U.S. Politics: Despite Negative Press Covfefe, We Will Always Have Paris

[Cas Stark]

1 minute ago, Mexal said:

And there was still shit happening in those places too. The issue now is social media and the amplification of every attack into a world news story which is then used to score political points. I think twitter and Facebook (and cable news) is going to ultimately be responsible for destroying the world.

What kind of shit?  There certainly weren't sustained waves of anti American terrorism from any of these immigrant groups.  Just like we don't have any sustained anti-American terrorism from Indians, Puerto Ricans, Nigerians, Vietnamese or Mexicans or any other recent ethnic group except for one cohort, and so far, it's less of an issue than in Europe. Crime and terrorism aren't the same thing.  

Twitter will no doubt destroy the world, but we were well on our way before we began melting our brains with the Internet and all it's various tools.  It only speeds the destruction.

[Cas Stark]

1 minute ago, TheKitttenGuard said:

If you believe in integration then you work to improve it. Whatever pause is in the longer term improvement of it. There is a give and take and U.S has done it multiple times though there is an insistence of an absolute assimilation. 

The U. S. isn't Europe.  Our history with immigrants is completely different from Europe.  Indeed, near absolute assimilation is a must in order to keep your society functioning.  We're seeing the proof of that right now.

[TheKitttenGuard]

25 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

The U. S. isn't Europe.  Our history with immigrants is completely different from Europe.  Indeed, near absolute assimilation is a must in order to keep your society functioning.  We're seeing the proof of that right now.

Yes, and if they believe that immigration is important you will work long process in finding that more common identity with it peaks and valleys. 

The current situation is with the future generations and not the current people whom most are just looking to get out of a bad situation. 

[TheKitttenGuard]

Trump's ban is not connected to the issue of the Terrorism going on. It also did not address a main country that fuels the ideology that we have to fight against in Saudi Arabia.

Wait, Saudi Arabia treated Trump wonderfully and gave him the respect he deserves. They were wonderful, just ask Wilbur Ross. Yes, giving them a $100 billion in arms is right because Jobs, Jobs, Jobs. It was so wonderful it deserved a curtsey. 

[Cas Stark]

2 minutes ago, TheKitttenGuard said:

Trump's ban is not connected to the issue of the Terrorism going on. It also did not address a main country that fuels the ideology that we have to fight against in Saudi Arabia.

Wait, Saudi Arabia treated Trump wonderfully and gave him the respect he deserves. They were wonderful, just ask Wilbur Ross. Yes, giving them a $100 billion in arms is right because Jobs, Jobs, Jobs. It was so wonderful it deserved a curtsey. 

While I agree that Saudi Arabia is a terrible US ally, and that yes, almost all Islamic terror has some kind of tie back to them and Wahhabism, it's also not as if Bush and Obama weren't also BFF with the Saudis, Trump is continuing the same bad policies as his predecessors.  I had hoped he might make a change or at least an adjustment there....but given his personal vanity and his love of deals....I guess that isn't happening.

[TheKitttenGuard]

10 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

While I agree that Saudi Arabia is a terrible US ally, and that yes, almost all Islamic terror has some kind of tie back to them and Wahhabism, it's also not as if Bush and Obama weren't also BFF with the Saudis, Trump is continuing the same bad policies as his predecessors.  I had hoped he might make a change or at least an adjustment there....but given his personal vanity and his love of deals....I guess that isn't happening.

Trump was to be different though, right. He was to cut the B.S. That he is not different on this makes me disgusted. I probably still have issue with the ban but including Saudi Arabia would of been a real signal.

Why give him a pass on it?

[Dr. Pepper]

14 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

While I agree that Saudi Arabia is a terrible US ally, and that yes, almost all Islamic terror has some kind of tie back to them and Wahhabism, it's also not as if Bush and Obama weren't also BFF with the Saudis, Trump is continuing the same bad policies as his predecessors.  I had hoped he might make a change or at least an adjustment there....but given his personal vanity and his love of deals....I guess that isn't happening.

If you think that the people who are decrying Trump's buddying up to Saudi Arabia weren't also saying the same thing with Bush and Obama, you're lying to yourself.  

[Fragile Bird]

3 hours ago, Liffguard said:

Just for the sake of clarification, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is muslim. The Lord Mayor, Andrew Parmley, is not. Sorry for the pedantry but the two roles are very different.

Thanks for the correction! I saw him called both last night, I thought it was just me being wrong.

[Dr. Pepper]

Kim Weaver, a candidate running for Iowa's 4th, has withdrawn due in part to threats to her personal safety.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2017/06/03/kim-weaver-withdraws-her-candidacy-iowas-4th-district-race-congress/368389001/

Quote

Kim Weaver is ending her campaign for Iowa's 4th Congressional District. 

In a Facebook post Saturday, Weaver, a Democrat, cited threats to her safety, financial security and her mother's ongoing health problems as reasons for her withdrawal. 

"Beginning during my 2016 campaign, I have received very alarming acts of intimidation, including death threats," Weaver said in the Facebook post. "While some may say enduring threats are just a part of running for office, my personal safety has increasingly become a concern."

In an interview with the Des Moines Register on Saturday, Weaver added to that rationale, alleging that the state of Iowa's Office of Long-Term Care Ombudsman, where she is an employee, saw its budget cut this year as "punishment" for her political candidacy. 

The office received a $164,000 cut this year — a 12 percent reduction from the previous year. 

"I'm feeling guilty that we lost this funding because I'm running for office," Weaver said, adding that she was prepared to take a "voluntary layoff" if the cut requires a staff reduction.

Weaver said she was told by her supervisor of the connection between her candidacy and the budget cut, and that the supervisor, in turn, was told by a state legislator.

 

[TheKitttenGuard]

28 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

If you think that the people who are decrying Trump's buddying up to Saudi Arabia weren't also saying the same thing with Bush and Obama, you're lying to yourself.  

I disliked Obama policy toward Saudi Arabia, and Yemen is most troubling.

Still, several Right Wingers will be on secret Muslim crap with it.

Then of course the Saudi's not liking Obama show how weak it is.

Saudi's treated Trump wonderful and gave great photo ops and made him look so good after the terrible weeks Trump had. What is important is how Trumps feels.

[Fragile Bird]

2 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

What kind of shit?  There certainly weren't sustained waves of anti American terrorism from any of these immigrant groups.  Just like we don't have any sustained anti-American terrorism from Indians, Puerto Ricans, Nigerians, Vietnamese or Mexicans or any other recent ethnic group except for one cohort, and so far, it's less of an issue than in Europe. Crime and terrorism aren't the same thing.  

Fuck, Sikh nationalists blew up an Air India flight that originated in Canada, killing 329 people, still one of the worst cases of terrorism in airline and Canadian history. Don't think that US security agents don't keep an eye on potential Indian terrorists in the US. The other groups you named have concentrated on different forms of domestic terrorism, organized crime and drug dealing. Trump wants to build a wall, remember? And Vietnamese gangs are under constant scrutiny by authorities. Those practitioners of domestic violence have likely killed far more Americans than any Middle East terrorist, even including 9/11.

[Cas Stark]

12 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Fuck, Sikh nationalists blew up an Air India flight that originated in Canada, killing 329 people, still one of the worst cases of terrorism in airline and Canadian history. Don't think that US security agents don't keep an eye on potential Indian terrorists in the US. The other groups you named have concentrated on different forms of domestic terrorism, organized crime and drug dealing. Trump wants to build a wall, remember? And Vietnamese gangs are under constant scrutiny by authorities. Those practitioners of domestic violence have likely killed far more Americans than any Middle East terrorist, even including 9/11.

Gangs, organized crime and drug dealing isn't really terrorism unless you are using some kind of tortured definition of same.  

[maarsen]

28 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Fuck, Sikh nationalists blew up an Air India flight that originated in Canada, killing 329 people, still one of the worst cases of terrorism in airline and Canadian history. Don't think that US security agents don't keep an eye on potential Indian terrorists in the US. The other groups you named have concentrated on different forms of domestic terrorism, organized crime and drug dealing. Trump wants to build a wall, remember? And Vietnamese gangs are under constant scrutiny by authorities. Those practitioners of domestic violence have likely killed far more Americans than any Middle East terrorist, even including 9/11.

If I remember correctly there was a threat by Armenian terrorists to blow up a subway train in Toronto about 30 odd years ago. The threat was deemed credible at the time.  And then there was the South Moluccan  terrorists that hijacked a Dutch train. The Baader Meinhof homegrown terrorists, the Japanese Red Army Faction, and going back in Canadian history,  the FLQ. Terrorism is not new and not Muslim.

[Toth]

I'm not an expert on social studies, just some guy making observations. Let's look at our average islamic terrorist and see what we can make out of that:

- They are mostly young second-generation children of immigrants with a surprisingly financially successful family background that is still dominated by little social and cultural integration combined with a hell lot of bottled up resentment for not being perceived as belonging to the society they have grown up in.

For all intents and purposes, they are not refugees. Italy, Greece and Turkey are essentially flooded with them, have severe trouble integrating them and yet they were not victims of Terrorist attacks so far. Instead it hit Great Britain. Where political discourse over the last few months was dominated by fearmongering deeply tied to immigration that ultimately lead to an absurdly irrational Brexit, but also a country that has failed at integration much like Germany and France did, leaving a whole generation stuck between two worlds, and a country with a long history of colonial and post-colonial atrocities that, among many things, have a lot to do with the current situation in the Middle East.

Still... the resentment that leads to islamic dschihadist-wannabes stabbing people is pretty much the same resentment that leads to hateful white people stabbing people in the US or any other excluded group violently lashing out at innocent people. The only difference is that the Daesh that is currently fighting an actual war in the Middle East is able to make itself a valid rally point for all these deranged individual lone wolves. Other groups with bottled-up resentment have the very same idiological war mentality (just ask that nutjob Breivik), but lack the rally point of a Saudi-financed oh-so-international terrorist organization that they can claim membership in. Before the Daesh it was Al-Qaeda, which, as you might have noticed, now barely gets any attention anymore. When the Daesh breaks, someone else will likely fill the hole or maybe we are lucky and there isn't one. Technically, if we ever achieve lasting peace in the Middle East and break the neck of all these organizations, these lone wolves loose their rally point and while they are still dangerous deranged individuals, their acts of violence can't claim to be anything other than what they really are: The acts of single fucking individuals that have jackshit to do with 'international terrorism' or any grand plan whatsoever.

So... back to Trump's fumbling at 'foreign policy' that has nothing to do with solutions and everything with blind fearmongering that plays right into the hands of the actual Daesh. Their plan after all is to dial up fear and exclusion, driving Muslims everywhere on the globe into a corner that leaves them no choice but to fight back, hopefully with a black banner above their head. They want us Westerners to be distrustful of Muslims, so that Muslims don't feel welcome, feel excluded, feel threatened, feel resentful and feel angry. The more violence is involved the better. And with Trump pushing for his Anti-Muslim-policy that encourages white supremacists to go out and openly threaten brown people, those little pockets of Muslim communities will live through just that. And with every move by your egomanic narcissist in chief, the risk raises that some people snap who otherwise might haven't. What then? What if the very policy that is supposed to make you frightful white midwesterners with their safe-spaces of alternative facts feel safer actually leads to terrorist attacks? What comes next? Internment camps? Extermination? Just to make sure that you don't miss any of these oh so threatening brown people?

There is no easy solution to terrorism. The western democracies need immigration, that is a demographic reality. Better integration policies should decrease the probability of people becoming extremists, but only if combined with good education and an open attitude that makes people born in a country actually feel accepted in it. But most of all, we need fucking peace in the Middle East. And that'll take time. Lots of time. And no more political screwups from the US. Too bad that your current president does nothing but scewups and better belongs locked up in a cell instead of the Oval Office.

Just my two cents on the topic...

[Lady of the Wind]

2 hours ago, Toth said:

snip

Very good post. Completely agree.

[Zorral]

2 hours ago, maarsen said:

If I remember correctly there was a threat by Armenian terrorists to blow up a subway train in Toronto about 30 odd years ago. The threat was deemed credible at the time.  And then there was the South Moluccan  terrorists that hijacked a Dutch train. The Baader Meinhof homegrown terrorists, the Japanese Red Army Faction, and going back in Canadian history,  the FLQ. Terrorism is not new and not Muslim.

Don't forget the Irish operating out of the US in the mid-1860's to invade British North America, i.e. Canada, thinking for some reason this would be the best tool for getting Ireland's independence from England.

In the 1840's and 1850's the German immigrants were considered threats since so many had arrived after the failed revolutions in Europe.

There was an entire political party in the 1840's - 50's, that was dedicated to anti-immigration, called, quite appropriately, though not for the reasons one might think, the Know Nothing party. They also saw Free Masons as a threat to the US, and Catholics too.

Nativism has been rampant at regular periods throughout colonial and US history.

 

 

[Which Tyler]

14 minutes ago, Lady of the Wind said:

Very good post. Completely agree.

It'd be hard not to, well said toth

[BloodRider]

5 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

I think it points to the fact that for whatever reason Europe has done a VERY bad job of integrating these immigrants into their societies...and it strikes me, that when you are desperately failing at something...you should stop doing it.  We probably have a smaller percentage of radicialized Muslims because they are both a much much smaller percentage of the overall population, are less concentrated and because the US has a long history of assimilating immigrants, unlike the Europeans, who have not had to bother with this literally for hundreds of years until the late 20th century.

4 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

While I agree that Saudi Arabia is a terrible US ally, and that yes, almost all Islamic terror has some kind of tie back to them and Wahhabism, it's also not as if Bush and Obama weren't also BFF with the Saudis, Trump is continuing the same bad policies as his predecessors.  I had hoped he might make a change or at least an adjustment there....but given his personal vanity and his love of deals....I guess that isn't happening.

Maybe the reason it isn't happening is because every time someone wants to bring it up, his supporters blame everyone else, and toss Trumps salad.

Lolzers

[HoodedCrow]

Americans might consider succeeding to Canada. 

[Fragile Bird]

6 minutes ago, HoodedCrow said:

Americans might consider succeeding to Canada. 

Uuuuuuuuuhhhhh....