(03-20-2019, 11:38 AM)Matt_Crimson Wrote: 2) Right wing terrorism has taken a sharp upturn in the U.S.
Sure. Lets say right wing terrorism has taken a sharp upturn in the U.S.
What does that mean? Are you saying that this "upturn" proves that white supremacy is more dangerous than Islamic extremism? Again, I have to disagree here.
What I find interesting about the statistical argument about how there have been more attacks by white supremacists in the US than Islamic extremists is that the argument completely ignores the fact that Islamic extremists have killed more people in the US than white extremists from the studies done from 2001 to 2017, but with fewer attacks and this is excluding the 9/11 terror attacks which would make the Islamic extremist numbers catastrophically higher.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that between Sept 12, 2001 - December 31st 2016 (They excluded Sept 11th to make the numbers a little more comparable), there had been 85 terrorist attacks committed by violent extremists.
Of the 85 attacks, 62 were from far-right extremists and 23 were from Islamic extremists.
These 85 attacks resulted in 225 total deaths.
Out of the 225 deaths, 106 deaths were attributed to white extremists and 119 deaths were attributed to Islamic extremists.
Now, if you take the statistics from 2017 and include them in these numbers the results become....
129 total terror attacks - 99 attributed to white extremists and 30 attributed to Islamic extremists. 253 total deaths - 126 deaths for white extremists and 127 for Islamic extremists.
What's important about this? Well a couple of things.
Firstly, while the statistics may show that white supremacists are on average committing more attacks, Islamic extremists are actually killing more people per attack.
Secondly, because Islamic extremists are causing more deaths per attack, this means that they are actually more efficient with the terrorism they are causing and are therefore more destructive. If you were to flip the numbers around and say that Islamic extremists committed 99 terrorist attacks and white extremists committed only 30, I believe the number of deaths caused by Islamic extremists would be catastrophically higher than deaths caused by white extremists because the statistics currently show that Islamic extremists have been more efficient with there attacks.
I believe people are having the wrong conversation. This shouldn't be about who is causing more attacks. It should be about who is actually more destructive with their attacks. This kind of goes back to my whole comparison argument and why I have such a problem with them. Not all terrorist attacks are equal....
Don't you find it a little strange that the media (and a lot of people in general) have been complaining that we don't take the threat of white supremacy seriously enough and that we need to contribute as many resources to fighting it that we're contributing to fighting radical Islamic terror, but then go on to point out that white supremacy is showing that it is more of a problem with increasing attacks over the years?
It's as if they've basically answered their own question. White supremacy is experiencing more successful attacks because they are being investigated and targeted less often than Islamic extremism which by comparison is having more resources being poured into stopping it.
In your earlier post, you were speaking of the last five years, not all the way back to 2001. And yes, Al Qaeda/ISIS attacks have been deadlier.
But the question is whether right wing terrorism is more of a threat NOW--2019-20) than AQ/ISIS and like groups. If AQ has killed none or less than 10 since 2001, I don't think it is a greater threat now because it killed 2,900 in 2001, causing more deaths per attack.
If the rate of attacks and total incidents from the former is going up and the rate and total incidents by the latter going down, I don't see why we would conclude otherwise, if the question is limited to the US. So it still seems to me recent rate of attack, coupled with rise in numbers of right wing groups, is more important than the body counts at the moment, particularly if the count includes 9/11, if we want to judge risk.
another point--An attack in in NZ which produces 50 deaths by a neo-Nazi who praises Trump, and is reported widely in the U.S., is likely to have more influence on potential terrorists in the U.S. than six coordinated car bombings in Baghdad which kill 198 people but don't make the news here.
I think people Homeland Security and law enforcement are unlikely to see this issue as an either/or, but are likely to see it as a both/and. Resources need to be devoted to both, based on past experience and predictors of risk (like growth in numbers and organizational ties). They would not find it "laughable" to compare the danger of white supremacy to the global threat of groups like AQ and ISIS because their focus is on reducing threats/actions in the U.S. from whomever seems likely to perpetrate them.
They likely don't expect white supremacists to fly jets into skyscrapers, but as Timothy McVeigh demonstrated, right wing terrorists are indeed capable of inflicting mass urban casualties with truck bombs and the like. Who presents the greatest risk of an attack at the moment?
(03-20-2019, 06:17 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Lot of stuff going on in this thread. I feel like I am jumping back in the middle. But here are a few points.
1. Alt right terrorists are not always white supremacists. Many of the most radical are anti-government. I am sure there is a lot of cross over among many of these groups, but "Alt Right" is different from "White Supremacist".
2. Claiming it is okay that you are 3 times more likely to get attacked because there is less than a 1% lower chance of getting killed is some impressive mental gymnastics to defend Right wing terrorists.
3. One of the big reasons people see a "rise" in White Supremacy is not based on the number of attacks or killings. Instead it is the return of the confederate battle flag to Presidential campaign rallies. It is the racial rhetoric that the immigration debate has produced. It is Klansmen wearing campaign hats for the current President. It is the fact that white supremacists marched through Charlottesville without worrying about covering their faces or wearing hoods. It is an increase in hate crimes. You can't blame any of that on the media.
The CSIS, which I cited above, would agree with your first point.
As for the second, I don't think MattC was defending Right Wing Terrorists, he was just critiquing the notion that they were as great or a greater threat then AQ or ISIS inspired terrorism in the U.S. Most right wing terrorists would not like him, and he knows this.
I agree with your third point. There appears to be a general resurgence of far right politics, groups, violence, etc., which is not limited to "white supremacy"--though it does condone this indirectly or obliquely.
This is an international problem, as well. The threat I see is not just limited the U.S.
(03-20-2019, 03:43 PM)michaelsean Wrote: They perceive greater permission to act? Criminally? How’s the guy who killed the lady in Charlotte faring?
Charlottesville.
"A great democracy has got to be progressive, or it will soon cease to be either great or a democracy..." - TR
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - FDR
“History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure.”-Thurgood Marshall
I don't know statistics or official numbers, but something has certainly changed with young people as it pertains to how they view white supremacist philosophy and views.
When I was a teenager (25 or so years back), even the most red-blooded right wing people universally condemned and were reviled by Naziism. I see a lot more young people joking about it these days as it's just another lifestyle choice. I've been fairly surprised to see co-workers, all in their 20's looking at Nazi-themed memes and casually joking about them. That shit would have been totally unacceptable 20 years ago to any sane person.
I think that as the WWII generation dies and less people are around that actually saw it's consequences, the more potential there is for far-right movements to become acceptable to the mainstream. People think the Holocaust was made up because they only see it in books and movies.
People can act like nothing has changed, but it has. It's a slippery slope when something once considered intolerable slowly becomes accepted or deemed harmless. There are a lot of teenagers out there that are pissed at the world because they can't get laid and they have no future prospects for success, and those kids are ripe for radicalization, much like kids in the Muslim world who are drawn toward extremism.
(03-22-2019, 03:45 PM)samhain Wrote: I don't know statistics or official numbers, but something has certainly changed with young people as it pertains to how they view white supremacist philosophy and views.
When I was a teenager (25 or so years back), even the most red-blooded right wing people universally condemned and were reviled by Naziism. I see a lot more young people joking about it these days as it's just another lifestyle choice. I've been fairly surprised to see co-workers, all in their 20's looking at Nazi-themed memes and casually joking about them. That shit would have been totally unacceptable 20 years ago to any sane person.
I think that as the WWII generation dies and less people are around that actually saw it's consequences, the more potential there is for far-right movements to become acceptable to the mainstream. People think the Holocaust was made up because they only see it in books and movies.
People can act like nothing has changed, but it has. It's a slippery slope when something once considered intolerable slowly becomes accepted or deemed harmless. There are a lot of teenagers out there that are pissed at the world because they can't get laid and they have no future prospects for success, and those kids are ripe for radicalization, much like kids in the Muslim world who are drawn toward extremism.
I agree, and taking it a step further, the kinds of personal and identity crises to which fascism speaks are rampant again.
Still further, I would add that all the measures constructed to make sure we don't get another WW, like the UN, military alliances and treaties, the IMF, etc. are now perceived as outdated, full of free riders soaking the American taxpayer. The U.S. is pulling back its diplomatic investments in regions of the world precisely where the vacuum can be filled by authoritarian states like China and Russia. The former is quietly constructing a competing world order with soft power as it strengthens its military.
All this while Trump's authoritarian leadership is cheered because it IS authoritarian and criticism of it is dismissed as "Trump hate."
(03-22-2019, 10:20 PM)Dill Wrote: I agree, and taking it a step further, the kinds of personal and identity crises to which fascism speaks are rampant again.
I agree as well. I also think the exact same argument can be made about communism and socialism. As the people who suffered under those systems fade into the past as well a new generation take up the old flag because this time will be different.
Quote:Still further, I would add that all the measures constructed to make sure we don't get another WW, like the UN, military alliances and treaties, the IMF, etc. are now perceived as outdated, full of free riders soaking the American taxpayer.
The UN has become a joke, while I don't want it moved to China its usefulness is near nil at this point. As far as military alliances, Europe has seen to the decline in that status far more than the US. The US has been doing the heavy lifting for decades while countries like Germany use the portions of their budget they would otherwise have to devote to the military to the "butter" side of the ledger. But what are the real world consequences of this decline? Is Europe going to ally itself with China or Russian? Somehow I think not. For all the pissing and moaning they do about us I can't see them latching on to those countries. As for going it alone, good luck. The nations in the EU are growing ever more fractious, with Italy, Austria and perhaps France and the Netherlands now leaning closer to the Eastern European nations that they are to Germany or Belgium.
Quote:The U.S. is pulling back its diplomatic investments in regions of the world precisely where the vacuum can be filled by authoritarian states like China and Russia. The former is quietly constructing a competing world order with soft power as it strengthens its military.
let it be filled by those countries. I can't count how may times on left leaning news sites like The Guardian that I've seen comments yearning for the day that China supplants the Us. Let it happen in parts of the world, let them have what they claim to want. In any event Russia is a regional power and, nuclear weapons aside, is unlikely to ever be more. Let China have more influence so nations can see how good they had it under the Pax Americana.
Quote:All this while Trump's authoritarian leadership is cheered because it IS authoritarian and criticism of it is dismissed as "Trump hate."
A fair amount of the criticism is "Trump hate". Trump is doing a lot of things wrong. One area in which he is wholly correct is redressing the imbalances with nations such as China and organizations such as the EU. Trump has a lot of negative traits, but the left wants to treat him as 100% malignant. Not only is this incorrect it is actually enabling nations hostile to ours.
Quote:Vacuum of knowledge. Vacuum of power.
A pithy summation I suppose. Seeing as the Democratic solution to Trump appears to be an evisceration of bedrock national principles and more "free stuff" for everyone I don't know that anyone should be yearning for their ascension. In one way you are entirely correct, we live in an era in which ideological purity is more important than logic and common sense. Perhaps Trump's biggest sin is enabling the entire political class to completely abandon any moderate stance and willingly embrace polarization and positions considered extreme no more than three years ago. This could all end very badly.
(03-22-2019, 11:21 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I agree as well. I also think the exact same argument can be made about communism and socialism. As the people who suffered under those systems fade into the past as well a new generation take up the old flag because this time will be different.
Looks like I won't get a chance for a substantive answer before the mods shut us down for the weekend.
But I do have a quick comment about this.
Communism is re-attracting youth in the former East Block. But many there who lived/suffered under Communism look back fondly on those times. And they don't want it to be "different": they want what they had under communism--jobs and secure homes, plus the feeling they were citizens of a superpower.
Vladimir Putin’s Red Scare? Inside Russia’s Resurgent Communist Party https://www.newsweek.com/2016/08/12/putin-russia-economy-communist-party-485630.html In May, the Moscow-based Levada Center polling organization, widely regarded as the most accurate indicator of the public mood in Russia, reported a 6 percent increase of support for the Communist Party—up from 15 percent to 21 percent from the previous month. In February, the same pollster found that more than 50 percent of Russians favored a return to a Soviet-style planned economy.
Though Westerners might be more familiar with Boris Nemtsov, the Kremlin critic who was gunned down last year, or Alexei Navalny, the charismatic anti-corruption activist, the Communists are the second largest group in parliament. For millions of Russians, the party represents the genuine opposition to Putin and United Russia. This especially holds true outside big cities, in the provinces, where anti-Putin activists such as Navalny often struggle to get their pro-democracy message across. The Communist Party, with its massive resources, including $22 million in annual funding from the federal budget, has few such problems.
Putin’s supporters may laud the country’s longtime leader for “raising Russia up from its knees,” as they often put it. But in Volzhsk, and elsewhere in Mari El, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to square those grandiose claims with the gritty reality. “Over the past 15 years, Russia has seen factories close, roads fall into disrepair, and many people are unable to purchase homes,” says Sergei Kazankov, another Communist Party candidate in Mari El. “People still remember the Soviet Union, when apartments were provided by the state and when there were jobs for everyone. People don’t forget these things so easily.”
That was 2016. This is more recent:
United Russia loses ground, as the Communist Party gains it. Here are the main results of Sunday's regional elections.https://meduza.io/en/feature/2018/09/10/united-russia-loses-ground-as-the-communist-party-gains-it-here-are-the-main-results-of-sunday-s-regional-elections
“A new political situation is ripening that must be reckoned with,” said 74-year-old Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, noting that it was “fundamentally important that a strong team enter the Irkutsk legislative assembly, in order to help Governor Sergey Levchenko realize the five-year plan that he’s presented to the people of the region.”
The Communists also outdid United Russia in Khakassia (31 percent to 25.5 percent) and in the Ulyanovsk region (36.3 percent to 34 percent).
“If we said before that the Communist Party firmly holds the position of Russia’s second political force, we can now say that these elections showed that a qualitatively new level of competition with United Russia has emerged,” said the Communist Party Central Committee’s first deputy chairman, Ivan Melnikov, commenting on Sunday’s results.
(03-22-2019, 11:21 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: The UN has become a joke, while I don't want it moved to China its usefulness is near nil at this point. A
Not sure how to respond to this. Or maybe I could just ask a question—what do you mean by “usefulness” (or “a joke”) and how should this be measured? If the UN disappeared tomorrow—the Security Council, the World Court, the programs to write women's equality into law, the campaign to eliminate AIDS, the UN maintained refugee camps, the Peacekeeping forces—would the world be changed in any important way? How would that affect sanctions on Russia and North Korea? I am willing to consider the pros and cons.
(03-22-2019, 11:21 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Quote:The U.S. is pulling back its diplomatic investments in regions of the world precisely where the vacuum can be filled by authoritarian states like China and Russia. The former is quietly constructing a competing world order with soft power as it strengthens its military.
let it be filled by those countries. I can't count how may times on left leaning news sites like The Guardian that I've seen comments yearning for the day that China supplants the Us. Let it happen in parts of the world, let them have what they claim to want. In any event Russia is a regional power and, nuclear weapons aside, is unlikely to ever be more. Let China have more influence so nations can see how good they had it under the Pax Americana.
Two points/questions:
1. The governments and the majority of the people in places like Japan, South Korea, The Philippines, Thailand, Singapore and Taiwan would not like to switch out the U.S. for China as a regional balancing power. It hardly makes sense for the US to abandon that global space because some Americans don't like comments in a British newspaper. Suppose the US pulls its troops out of S. Korea and ends its military alliance with them. Would China stop North Korea from invading South?
2. How would a China-filled vacuum affect U.S. markets and employment if China gets to set conditions on our trade with SK, Japan, Taiwan etc.?
These points/questions should be considered with respect to U.S. alliances as well, and especially its relation to Europe.
(03-22-2019, 11:21 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Quote:Still further, I would add that all the measures constructed to make sure we don't get another WW, like the UN, military alliances and treaties, the IMF, etc. are now perceived as outdated, full of free riders soaking the American taxpayer.
As far as military alliances, Europe has seen to the decline in that status far more than the US. The US has been doing the heavy lifting for decades while countries like Germany use the portions of their budget they would otherwise have to devote to the military to the "butter" side of the ledger. But what are the real world consequences of this decline? Is Europe going to ally itself with China or Russian? Somehow I think not. For all the pissing and moaning they do about us I can't see them latching on to those countries. As for going it alone, good luck. The nations in the EU are growing ever more fractious, with Italy, Austria and perhaps France and the Netherlands now leaning closer to the Eastern European nations that they are to Germany or Belgium.
Europe generally does not behave as a country, allying itself with whomever. So I don't see a future in which "Europe" allies with Russia or China or the U.S. I do see a possible future in which a large number of European countries cooperate with Russia and China in ways that frustrate U.S. policy.
After WWII, the U.S. was in a unique position to enter into a military alliance with a number of European states to increase its protection, resources, and ability to project power. The original purpose was to prevent the Soviet Union from entering a vacuum of power in Western Europe which would appear if the U.S. pulled back its troops and returned to isolationism, as it did after WWI. The US wanted to do the "heavy lifting" of the alliance because of the leverage in leadership that went with it. Claims Europeans free-ride tend not to factor in the costs to them and advantages to us of having bases in their countries for forward deployment.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, people questioned NATO's usefulness in world in which liberal democracy was now expected to proliferate. After 9/11, after Putin snatched the Crimea and invaded Ukraine, and now that China is on its way to super power status, that questioning has subsided somewhat. So it remains plain (at least to the US foreign policy establishment) that a US supported by NATO military and cooperating with the EU economically is a massive counterweight to countries who would impose a more authoritarian international order wherever possible. The US and the EU/NATO are massive force enhancers for each other when it comes to setting the terms of international order.
Were the EU to fall apart and the US to back out of NATO, the "real world consequences" would be pretty bad for the liberal international order built after WW II. We would see more military conflict disruptive of trade--especially in the Middle East, but also Africa, and so more refugees. Millions more--and desperate breeding grounds for violent ideologies/actors.
The ability of the US/UN/EU to sanction countries like Russia, North Korea, Pakistan or Iran, or to police conflicts, would quickly become nil.
I don't see a safer world here at all, with conflicts awaiting to erupt in the Far East, along the India-Pakistan border, and across multiple fault lines in the Middle East. So what if we have enough oil, but the countries which constitute our foreign markets, like Japan and Germany, don't?
We all found this shooting repellant, but what is the justification for raiding an organization based simply on their receiving a donation from someone with the same surname as the NZ shooter? Let's say for the sake of argument that it was the shooter who made the donation, how would that justify raiding the organization? The lack of rights people appear to have in Europe grows increasingly disturbing by the month.
(03-26-2019, 08:24 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Let's say for the sake of argument that it was the shooter who made the donation, how would that justify raiding the organization?
The same way a large donation from Osama Bin Laden to a radical mosque in the United States would have justified an investigation to see if the funds could be to help fund another deadly terrorist attack.
No one was taken into custody. It is just an invetsigation. and I don't see how anyone would say an investigation was NOT justified.
(03-27-2019, 01:16 AM)fredtoast Wrote: The same way a large donation from Osama Bin Laden to a radical mosque in the United States would have justified an investigation to see if the funds could be to help fund another deadly terrorist attack.
Horrible analogy. One was the leader of an international terrorist organization and the other is a lone wolf shooter. It's like comparing Cobra Commander to a gang member pulling a drive by.
Quote:No one was taken into custody. It is just an invetsigation. and I don't see how anyone would say an investigation was NOT justified.
I'd like to see why it was. It comes across to me as an excuse to give an unpopular group a hard time. While I don't agree with this group they shouldn't be harassed either. I suppose we can start raiding any groups that accept or donate funds that go to unpopular groups in the Middle East.
(03-27-2019, 09:10 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Horrible analogy. One was the leader of an international terrorist organization and the other is a lone wolf shooter. It's like comparing Cobra Commander to a gang member pulling a drive by.
Both are avowed terrorists. Their motives are the same. As long as either one is capable of making a large donation to a radical group it 100% justifies an investigation .
(03-27-2019, 09:10 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I suppose we can start raiding any groups that accept or donate funds that go to unpopular groups in the Middle East.
"Unpopular", no.
"Known terrorists", yes.
One of our big tools against terrorists is tracking the funding.
(03-27-2019, 12:55 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Both are avowed terrorists. Their motives are the same. As long as either one is capable of making a large donation to a radical group it 100% justifies an investigation .
Agree. I don't have a problem with investigating a donation like that, especially if it is known the NZ terrorist visited Autria.
Also, when it comes to investigating right wing organizations, Austrians have legitimate political motives for greater vigilance. (Though I don't pretend to know if there actually was such extra-legal motivation for this investigation. Just sayin'.)
An interesting take from Matt Christiansen on the NZ government criminalizing dissemination or possession of the manifesto. he also points out that it's almost like their following the manifesto likes it's a guide to putting their Ikea furniture together.
As an aside, I don't know much about this guy, saw the video and clicked on it. He seems like a rational, well reasoned dude. But if it turns out he's some crazy alt-right extremist I am not aware of it.
(03-27-2019, 05:02 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: An interesting take from Matt Christiansen on the NZ government criminalizing dissemination or possession of the manifesto. he also points out that it's almost like their following the manifesto likes it's a guide to putting their Ikea furniture together.
As an aside, I don't know much about this guy, saw the video and clicked on it. He seems like a rational, well reasoned dude. But if it turns out he's some crazy alt-right extremist I am not aware of it.
Stopped watching as soon as he made the "white privilege" comment. This guy is the opposite of a "well reasoned dude".
Funny you would post something like this when you are one of the people who crows the loudest about not even listening to anything from a biased source.
(03-27-2019, 05:43 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Stopped watching as soon as he made the "white privilege" comment. This guy is the opposite of a "well reasoned dude".
Funny you would post something like this when you are one of the people who crows the loudest about not even listening to anything from a biased source.
Hmm, I suppose I'll have to wait for an "unbiased source" with an attention span. Thank you for your unbiased input though, Fred. It is appreciated.
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