetorically unconvincing, and can actually hurt one's valid point by making you seem hysterical, and thus an invalid source of information or opinion.

[Stephen]

low-tech,

Don't you think it's a tad unlikely that spraying Windex would cause the reaction the worshipers had?

If this had happened 1st Baptist Church of Dayton, it wouldn't have just been characterized as an "irritant," but as some type of weapon, and would have been the top news story everywhere. You know it.

But it was just against some furriners worshiping a false god, so no big deal.

[Stephen]

can actually hurt one's valid point by making you seem hysterical

Suggesting that Windex is capable of producing the reactions seen in that mosque makes one seem intent upon downplaying what happened in the face of all evidence.

People who want to bring down the Brookly Bridge with acetylene torches = morons

Someone sprays tear gas, or pepper spray or some other substance that manages to spread throughout a building, cause respiratory distress in hundreds of people and a full-on panic = Mission Accomplished

But I used all-caps out of frustration, so by all means ignore what happened in Dayton.

[has_te]

WHEN will stop thinking of them as ..just across the aisle
but rather as a malign -only occasionally & variably moderated- force in America.

One which suborns Justice where possible and is dedicated to the eradication of everything
we hold dear as
[I hesitate to use the adjective but if I use it rightly; condemnatory of lots of what passes for polity]
real Americans.

When will call 'em by what are.
Your chosen term(s) but never simply 'the opposition'.
And almost never esteemed. The estimation is....gone.

[low-tech cyclist]

But I used all-caps out of frustration, so by all means ignore what happened in Dayton.

Well, that's the thing, isn't it? What did happen in Dayton? Fuck-all if I can figure out whether it was Windex or pepper spray or what. Maybe it's time to wait and see what the attack actually consisted of.

But using all caps, and wrapping up a whole bunch of different things into a mishmash of hysteria, isn't going to foster a meaningful or informative discussion.

[janinsanfran]

The film Obsession got wide distribution only because various newspapers in battleground states were willing to include it inside their papers going out for home delivery. It is not an assault on anyone's free speech to engage in more speech -- to vigorously ask these newspapers why they sold their delivery apparatus for the purpose of spreading this trash. You can find a list of the newspapers that served as the delivery mechanism here.

[Crissa]

Doesn't matter if it were water, you fill someone's lungs with it and that's gonna terrorize them.

You don't need real weapons or real damage - but you do need real actions. Acetylene torches to a concrete bridge is hardly going to scare anyone. An acetylene torch to someone's house or their face or their place of worship? Suddenly they are tools of terrorism.

Terrorism isn't about how it's done or what it's done with, it's about the consequentialism.

[Corvus9]

Stephen, please. I was by no means advocating ignoring what happened in Dayton. I advocating an approach to the situation based on a certain hypothetical set of conditions. If those conditions are not the case—if the substance in question is not Windex, or a substance of similar danger—then my suggestions are inoperable.

And I said that even if the the substance was Windex, the perpetrators are still committed a terrorist act, and the makers of Obsession should be burned in effigy. How am I arguing that we should ignore the incident?

You are being unfair, as you are prone to be when your blood is up.