Social Media and Terrorism

Much has been made lately about using social media to combat terrorism. What people say on their pages, and in their comments, and in their emails and what not can (and should) be used to identify potential terrorists, those radicals who would do us harm, we're told.

See, we coulda stopped that Muslim woman, that foreigner, from killing 14 people and wounding 22 in San Bernadino if only we had been paying attention to what she had been saying and looking at and who she had been talking to on Facebook. The fact that her fellow trigger puller, her husband, was born and raised right here in The Homeland, well, let's not talk about that.

Just like we won't talk about Scott Anthony Orton, known as 'Joseywhales' on multiple social media sites. He's an American, a white man from Washington State, and he's an honest-to-goodness terrorist, even though I suspect no Republican presidential candidate would agree with me on that.

Orton was arrested for making threats against employees of StemExpress, the biotech firm which gained fame and notoriety earlier this year when the undercover videos of Planned Parenthood employees talking about baby parts came out. StemExpress is one of the companies on the receiving end of the aborted tissue, which is used by researchers for things like, you know, trying to cure cancer and find other ways to save lives, as opposed to the videos themselves which are used to inflame people like Orton, and the American terrorist who killed three people at the Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs, and those aforementioned Republican presidential candidates.

Orton threatened people in California using social media from his terrorist base in Washington, saying things like:

The management of StemExpress should be taken by force and killed in the streets today.

Stop the death of innocents, Kill the killers.

Now you might think that's OK  -- I mean, what's a little free speech among friends, right?

How about this:

Kill StemExpress employees. I'll pay you for it.

StemExpress your lives don't matter nearly as much as your deaths do.

Or this:

The (specific person) of StemExpress is a death profiteer. The (specific person) of StemExpress should be hung by the neck using piano wire and propped up on the lawn in front of the building with a note attached.

Or this:

(Specific person) must die. End of story. If we as humanity accept her actions, we're to be judged in the harshest manner.

He had also threatened a specific Planned Parenthood employee. And another Fox Fanatic. And the FBI. And get this: the FBI has known about him, they admit, since 2009. That was when he sent threatening emails to the city council where he lives.

I am coming for you, creeps. You have committed crimes against freedom. You MUST be put out of office, permanently, and I loathe you for your deeds.

Guess who else he's threatened?

I'll pay $10,000 to whomever takes out Marilyn Mosby (the prosecutor in  Baltimore's Freddie Gray death-in-police-custody case).

 I'd pay to have a hit on Mosby. She needs to be taken out.

I'll pay ten thousand dollars to the one who fires the shot that takes out Marilyn Mosby. 

Or this one:

N----- Holder you are a dead man you are a dead man walking. We got us a dead man walking here. Dead man walking.

And then there are these:

WE NEED VIOLENCE AT 1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVE!

Hey Barack ever seen a skull explode?

Hey Barack you should face a firing squad.

Hey Barack, you should hang by your neck until your feet stop kickin.

Everyone knew this guy was a terrorist. Fox certainly knew it, since he was a very active participant on their comment boards. Everyone knew he was threatening all kinds of people on multiple social media sites. Screen captures had been done, they'd been reported. For six years, this guy has been terrorizing American citizens, including FBI agents, a (black) prosecutor, the (black) Attorney General and the (black) President of the United States.

The argument can be made that this was just talk, he's not a real threat, he was just shooting his mouth off, I mean, does this guy even have $10K? Je Suis Charlie Hebdo, and all. It's just free speech.

When Orton appeared in court, the prosecutor asked that he be held without bail. Despite that request, and despite his history, he was released on an appearance bond and told to come back at the end of December.

After all, it's not like he had a Pakistani wife or anything.

If we're really going to use social media to combat terrorism, we need to open our eyes, accept the fact - and deal with the fact - that terrorism doesn't only come from outside our borders, and that it's not only radical Islamist jihadis that we need to worry about.

We ignore that at our continued peril.

First They Came for the Muslims

Most of us have heard  some version of the "First They Came" quote, one of which is below.

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out,
because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out

because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out,

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me.

There's some disagreement over who wrote it, or what the original version was; it's generally attributed to Martin Neimoller, a German pastor and lecturer, although it supposedly could have been written by some counter-culture types who figured no one would pay attention if they put it out on their own, so they tagged Neimoller with credit.  

Regardless of the true origin, the meaning is clear, as is the evergreen and challenging nature of it.  Watch:

First they came for the Muslims, and I did not speak out

because I was not a Muslim.

Seem relevant? It should; all you have to do is watch the news coming out of France on anti-Muslim attacks since the terrorist acts on Charlie Hebdo and the kosher grocery store; or Germany, where there are regular anti-Muslim rallies; or read any number of articles right here at home, or listen to our politicians:

• John Bennett of Oklahoma, who professes to have read the Koran and has determined that Islam is a "cancer that needs to be cut out of our nation" among other things.
• Bobby Jindal, Catholic convert from Hinduism, Louisiana Governor and possible presidential candidate, on the need for Muslims to assimilate, and stop with their Sharia law stuff and those unnamed 'no-go' zones where women are afraid to go without veils.
• Jack Whitley, a Republican party hack from Minnesota, who pronounced last November that we should "frag" Muslims when they make their pilgrimage to Mecca - I mean we know they're going to be there, right? 

Or, read your state's political party platform, such as the one from Texas which specifically calls out Sharia Law as something from which protection is needed; even in the face of cases where American people and companies have benefited from our courts taking such laws into consideration.

Some of us at least appear to have difficulty differentiating between a faith and terrorists. For some people, it's a definitive choice; hatred for others who are not like us is not unheard of. For others, though, it's possibly a lack of understanding or it's perhaps because they've never thought about it.  That's the way it is for us in majority America when it comes to race and racism (it doesn't exist, right?) and religion (mine is good and yours is OK as long as it's a lot like mine or at least resembles mine a little) and free speech (as long as it's not critical of anything I believe in or even remotely critical of America. If you need examples, look no further than 'American Sniper' discussions).

What would happen, I wonder,  if this were the next verse we wrote today:

Then they came for the Catholics, and I did not speak up, 

for I was not a Catholic.

Catholics? Why would anyone come for the Catholics? 

Catholic priests abused children, tens of thousands of children around the world; the true number terrorized by these men of the cloth may never be known.  The Catholic church at different times feigned ignorance of the abuse, then denied it ever happened. They failed to protect the children from the abusers, and instead focused on protecting the Church and her leaders; they moved abusers from parish to parish, expanding the problem instead of limiting it. Had church officials been school teachers or doctors or bus drivers or coaches or politicians or people from any other walk of life, they would surely have ended up in jail. Permanently in jail.

These men were terrorists, plain and simple. They were priests, yes, and they were Catholics, yes, but they individually were terrorists.  They did not represent the entire Catholic clergy, and their behavior is not presumed to be representative of all Catholics.  In fact, the opposite is true.  

The presumption (from people who were not victimized by these men) has always been that these individual priests were monsters, and that maybe some of the leaders of the church were complicit in the cover up, and that maybe some did not do enough to take care of the victims. There are still Catholics who believe this never even happened.

But has there been a call to round up all Catholics, to ban all Catholics, to evict all Catholics, to bomb and shoot at Catholic churches, to burn down Catholic houses of worship? Any calls to 'frag them' on Christmas Eve and Easter Sunday? Of course not.

It would be wrong to brand an entire faith and all her followers as terrorists, simply based on the bad acts of a small minority of them, wouldn't it? 

Well, sure, that would be wrong.

Unless of course they're not done taking care of the Muslims.

Are We Really Charlie Hebdo?

Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical magazine, publishes cartoons that are so inflammatory that most American news outlets won't show them. Wouldn't even think about showing them. Would be fined if they did show them.

Even the relatively modest cover of the post-attack edition, which showed the prophet Muhammad with a tear on his cheek, holding a sign noting 'Je Suis Charlie' (I am Charlie) and the headline above saying 'All is Forgiven', was not shown by many media outlets; reporters held the magazine, rolled up so that we could see the bright green background of the cover and know that it was the one we had seen published on social media, but that was it. 

from Time.com

Shortly after the attack in Paris, Time magazine published a few of the covers, including the one pictured to the right, described as follows:

In this cover, the newspaper called itself an irresponsible newspaper, and likening itself to a Neanderthal, claiming that the invention of humor is the process of adding fuel to the fire.

Frankly, that's how many have viewed the whole situation, as being all about adding fuel to the fire. Many Muslims are deeply offended by some of the cartoons, because they believe the prophet should not be depicted in human form at all, much less (for example) on his knees, genital exposed with a gold star on his anus, beneath a headline proclaiming 'A star is born'.

Christians would be just as mightily offended had Jesus been portrayed in that manner, or if they had seen the cover depicting the Holy Trinity engaged in anal sex, or if, similar to the one about the Koran, there had been a cartoon stating that said the Bible was 'shit'.

Most people, regardless of their faith or personal beliefs, would be offended, and I dare say hesitant to rally and march in support of a magazine that published these cartoons. We are, after all, the country that fined CBS for showing a 'wardrobe malfunction'; we are the country that didn't allow the 'seven dirty words' to be broadcast (but has no problem with lingering, loving shots of two of them, tits and ass, on cheerleaders, fashion models or sitcom stars).

We are the country that has determined that money is speech; how comfortable that seems, compared to even the mildest of Hebdo covers.

Tom Toles, a political cartoonist at the Washington Post, noted in an interview with Buffalo's WIVB that he wouldn't have drawn the cartoons published in Charlie Hebdo, that he has his own standards.  He also noted, rightly, that freedom of the press includes both the right to publish, and not publish, certain material.

And he pointed out that

If someone is telling you, you can't do something or you are at risk if you do, it often makes you more determined to stay with it than to turn around and run away. 

Toles is right: often it does make you more determined. More determined to offend, in the case of Charlie Hebdo. And more determined, for many of us, to thank our lucky stars that we are not forced to defend this particular kind of speech in our own back yard.

Wondering, on Wednesday (v17)

Here we are, just a few days into the new year, and instead of being filled with hope and anticipation, we're sharing grief and anger and agony with our friends in France,we've got a new Congress in Washington, and we said goodbye to an icon here in New York.  It's been a busy few days.

Paris was devastated by an attack on their boldly satirical magazine, 'Charlie Hebdo'. The magazine, which gained notoriety for publishing cartoons of the prophet Mohammed was fire-bombed in an earlier incident, and today a dozen people were killed in the horrific attack; meanwhile we are still a bit indignant about the brazen technical assault last month on Sony Pictures for their somewhat ill-advised comedy about killing North Korea's Kim Jung Un.

In that attack on free speech,  Sony lost emails, data, credibility and money by not having the opportunity for a big Christmas-day premiere of The Interview. In Paris, they lost lives for publishing cartoons.  I'm left wondering, this Wednesday,  if we'll ever really understand that kind of extremism, and more importantly whether we'll ever collectively have a way to manage it and the people who bring it upon us.

The 114th Congress took over this week, with an extreme kiss from Crying John Boehner to the head of Nancy Pelosi; a more awkward kiss has not been seen in DC in who knows how long. Boehner managed to get re-elected as House Speaker, although it wasn't easy. It wasn't easy for a few of the folks were were not firmly in his corner, either - those folks lost their committee posts in a swift reaction by Boehner. He's going to have a long battle these next two years, but starting out by smacking down the opposition has to feel good, don't you think?

Meanwhile, over in the Senate, Mitch McConnell actually talked about finding agreement with his Democratic counterparts:

I always like to remind people that divided government is not unusual in this country. When the American people choose divided government I don't think it means they don't want us to do anything, I think it means they want us to look for areas of agreement. 

And then, reminded us that this first order of business is to pass the Keystone XL Pipeline bill, which according to McConnell is a key component of the 'energy revolution' in this country.  That would be the same energy revolution that has gas prices tumbling, which would be good, except that OPEC countries are not propping up their own oil, and so the price is in free fall, which is messing up the stock market and the world economy, which is scaring the bluecheeses out of us.  I'm wondering if Mitch wants to reconsider his first big vote?

And finally, we said goodbye to Mario Cuomo this week; I wonder who will be the real voice of progressive reasonableness, or reasonable progressitivity, going forward? That person, whoever he or she is, will have a huge opportunity in 2016, one that shouldn't be wasted.