Is this how it’s going to be, mass murder by rental truck? It’s another terror attack in NY, with a guy plowing at high speed down a bike lane in Manhattan, killing at least 8.
I do notice that officials were very quick to declare this an attack of terrorism — the driver is reported to have shouted “Allah Akbar” as he took off. Curious, isn’t it, that everyone was slow to call the same behavior in Charlottesville an act of terror…I guess “MAGA” isn’t enough of a sign.
not nearly as slow as people are at calling out antifa’s behavior
When will the anti-sjw crowd start calling out the nazi enablers? I’m not holding my breath.
Yes Mugato, how dare the Antifa not murder anyone! What are they thinking, fighting against fucking Nazis?
@mugato:
I don’t bother because from what I can tell of the egregiousness of their crimes, they get enough negative attention. My condemnation, even on those occasions where I actually find something to condemn, not only wouldn’t add much in terms of a productive spur towards better behavior from Antifa and/or those with the power to hold them accountable, it would add to an environment where the criticism of Antifa as a whole is disproportionate to the harms caused by Antifa as a whole. I don’t actually want to discourage people from fighting fascism or fascists. I do have a responsibility to see that my fellow travelers don’t get away with unethical acts without criticism, but I don’t have a moral responsibility to perform that criticism myself ***if in a particular case there is already sufficient criticism on offer***.
Being in Canada, I’m less connected to these things than I was when I lived in the US. But still, I do read things on the internet and every once in a while come across behaviors attributed to Antifa of which I disapprove. Not once, however, have I read an account of those behaviors where the behavior was being praised as necessary or good by a plurality of commenters.
So, fuck it. I have better things to do than simply say, “Me too!” when someone is already hearing a good bit of criticism.
Now the KKK and neo-Nazis, they receive such prominent defense from the Trumps of the world that a strong and widespread response is called for. I also frequently have more to say than, “Me too!” because often the original accounts don’t include the substance of the criticisms that spring to my mind.
When Antifa is routinely and reflexively defended by the rich and powerful, even when their goal is to preserve the effects of racist, terrorizing choices, then likely my voice will be needed (and promptly) every single time.
Until then, the situations are remotely comparable.
Nor are they with Islamic terrorism. Whatever you might think about the evil of killing a single person, I don’t think any amount of writing could be a sufficient response. When you an act occurs which kills multiple people, and the act is done in a way and with the intent of controlling thousands or millions more by the fear created, you probably can’t have “too much” condemnation. But you can have so much condemnation that nothing much remains to be said, and if I find someone who genuinely hasn’t encountered an argument for labeling terrorism bad, I can give it at that point.
So I simply find my own condemnations (as a private citizen and generally a nobody) of Islamic terrorism superfluous in the larger media context.
Again, to put it mildly, the same is not true of right-wing terrorism in the US. I condemn all terrorism, but I spend more time criticizing specific acts because some acts are defended more prominently and more often, and are generally considered more defensible, than others.
and then there’s Artor, making my comment in this thread superfluous. oh well. Guess I’m back to cleaning up my old place.
Mugato is an alt right troll.
just FYI, because the commentariat here seems to no longer be able to recognize when they are being trolled.
Gosh, I don’t suppose anyone got ideas from all those upstanding republicans legislating the vehicular plowing down of protesters. Nah, that wouldn’t give anyone ideas.
Ichthyic:
Yes they do, but they don’t show up as often these days, and people still like their chew toys, y’know.
4.Crip dyke- well put, though personally i see a lot more defense of antifa, a lot of people are even afraid to say they are bad especially when they do things against people who are wrongfully seen as nazi’s (i know theres real nzis as well, but they do have a fascination with calling people like milo and ben shapiro nazi’s which is ridiculous for obvious reasons),
3.didnt know murder had to be involved, that would still put both groups behind the BLM toll
6. this post is a troll, just pointing out how dumb it was to add the last part. I am in no way a troll but you can believe whatever you want
Ichthyic: I don’t think much has changed. They’re fed until they explode, as they always do.
I’m not “afraid” to call antifa bad, I wholeheartedly support them. I hope beating up nazis is a trend that never goes out of style.
@ichthyic #6:
Mugato isn’t trolling. Mugato has been sufficiently clear in their declared positions. I see them as just another teaching opportunity for anyone else who might happen to be passing through.
Mugato can carry on being as self-defeating as they wish, as far as I’m concerned.
@ mugato, #9
It’s ridiculous to call this guy-
http://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2017/10/06/the-5-nazi-est-moments-from-buzzfeeds-expose-of-the-milobreitbart-alt-right-sausage-factory/
-a Nazi? Why is that?
Also, BLM has murdered more people than the Nazis? Seriously?
@ mugato, #9
It’s ridiculous to call this guy-
http://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2017/10/06/the-5-nazi-est-moments-from-buzzfeeds-expose-of-the-milobreitbart-alt-right-sausage-factory/
-a Nazi? Why is that?
Also, BLM has murdered more people than the Nazis? Seriously?
(Apologies if this double posts, I’m having some trouble with my connection)
I’ve heard about this antifa and alt-left. Mugato, please explain them to a neophyte, they sound like an interesting thing.
People were quick to point out the incident today was terrorism because it had all the hallmarks of terrorism, including violence against random people (in NYC no less), with a young male perpetrator reportedly telling “Allahu Akbar.” Violence/intimidation aginst cilvcians (check), in pursuit of an ideology (check).
Charlettsville is a little bit harder for the great minds at Fox because, while it has the elements of intimidation, violence, and ideology, it comes with a chorus of people (like the giant Orange at the White House) yelling “both sides!” Fuck those people.
Rental trucks did the heavy hauling in the first World Trade Center attack, the Oklahoma City Murrah Federal Building bombing, and several lesser blasts.
Ryder, the preferred brand for most such terrorism, must’ve tightened up their security.
I gather they captured the purported perp alive this time: let’s hope for a competent interrogator instead of torturers.
Antifa is a movement, not an organization. When a person says, “I have a problem with Antifa”, they are either saying they have a problem with some people who associate with the movement doing certain things, or they have a problem with opposing fascists with direct action in all cases. One thing I think it useful to keep in mind is that Antifa activists rarely, if ever, initiate anything. They are reactive. They show up as counter-protesters, and spar with fascists, or at least those people whom those activists identify as fascists.
In my view, it makes perfect sense to criticize particular actions, targets, and tactics, but try to be specific and don’t just say “Antifa is bad”. Tell me how. Just some thoughts.
My father spent the busiest year of his life doing everything he possibly could to kill as many Nazis as he possibly could. Men.
Women.
Children.
The B-24 he helped crew dropped many, many high explosives. Faced flack and fighters. Lost people.
And they killed a lot of Nazis. He was proud of that to the day he died.
I’m damn proud of him too. I think that clearly states where I stand on Antifa.
@cododeslinger2001 #19
Undoubtedly your father killed many nazis, but as you admit yourself he killed even more innocent civilians. In 1942 the Allies started terror bombing with the explicit aim to murder as many civilians as possible.
My grandmother was 10 years old at the time. She managed to dodge the bombs, but the trauma stuck with her until the day she died. Perhaps your father was the guy who dropped that bomb right into her back yard? Are you really proud of that?
Fighting fascism in all its forms is admirable, but murdering innocent civilians to spread terror absolutely is not.
psychomath To back up your post, something I read somewhere: If you give space to Nazis, they go commit murder and genocide. If you give space to Antifa, they go have a beer with friends or something.
mugato Don’t complain about Antifa unless you are willing to take the blow of a baseball bat in your neck. The Antifa is fucking protecting us. The government sure isn’t.
A complaint as old as time, unfortunately.
In 87BC the small but prosperous Greek island port of Delos was sacked by pirates in the employ of the Pontic king Mithridates. A confederacy of free pirates did the same thing in 69BC. Both times they looted treasuries, carried off plunder, destroyed the city and kidnapped thousands of Delians to sell as slaves. Quite where they sold them we don’t know – the Aegean’s main slave market at that time was a small but prosperous island port called Delos. In any case the Romans thought these were both terrible acts of piracy, and condemned them in the strongest possible terms. There were meetings in the Senate. A wall was built around the island in 67BC to prevent the same thing happening, and the usual structures of Roman political governance were suspended to grant the up and coming general Pompey wide-ranging military powers to clear the Mediterranean of pirates. Fear of pirates was a useful political tool in the late Republic for getting people to back you and give you whatever military power you wanted.
When the Roman general Sulla had seized Delos in the 80s BC, that wasn’t piracy though. That was restoring Delos to its rightful owners (the Athenians, funnily enough, despite what the native Delians might have thought). When Pompey prosecuted his war against the pirates, which eventually turned into a war against Mithridates and other Eastern kings, he too looted treasuries, carried off plunder, destroyed cities and took thousands of prisoners to sell as slaves back in Rome. But that wasn’t piracy either. That was glorious military victory, for which he celebrated the most lavish and opulent Triumph that the Roman people had ever seen. Likewise, when Titus sacked Jerusalem and carried off the spoils of the Jewish temple, that wasn’t piracy. It can’t have been – he got a magnificent triumphal arch for it. If you do it while wearing a toga and it benefits the Roman treasury then it can’t be piracy. Pirates are disgusting anarchic chancers, after all, and generally speak Greek or some barbarous oriental language. They probably also have beards.
(Incidentally, the Latin word triumphus, via the Italian trionfo in the context of Early Modern playing cards, is the root of our word “trump”. Which has nothing to do with parading stolen wealth, boasting about real or imagined success and celebrating gaudy kleptomaniac opulence, obviously).
“45” immediately jumps on this calling to change immigration policy in response to a terroristic event with 8 fatalities while a mass shooting with 58 fatalities and 500 casualties gets barely a mention not even to limit the availability of the implement (bump stock) that was crucial to the attack. Far more deaths caused by domestic citizens than immigrants. This NYC incident was not a recent immigrant, he was a long time resident of Paterson NJ and screaming a Muslim phrase while terrorizing is used to blame the religion and ignore the person while shouting “Jesus …” turns them into “lone wolf”
“Racism” (euphemism) much?
Not to belittle the lost lives the media really seems to be pulling out all the stops to do the terrorists jobs for them
Dauphni
While you’re right about the children (and I’d give anybody under, say 25 a pretty generous pass because they grew up in a system of fascism), the distinction between “Nazis” and “innocent civilians” is a false one meant to obscure and diminish the support and complicity of the German population in the Nazi regime. Yes, fucking Tätervolk.
@ cododeslinger2001 #19
Killing nazis can be a grim necessity, but it’s not something to be proud of. Also, being proud of someone killing innocents is pretty fucking unacceptable.
@ Giliell #25
Innocent civilians still existed, and not all of them were under 25.
Over on The Independent site ,the usual rightit wingnuts are out in force ,you know what they are going to say .
Ban all Muslims ,deport all Muslims ,kill all Muslims .
All the liberals fault .
Blame Hillary .
Such fun posting comments .
@20
The RAF was told by the Air Ministry to de house German workers ,in 1942 there was no way to bomb just factories
by night .
The Americans bombed by day and they tried to bomb specific armament and other war related targets .
They lost a lot of aircraft doing daylight bombing .
During a night time raid by the RAF who could say who had a better chance of seeing the sun come up ,the Germans or the bomber crews .
It is not fair to blame the bomber crews for innocent lives being lost ,if the Nazis had spent more time building air raid shelters instead of gas chambers maybe more Germans and Europeans would have survived the war .
Mark Jacobson
Funny enough, my maternal family is as close to “innocent civilians” as you can get. Even more, fucking anti-fascists and resistance fighters. That’s the people who raised me. The bombs didn’t magically not hit them. Still they always knew that those people flying the planes were the ones who were liberating them.
So please spare me the “poor German people” lament. With the exception of a handful they supported the Nazis, turned a blind eye to the atrocities and benefited from the Holocaust. They cheered in the streets and proudly marched in the parades. In short, they were Nazis.
The idiot with the truck killed five Argentinians and one Belgian. Only two victims were citizens of the “Great Satan”. If the aim of future DIY terrorists decline further, they could squash their vehicles against concrete buildings without harm to innocents.
ISIS has been forced to give up well-planned attacks for stochastic terrorism, relying on marginally competent sympathizers. As the memory of ISIS fades, so will the lure of this kind of intended martyrdom. Many ISIS veterans returning to Europe will cause mischief that could be more well-organised, but their days of greatness are behind them, especially as other militants regard ISIS as a failure. Anyway, ISIS veterans are a European problem, not an American.
Vehicular homicide was most dangerous before people became aware. Now the cops will immediately assume berserk drivers are terrorists and respond with fire, so we will not see a repeat of Nice or Berlin.
Addendum, in Nice and Berlin, the driver was able to cause mayhem for several minutes. I don’t see this happening in present-day inner cities, where they would do most harm. DIY terrorists rarely have kevlar vests.
# 17 Pierce R. Butler
let’s hope for a competent interrogator instead of torturers.
Would you have anyone you could loan to the Americans?
# 30 birgerjohansson
DIY terrorists rarely have kevlar vests.
Clearly due to carelessness on the part of the terrorists. There are some good buys on ebay.
http://www.ebay.com/bhp/bullet-proof-vest
I suppose by “obvious reasons” you are referring to the fact that Shapiro and Yiannopoulos are Jewish. They are, nonetheless, nazi-enabling scumbags, as well as lying bigots. You are evidently more concerned about such people being called possibly inappropriate names than about Nazis (no, the plural doesn’t need an apostrophe, you semi-literate numpty) parading through the streets with swastika flags, murdering their opponents, and planning genocide.
Trump is so predictable, being racist and bought by the NRA:
Man rams into people killing them in the name of ISIS…”LOCKDOWN OF ALL IMMIGRANTS!!! FOR OUR SAFETY”
Man shoots people at a concert but is white…”LOCKDOWN ON ALL GUNS…oh wait…just handed a note…FREEDOM MUST PREVAIL SO NO GUN BAN!”
“But what about safety?”
“SAFETY BE DAMNED, FREEDOM MUST WIN! We cannot allow the action of a lone nut to distract us…”
“But the driver screaming about ISIS was a single individual as well…why should all suffer for his actions?”
“BECAUSE WE CANNOT BE TOO CAREFUL WHEN ALLOWING EVIL PEOPLE TO COME TO THE USA, BUT ANYONE CAN GO CRAZY WITH A GUN SO WE HAVE TO ALLOW ALL. IT BALANCES OUT”
“But once here they must have the freedom to buy as many weapons as they can? That’s stupid…why not block some sales or do proper checks to stop them form being dangerous even IF a bad guy gets through?”
“AREN’T YOU LISTENING??? FREEDOM AND SAFETY!!! RRRAAUUUGGHHHHH”
“sadly…yes, I hear you Trump. I’ll go update my will and cancel any travel plans…”
My favorite remark about this attack: “He appears to have followed almost exactly to a T the instructions that ISIS has put out in its social media channels”
1. Rent a truck.
2. Drive it into a crowd.
Absolute proof that he was following instructions from ISIS, since no one else on earth could possibly have created this intricate and detailed plan.
#35 Green Eagle, I believe he was following 2 more elements of the plan
3. Leave a written message crediting ISIS for inspiration.
4. Pretend to be armed in the hope of being martyred (and not captured).
13/14) vucodlak- yes calling a gay jew who apparently has a thing for black men a nazi is indeed a weird thing to do, regardless if they make nazi jokes or agree with the Alt-right on some things (hey who doesnt love a good nazi joke…… ok probably a lot of people here lol)
18) well committing domestic terrorism is one of the things they do that i see as bad, so is trying to forcefully deny speakers their right of free speech, and no wrongfully calling that person a nazi doesnt magically make it ok
21)riotplium- how the fuck is antifa protecting “us”? they sure az hell arent protecting me, they arent protecting anybody by destroying property, they arent protecting anyone by attacking anyone they think could POSSIBLY be a nazi, and even when they do hit an actual nazi, they are mostly just making themselves feel better
What gets called “antifa” is like what you would call an animal rights activist. It’s a group of people that responds to fascists.
The paranoia about antifa is childish.
On one had we have the overt, conscious bigoted people used to having social control over people of other races such as KKK and American Nazis (and lots of other bigotries), on the other people that oppose fascist behavior. These are not remotely the same kind of thing when it comes to people getting threatened with violence or responding to violence.
Not only that but antifa attacking people they “think” are nazis, is something I never see any examples of. Well there is that one guy who lied to the police about being stabbed by antifa. Theres also all thesde alt right pl mad at antifa for calling them a nazi, well you are what you are regardless of tyhe new politicaly correct moniker you choose . Alt-right=nazi.
@Mugato, the charlottesville event was suppose to be the start of a 60+city event where all the elements of right wing came together under the banner of nazism, dropping all pretense, and excerting their superiority and dominance throughout our country. They failed, and a large part of why that happened is because of antifa. They were not expecting actuall resistance. So sure its a bit of a stretch to say that they saved YOU personally, but they did some good, even if you dont believe it.
@ mugato, #37
He hangs out with dudes who love to throw Nazi salutes while shouting “Sieg heil!” and “Heil Trump!”, makes jokes about gas chambers, uses infamous moments in Nazi history as his passwords, and rages against all the people the Nazis hate. But because he’s also a huge fucking hypocrite we shouldn’t call him a Nazi?
I think I see what your problem with antifa is.
@Mugato
Oh btw, there were jews in the nazi party, and gays in the SA. There are always groups of ppl willing to sell out their own. This is nothing new.
@37
He does the same shit a proper nazi civilian would do in wartime germany, just with a modern spin. If you’re leading a crowd of neo nazis throwing up nazi salutes and supporting nazi politicians, I am very fucking fine with calling him a nazi.
@Dauphni #20
Damn straight I’m proud of that!
Calling the German civilians “innocent” is a long way too far for me. They saw what was happening. They allowed it to happen.
To call them “innocent” is an insult to every Jew who was dragged away to be murdered by the State, right in front of their “innocent” German neighbors who stood by and enabled the genocide.
codeslinger2001 #44
How old are you?
@chigau #45
Old enough that my father saw active combat in WW2.
I’ll add that in 9 days I’ll be helping move a P-51, a Spitfire and a P-40 around for an airshow. I am an active volunteer in a Warbirds group and we work hard so the world Never Forgets.
@Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk- #28
Your maternal family rocks!
And thank you for making the point so well and so poignantly. 60 million dead because there were too few with their courage.
I feel a bit troubled about the WW2 bombing. I’ve always had problems with collateral damage. It sounds cynical to me.
But then again, I guess that Giliell’s family were willing to take the risk of a bomb on their heads if that was what’s necessary to beat the Nazis. You could look at it as an act of resistance.
Sad situation where everybody is losing.
Mano Singham: “The latest attack is a sign of weakness https://freethoughtblogs.com/singham/2017/11/01/the-latest-attack-is-a-sign-of-weakness/#more-44162
— — —
The allied bombings in WWII is an example of “when a hammer is your only tool, every problem starts looking like a Nail”.
Before the landings, the only way for the western allies to hit at Germany was to bomb the Reich. Inertia made the bombings continue afterwards, just like Tirpitz was sunk long after it had been rendered militarily useless by damage.
The firebombing of Japanese cities was because the jet stream made high-altitude precision bombing impossible. Contingencies lead to stupid decisions, asd we have seen after 9/11.
A link to a more serious problem than stochastic terrorism “Miracle cure of hepatitis C costs less than a budget airline flight”
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-11-miracle-airline-flight.html
To be fair to the Germans ,there were no cheering crowds when adolf drove through the streets of Berlin on the morning
of 1 September 1939 .
I agree they must have known something nasty was happening to the Jews in the east ,but it would take a
brave person to protest about it .
The members of the White Rose found out the hard way .
And some Germans who were married to Jews did protest when their partners were being rounded up.
There is a photo showing a group of German shipyard workers doing the hitler salute ,there is one lone man with his arms folded .
Look carefully and you can see 2 men with their heads together talking about it .
I was in an online argument with a rightit wingnut about milo whatever his name is and his use of code words ,he didn’t believe me .
@Lofty #2
The anti-sjw crowd are Nazi enablers. They’ve shown to be progressively bad at calling each other out or do anything but pander to the alt-right. Right now we’re at “anti-sjw guy admits he dogwhistles in all his videos then makes a “JQ” video about how some people think Hitler wasn’t bad, then a video where he admits alt-righters have inarguable points on IQ, race differences and immigration being white genocide” … and fellow antis are divided only about how much they should support him or rephrase his arguments to be more pallatable.
=8)-DX
Nazi-enabling has been their MO since Milo Y turned up.