In case it isn't blatantly obvious to anyone who reads this, I'm going to clarify in advance that I don't minimize the violent deaths of 12 people – police, journalists, and a maintenance worker – in Paris today.
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Any and all deaths from violent crime are sad, pointless, and tragic in my view.
But here we are, another week and another mass shooting. Only the presence of some novelty to the story – it didn't happen in the United States for once, and the assailants had political motives rather than being the usual disgruntled, angry, and usually white males lashing out at the world with their guns – has made this a Big Story. Mass shootings have become so common that they don't even make the main headlines anymore. They've become the kind of thing that gets mentioned on page 3 or that gets 90 seconds in the middle of the broadcast, before weather but after traffic.
What I don't understand, at the risk of accusations of "politicizing" the event, is why I am supposed to be more angry or more interested because this particular mass shooting was done by radicalized Muslims with a vendetta against a media outlet. If it hardly makes waves anymore when some American white kid brings a gun to school because Reasons or some angry grunt kills a bunch of his coworkers, why should this make any? If deaths by senseless violence are tragic – and they are – then they should be relatively equally tragic. Whether the victims are factory workers, high school students, edgy journalists, or completely random people milling about in public their deaths are a pointless tragedy.
It's not that I'm not saddened and angered by what happened in France.
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It's that I resent the implication in the media coverage that I'm supposed to be more upset or this is somehow a bigger tragedy because Free Speech and Muslims.
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If someone walked into a Walmart in the middle of nowhere and shot 12 people today, would the right wingers be at a boil right now? Twelve deaths by gunfire are excused away when they occur in the context of domestic politics, yet if some Muslims who just returned from Syria are the killers everyone is whipped into a frenzy. That, to me, makes no sense whatsoever.
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Mass shootings are so common that someone who pays attention to the news only casually will miss most of them these days. This one will be a Big Story, though. That's what bothers me. Lots of people are getting shot and killed for no good reason. Either we care or we don't. It makes no sense to care a lot about some and barely notice others.
Rick says:
I feel and agree with much of this, but there is a wrinkle you neglect. Political attacks on journalists will always be covered with a bit more zeal by journalists because by definition the story cannot be one of mere professional interest to anyone covering it. If there is a mass shooting of professors for their political views, I expect Gin and Tacos will spend some more time on it. None of this is to say it's a /good/ tendency, merely a human one we should be aware of when we read this kind of news.
Steve Rafferty says:
Ideology. Not as political affiliation but the way Zizek would put it.
The prevailing ideology both issues and recognizes appropriate stories for its canon; other stories, not so much.
cromartie says:
Don't be absurd.
It comes after weather and before traffic .
Anubis Bard says:
I'm going to assume that you are as clueless as you are portraying yourself here, and try to answer your question. If a person has an psychotic break or snaps under workplace bullying and guns down a few people, it's a tragedy and a shame. When an entire category of person is told to sit down and shut up and throated with (or suffers) violence because someone wants to terrorize that class of people into submission and silence, then massacres become not just a tragedy, but an attack on the kind of civilization we want to live in. Lynching was that. Rape culture is that. Fundamentalist attacks on mockery and journalism are that.
I don't know what you think our awful news media is asking you to engage in (because I don't know what you're watching), but I will say that I am outraged and threatened by this massacre (despite the despicable opinions these journalists espoused) than I am by your garden variety homicidal rampage.
Mo says:
Still sayin' we should have more research on the Ammo Antidote.
Because we smartypantses will be first up against the wall, that's why.
The oligarchy will be safe in their global fortress estates.
Dave Dell says:
See – http://gazette.com/attacks-on-irs-offices-in-colorado-springs/article/94397)
Another! bombing in Colorado Springs. We'll see if it makes headlines as a terrorist attack. I'm turning off the news, closing my laptop and re-reading Chesterton's "Thursday".
Mo says:
So, Anubis, gun clutchers parading around and sometimes murdering children, theater goers, students – which "class of people" is being terrorized into submission and silence?
With our police tazing and shooting anyone who looks at them funny, what "class of people" is being terrorised?
And how are the above not attacks upon "the kind of civilization we want to live in"?
Face it, this whole fucking country is a long way down the road to serfdom, and we're gonna be the serfs.
Anubis Bard says:
Mo, I agree with your point. I was responding to Ed's question about why terrorism is different from "some American white kid brings a gun to school because Reasons or some angry grunt kills a bunch of his coworkers". They're equally tragic, so yeah, but it makes sense to me that the news – or those of us who concern ourselves with public affairs – can treat one as more significant and troubling than the other.
I suspect, too, that underlying this rant is the notion that the gun lobby which enables all of this "random" violence ought to be treated as a terrorist organization. But that's a different rant altogether.
Ed says:
I'm sure the comparison of what happened today to lynching was a huge hit over on the Free Republic message boards, but you're not convincing me to buy into the argument that my "way of life" is under attack. Your line of argument leads directly to the kind of thing one used to hear from Christopher Hitchens regarding the need to defend Western Christendom from the Muslim hordes.
Let me know how many journalists are Silenced by what happened today, how many newspapers fail to release an edition tomorrow. Motive is irrelevant. Twelve dead bodies are twelve dead bodies, and the motives of the killers remain unfulfilled. If nothing is accomplished, what they hoped to accomplish doesn't matter.
Elle says:
I can't speak to the American coverage of this, of course, but it's an extremely unusual event for 12 people to have been shot dead in Europe. I've just seen this mass shooting in Paris described as the largest terror(ist) event in France's history, so the news programmes here have obviously been chewing over France's relationship with its Muslim citizens and attitudes towards immigration and freedom of speech.
Mass shootings in the US are extensively covered here, particularly by rolling news channels. I'm sensing from the description in the post that we might actually see more about them than you do, because for us they are not ambiguous at all but the product of a gun culture that is entirely foreign to us and universally condemned. Perhaps as a result of this, I don't think there is a difference made between types of victims. Those murdered in shootings by individuals who seem to have no motive beyond personal frustration or pain are equivalent to those killed by people with a political axe to grind.
Nick G. says:
"Terrorists" and "Active Shooters" have remarkably similar tactics, motives, and media attention, despite the different names and different outlets that choose to cover them.
I suppose from a position of normative ethics, it feels good to think that all violent deaths are equally tragic. But surely the violent death of a loved one is much more tragic than reading about 12 people killed thousands of miles away; Hell, even a complete stranger killed right in front of you would be far more horrific (and therefore meaningful) than passively reading violence in the news.
And of course the people who are killed on a daily basis outnumbers 12 by far. We just only occasionally hear about them.
Skepticalist says:
A lot of the excitement is because it's simpler to work on this story than to deal with another well armed American psychotic episode.
This time reporters don't have to tiptoe so carefully around the victims' families. It's straight forward, there's no automatic screeching from Wayne Lapierre, and the culprits simply want us dead.
It's safer and just far enough away, in more ways than one, to tickle the pants off news geeks.
Gerald McGrew says:
Ed sez:
"…you're not convincing me to buy into the argument that my "way of life" is under attack. "
Then start including cartoons and posts about Mohammed in your blog.
FDChief says:
"I've just seen this mass shooting in Paris described as the largest terror(ist) event in France's history, so the news programmes here have obviously been chewing over France's relationship with its Muslim citizens and attitudes towards immigration and freedom of speech."
And Clio, Muse of History, slams her fourth Stoli shooter and reaches for the bottle of Ambien;
"The Vitry-Le-François train bombing of 18 June 1961 was a bomb attack on a Strasbourg–Paris train carried out by the Organisation de l'armée secrète (OAS), a paramilitary organization opposed to the independence of Algeria in the Algerian War. It was the worst terrorist attack in modern French history, killing 28 people and injuring over 100."
After which, of course, the news programmes obviously chewed over France's relationship with its right-wing citizens and attitudes towards colonialism and Algeria.
FDChief says:
Anybody who is isn't living within RPG range of Homs and feels "threatened" by this REALLY needs to chillax. It's all that sort of fear and boogedy-boogedy scarey Eeeevil Mooslims Under The Bed that managed to transmogrify an attack by a Sunni jihadi group based in Afghanistan into Dubya's Most Excellent Iraqi Adventure that ended up with the jihadis running all over western Iraq and northeastern Syria and Al Qaeda franchisees all over Hell.
The bottom line is that these guys are the Red Brigades of Islam. They're gonna pull off one of these spectacles every couple of years or so. And it's not going to stop anybody making Girls Gone Wild videos or drawing cartoons of Muhammad in a skort any more than the leftist terror in the Eighties kept people from raping S&Ls and drawing cartoons of Karl Marx in a Speedo.
The WORST reaction I can think of is to get all freaky about the Jihadi Under the Bed and go Full Malkin (or Full O'Reilly or Full whatever wingnut-de-jour recommends that the answer is to intern all domestic Muslims and outlaw schwarma and wearing beards in public.
Breezeblock says:
I did a quick Goog Image search for Jesus Blowing Santa, with no suitable returns. Did the Chuck cartoonists ever do one of those?
Brian M says:
I, too disagree with Anubis argument that daily terror in American cities (which has actually been declining in most places for decades now. Thanks to declining tetra ethyl lead levels) is somehow less important than this admittdly awful attack.
I would amplify Ed's point further by asking: What is more of a threat to civilization, American drones flying over head in dozens of places right now, randomly killing people as innocent as the victims here…or this singular attack? I think your answer depends on where you are in the global system. A yemeni tribesman whose relatives have been "colateralized" by an American drone might have a different respnse than Anubis.
Brian M says:
FDCHief: What part of the Muslim world is NOT within range of the ever expanding "War on (Non State Approved) Terror? It seems like the drones can be everywhere? Who should be afraid in the context of modern realities?
Robert says:
I read elsewhere online about some professional blatherer describing this as the worst terrorist attack in Europe since 2005.
Anders Breivik was unavailable for comment.
beejeez says:
Maybe I'm just a big-hearted guy, but there seems to be plenty of room in it to be as pissed off about hyperMuslim terrorist executions as I am about hatred-filled, gun lobby-enabled killings by our own homegrown shits. And it really frosts my pumpkin when conservatives think that because we lefties are often skeptical about the American Way that we don't give a damn when some fundamentalist bigots from exotic lands waste a bunch of human beings because their religious fee-fees were hurt. That kind of thing doesn't chill free speech? Bullshit. It chills it right now. Every day. There and here.
Anubis Bard says:
Oh for goodness sake, there are other ways to react to terrorism than with calls for pogroms – Hitchensian or otherwise. I don't feel threatened by terrorists – whether Islamicist, Christian, racist, police or otherwise – because I think they can do me personal harm, but because they are trying to both silence someone and/or provoke a violent, tribalistic response, either way trying to destroy an open society. I'm not worried about these particular murderers, their co-conspirators or their future imitators. The French justice system can deal with them as the criminals they are. And their victims will be mourned as all victims are. But I'm glad to see thousands of Europeans out in the streets with their "Je suis Charlie" placards. I hope it means they recognize that this is a strike at the heart of their society – and I'm sorry, in that sense it is different and calls for a different response than some crime of passion. It calls for an organized response that rejects violent intolerance and intimidation – on the part of both the murderers and the Islamophobes who will try to take advantage of it.
When I say "terrorism is an attack on the civilization I want" I don't mean some apocalyptic struggle between Islam and the West. I mean the collusion between Islamic and home-grown fanatics and xenophobes to use fear and violence as a means to cow and control us. We let that happen after 9–11 when the Bush administration was able to do tremendous damage to our society, its laws and its openness. This attack in France not only strikes at freedom of expression but also gives the resurgent far-right xenophobes of France a powerful weapon in their effort to re-build fascism in Europe. So I'll stand by my original claim that this kind of murder is "more significant" than a workplace shooting. And I don't think pretending it's not terrorism is a constructive option.
Xynzee says:
What Anubis said (both posts). As Bill Maher—I know you think he's a douche—points out in a liberal and open society we can say what we want, with our greatest fear being called an idiot or harshly proven wrong, NOT being gunned down.
So take up Gerald's challenge and see what that gets you.
You're also overlooking the fact that it happened in France. The last time there was a mass shooting in France was… as opposed to say last week in the US.
Personally I'm not crazy about any group that tries to use force whether social or armed or a Government with drones, armed gangs or snooping devices to enforce its will upon others.
moderateindy says:
Ed, and his 12 bodies are 12 bodies statement truly misses the larger point. It's all about intent. The nutjob that kills 12 people in a shooting at school is horrible, but the lack of a larger society changing agenda is what separates the two. The terrorists are doing this to try to intimidate society at large into changing their behavior to what the terrorists deem acceptable, and thereby curbing a fundamental tenet of that society.
For instance, on a much lesser scale, the Klan burning a cross at a meeting in a public square where people of color can see it, is not the same as burning a cross on the lawn of one of the towns african-american families in order to scare them to leave the area.
Nick G. says:
" . . . Christopher Hitchens regarding the need to defend Western Christendom from the Muslim hordes."
You heard it here first, folks: Hitch loved him some Christendom.
Elle says:
@FDChief
You're surprised at a failure to provide historical context in a live news broadcast outside a mass shooting?
The first spasm of comment after one of these is always somewhat intemperate, because it's made for news purposes by people who are traumatised and shocked. The first spasm of analysis usually slides into a well-worn groove, because the usual suspects are the ones with their names in bookers' contacts.
I would expect the analysis pieces being commissioned and written right now to canter across much familiar ground: Algeria and France's place behind the curve in post-colonial reflection; French secularism and its impact on different faith communities; immigration and citizenship and the connection to French identity; and post-Vichy laws about ethnic identity and categorisation, and whether they are helping or hindering multiculturalism.
GeoX says:
"So take up Gerald's challenge and see what that gets you."
Like Roy did?
Alex SL says:
Perhaps the difference is that it is in France where there isn't such regular gun violence.
I am wondering why you call it a "political" motivation. Surely there can be no doubt that it was a religious one?
jeremy says:
"Let me know how many journalists are Silenced by what happened today"
Ten journalists have been silenced.
"the motives of the killers remain unfulfilled."
If their goal was to murder a leading editor and several famous cartoonists and other journalists, they were entirely successful.
RosiesDad says:
@Ed: "Let me know how many journalists are Silenced by what happened today, how many newspapers fail to release an edition tomorrow."
They may not fail to release editions today or tomorrow but some newspapers are publishing pixelated pictures of a photo of the Charlie Hebdo publisher holding up a copy of his paper with a picture of Muhammed; the publication of such images being the proximate cause of yesterday's attack. This reinforces Anubis' explanation about an entire class of individuals being terrorized into silence, no?
Rugosa says:
Anubis, well said. I would only make the point that the gun culture in the US is also "an attack on the civilization I want." Open carry, stand-your-ground laws, and easy access to guns make us less safe. "An armed society is a polite society" hah! An armed society is one in which people are expected to be very careful to avoid hurting the sensitive feelings of a gun carrier and tolerate mass shootings as collateral damage resulting from those rights.
Anon says:
God, Anubis, calm the fuck down. How many times do we have to explain it to you?
Islam simply isn't a threat to white Americans.
Therefore, it isn't a problem at all.
If you are worried about Islam, then you're a racist.
It's like the people say EVERY TIME a Muslim terror attack happens. "Islam isn't the problem- just look at moderate countries like Indonesia!"
Exactly! In Indonesia, FGM is nearly universal. But are you an Indonesian woman? No! Muslims aren't going to chop YOUR clit off, so Islam is not a problem in Indonesia. Only a bigot would suggest otherwise.
Let it be said, too, that FGM isn't even a religious issue. Sure, the Muslims say they practice FGM because of Islam, but… who are you going to believe? A white American who says it's culture, not Islam, or some lil' brown feller from Indonesia who doesn't even know what their religion really teaches? Only a racist would grant any credence to what *Indonesians* have to say.
Anon says:
BTW, don't even get me started on "rape culture." Why do I keep seeing news reports about some girl getting gang-raped at a frat party? Excuse me, but that's sexist, because #notallmen. Besides, do the math: one victim, didn't even get shot. I don't find it difficult to be rational about the issue. I am not going to get gang-raped at a frat party, therefore gang raping fratbros are not a threat to my way of life, therefore only man-hating feminazis get worked up about those stories.
Anon says:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali-a-rizvi/how-we-all-bow-to-the-sau_b_188799.html
TL;dr: Americans support radical Islam through their support of Saudi Arabia.
I would add that liberals like myself argue that we have a special responsibility to speak out against Israeli atrocities, because our tax money supports Israel. Why shouldn't the logic apply to the Charlie Hebdo attack, when Saudi Arabia receives so much of our money, and is actively exporting violent Islamism?
OTOH, some loner shooting up a theater? "How dare you attack Israel- you're racist! You need to give equal time to criticising Hamas!"
Xynzee says:
@Anon: not sure I followed all of your first post. Are you (Anon) saying Indonesia is moderate, or using a rhetorical device?
Indonesia has some real boiler issues at present. Bali bombing, nothing makes the international news, but it's simmering. Ironically if you'd like to see a preview of the Right's collective pants shitting if a non-"Christian" was elected President, Indo's your go to country. The new President is a Catholic and factions are absolutely soiling themselves over this. ;)
FGM in Indo? That's the first I've heard of it. I know lots of Indos, Malaysians and Singos. Will ask around. I knew it was routinely practiced in Africa and the ME.
I agree with you on the Saudi policy. However, that's par for American foreign policy. We have a strong habit of backing some really nasty despots. NetanYAHOO included.
Freeman says:
@ Ed:
Im suprised (and a bit confused) that this was the issue you chose to focus on.
Personally, on the disproportionate coverage/ value of life issue, I think the ISIS beheadings would have made a much better point. Maybe I missed your article on that topic – or maybe Im still missing the point here.
Bill says:
"What Anubis said (both posts). As Bill Maher—I know you think he's a douche—points out in a liberal and open society we can say what we want, with our greatest fear being called an idiot or harshly proven wrong, NOT being gunned down."
We do not live in a liberal and open society. We live in a society that has, in the last month, arrested, jailed, and charged with making terroristic threats at minimum dozens of young men who have in effect, done nothing other than post hip hop lyrics and paraphrased Malcom X quotes on Facebook. Language which has, since at least Brandenberg v. Ohio, been explicitly protected by the First Amendment.
While you all have a pissing match over whether we should assess Islamic fundamentalists murdering journalists as more or less important than Adam Lanza murdering schoolchildren because he is a raving lunatic or Anders Breivik murdering schoolchildren because he is a raving fanatic, the United States of America is busy turning a popular and formally protected political sentiment into a federal terrorism thoughtcrime.
The war raging isn't really one of Western Secular Freedom v Islamic Theocratic Tyranny, but rather one of the Neoliberal Globalization and Technocratic Totalitarianism of the Elite v. Everyone Else. I can understand how spending decades immersed in attitudes of American Exceptionalism, arguments for Western Colonization, and agitation against the external 'others' can make people not see the the forest for the brilliantly lit trees of faux "liberty" and "freedom." But I urge them to start squinting and look past the glare.
Talisker says:
Ed, I speak as a long-time fan, with respect and affection: This post is goddamned idiotic.
12 people being shot in Syria is not news, because it's a war zone. 12 people being shot in central Paris is news, because it's extremely rare.
As for the attack on our way of life: That all depends on who "we" are. Obviously suburban Americans are under no particular threat. I'm sure Fox News is shrieking otherwise, and I can understand your frustration with that, but it doesn't excuse this kind of sloppy writing.
Even American journalists aren't really at risk. The US Muslim population is tiny and not particularly radicalised. But French, British, or German journalists? For them, this attack strikes very close to home. If you're talking about prominent opinion writers and cartoonists, it's no more than a few hundred people per country. There is already a chilling effect; some German papers published Charlie Hebdo cartoons on the front page today as an act of solidarity, but no British ones have.
This is a direct attack on freedom of expression in France, and a similar incident could very easily happen in the UK or Germany. Whether Ed of Gin and Tacos is annoyed with Fox News makes no goddamned difference to that state of affairs.
Bill says:
*formally – formerly
HoosierPoli says:
Unlike Americans, Europeans aren't used to the constant, looming threat of random gun violence.
Skipper says:
Some points to consider:
1. As others have pointed out, mass shooting are rare in Europe, unlike the US where they're pretty common.
2. Just the existence of assault rifles in Europe is rare, unlike the US, where any jerkoff can walk out of a mental institution and into the WalMart to buy an arsenal of WMDs to exercise his Second Amendment rights.
3. Mass murders in the US fall into two categories. Some guy slips his trolley and starts firing at random. Or some guy slips his trolley and wipes out people with whom he's had some kind of interaction — former girlfriend, former boss, former colleague.
4. In this case, the shooters (a) didn't slip their trolley and (b) targeted specific individuals with whom they didn't have any personal relationship. They called out their victims by name, but didn't know them.
5. Unlike in the US, this was a planned military or paramilitary-type action, not some goober off his meds. And, unlike in the US, this wasn't some lone, crazed nutball. There were three people involved in a well-coordinated and apparently well-planned attack.
6. Also, it was cold-blooded murder in the name of religion.
7. It is the spread of ISIS-related violence into Europe. Before, you had to travel to Syria or Iraq to be kidnaped and slaughtered by ISIS. Now, you're vulnerable just sitting at your desk in your office.
And so on. There are significant differences between this and the garden-variety American mass shooting.
Elle says:
This is dead on.
FDChief says:
OK. Couple of points.
1. I'm going to repeat myself; if you're "worried" or "concerned" about this as anything but another version of the postal-worker-goes-all-postal-isn't-that-sad kind of thing you REALLY need to chill. It's "worry" and "concern" (and fear and panic and the obsession with the idea that somehow the Jihadis Are ComingTo Kill Us that got this mess kicked off in the first place.
We really should listen to the voice of Zombie Osama; his plan was that by prodding Uncle Sam in the nuts he'd get the lanky bastard to go Full Kristol all over the Middle East, pissing off Muslims by the score and making more jihadis in a week than the Saudi madrassis had cranked out in a decade.
Fortunately for him he had Dubya and Dick to help him carry out his cunning plan and turn a failed Afghanistan into a failed'er state and a secular Iraqi dictatorship into failed statelets run by Sunni and Shiite theocrats, not to mention metastasizing Al Qaeda franchisees all over Hell.
You'd think we'd have learned by now. The whole POINT of these attacks is to convince you that "you're vulnerable just sitting at your desk in your office.
2. You're not.
How many people died in traffic accidents in Paris yesterday? In France? In Europe? How many from slips and falls? How many in industrial accidents?
Sitging at your desk worrying about Islamic terrorists as you drink that sucorse-laden coffee and munch that fat-pill donut is like worrying about being struck by lightning as you play in traffic.
3. OK. So you're STILL upset about the scary Jihadi Under The Bed? Then do something about it;
Go have a nice ham sandwich with a glass of smoky scotch. Shave. Encourage your daughter or sister to apply to grad school or try out for the soccer team. Look at some porn, or, better yet, grab your lover and MAKE some porn. Sleep in Friday (or Saturday or Sunday) and don't go to temple or church or the mosque. Ask your candidate if he/she supports "biblical solutions" (or "islamic" or "talmudic" solutions"…) and campaign against them if they do. Teach some evolution. Kiss your lover in public.
ISTM that there are about a gijillion better things to do than get all fretful about this nonsense. It really is like lightning; it's gonna happen (until the Islamic world gets as blase' and bored with reilgious nonsense as most of the West already has) and while you can take some sensible precautions spending more than a nanosecond stressing about it or, worse, declaring that "something needs to be done" about lightning.
There's really nothing that the West can do about this sort of thing outside going about our business. Either the umma will havetheir own Enlightenment or they won't, but our job at this point is to ignore their religious problems, stay calm and carry on…
FDChief says:
Misspellings much? Damn, sorry – wish there was an "edit" button for comments…
Brian M says:
I LOVE YOU, BILL!
Except the problem is I would still rather live under the Technocratic Elites than Mullah Omar or El Shabab*, but otherwise this nails it:
The war raging isn't really one of Western Secular Freedom v Islamic Theocratic Tyranny, but rather one of the Neoliberal Globalization and Technocratic Totalitarianism of the Elite v. Everyone Else. I can understand how spending decades immersed in attitudes of American Exceptionalism, arguments for Western Colonization, and agitation against the external 'others' can make people not see the the forest for the brilliantly lit trees of faux "liberty" and "freedom." But I urge them to start squinting and look past the glare.
*Just like I have always said that as horrific as a country run by Jamie Dimonds and their ilk may be, it is still better than a country run by humorless left wing political hacks and ideologues. Dimond or Brezhnev?
cat says:
@talisker
"12 people being shot in Syria is not news, because it's a war zone. 12 people being shot in central Paris is news, because it's extremely rare."
This is the epitome of Ed's point. That their deaths aren't news worthy is pretty good proof their lives matter less.
Emerson Dameron says:
I was particularly upset about this because I knew it would galvanize the neocon right. But it's even worse than I expected.
Progressive ideologues on Twitter are already emphasizing that this dispicible and violent act isn't anything special not because we've become horribly numb to mass gun murder, but because the magazine's content was "problematic."
That's some NRA shit right there.
Bill says:
We live in a free and liberal society where the proper response to a few dozen Islamic Fundamentalists killing 3,000 people in one morning is a decades-long war against largely unaffiliated Islamic governments and people that kills hundreds of thousands and injures and displaces millions of Arabic and Islamic people.
We live in a free and liberal society where the proper response to thousands of state agents killing, in service to and protected by supposed justice, at minimum three thousand unarmed people of color over a decade, and unjustly incarcerating millions more through a systematic war of oppression explicitly designed to disenfranchise and disempower minorities and political undesirables, is again nothing substantive except for beating and arresting those who even dare speak in favor of retaliation or serious reformation.
We live in a free and liberal society primed for mass domestic race riots and domestic terrorism and doing nothing to address this besides suppressing dissent and OH, hey lookie there some more crazy Muslims shot people! Bomb ISIS! More drone strikes!
Emerson Dameron says:
PS: I realize I'm being reactionary here my damn self. Maybe it lends some insight on why some of us are having so much trouble tangling with this particular case.
nate says:
As Ed said, everybody thinks this is a tragedy, and those responsible should be caught and punished.
If the conversation gets around to how these guys got radicalized, and what the West has done to/in the Middle East for the last century, sign me up. That's a hard topic and requires a lot of soul searching, something America tends to avoid at all costs.
Instead, I imagine we'll get, qua Hitchens: "Islam is eeeeevil and we must defend Western Christendom enlightenment 11!!1"
Emerson Dameron says:
@Bill:
Hypocrisy is the greatest luxury, I suppose.
witless chum says:
This part is especially, exactly right. It's instructive that we are being especially instructed by the media to politicize this particular atrocity, unlike when some average American shoots up a school, even though the victims are barely cold. Sure the gunmen had political motives, but we presumably object to their tactics of murder much more strongly than their politics of nobody should draw their prophet because blah, blah, blah somebody wrote a thing a long time ago.
And, not for nothing, we're being asked to be more upset about this than if a Hellfire missile kills a bunch of innocents in Yemen for the crime of being close to where some guy the U.S. government doesn't like is thought to be.
Too me, the point isn't that the coverage of this is necessarily wrong, though its as bad and stupid as media coverage of most things are because the media is run by people who prioritize the bad and the stupid. It's that the coverage of other things equally as tragic is incredibly fucked up. And not recognizing the differences is privileging various idiotic ideologies about how our murderous violence is cheeky and fun, but their murderous violence is cruel and tragic. No, murderous violence is murderous violence.
Mo says:
That's what bothers me. Lots of people are getting shot and killed for no good reason. Either we care or we don't. It makes no sense to care a lot about some and barely notice others.
And not recognizing the differences is privileging various idiotic ideologies about how our murderous violence is cheeky and fun, but their murderous violence is cruel and tragic. No, murderous violence is murderous violence.
Yup. Now, how do we deal with these fuckers?
Mo says:
Sorry, witless chum, shoulda put your quote in italics as well.
Fuck HTML.
Bill says:
I love you, too, Brian M.
I am horrified that almost none of the many supposedly progressive blogs and periodicaIs I read have even addressed the last month of mass arrests for supposed "threats" against police. Again, the DoJ is assisting local police and procescutors in portraying vague violent sentiments and political speech as threats of terrorism. Formerly protected speech against the state and state agents is being redefined as terrorism if state agents merely say said speech made them anxious. That alone is horrifying, and coming along with recent martial law manhunts and armed civil servants openly defying and demonizing elected officials we should all be screaming, "Help, help! I'm being repressed!" from the rooftops.
Instead, even supposedly enlightened commentators are debating whether some of us are taking the latest brown menace too seriously or maybe not seriously enough.
dan says:
A hurricane on the ocean gets no coverage. A hurricane in Miami gets coverage. Why should I care more about Miami than I do about some random spot on the ocean?
Totoro says:
Hi Ed,
I'm surprised that you aren't seeing this as different from other mass-shootings. I urge you to read George Packer's article:
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/blame-for-charlie-hebdo-murders
in which he makes it clear that throughout Europe for many years (since Salman Rushdie) there have been efforts to silence through intimidation and/or murder those who speak out about problems with Islam or even just, yunno, write a novel. This seems very different than some wack-job deciding to kill folks. There will always be random acts of violence. Hebdo was not random.
mothra says:
It's okay, Ed. You don't have to care about these dead people more than others. As someone said above, one reason the media is going a bit more crazy (and I am not sure I agree they are) is because they were some of their own. Granted, they wouldn't have acknowledged them while they were alive (Charlie Hebdo didn't really enjoy universal approval from "real" journalists), but it does hit close to home. Even if the other journalists aren't really under actual threat, it feels closer.
As for your average people gathering out in the streets to show solidarity, well, you will notice that only in San Francisco and Chicago did Americans come out and show solidarity. That is because we are really, really used to senseless death at the hands of loony gunmen. In Europe, not so much. It happens rarely enough to still shock the conscience over there. Crazy, eh?
FDChief says:
"If the conversation gets around to how these guys got radicalized, and what the West has done to/in the Middle East for the last century, sign me up. That's a hard topic and requires a lot of soul searching, something America tends to avoid at all costs."
First, I want to throw out the window the idea that somehow this is about "Islam", that somehow Islam and Muslims are uniquely violent.
Think about it. For hundreds of years Europe was torn up by Protestants killing Catholics, Catholics killing Protestants and everybody killing Jews.
Don't even get me started on atheists and witches.
Where you went to church (or whether you did..) was a killing matter in Europe for centuries. Google "Thirty Years War" sometime and read up on what it did to Germany, among other places. Wasteland. Total fuckstory.
Believing you have a pipeline to the Almighty makes a hell of a great reason to kill people who are piped into a different Heaven, or no Heaven at all, and that was enough reason for Christian Europeans to do some of the world's most enthusiastic killing for centuries.
And then we stopped.
We booted the preachers the hell out of our politics – most of us – and, though we may kill each other for secular reasons, decided it was louche at best to go crusading.
Sure, some idiots still want to return to the Good Old Days when killing infidels for Baby Jesus got you into Heaven. But for most of us where our neighbors go to church – or whether they go to church or not – is a matter of massive indifference. The notion that someone is scarey because he might be Catholic and take orders from the Pope (as was said of JFK) or a Jehovah's Witness or a Mormon or a Hindu or a Sikh seems ludicrous as the Blood Libel to us today.
Outside of the Balkans (determined to be perverse as they have always been) religious skepticism, ignorance, indifference, and sloth is the rule in Western public life. It's considered rude (outside the Balkans or the Bachmann household) to parade your religiousity in public, let alone so much as upbraid anyone else for their infidelity.
We just can't be arsed to kill our neighbors or the random stranger anymore because they don't love our God not because we're better or kinder people but because we just don't give enough of a shit. Who cares what the Johnsons are doing Sunday morning? The fuckin' Vikes are playing, man!
As a whole, as a society, the West seems to worship – if it worships anything – sex and money and prettiness and fame. And while that in itself is a whole 'nother cluster of fuck it doesn't seem to be as lethal. Nobody seems to shoot somebody else over Hooters girls' tight T-shirts.
The occasional abortion doc, maybe. But, still.
So the last religion standing seems to be Islam, at this point. Which is pretty bizarre when you consider that in 1945 the idea of "political Islam" seemed like the height of lunacy.
All over the Islamic world secular governments were replacing the old colonial regimes. In fact the heartland of the current IS and AQ shenangans – Iraq and Syria – was largely run by "Baath" parties which were overtly and fiercely secular. The exemplar for the emerging Arab states was Turkey and the anticlericalism of the Young Turks.
But between the Western powers and Israel these secular states were shown up to their populations as either venal, weak, or both. Secular dictators were suborned with Western cash and weapons, or defeated by Israeli arms. The only groups that seemed to actually fight back effectively were the jihadis. The U.S. and the West also helped coddle a Saudi regime that nursed the Wahhabi madrassis that produced so many of these jihadi vipers. Charlie Wilson & Co. turned them loose on the Soviets which seemed like a damn fine idea at the time…and then cut them loose when the Soviets ran for cover.
The the world's deadest tall Saudi had the brilliant idea that if he goaded the American bull it's smash up the Middle Eastern china shop and it worked like a mechanical ass-kicker and and here we are.
It seems to me that the BEST answer to the jihadi problem would be the same thing that provided the solution to the Western Wars of Religion; indifference.
Everytime some TV preacher or some fatuous GOP fucktard starts ranting about how my country needs a healthy dose of Jesus or a return to "biblical values" my first thought is "Yeah, like witch-burning, adulterer-stoning, and crusades? The fuck we do."
We want to return to the Wars of Religion? We want to return to forced conversion and prosecutions for heresy and blue laws? My ass; the West voted with its feet – out the church door – a long time ago and it seems to me for all the flaws in Western civilization I can't but think that decision was a damn good one.
It seems to me that a big fat dose of fuck-you-preacherman would do the whole Islamic umma a hell of a lot of good, too.
The only problem is I can't see how the West can do anything but "not do further harm" (i.e. by NOT doing what Osama tricked us into doing…) to make that happen…
Andrew says:
Since my way of life depends on journalists being able to publish what they want without fearing for their lives, I would say that my way of life is definitely under attack when journalists are murdered in retaliation for what they published. I'm not a journalist, but I rely on them to bring me the news. Don't you?
Bill says:
We live in a free and liberal society that, as part of a larger campaign of bombings and assassinations in the 1960s and 1970s, trained and financed Orlando Bosch and others to bomb a Cuban civilian airliner and kill dozens of civilians. We live in a free and liberal society that in 1992 pardoned Bosch, helped resettle him in Miami, and prevented his associates from being extradited for trial because Cuba, Panama, and Venezuela could not guarantee that he would not be tortured
We live in a free and liberal society that routinely "renders" suspects to dictatorships far worse than above for torture at the hands of foreign state agents. We live in a free and liberal society that within ten years of Bosch's unconditional pardon embarked on a global war against terrorism wherein we engaged in wars of aggression on false pretenses and killed hundreds of thousands of non-combatants. We live in a free and liberal society that bombs media outlets and kills unsympathetic journalists in Iraq and Palestine and Cuba and Nicaragua and Philadelphia and Birmingham and elsewhere in the name of nationalism, tradition, and realpolitik efficiency.
We live in a free and liberal society that disappears thousands of prisoners of war and political prisoners into a worldwide network of secret gulags where they are tortured. We live in a free and liberal society where none of the leaders who order or encourage this torture will ever be prosecuted. We live in a free and liberal society where the bureau responsible for the torture won't even be punished for surveilling and intimidating the elected officials tasked with overseeing said bureau.
We live in an exceptional society precisely because we're so free, liberal, and civilized!
Andrew says:
@Xynzee: Both Wikipedia and The Economist claim that the current president of Indonesia is a Muslim. The Economist mentioned some rumors to the contrary, but they were generally thought of as campaign mudslinging and not factual.
anotherbozo says:
Ed's point was one I would have made about the two police shot in New York City by the deranged Baltimorean: they might as well have been heads of state, the press howled and rended its garments so vehemently. Media are always good at fanning political flames, avid as bettors at a cockfight. Meanwhile a mother who stabs her four children to death is found on page 20.
What ostentatious black-on-white crimes do for racism in this country, this latest attack will do for the status of Muslims in France, of course.
Let the good times roll.
Joe Bauers says:
I too think Ed's missing the boat here. The victims here are victims of a hate crime, same as if they were African Americans murdered by the Klan, and I don't think many here would object to the media covering that hypothetical story differently than a case of some yahoo killing a bunch of people because the demons in his head told him to.
I'm also going to echo Totoro above and link to the George Packer article at the New Yorker.
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/blame-for-charlie-hebdo-murders
Bill says:
Charlie Hebdo writers that write anti-Semitic jokes are fired and found guilty of hate speech. The violent murders of Charlie Hebdo writers that write anti-Islamic jokes are hate crimes.
Western governments that bomb Arab and Islamic media outlets in occupied colonies are preventing radicals from agitating dissenters and formenting terroristic anticolonial violence. Asymetrical terrorists attacking Western procolonial media agitating against Islam and Arab self-governance are hate criminals like KKK lynch mobs.
Does everybody understand now? Sorry, no questions.
GeoX says:
Whoa, who ever claimed Jokowi was a Catholic? I mean, I was living in Indonesia during the election, and although there was a certain amount of mudslinging that eerily paralleled the "OBAMA IS A MUSLIMB!!!111" stuff we've seen in the States (also, that he was secretly Chinese, mirroring the "KENYAN!!" business), there's really no controversy about his religion.
Xynzee says:
@Andrew: I was going from what I read in the SMH (not a radical right wing source) and the Australian. So I stand corrected.
@GeoX: you stole my thunder :p I was going to say Jokowi is getting the Obama treatment for being secret Sino-Christo-Fascist!!!11oneoneone!!! ;)
Anon says:
I find this whole thread depressing, because it feels like it's just the tip of the iceberg. Conservatives are obviously morons, but I used to think, hey, liberals are reasonable people. But really it's just that they agree with me so often that I don't necessarily see how irrational and nasty they can be.
Suppose in 1920 a Klansman bombed a Black church in NYC. And suppose I said, this is a problem. It's part of a bigger problem that the KKK represents.
And then, people angrily tell me that *my* chances of being lynched are nil, so obviously my concern can only be motivated by anti-Southern bigotry. And then they devolve into namecalling (like when Ed accused someone of being a Freeper.)
And if I insist, no, the KKK is a real problem *for Black people, especially in the South* they tell me that no, I'm a bigot because WHY ARE YOU NOT MORE WORRIED ABOUT YOUR DIET, LARDASS?? THE DOUGHNUTS YOU STUFF YOUR PIE-HOLE WITH ARE MORE OF A THREAT TO YOU THAN THE KKK!
So in the end, this is a conversation we simply cannot have. Maybe I am wrong about the Islamic world- but I'm never going to believe that until I hear a rational counter-argument. If you want to call names, then fine- fuck you too, and goodbye. I am sick and tired of liberal white men mansplaining to me why I'm a racist because WHY ARE YOU WORRIED ABOUT ISLAMIC TERRORISM INSTEAD OF THE RISE OF ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANT BACTERIA? Thank you, I'm worried about both. I've seen this game so many times before- criticise Palestine and you're a bigot because you're not criticising Israel, and vice versa.
When I want to know about Islam, I listen to Muslims. I also listen to ex-Muslims. I read extensively about Islam, and most of what I read is books written by Muslims, or books favorable to Islam written by scholars of religion. But apparently that makes me a bigot, because open-minded people get all their news from liberals who are not Muslims, who do not live in the Muslim world, who have never been Muslims, and in all likelihood do not know 1% of what I know about Islam.
So goodbye. I am tired of trying. When you people are willing to shut the fuck up and listen to what people have to say about themselves, instead of libsplaining their world to them, maybe we can talk.
Beleck says:
gosh, darn, i missed that "liberals" are the reason why the world/society is so fucked up. lol. then again, i could live in the South where hatred and killing of Blacks has been going on since they founded this country. i missed the boat somewhere. lol.
the idiocy of Religion is a perfect excuse for scaring white people. has been for centuries and played out both here and in Europe, except the Religious Nuts now run America. dare anyone criticize a "conservative" upholding traditional values, as Anon cites, and it's some commie liberal socialist plot. God, straight out of "All in the Family." those who think otherwise/non Rightwingers/ have learned to shut up or we get a similar fate as Charlie Hebdo. Last 40 to 50 years has shown us what "power" thinks of the LEFT. as in left out of the conversation, hated and despised, almost like them there Muslims aka ISIS or Al Queda. the comparisons are easily seen. except in America, they marginalize, or imprison, or shoot you. Americans like guns and Liberals are under the crosshairs, as Ms. Gifford of Arizona, or Dr. Tiller of Kansas showed.
well, the Religious Nuts came from England and founded America to be Religiously Intolerant, See Mormon, Southern Baptists, Catholics, et al. just take an original colony, other than the Quakers, who actually believed in brotherhood… see what happened to the Quakers. gone, gone gone. lol i often think about the Shakers, who tried to "Shake the Devil" out. lol
stupidity is Religions' ist commandment. America has been sold out by the Right Wing Fundies, who "know" their "truth" can't be questioned. and then tell me Islam has anything on our own American Exceptionalism.
i don't need to see much further discussion about reality until people start to admit the Right and the Right Wingers sold America out to the Fundies for Government Control. this is now the wonderful example of "Free Speech" for the Elites and acceptance of our new "serfdom" since St. Reagan made his debut on the Stage. An Actor was needed to sell the Con. And we Americans are such easy prey. A rose by any name still smells like a rose. lol. to think the Rightwingers can say whatever they want and will never admit they ever made a mistake , otherwise the whole House of Cards crashes. Power goes to those who take it. and the Right took and sold out to Corporations. just read the "Powell" Memo, written by Rightwinger Supreme Court Justice Powell. and you think Alito, Scalia, Thomas Roberts are bad! lol. ye of little faith. lol
to watch the "Fear of ISIS in America" spread by the Righties is sad and truly effective for the idiots who vote for these Jacobin traitors/aka Congress. Two oceans have given us safety and security from all those Islamist idiots, who had to learn how to fly planes in America, just to give us some "blowback" for all the wars and murders we have committed all over the world and particularly in the Mideast. Them "brown" people sitting on top of "our" oil. Dumbing down education and States Rights, wow, what a perfect combination for getting over. The Empire leaves little to chance.
just watch the move "Idiocracy". to get a clue what and who we are today. we have been bought out, lock, stock and barrel, to use a gun metaphor, by TPTB. this return to the Wild, Wild West of yesterday has been so easily accomplished by the FEAR of the Black man/Latino, uppity Women, thinkers/ Socialists, and other who would prefer to live in peace, but are continually imprisoned, maligned, and or killed by our Fascist White Police Forces.
As Pogo, the cartoon of yesteryear said, "i have met the enemy and he is us!'
a special thanks goes out to the Religious Idiots, whether they be Islamic, Christian or Jewish, et al. thanks to them America is now, at least unofficially, a new feudal state.
with the evidence all around us, which is why the newspapers wouldn't dare tell us how safe we are, what the politicians are up to, or how many blacks/minorities get killed. i read something like 1/3 of Black men are in prison or have been, i.e. keeping the Blacks from voting, Power is a nasty aphrodisiac, white Southerners will not share with anyone else.
Gosh i do miss freedom, but i have to work to live, just to eat, and freedom without food or shelter is not in the cards if you are not TPTB. Humans worth in America is not a shared value. Humans have very little worth unless they are Rich. which is why they send you to fight their wars, work for less than living wages, or dig their trenches, though nowadays, keeping the steady stream of immigrants in keeps us Americans hungry and poor.
the stupidity or willful ignorance by enough of White Americans has done what Hitler and Goebbels couldn't do. keep a people under the yoke of psychopaths without any recourse. St. Reagan was good, so good, and Americans love their ACTORS, some, don't they. Believe everything that "liberal" Hollywood sells. in America as one writer said, Fascism would come by those holding the Flag and carrying the Bible. i just wish i knew now what i didn't know then. But hey, that is what being poor and learning how to survive teaches, who the dumbfucks are and hoping to god i ain't one of them? lol
well, i ain't black, latin, female, just a good ole boy from the South, buying all the crap Fascist America Business/Government sells. Reinvesting my money in the American Dream, as George Carlin described. Fucked up/over and through by the "lies" of the American Dream. but Lordy, aren't them their religious folks supposed to keep their religious BS out of my Government? lol, DREAMS and idiots, what a wonderful combination.
like they say! Love America or Leave it? Hell, where could anyone go and not find the CIA or Blackwater already running things. i'll just sit tight while the Rich And Right Wingers rule with the Divine Hand of their own God, smiting those who dare to disagree or believe otherwise. Working takes its' toll, i got to get up early to go to work. Work which the Rich have been sending to the Rest of the World, along with our money. still haven't figured out where all the money we American are supposed to make to buy all the shit we no longer make? Questions for someone much smarter than me. Low wage jobs that don't pay enough to live off of. and the Right complains. lol. the Right complains about everything, such consistency. Feral society, Lord of the Flies, winner take all, Fuck you, i've got mine, aka Conservatism.
Charlie Hebdo is just a foretaste of American "reality" the Europeans are experiencing.
fortunately they don't have Gun Nuts with Guns with Open Season year round. lots of nuts, maybe, but America has Europe left in the dirt since Europeans know what guns and world wars do to living things.
Americans are so clueless. you gotta love Americans though, so exceptional, so scared out of their pants and so easily led. Ride 'em Cowboy! Yee Haw!
Death Panel Truck says:
"I've just seen this mass shooting in Paris described as the largest terror(ist) event in France's history…"
I guess they've forgotten all about that Reign of Terror thing. More than 16,000 people met their deaths via the National Razor.
zebbidie says:
Not to mention the rather nasty treatment the Algerians got when it was trying not to be part of France.
Elle says:
You two do realise that you are critiquing the words of someone trying to make sense of the senseless on live television, and not a review copy of My First Book of French History? I'm not sure if you were attempting to be callous or gauche, but I must congratulate you on achieving both.
Luke says:
Want to go down this rabbit hole? Just since Sunday…
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/1/8/nigeria-bokoharamattack.html
Da Moose says:
In a globe of 7.5 billion people it's inevitable that these types of things will happen which is why I try not to pay attention anymore because fear mongering is a dead end.
eau says:
To answer ed's question (why should I care more about these 12 people's deaths?):
Muslims = bad, free speech = good. It fits the narrative. When rightwingers commit atrocities, they're 'psychos' and 'bad apples' (mcveigh, breivik, etc). Can't judge the crop by a couple of bad apples! When a Muslim does it, it's 'Islamic Extremism', and Your Way Of Life is directly threatened. It's the Clash Of Cultures and we must All Stand Together Against Evil (go shopping while politicians and corporations continue to revoke your rights) If the free speechers involved are appalling right- wing hatemongers, all the better. An excellent excuse to roll out the ol' 'I don't agree with you what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it'. It's not xenophobia, it's just commitment to the principles of freedom!
Skepticalist says:
Homegrown slaughter makes us cringe. Violence "over there," makes us mad. We do better being mad. It's more fun for media too.
Desmond says:
It needs to be said that random violence, such as we see in most mass shootings in the US, is not at all equivalent to TARGETED violence, such as we saw in Paris.
Random mass shooting events don't have much of a chilling effect on free speech because one can rightly say that whatever their political views, they are unlikely to be murdered in a random shooting spree. But if journalists and cartoonists are SPECIFICALLY targeted and murdered because of things they write and publish, that has a rather severe effect on free speech, as there is now a reasonable expectation they will be directly threatened by violent people who are more than willing to carry out those threats.
This is a rather difficult distinction to miss. And while I'm in agreement with Ed that an event like this isn't worth losing our collective shit over, it is still a very troubling episode with possibly severe consequences for freedom of expression in France and elsewhere, in a way that random mass shootings could never be.
Xynzee says:
@Anon: on FGM. Now we know :-/ Not necessarily the kind of topic one wants to be correct on, but knowledge can help end the practice.
Anon says:
FWIW, here is the perspective of an actual ex-Muslim (who grew up in Pakistan and now lives in Canada) on whether the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack (yes, terrorist attack, not just a mass murder by a couple of lone nuts) really constitute a threat to our way of life:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali-a-rizvi/how-terrorism-won_b_6440982.html
TL,dr: "There you have it. The United States is now living under Islamist blasphemy laws."
Like I said, when it comes to Islam, the opinions of Muslims and ex-Muslims have weight with me, but random liberal bloggers are not worth listening to. (And before somebody accuses me of being a Freeper, I am indeed a lefty myself.) Here's another example of what I'm talking about:
http://agoodcartoon.tumblr.com/post/107501719575/the-future-does-not-belong-to-terrorists-who
The liberal blogger here says that the terrorists "violated the basic tenets of their religion." Excuse me? Who the fuck are you to define what the "basic tenets" of someone else's religion are? Have you read Shahih Muslim? No? Looked into Tafsir ibn Kathir? No? Are you a Muslim? An ex-Muslim? A professional scholar of Islam? An amateur scholar of Islam? No? Oh, I get it: you are one of those people with White Man Syndrome, who thinks he can define other people's reality just by stamping his pretty little foot.
Jado says:
Cause cartoonists in Paris getting killed isn't part of the plan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfmkRi_tr9c