Symmetry required it: 2012 american general election thread #2

is there a thread for the broader embassy protests in a dozen countries?

there's the Libya and Ongoing Turmoil in the Middle East threads or whatever...?

I dunno what there is to say about it really

Well, it seems to have elevated beyond "we are mad about a stupid youtube video" to a more general anti-western kind of thing. Which, yeah, I'd be fucking pissed at the West too.

it's so odd, when you're in the habit of actually apologizing for the united states, to see the president get falsely accused of apologizing for the united states, get trolled, and then vigorously defended by pundits, the whole cycle.

it's all pretty stupid and petty. cuz yeah, now they're sacking the British and German embassies...? okayyyy. angry mob is angry. I can't conceive of any real long-term impacts of this, it all seems like pointless pot-stirring by zealots with no real goals or targets beyond the immediate destruction of nearest Western symbols (I heard they torched an Arbys! which is kind of awesome. people should torch Arbys more often)

not surprised this has been stoked for maximum effect following the end of Ramadan+Friday prayers, that part is totally predictable. but mostly I think this will be forgotten in a few weeks.

I was watching Maddow last night explain how what happened in Libya and what's happening in Cairo and other cities appears to be mostly unrelated (that the events in Libya were a targeted strike by trained terror operatives and the protests everywhere else are comprised of dumb yahoos).

that sounds about right

after pointing out Hackman had dressed up as a woman in the movie, "Bird Cage."

See if he gets laid soon...

Which, yeah, I'd be fucking pissed at the West too. Getting trolled into killing ppl makes one look like an utter tool

Romney initially misfired when asked who he would like to play Ann in a movie about the Romneys. "Gene Hackman," he said

― Sandy Denny Real Estate (jaymc), Friday, September 14, 2012 3:39 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

L M F A O

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well yeah, of course. but I just mean that obviously these protests are expanding beyond the subject of a stupid youtube video and are expressing more general disgust with the West. they're not organized by any central group, which seems to soothe the nerves of people here, but to me that just makes the protests more significant. they're spontaneous reactions, as if they were just waiting for an occasion to register outrage. when i was saying "i'd be fucking pissed at the West too" i didn't mean in regards to what happened in Libya, or the video, or Romney pulling a Romney, or anything like that. i just mean i sympathize with the lot of a bunch of people who have been systematically screwed by the U.S. (and corps within originating from the US, and capitalism in general, etc etc) for many years. shakey's probably right that this will just fizzle out and no one will remember it in a few days, but i can't shake the feeling (no pun intended) that one of these days there's going to be a more sustained protest against what capitalism has wrought, and this is another early warning sign.

or you know, maybe they're all just dumb yahoos who are bored?

ehh these protests have about as much to do w/ capitalism as the protests against the dutch cartoonist had to do w/ capitalism

haters, so jel

i just mean i sympathize with the lot of a bunch of people who have been systematically screwed by the U.S. (and corps within originating from the US, and capitalism in general, etc etc) for many years.

To be fair, a lot of these people are also the victims of the paranoia inherent in religion (not just Islam, but pretty much all of them) AND several generations of leaders/dictators that play on that paranoia for their own benefit ("hate the west, but don't look at what I'm doing"). That's something that nobody seems to know how to get past.

i just mean i sympathize with the lot of a bunch of people who have been systematically screwed by the U.S. (and corps within originating from the US, and capitalism in general, etc etc) for many years. shakey's probably right that this will just fizzle out and no one will remember it in a few days, but i can't shake the feeling (no pun intended) that one of these days there's going to be a more sustained protest against what capitalism has wrought, and this is another early warning sign.

what was way weirder to me, & really kinda chillingly affecting, was seeing the counter-protests, of libyans holding signs distancing themselves from the actions of some people in their country. like it's just so jarringly different a relationship between voluntarily-disenfranchised westerners' relationship to their country/its doing, &c

a few chipotle franchises should do the trick

I think if chipotle put a picture of muhammad eating a burrito on the wrapper they would understand that we came in peace

Kansas, WOW

...these protests are expanding beyond the subject of a stupid youtube video and are expressing more general disgust with the West. ... they're spontaneous reactions, as if they were just waiting for an occasion to register outrage. when i was saying "i'd be fucking pissed at the West too" i didn't mean in regards to what happened in Libya, or the video, or Romney pulling a Romney, or anything like that. i just mean i sympathize with the lot of a bunch of people who have been systematically screwed by the U.S. (and corps within originating from the US, and capitalism in general, etc etc) for many years. ...i can't shake the feeling (no pun intended) that one of these days there's going to be a more sustained protest against what capitalism has wrought, and this is another early warning sign.

at risk of controversy, i think that most of the anger expressed in these protests is about as legit as fred phelps' anger at gays, and that it arises from a similar source: bigotry stoked by corrupt, cynical and/or deranged authorities.

Nope, you're on point.

theres truth to that but also that a lot of people in the region have difficult lives that the most powerful nation on earth has repeatedly not given a shit about has to be factored in too

that's kinda true but otoh I guess I missed the part where gays spent generations propping up autocratic regimes that systematically oppressed and disenfranchised Fred Phelps

xp

lolllll

the current protests don't seem to have much to do with autocratic regimes or their backers, though, unless the protesters are being super hipster coy about their motivations for murdering people

hey, clusterfuck summary corner is only three threads down...

what about the part after Fred Phelps had finally been kicked out of his church and a new, tolerant template for Westboro activity was voted upon and agreed to, and then gays engineered a coup to put Fred Phelps' son in power?

the current protests don't seem to have much to do with autocratic regimes or their backers, though, unless the protesters are being super hipster coy about their motivations for murdering people

they're pissed at the west for messing with them repeatedly and in various dismissive/disrespectful ways - whether its this stupid video, attempting to help them by bombing their cities, or financing and supporting dictators - I don't think it's any more complicated than that.

i don't entirely buy the blowback explanation in this instance.

libya has a lot of religiously motivated militias running around that were not on board with Qdf (when he was around) and are less on board with liberalization -- reports are out there of these dudes attacking sufi shrines as idolatrous, similar to what has happened in mali.

so it only makes sense if you're in that worldview; "US is meddling in my country, US is releasing satanic videos"

just for reference:

http://i45.tinypic.com/2ex6el1.png

wow

Richard Engel was saying last night that, at least in Cairo, the protest was made of just a couple hundred people and just blocks away life was going on as normal. Maybe this is the case in all the locations?

(They could be larger today, though. I haven't been following.)

i don't know if it ultimately means much, either, and of course i was way too quick to suggest the capitalism bogeyman. i do think, though, that we've barely begun to experience the repercussions for our history of colonial abuse.

be srs there are no repercussions for colonial abuse

i agree that there's lots of general purpose anti-western outrage on display, but i think it's a terrible mistake to politically legitimize it in blanket terms by trotting out a generic list of supposedly exculpatory western sins. to the extent that protests specifically target real wrongdoing in concrete terms, they're valid, imo. otoh, to the extent that they seem to express a bigoted mob's murderous wrath in response to what i consider an absurdly trivial (and frankly stupid) provocation, i don't have much inclination to step back for sake of the bigger picture. that approach strikes me as nihilist. it seems to excuse absolutely any expression of anger so long as it is directed at the evils of "the west", no matter how ugly, harmful or misconceived.

yeah, agreed on the ridiculous provocation part for sure, and that the violence at these protests is deplorable goes without saying. it'd be nice if a giant regional protest could be coordinated in response to one of the 3.2 x 10^234 things the U.S. administration has actually done wrong

PBS had a brief interview with a protestor in Tahir Square who said he wasn't there to raid the embassy or attack the US, he was just there to demand everyone involved in the video to be publicly executed.

While I think that capitalism/the west/colonialism has played a big part in driving these people to religious fanaticism, they're still doing this out of religious fanaticism.

demanding a filmmakers execution does not make one a religious fanatic

I dunno demanding public executions of people because they offended all of Islam is pretty fanatical to me. Obv cultural prisms are different etc.

just like demanding roger clemens' execution doesn't make one a baseball fanatic. you just reaaaaally hate roger clemens!

im sayin, i barely watch baseball anymore

Yeah Morbs calls for Tarantino to be executed on the regular, but I don't think he's a fanatic . . . Wait, hang on, let me think about this

he definitely not religious

Romney has already managed once again to come out on both sides of the issue of the movie, btw: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/09/14/so-romney-agrees-with-the-u-s-embassy-in-egypt/

Mitt Romney: Well, I haven’t seen the film.  I don’t intend to see it.  I, you know, I think it’s dispiriting sometimes to see some of the awful things people say.  And the idea of using something that some people consider sacred and then parading that out in a negative way is simply inappropriate and wrong.  And I wish people wouldn’t do it.  Of course, we have a First Amendment.  And under the First Amendment, people are allowed to do what they feel they want to do.  They have the right to do that, but it’s not right to do things that are of the nature of what was done by, apparently this film.

George Stephanopoulos: We’ve seen General Martin Dempsey call Pastor Jones to say, “Please don’t promote this film.” You think that’s a good idea?

Romney: I think the whole film is a terrible idea.  I think him making it, promoting it, showing it is disrespectful to people of other faiths.  I don’t think that should happen.  I think people should have the common courtesy and judgment – the good judgment – not to be, not to offend other peoples’ faiths.  It’s a very bad thing, I think, this guy’s doing.

that seems like a reasonable take, expressed idiotically. he condemns the filmmaker and film, but makes the important caveat that free speech protects such things.

Voltaire he is not

Yes, but the point is that it's pretty much exactly what the embassy in Egypt said

The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims — as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.

a statement which Romney's already publicly condemned.

yeah isnt that exactly what the embassy tweet said?

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embassy needs a blog

guys: http://news.yahoo.com/judge-strikes-down-wis-law-limiting-union-rights-214923391.html