Did you know that was a thing? There was a cheesy made-for-TV movie by that name in 1970, one so low-profile that there are no surviving promotional materials for me to grab an image of. Just that stultifyingly uninteresting title screen above. (Back in 1970, the third-string cinematographers who made these things didn’t even try to make anything look interesting.)
In a way, the scattering of terror incidents in New York, New Jersey and Minnesota over the weekend are sort of the real-life terror equivalent. Nobody killed, thank God. Low-impact, low-budget. Forgettable imagery.
Earlier today, I told Bryan I didn’t see any points I wanted to raise editorially — there seemed to be little to say about such attacks in a political sense, since presumably everyone on the blog is opposed to them.
But The Wall Street Journal managed to find an angle. Under the headline, “Another Bomb After a Weekend of Terror,” there was the subhed, “Plus, more Clinton email revelations.”
Really. Neither I nor Dave Barry is making this up, even though it sounds like satire.
In the Journal‘s defense, that headline was on an editorial roundup. Still, the juxtaposition was a bit jarring. Meanwhile, not to be outdone, a site called Townhall sported this headline: “12 Hours of Terror: Just Another Weekend in Leftist-run America.”
Sheesh.
But back to the news…
The BBC summed it all up this way:
On Saturday morning, a pipe bomb exploded on the route of a charity race in New Jersey. Nobody was hurt, because the road was empty at the time. The race had been delayed due to an unattended bag. The event, which was planned to raise money for Marines and sailors, was cancelled.
That evening, a man dressed in a security uniform stabbed eight people in a shopping centre in a town in Minnesota. They all survived and none of their injuries are life-threatening. The attacker was shot and killed by an off-duty police officer. It happened in St Cloud, 70 miles (110km) from the major city of Minneapolis. The town’s police chief said the man had asked at least one person if they were Muslim. It is thought he was Somali-American.
At roughly the same time, more than 1,200 miles (1,900km) away in Manhattan, New York, a pressure cooker filled with shrapnel exploded. It happened in the Chelsea area where there is a bustling nightlife, and 29 people were injured. All were released from hospital by Sunday. The same kind of bomb had been used in the Boston marathon attack in 2013.
A second, similar, bomb found four blocks away was removed safely.
Overnight on Sunday and in the early hours of Monday morning, up to five explosive devices were found in a backpack inside a rubbish bin in Elizabeth, New Jersey. One of them exploded while being handled by a robot. The city’s mayor has said this was “not a controlled explosion.”…
I’m not even sure how many incidents that counts as, or what’s related to what.
My main personal concern with all this is that my youngest daughter is in New York. Bryan has a similar concern with two sisters there.
On the other hand, the Minnesota attack is worrisome because it’s part of a pattern of recent attacks that are NOT in New York or Washington or Boston, which shows terrorists are figuring out that if they really want to terrorize Americans, they should make them feel insecure everywhere. Either that, or he couldn’t afford a plane ticket to the big media centers. After all, he apparently couldn’t afford firearms.
A quick update: The guy authorities were looking for in New York, Ahmad Khan Rahami, was captured after being wounded in an exchange of gunfire with police.
And POTUS was delivering remarks on the incidents. This just ended a moment ago. Watch for criticism that he didn’t mention “Islamic extremism,” or didn’t mention it enough, or whatever.
Comments?
Oh, by the way… The bad guys in “Weekend of Terror” were Robert “The Wild, Wild West” Conrad and Lee “Six-Million-Dollar Man” Majors. Sort of against type for both. Neither, you’ll note, looks like a Muslim, so just another case of the liberal media conspiracy trying to pull the wool over our eyes, right?…
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Time to admit another 100,000 Muslims into this country. Look at the recent attacks in this country, the worst thing a non-Muslim in this country has done is not stand for the national anthem.
Timothy McVeigh… or how about Dylann Roof – or is that too close to home for you to think about?
Timothy McVeigh? You had to go back what 25 years to find something? How about looking at the daily national news and you’ll see Muslim caused violence every single day.
Placing Muslims under blanket suspicion because of what a few do in the name of their faith makes no sense to me. It would be as if we had placed all black people under suspicion of terrorism in the 1960s and 70s simply because of the actions of the Black Liberation Army — or all young people simply because it was mainly people under 30 who were involved with groups like the Weather Underground.
So what’s your plan, Bill? Or is this just acceptable losses?
So you favor blanket suspicion?
Anyway, if you’re prosecuting what you choose to call a “War on Terror,” then, yeah, seems to me you should be prepared to take some casualties. It’s called “resilience.”
Not acceptable, but also not easily preventable. Unacceptable is rounding-up all Japanese-Americans with no reason for personal suspicion.
Right. Wouldn’t want to lump people into a basket of deplorables.
“If I had a bowl of Skittles and I told you three would kill you, would you take a handful?” the meme asks. “That’s our Syrian refugee problem.””
Yeah…
You need to read this piece explaining how ridiculous the Skittles thing is…
So when Trump suggests we should halt immigration from Syria until we can figure out a way to properly screen people, that’s still racist and xenophobic, right? What if we just restricted it to males between 18-40 initially being held to a higher screening standard? Still too much?
Why is it so politically incorrect to link these activities to members of a specific religious affiliation? It is what it is.
A better description is fear mongering.
We screen those folks rigorously already. There would he infiltration by would-be terrorists if all immigration stopped. Political advantage can be sought around any bad occurrence, whether terrorism or natural disaster. If your guy is in, it was just a tragic event, if the other guy is in, it’s gross negligence.
Are you referencing the 850 immigrants who were granted status even though they were considered suspicious? Only a few of them actually got jobs working at airports and law enforcement. No big deal.
No, I’m referencing the people applying for refuge status.
Hillary has now joined Trump in calling for a “tough vetting” of immigrants.
So I guess the two candidates for POTUS at least agree on that.
Because it taints all the members of that faith with the same suspicion. If we are going to describe Muslim killers by using their faith as a primary marker, we need to describe other killers by their faith. Presumably their faith allows them to kill also.
This post led to a social-media exchange with Gene Sculatti, who was the editor of one of my favorite books of all time, The Catalog of Cool. If you haven’t read that 1982 pop-culture classic, you should go to Amazon and pick one up.
Sculatti did a masterful job of sorting out everything that was truly cool in pop culture up to that time. Lots of lists, plus side essays on “hipster saints,” “1962: The Last Good Year,” and a TV character type he termed “the windbreaker hood.”
This was a cleancut sort of villain whom you would recognize from various crime and detective shows of the 60s and 70s.
Anyway, when I saw the above picture of Robert Conrad, I thought “windbreaker hood!” Even though, technically, he was wearing a letter jacket. And then I found the Lee Majors image — actual windbreaker!
Knowing that none of y’all would care, I went to Gene Sculatti’s own Facebook page to bring it to his attention:
To my huge gratification, within an hour I got this response from the great man himself:
I love social media. Everything you want to know, and everyone on the planet you might want to have a chat with, is just right there within reach, 24/7…
Yeah, I know. I digressed again.
But hey, what is blogging but one long digression?…
I highly suspect that these bombings, and the knife attack were done by ISIS wannabes who have checked an ISIS site because they think that’s where the cool stuff is (as in ” where can I find people who hate this culture as much as I do?”—If it had been a going concern when McVeigh was plotting his thing, he’d probably checked it out. Of course, ISIS will claim any “terror” incident as their own, if there is any connection, however tenuous. They want to incite hatred and start a religious war. When we get over-excited by individual ‘crazies’ we advance their cause.
“They want to incite hatred and start a religious war.”
I’m pretty sure they already hate us and they’re already engaging in a religious war. We’re just sorta not fighting back at this point.
They hope to make us hate Muslims and declare war on them.
We must somehow be able to combat those people.
What people? Muslims? Fear mongering is what they want. We shouldn’t give it to it. Dropping bombs on children is not going to make us safer. Hasn’t 100 years of doing that in Iraq proven how ineffective that strategy is? Everyone should just chill out and let law enforcement do their job.
Fight what? Or who exactly?
We don’t win fighting back; we win by altering the playing field. There is no war on Muslims, and we need to insure that the vast majority of Muslims believe that we are an open, unbiased and accepting society. It’s called taking to moral high ground, It’s surprisingly effective, actually.
“We don’t win fighting back; we win by altering the playing field.”
Okay, that sounds good. Explain to me how we “alter the playing field”. How exactly do we do that?
“There is no war on Muslims, and we need to insure that the vast majority of Muslims believe that we are an open, unbiased and accepting society.”
I agree that there is no war on Muslims. Our adversaries are simply those who seek to do us harm. I’m all in favor of being an open, unbiased, and accepting society. For a vast majority of people, our being open and accepting will pay dividends. People who come to our shores seeking peace and a better life should be welcomed. Will we be able to discern the wolves from the sheep in all who come here? No, but we should carefully look at everyone to try and differentiate between the two. We should try.
“Rescue the weak and needy; Deliver them out of the hand of the wicked.” Psalm 82:4
Nevertheless, I think we can be an open, unbiased, and accepting society while simultaneously realizing that there are people out there who mean to do us harm, people who will not be dissuaded, people who will not be reasoned with, people who will not care about the moral high ground, and for those people, there is but one response. The shepherd does not wait for the wolf to kill his sheep before taking action. If he sees a wolf menacing his flock, he kills it.
We can be an open, unbiased, and accepting society while still remaining vigilant, cautious, and determined to kill the wolves when we need to.
“The shepherd does not wait for the wolf to kill his sheep before taking action. If he sees a wolf menacing his flock, he kills it.”
But when you miss the wolf and kill the bear, the bear becomes your new enemy. Or when you kill the pet dog by mistake, their owners will hunt you down.
Fight terrorism within our own borders. Taking the fight to their land will never work.
So you favor blanket suspicion?
Anyway, if you’re prosecuting what you choose to call a “War on Terror,” then, yeah, seems to me you should be prepared to take some casualties. It’s called “resilience.”
No, I favor reasonable suspicion.
Casualties in war are one thing. Do you think that non-combatant civilians, who are nowhere near any military personnel are legitimate targets and reasonable casualties?
There are groups taking on soldiers-of-fortune every day, my friend. I suggest you seek out one for your own personal jihad.
But I have to tell ya, you’re probably gonna need to carpet bomb the internet to get at the root of the problem, ’cause that’s where the inspiration comes from.
Should the homeland security folks be suspicious of you because of right-wing leanings and sympathies with some who advocate violence against government officials or stockpiling guns and ammo? Of course not. If your own actions or behavior patterns signal danger, then they should be suspicious and investigate. Did they not pursue the Unibomber? They just didn’t catch him quickly, and didn’t prevent his actions.
First, I don’t advocate (or sympathize with) violence against elected officials.
Second, I’m mostly dangerous vs. things that fly and paper targets.
You want reasonable suspicion? Consider our serial killers. From the Green River killer through the Sandy Hook massacre and on to Emmanuel AME they have a long run of murder. They were consistently white men. I’d say we have at least as much to fear from them as we do from refugees. Let’s be consistent here. If we’re gonna racially profile people and round them up, surely white males should be one of the groups.
“I’d say we have at least as much to fear from them as we do from refugees. Let’s be consistent here.”
Yes. But we can attempt to control the entry of refugees. You’re in favor of controlling access to guns to prevent incidents like Green River, right? Why not apply the same level of caution to people? Background checks for gun owners are okay but not for immigrants from countries with a current history of terrorism?
We do thorough background checks already, Doug. Several of these terrorist wannabes were born here, or at least grew up here. At what point do you want to stop these “background” checks?
Why do y’all keep calling them terrorist “wannabes”? I’m just curious, since several people here are using that same construction. Is that a thing?
Are you old enough to remember the “Madonna wannabes?”
That was a meme back before memes were invented.
It would be really great if terrorist wannabes were the same thing. They’d be much easier to spot…
OK, so technically that wasn’t before “meme” was invented, because Dawkins published his book in 1976.
Perhaps, in more recent parlance, I should say it was before “memes” were a thing, with reference to popular culture. That’s nice and vague…
Let’s see…what I was doing in 1985?
/thinks back
I was four years old, playing in my plastic turtle sandbox outside the married officers’ quarters on Ft. Jackson where my family lived. Life was pretty good. I mean, I had a turtle sandbox. What else does a four-year-old kid need?
So I guess you’re saying you were NOT trying to dress up like Madonna.
That’s reassuring…
Karen – the news yesterday noted that the Office of Inspector General had identified more than 800 people who had been granted citizenship who shouldn’t have by the Immigration Department .
“The immigrants were from “special interest” countries and had previously been ordered deported or removed from the U.S., the report said. But the immigrants beat the system by simply using another name or birth date to apply for citizenship. The issue: Neither Homeland Security nor the FBI keeps all old fingerprint records of individuals previously deported.”
“At least three people who became naturalized citizens after having been deported under a different identity had obtained credentials to conduct security-sensitive work at commercial airports or maritime facilities, the report says. ”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2016/09/20/hundreds-mistakenly-granted-citizenship-due-records-gaffe/90725666/
Maybe the background checks need to be a little more thorough, eh? Nah, we can trust the bureaucrats to keep us safe. They’re accountable.
800 of what total number, Doug? Forget that nothing bad seems to happened from these 800. What is 800 – maybe .0001% of the total? That’s just a guess. I.e., it’s nothing but the inevitable reality that things aren’t always exact.
It’s sort of like this: $800 in my wallet is a lot of cash; but the federal government burns through about $11 Billion per day. Scale matters. When it’s left out I know all we are dealing with is bogus rants.
Bryan our drone strikes kill far more civilians than ISIS wannabes on US soil. And folks on the right blandly dismiss that as “acceptable collateral damage”. Let’s get our own house in order and most of these attacks will go away . As long as we kill civilians they will continue. Pretty simple.
I highly doubt that if we pulled out of Syria that ISIS would just stop what they’re doing. Muslims will kill anyone who isn’t a Muslim and thinks the way they do.
“Muslims?” Just any ol’ Muslims will do that?
Perhaps if you’d elaborate on that, it would help us all better understand the Trumpian mindset…
It isn’t simply a Trump mindset; first it was a racist mindset. Trump just dog whistles for these people.
Other people would say the same thing about Christians. And sometimes they’d be right. But on the whole, the vast majority of all people are good. That’s the reality of life. Hate is just the outlier fear that rages in some people.
Not fighting back. Ppffft! Funny.
Sounds like you favor retribution over smarts.
Not fighting back? Ridiculous. They can’t win a straight-up fight, so they choose to use the terror route. I hate to think what would be happening if we were not so vigilant. There is surveillance going on that most of us don’t know exists.
Thank God.
But our good friend Edward Snowden would put a stop to it…
Not fighting back? I guess all those soldiers who have come back in coffins or injured have been some sort of mass hallucination? The vast amounts of money we’ve spent on war and “nation-building” must also be some kind of mass delusion. The greatly increased monitoring of our citizens, from airlines to emails, isn’t happening.
Presidents of both parties have failed to end all terrorism. Any level of government control sufficient to prevent any and all attacks, especially by these “lone wolf” types, would have to be remarkably intrusive on our personal liberties.
Yes, we are doing some things. Yes, we used to have lots of soldiers over in the middle east. Not so much anymore, though.
The problem is that POTUS has no plans to end the war. Wars don’t just “end” when we decide to leave because the enemy gets a vote.
The problem is there’s no urgency to avoid a defeat on our part. Mostly, it’s becuase we have an overwhelming military advantage. Our overwhelming military might compared to Assad and ISIS actually helps create a situation where our leaders can procrastinate and avoid making a decision to do something. Taking on more refugees won’t do anything to solve the underlying problem, but it makes us feel better.
Nevertheless, we’re going to have an endless conflict where innocent people are driven from their homes and slaughtered in the middle-east, and Westerners are killed at random.
No, we’re not fighting back, anymore Lynn. Not really. We’re stalling. We’re stalling partly to appease the “war never solves anything” crowd and partly because there’s no large price to pay for delay. It’s a thousand tiny cuts. Now we’re at the point where people are just shrugging off terrorist attacks here in America because they don’t want to admit there’s a problem. No one is even attempting to seek victory.
Meanwhile, the suffering continues. The killing continues. The carnage continues. The refugees continue to pour out of the middle-east.
And our leaders will continue to squabble over petty things.
“We’re stalling partly to appease the “war never solves anything” crowd and partly because there’s no large price to pay for delay. ”
So you’re saying when we were fully engaged in war there, that there was a solution in sight? Many of us believe that our involvement made the situation worse — particularly when we killed thousands of innocent people. You don’t win the hearts and minds of widows and orphans.
People who talk this way make me think they spend too much time watching the History Channel’s nearly nightly re-plowing of Nazism and WW2 and then go to bed with “We did it before and we can do it again” replaying in their heads. That’s the only way I could explain the confused exasperation expressed in lines like, “No one is even attempting to seek victory.”
Because what we’re encountering now has little to nothing in common with conventional war and won’t be addressed by an “overwhelming military advantage” – because it’s not a military conflict. So what some folks characterize as indifference – “shrugging off terrorist attacks” – may actually be a sign of strength. It’s part of the recognition that there are some things you just have to ride out rather than take actions that may make you feel good and tough and righteous, but that in the long run don’t really accomplish much and in some cases may be counterproductive.
Which is the left’s standard, “these are discrete crimes, not warfare” argument.
The problem is that neither the Clausewitzian nor Sun Tse models fully apply.
What we’re talking about is something that can only be responded to effectively with a combination of approaches. It takes good intelligence and police work on defense, and a determination to deny terrorist safe state havens abroad (something that involves diplomacy and economic tools as well as military). We don’t let the Taliban host al Qaeda any more than we allow ISIL to continue to hold broad swathes of Iraq and Syria and attract recruits to the banner of a new “caliphate.”
It’s complicated. As you say, simple models from the past don’t fully apply. It’s not conveniently THIS or THAT…
And in the meantime, we’ve gotta learn better how to shrug off the pin-pricks that are inflicted on us here.
My fear is that after shrugging off enough pin-pricks, you get clocked in the head with a Louisville Slugger.
Negatives to ignoring the pin-pricks:
1) It gives the bad guys the sense they can get away with it; that the West deserves it.
2) It discourages the impulse of good people to “say something because they saw something” because this is just acceptable.
“get away with it”
Hm, sounds something someone would say about a criminal, not a combatant.
So at least there’s that bit of progress on your part.
“discourages good people … just acceptable”
Now don’t be silly. Nobody ever said terrorism would be acceptable. Only that every shooting or explosion needn’t send us out looking for something to strike back at.
So: one step forward, step step back for you. Oh well, nobody said progress is easy.
“Which is the left’s standard, ‘these are discrete crimes, not warfare’ argument.”
Which is also the view of many in the military, actually. Must be all leftists, huhn?
Not necessarily.
Of course the whole left-right thing is always problematic, but there has been a certain division in which one tends to find the “discrete crimes” view in the Democratic Party, and the “we’re at war” view in the Republican.
Would you not agree?
Of course, if you want to be absolutist, then nothing works. Which is my overall point. You don’t say “everyone who sees it this way is on the left” any more than you say “treating these as individual crimes is all you need to do.”
Do you see what I’m saying?
Yeah, but the “crime” vs. “war” dichotomy is largely beside the point — mostly a matter of semantics and political posturing. The real issue is how you deal with the problem. And recent experience has shown that no amount of war-making has dealt the underlying causes. Which is why we keep revisiting old arguments — like this one.
“The real issue is how you deal with the problem.”
Agreed.
As to “no amount of war-making has dealt the underlying causes,” well, I refer you to the editorial I wrote the Sunday after the 9/11 attacks. I said then, and have repeated many times since, is that we need to engage all these trouble spots in the world in every way, including diplomatic, economic, humanitarian…
And militarily. Unfortunately, we end up spending all our time and energy arguing about that one, and we never seem to get around to doing any of the OTHER parts adequately…
“…we need to engage all these trouble spots in the world in every way, including diplomatic, economic, humanitarian…
And militarily.” — Brad
Uh-huhn. You’re not much on cost-benefit, are ya? You know, the matter of proportionality, limited resources and wanting to see some positive outcome from all our effort? You’re one of those “pay any price, bear any burden” types, sounds like. History showed what came of that.
I must not have expressed myself clearly. Just War theory does account for proportionality, and I would apply it to those other fields as well — diplomacy, etc.
The situation should dictate the proportional response.
It seems to be that that would only say “pay any price, bear any burden” to people who don’t want to bear ANY burden, or pay ANY price.
All of that said, I really don’t like to see JFK’s noble rhetoric derided in that manner. We were a better country when we WERE willing to bear any burden. By far.
I’ve had many occasions to mourn what happened to American liberalism after Vietnam. Here’s another. The courage and nobility of FDR, Truman, Kennedy and Johnson just get routinely dumped on and treated contemptuously today by their political descendants, which I find tremendously sad…
And I think that has a lot to do with why we haven’t really attempted, much less achieved, all that much of consequence on the foreign or domestic fronts since about 1965.
I mean, LOOK at the achievements of the Johnson administration in 1964-65. Civil Rights Act, Medicare, Medicaid, Voting Rights Act. Then, the left decided to despise him over Vietnam, and that was it. The “We can do great things” confidence of American liberalism just went right out the window…
Oh no, you expressed yourself quite clearly. But it’s just that addressing “all those OTHER parts” as well as the military bit can and has led us to do things far OUT of proportion to the threat. That’s not proportionality, that’s a crusade.
Noble rhetoric that’s not seasoned with with a proper measure of realism tends to leave a sour aftertaste in the mouth — which can lead to a well-deserved case of derision.
I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again…
I can’t stand being called a “liberal” or a “conservative” today, because of what the terms have come to mean.
But in 1965, I would have been fairly comfortable being called a liberal. Before it became about Identity Politics, abortion and We Need to Think Small.
For that matter, I would have been OK with the “conservative” designation before the Southern Strategy and the Reagan Revolution.
I could have been happy backing either Kennedy or Nixon in 1960, from what I can tell. Sure, backing JFK would have been COOLER, but either was pretty OK.
I’d love to have the opportunity to vote for one of them this year…
“Neither conservative nor liberal am I,” said he.
“Curmudgeonly misanthrope is what I truly be.”
No, that sounds more like Doug… 🙂
Pretty sure the last thing someone might call me is a curmudgeon. I’m a cynic with a smile.
“So what some folks characterize as indifference – “shrugging off terrorist attacks” – may actually be a sign of strength. It’s part of the recognition that there are some things you just have to ride out rather than take actions that may make you feel good and tough and righteous, but that in the long run don’t really accomplish much and in some cases may be counterproductive.”
I hear what you’re saying, and maybe there’s an aspect of that coloring my views. I do instinctively want to hit back when I’m hit. That’s not always the right reaction, I know. You’re right that sometimes the better action is not to immediately react. So, don’t think that I’m ignoring everything you say. My alpha-male, caveman brain wants to do the Romans at Carthage solution, but I know that’s probably a bit extreme. I’m willing to scale back from that.
Having said that, I refuse to accept terrorist attacks as the new normal. We have to push back on those people beyond just riding it out.
The strategy needs to be somewhere between “Ride it out” and “Romans at Carthage”.
That’s the thing, though, y’see: It’s not the “new normal,” it’s the old normal. Terrorist tactics have been with us for at least a century, if not longer. And in most cases they’ve been dealt with successfully — where they haven’t simply petered out — by measures short of war or even anything like war.
More than a century.
Don’t forget the Gunpowder Plot…
Which of course gave the Trumps of England in the early 17th century every excuse they needed to further demonize us Catholics. Sound familiar?
And lest Nigel Farage try to bar me from entering the country, let me deplore Guy Fawkes’ actions on behalf of all us good, moderate Catholics…
My family’s had enough trouble out of all of that mess. Although from the other side of the conflict (remember, I’m a convert).
My great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather, Sir Thomas Wyatt “The Younger,” was the leader of Wyatt’s Rebellion against the Catholic Queen Mary.
He lost us the family castle (and a lovely piece of property it was, and still is), and his head as well.
When she came to power, the Protestant Elizabeth restored the family estate, but it was too late to do anything about Thomas’ head…
Y’all can tell I’m spending a LOT of my nights and weekends working on the family tree.
It’s sort of addictive…
Regarding refugees, let’s first solve the problem of relocating the “most vulnerable” (which includes single-parent, female-led families; orphans and unaccompanied minors; the disabled and infirm; and survivors of torture). After learning from that experience, perhaps a process to deal with the others (which would include angry, young, single men) will become evident.
I am amused at myself…
Remember yesterday when I wrote:
How ridiculous of me! We’re having all sorts of active discussion here on a number of highly contested points.
It’s like I hadn’t noticed over the past 15 years, and particularly this year, that there’s a great deal of disagreement in this country over how to react to terrorism.
Sorry. I just wasn’t thinking…
Which reminds me. There were two separate opinion columns in The Washington Post today arguing that Snowden should be pardoned.
Don’t let me forget I need to write something stepping on that, hard…
Do we normally pardon traitors who defect to Moscow?
Do we normally prosecute whistle blowers who reveal questionable activity by the government?
I hope anyone who has an opinion on Snowden sees the new movie. I plan to.
Yeah, because I go to Oliver Stone to let me know what to think about everything.
I’m still all worked up about that JFK conspiracy…
You DO understand — what we think of Oliver Stone aside — that this is a propaganda film using what Huxley would term “emotional engineering” to make you, and a substantial portion of the electorate, FEEL strongly that Snowden should be pardoned for his crimes.
Something that would do to the rule of law and national security what Trump has done to our politics this year…
You have ample opportunity to demonstrate factual evidence to contradict the movie. Who more than you has been using emotion more than facts in your opinions about Snowden? Your mind was made up the minute you heard about the release of the documents.
And I hope you hold all of your newspaper brethren who published the information in equal contempt. Why don’t you go after them as well if you think Snowden is a traitor? They could have ignored the story.
I’m afraid I’m not following you. But we can discuss it when I have time to do a post about it…
By the way, folks, I may or may not have time for further posts today.
Something came up yesterday — someone stole a couple of checks from our mailbox (outgoing checks from our account), and the credit union called and said someone had tried to pass an altered check from our account.
Since then, I’ve been dealing with closing the account, changing all the direct deposit and direct payments, dealing with outstanding checks that will now be no good, making police reports, etc.
More about that later. I also have work to do. Busy…
Oh, and by the way, before you ask why in the world we were putting mail with checks in our mailbox.
Well, NOW everybody’s telling us not to do that. It would have been helpful if someone had mentioned that to us previously…
Same thing happened to me about 5 years ago. NEVER put an outgoing check in your home mailbox!
Why are you still writing checks?
Well, I don’t. I haven’t written a check in at least a year, maybe two. I’m not even sure where my checkbook is.
But then, my wife pays all the bills, and there are some where it just doesn’t always work out to pay electronically.
One of these was a payment to Lexington County for a vehicle tax. I think that one was the one that was doctored, and changed from $130.42 to $680.42…
The thing about modern Muslim terrorism is that it was essentially invented by Otto Skorzeny and his Nazi werewolves, and after the he teamed up with Grand Mufti al-Husseini and taught asymmetric warfare with unconnected cadres to Palestinian terrorist camps hiding in Nassar’s Egypt.
That guy was just everywhere, wasn’t he? It’s almost like, if you look at something the Nazis did, it was either the Wehrmacht, the SS, or Skorzeny. He’s his own category…