VoxNihili posted:

imagine how easy it would be for one committed, competent person to push this country into a berserk frenzy

yah really, america's massive reaction to this and all the attention it got seems like it'd be enticing for would-be bombers, just like how the infamy those schizophrenic shooters get seems to always inspires a few others.

the waco fertilizer explosion last i heard had 15 dead and 60 missing (likely dead), with also 100+ injured. but that just looks like a case of some neglectful company bypassing safety standards to save a few bucks that went boom. it doesn't look like terrorism, and it's terrorism we take VERY seriously.

with terrorism we get the malice and the intent of an evil-doer, an enemy attacking the way we live and our country and our freedom and us, someone we need to unite against and hunt down and capture or kill. that's exciting and it's all very black and white, there's the shock and outrage of the attack, the drama of the search, and the whole time there's the duty to show we're not rattled, that this terrorist didn't get to us, that we're boston strong and all our thoughts are with boston, we dont bow to terror. fuck yeah, we got him, now let's fry the motherfucker.

so it doesn't matter that it maimed more than killed or that we're all pretty safe from terror or that driving your car is 100 times more deadly. who cares about that? i had a friend tell me today "im going to have to buy a gun." oh yeah? because some kid was bleeding out in a boat in boston? fuck yeah.

Goethestein posted:

today i drove from boston to worcester, which is the second biggest city in the state, almost squarely in the middle of the state, and a shithole. point being over this hour drive i got to listen to a lot of local news, and see a lot of light-up road signs and i think i'm ready articulate why i found this whole thing so horrifying.

first, the signs. this isn't something you'll probably see living out of state, but every light-up road notice sign on the highway reads "WE ARE ONE BOSTON." probably dozens of these fuckin things in the 50 miles between points. there were also billboards thanking and praising the police. the local news ran round the clock hagiography. this is all in addition to the regular stuff i'm sure you all can watch on tv.

first, anything that attempts to tell us that "we are all one" should be scrutinized carefully on suspicion of opportunism at best and likely fascism. maybe this does not turn out to be true, and it is mere liberal "community togetherness" but this seems unlikely coming draped in the flag and wrapped around the dong of a cop.

police are the enemy, do not forget that. the individual cop may be decent, but the system for which he works is corrupt and in order to be truly reformed would have to be faced with violence.

and what, precisely, are we praising the police for, anyway? doing their fucking jobs, apparently, and shittily at that. hundreds of local, state and federal troops from Bawston irish mongs, to CIA career sociopaths, were tearing apart an area only three miles on a side and not even that densely populated. they got jack and crap for 12 hours until some random person called in 911. great detective work, fellas. you're lucky that you were dealing with morons in the first place; god alone knows why these guys didn't flee to a different state or country in the three fucking days it took for you to release a picture in an area covered by live news cameras, a dozen surveillance cameras and hundreds of slackjawed townies instragramming pictures of their splattered testicles

getfiscal is absolutely right, bostonians are cowards. four people died in all of this. three during one initial attack, one fatbody glorified rent-a-cop. in response, what is arguably the fifth most important city in america basically shut down, costing hundreds of millions of dollars. people hid in their houses like the angel of death was on the winds. a scam to drive up ratings? or have we truly just lost our balls?

you should edit this up a little so it can go on front page

ggw posted:

Hmmmm it's almost like "writing things" is stupid liberal bullshit

agreed 100%

George Bush is here in Latin America this week, visiting Brazil and Argentina, and the standard reports of the American media are trying to depict a handful of isolated, juvenile socialist-organized "demonstrations" as some sort of sweeping, popular mass protest against Bush’s visit, thereby suggesting, yet again, that the Administration’s policies are flawed because people in other countries dislike Bush. As usual, the truth is vastly different than what the U.S. media is reporting (see UPDATE below) .

It is true that in this region (as is true for the U.S.), there remains a small, fervent band of left-wing fanatics with crazed enthusiasm for the worn-out, socialist/collectivist policies which have condemned millions upon millions of people throughout Latin America to poverty unimaginable to even the poorest Americans. These putative "mass demonstrations" in Argentina and Brazil are, in reality, nothing more than a few isolated spray-painting incidents of trite pacifist slogans in Brasilia, and a Cindy Sheehan-like "rally" of hard-core Socialists in Argentina led by an obese, Castro-idolozing, retired soccer player who found time away from his decade-old cocaine addiction to show up wearing an oh-so-clever t-shirt showing Bush's name spelled with a swastika.

Hardly the stuff of mass demonstrations and popular anti-Bush uprisings, New York Times reports and breathless television correspondents notwithstanding.

In some countries, most notably Venezuela, this vintage left-wing, anti-American fervor is not small, but is predominant, which is what has led that country to be under the repressive thumb of Fidel Castro-copy Hugo Chavez, whose primary interest in attending this Latin American regional summit seems to be to lure Bush and the U.S. into some sort of game of childish taunts rather than doing something constructive to aid his impoverished, unstable country.

Unsurprisingly, the attention-craving Chavez’s principal ally in these escapades seems to be the American reporters and correspondents reporting on Bush’s trip. They instinctively regurgitate stories of supposedly widespread anti-Bush sentiment based upon nothing but a handful of socialist stragglers defacing public property with anti-war cliches and jobless Latin American hippies gathering for some music, celebrity-gazing and chants. The American media is accustomed to misleadingly translating such isolated 1left-wing antics as some sort of symbol of widespread public opinion, and they have obviously packed their reportorial laziness in their suitcases with them as they travel with Bush to Latin America.

As is true in U.S., the Latin American socialist agitators who have captured the attention and affection of the American media are as substance-less as they are inconsequential. They are lovers of Fidel Castro. The insist that the source of their severe economic woes is not their collectivist policies or national character, of course, but the evil economic policies of the U.S. At the same time, of course, they are furious that the evil U.S. is not providing them with greater economic aid.

During Hurricane Katrina, newspapers in Brazil were filled with left-wing Op-Ed columnists and letters proclaiming, with a straight face, that Katrina happened because Bush did not sign the Kyoto Treaty and, as a result, Americans were getting what they deserved. That is the intellectual and moral level of this small crowd.

There is no denying the fact that much of the world is opposed to the war in Iraq, and Latin America is no exception. That is hardly a surprise. Whatever one thinks of the Iraq war, it is always the case that threats to the national security of one country are going to be taken far more seriously by the people of that country, and far less seriously by the people in other countries.

The September 11 attacks did not take place in Sao Paolo and Al Qaeda is not declaring war on Peruvians. It is therefore perfectly understandable, but equally irrelevant, that Latin Americans do not perceive the need to change the Middle East as being as critical and urgent as Americans perceive that need to be. It should be axiomatic that the risks posed to American national security will best be understood and appreciated by Americans, not by those in other countries.

And yet, the American media refuses to understand what American citizens understand quite well: particularly as to matters of American national security, the fact that people in other countries are opposed to what we are doing does not mean that what we are doing is misguided or wrong. That seems like a simple concept to grasp, and yet a central argument of the American media, vividly re-appearing with Bush’s Latin American trip, is that the "people in other countries dislike Bush, therefore he is a bad President."

The overwhelming majority of people here in Brazil, and throughout Latin America, are not spray-painting walls or leaving their jobs and children to attend anti-Bush rallies. Only a tiny number of Che Guevera worshippers are doing that. But none of that will stop the American media from depicting reality here much differently, because large-scale anti-Bush rallies are exciting, fun and consistent with their ideology.

\


Private Joker: I think I was trying to suggest something about the duality of man, sir.
Pogue Colonel: The what?
Private Joker: The duality of man. The Jungian thing, sir.
Pogue Colonel: Whose side are you on, son?

getfiscal posted:

apparently one of the cops choked the suspect so bad that he can't talk and almost died.

edit: oh "Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick says Dzhokhar Tsarnaev appears to be incapable of answering police questions because of a gunshot wound to the back of his neck."

lol nothing says "definitely not trying to execute all remaining witnesses after the conclusion of a successful government black op" like a gunshot wound to the back of the neck

Superabound posted:

VoxNihili posted:

imagine how easy it would be for one committed, competent person to push this country into a berserk frenzy

imagine?? hell, i voted for him

i assume you're referring to cycloneboy

getfiscal posted:

i dunno if i said this already but i'm hoping one of his uncles owns a cement factory in russia or something and they let him have a lawyer and the uncle is like "i will pay anything" so he assembles the next OJ dream team and like the jury finds that the guy was hypnotized using islamochechen magicks or something.

his brother, who had murdered 3 people two years ago, forced him into it by way of threats and psychological brute force. this kid was just an innocent teenager who liked getting high and watching breaking bad and who in fact didnt even associate himself with the acts committed. also it doesnt matter anywya because he's been shot in the back of the neck and tongue and is totally fucked. verdict not guilty