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Notice we don't see calls for more surveillance after domestic shootings/terrorism. Well, body cams for police is maybe an exception. But schools, churches, and

by logn 11y ago

Notice we don't see calls for more surveillance after domestic shootings/terrorism. Well, body cams for police is maybe an exception. But schools, churches, and movie theaters get shot up weekly. I think the illusion that somehow the surveillance apparatus filters out white people and only focuses on terrorism lets Americans feel okay with it. Also I don't think most people realize how almost every action and thought in their lives ends up on a computer or going over the internet. Everyone just focuses on cellphone metadata, maybe because the full truth of what's being surveilled is too painful to contemplate. I would like to see some politician formulate a response the involves boosting these Middle Eastern economies and schools and "bombing" them with movies and music from LA. If we give these radicals some chance at a life then maybe they'll stop blowing themselves up and taking us with them. Also maybe we can consider that they're responding rationally to the endless intervention by the West into their affairs. Not that I'm justifying their actions, at all, but it's not healthy to dehumanize the enemy. It's what we did to the Japanese and we ended up fire bombing and nuclear bombing them.

kzhahou 11y ago
> Notice we don't see calls for more surveillance after domestic shootings/terrorism. I think the reasoning is that in domestic school/church/theater shootings, the perpetrator isn't engaged in long communications (and receiving instructions from) a leadership group.
- talmand 11y ago
  It wouldn't be surveillance on you as part of a group, it would be on you as an individual. Most likely it would involve just enlarging the number of incidents or situations that would trigger a surveillance order on you. Doesn't matter, that type of surveillance will be incredibly easy in the near future. Whether we want it or not.
tpeo 11y ago
Humanity and morality aside, maybe politicians are also respoding rationally when encouraging punitive millitary interventions. Looking "tough" does more for re-election than trying to brew long term solutions. It's an unfortunate coincidence of inventives.
willholloway 11y ago
> I would like to see some politician formulate a response the involves boosting these Middle Eastern economies and schools and "bombing" them with movies and music from LA. Exactly. That is how you win an ideological war. Hollywood and rock music were perhaps the most powerful Capitalist weapons in the cold war. Culture and wealth. Thats how you win, not by humiliating and traumatizing entire nations. There is this awesome party going on in the developed world, if we can just lessen the income inequality problem it's all just going to get better. And now we even have a decent shot at mitigating climate change with the age of cheap solar pv. But what are we offering the mideast? Bombs, drone strikes, hellscapes, failed states. When the Khmer Rouge first got started, they only had 5,000 followers. It was only after Kissinger's massive bombing of Cambodia ("anything that flies on anything that moves") that they were able to attract 200,000 followers and take over. That's what trauma does. When people feel violated they get angry and they want to take their power back. That is the engine that ISIS feeds on. We had a small, isolated enemy in the form of Al Qaeda, and in response we managed to alienate and humiliate a huge swath of the world. Now we have too many enemies to deal with militarily. That's what Obama is admitting when he says sending 50,000 troops to Syria won't work. Because what happens when ISIS starts up in Yemen, or somewhere else. All of this war is an expensive drain on the west, we will get spread too thin. The occupations don't even work. And make no mistake, this soft target terror is going to be a huge economic drain on the west. The fear, the security spending. It's our economies that are really vulnerable to this kind of thing. So far the war on terror has this perverse viral coefficient. We create more terrorists than we kill. We kill more terrorists, we make the problem even bigger. It's time to develop a new strategy.

by logn 11y ago

kzhahou 11y ago

> Notice we don't see calls for more surveillance after domestic shootings/terrorism. I think the reasoning is that in domestic school/church/theater shootings, the perpetrator isn't engaged in long communications (and receiving instructions from) a leadership group.

talmand 11y ago
It wouldn't be surveillance on you as part of a group, it would be on you as an individual. Most likely it would involve just enlarging the number of incidents or situations that would trigger a surveillance order on you. Doesn't matter, that type of surveillance will be incredibly easy in the near future. Whether we want it or not.

tpeo 11y ago

Humanity and morality aside, maybe politicians are also respoding rationally when encouraging punitive millitary interventions. Looking "tough" does more for re-election than trying to brew long term solutions. It's an unfortunate coincidence of inventives.

willholloway 11y ago

> I would like to see some politician formulate a response the involves boosting these Middle Eastern economies and schools and "bombing" them with movies and music from LA. Exactly. That is how you win an ideological war. Hollywood and rock music were perhaps the most powerful Capitalist weapons in the cold war. Culture and wealth. Thats how you win, not by humiliating and traumatizing entire nations. There is this awesome party going on in the developed world, if we can just lessen the income inequality problem it's all just going to get better. And now we even have a decent shot at mitigating climate change with the age of cheap solar pv. But what are we offering the mideast? Bombs, drone strikes, hellscapes, failed states. When the Khmer Rouge first got started, they only had 5,000 followers. It was only after Kissinger's massive bombing of Cambodia ("anything that flies on anything that moves") that they were able to attract 200,000 followers and take over. That's what trauma does. When people feel violated they get angry and they want to take their power back. That is the engine that ISIS feeds on. We had a small, isolated enemy in the form of Al Qaeda, and in response we managed to alienate and humiliate a huge swath of the world. Now we have too many enemies to deal with militarily. That's what Obama is admitting when he says sending 50,000 troops to Syria won't work. Because what happens when ISIS starts up in Yemen, or somewhere else. All of this war is an expensive drain on the west, we will get spread too thin. The occupations don't even work. And make no mistake, this soft target terror is going to be a huge economic drain on the west. The fear, the security spending. It's our economies that are really vulnerable to this kind of thing. So far the war on terror has this perverse viral coefficient. We create more terrorists than we kill. We kill more terrorists, we make the problem even bigger. It's time to develop a new strategy.