Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
fair enough. i'll wait for clarity. 
Hypocrisy in labellin guy flying plane into IRS building "not a terrorist"
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U2DMfan
Rock n' Roll Doggie VIP PASS
I think somewhere between sensationalism and targeting the 'pop-news' demographic, "terrorism" as a culture slogan on cable news only works with a dark face or a 'funny' name.
I don't think it's some inherent bias in the "journalism".
I think it's not journalism at all. It's entertainment.
Targeting people who still think it's possible to launch a war against a tactic.
Irvine called cable news "poison" on another thread.
In America, our cable news and pop culture are essentially the same thing. So poison fits both, IMO. Watch tomorrow, all 3 cable news networks will cover the Tiger Woods press conference. Instead of...virtually anything else.
I don't think it's some inherent bias in the "journalism".
I think it's not journalism at all. It's entertainment.
Targeting people who still think it's possible to launch a war against a tactic.
Irvine called cable news "poison" on another thread.
In America, our cable news and pop culture are essentially the same thing. So poison fits both, IMO. Watch tomorrow, all 3 cable news networks will cover the Tiger Woods press conference. Instead of...virtually anything else.
Wow. I just finished reading the letter the guy wrote. I pretty much misjudged him. He's not right wing at all. He was a struggling engineer and wanted tax reform that was progressive, it seems.
I pretty much agree with what he says; I'm very ignorant of tax laws and filing taxes and stuff.
It's too bad he got so desperate. I'm glad that I said he should be humanized because he sounds very human. I'm pretty disgusted with the corporatization of politics. I just wish he could have scared some of those pricks at the big banks or some Bush administration officials instead of hurting some low level folks at the IRS. I think many liberals might have wanted the same things he wanted.
Thanks so much for the link.
I was thinking about what Noam Chomsky said last year about how even Tea Party folks (though this guy doesn't sound like one of them) think the way they do because their getting their worldview from the right and not the left.
http://fora.tv/2009/10/06/Noam_Chomsky_Philosophies_of_Language_and_Politics#fullprogram
(click #4)
I pretty much agree with what he says; I'm very ignorant of tax laws and filing taxes and stuff.
It's too bad he got so desperate. I'm glad that I said he should be humanized because he sounds very human. I'm pretty disgusted with the corporatization of politics. I just wish he could have scared some of those pricks at the big banks or some Bush administration officials instead of hurting some low level folks at the IRS. I think many liberals might have wanted the same things he wanted.
Thanks so much for the link.
I was thinking about what Noam Chomsky said last year about how even Tea Party folks (though this guy doesn't sound like one of them) think the way they do because their getting their worldview from the right and not the left.
http://fora.tv/2009/10/06/Noam_Chomsky_Philosophies_of_Language_and_Politics#fullprogram
(click #4)
What's so sad to me about all this is that I think the news used to be better. If Access Hollywood wants to talk about Britney Spears, I don't care, but for CNN to do it is disgusting.
I didn't agree with everything Ted Koppel did on ABC's "Nightline", but they did some serious jounalism -- like exposing the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" as the liars they shamelessly were. Now, look at "Nightline"; it's hosted by that slimy prick who launched his career picking on Michael Jackson: Martin Bashir. That's guy's an embarrassment.
And CNN is hosted by nitwits like the morning news folks through the afternoon who aren't properly educated about the world; they take pride in their hick notions -- like Kyra Phillips believing all that crap about how the Taliban have to be eradicated to avoid another 9/11 or Rick Sanchez. I don't know if they're worse or if the more educated folks like Blitzer and Anderson Cooper who know better but cynically misinform people are worse; I guess it's the latter. Heck, CNN gave Glen Beck his racist hypocritical start and I'll never forgive them for that.
Seriously, if this guy had been angry toward some of the rich scum in the media who care only about ratings and cynically portraying the issues in the form of cheap nationalism, I would have understood that. I think they're the cause of so much suffering at home and abroad.
That, too, but I also meant that the tactic can be justified as well.
To answer Irvine511's question, in justified terrorism, I'd group the French resistance to the German-occupied Vichy government was considered terrorism as was the Vietnamese in the South and the North opposed to the US-backed Saigon government. I'd also throw in native Americans rebelling against white settlers as well as Hamas and Hezbollah opposing Israeli occupation.
Let's face it, the American Revolutionaries violated the norms of warfare against the British by engaging in hit and run attacks in the south, and by wearing civilians clothes so they could hide among the townsfolk, and hiding in trees and shooting unannounced at British soldiers. They also spread propaganda about British-allied natives raping white women to scare unaligned Americans into joining their cause.
As in all cases, terrorists aren't naturally perfectly moral, but are just as valid as those using state tools like unjust laws and massive retaliation with an army to get their way. The killing of innocent civilians is always tragic, but there's a hypocrisy among states that terrorists' victims are less justifiable than collateral damage.
I don't consider Al Qaeda-type groups to be justified terrorism, though there are many gray areas (I do agree with their desire to have the US stop backing Israel and repressive governments in Arab countries in the Middle East), just as I don't consider Hitler's war civilized warfare.
*An interesting note: The guerilla forces in the French resistance were called the Maquis. On Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, my hero Ira Steven Behr and Michael Piller decided to call the understandable group of terrorists opposing the Federation-Cardassian treaty that gave their land over to the Cardassians the Maquis. Now, in normal human history, no one who believes in their cause calls themselves "terrorists", but these courageous writers were trying to illuminate the situation in Palestine by having both the 50-year Bajoran resistance to the Cardassian occupation and the Maquis "terrorists". The DS9 Captain Sisko ends up trying to stop the Maquis, but the writers were careful to present them as driven by reasonable concerns.
There's a great film that reminds me of some of this. It's called "The Assassination of Richard Nixon", starring Sean Penn and Naomi Watts and Don Cheadle. It really captures the stress of life and the rage this lonely guy felt and directed toward Nixon on the TV screen. In the end, he does terrible things, but the inner pain makes it hard for him to see how cruel he's being toward innocents. This guy reminds me of that character.
bigjohn2441
Refugee
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obviously people calling this guy a christian conservative didnt read his suicide note.
purpleoscar
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
This for me.
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
Can your really be crazy and evil?
martha
Blue Crack Supplier
Yes.
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
But doesn't crazy imply that it's somewhat out of your control, and evil imply intent?
I don't know, I'm just asking.
I don't know, I'm just asking.
Liesje
Blue Crack Addict
I think it's quite rare that someone really is "evil" (sociopath or psychopath) AND "crazy" (pick whatever disorder falls under the umbrella of that colloquialism).
Vincent Vega
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
I guess there is a lot of grey area or mixed forms. Not everyone is entirely, 100% crazy when he is evil, and vice versa.
MrsSpringsteen
Blue Crack Addict
So he's a tea party martyr? I would like to read exactly what Scott Brown said, but perhaps he should have said nothing. But I guess his opinion on everything now is so relevant. I want to know if he thinks Plushenko was robbed, maybe I'll call his office.
UberBeaver
Breakdancing Soul Pilgrim
I think he was a sad man at the end of his rope. Probably watched too much tv.
The link to the Fox News video to Brown's comments is in the first page of this thread.
Looking back, I'm still glad Brown said that the guy had understandable reasons, but it's kind of slimy the way he tried to incorporate that into his campaign. Very egotistical.
PhilsFan
Blue Crack Addict
People who don't understand what he said are saying he was justified? I still don't understand how that's happening.
UberBeaver
Breakdancing Soul Pilgrim
1. Lots of taxes.
2. Plane into building.
3. Spin story to fit your needs
3a. It's really Obama's fault
3b. It's really W's fault
3bI. It may be W's fault - but it's also Obama's fault, but we're gonna fix that in November.
K?
I think he was a sad man at the end of his rope. Probably watched too much tv.
On that note, I'm reminded of that opening scene in one of my very favorite X-Files episodes, the Season 3 finale "Talitha Cumi". A stressed out man who has lost his job goes into a fastfoot restaurant and threatens to shoot people and does. The end credits even call him "Stress Man", if I remember correctly. When I was a teen, I didn't understand what was happening at all; I couldn't relate to what this guy was feeling or how he got to that place. Maybe it's experience or understanding the world and my own feelings and of what I'm capable better, but I understand now.
It's one of many scenes of insight into humanity that this wonderful show provided. I think that's lost among all those who praise whatever junk J.J. Abrams does and pronounce it better than The X-Files.
corianderstem
Blue Crack Distributor
Everything I ever needed to know, I learned from The X-Files.
I think you've got a book lurking somewhere in that idea.
I think you've got a book lurking somewhere in that idea.
VintagePunk
Blue Crack Distributor
I'm just going to go ahead and say it: dude, that's a little frightening.
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
I second that...
I didn't mean that to come off as saying I specifically would do it, but that I can see how people snap due to the pressures of life, how easy it is to feel trapped and to have rage drive you in your darkest times. I mean, let's look at all these school shootings or even the phrase "going postal" applied in the '80s or all these shootings among people fired.
I'm trying to say that my understanding of human nature was limited in my teens, but that I've come along to the view of The X-Files writers in that episode, David Duchovny and Chris Carter, that an otherwise decent person can do something so terrible as take out their frustrations on people who never directly affected them. That's all.
If it were "Walker, Texas Ranger", Stress Man would have been portrayed as scum, but he was given sympathy in that X-Files episode; the same honest portrayals of serial killers are provided in "Millennium" Season 1.
If we're to solve these society-wide problems, the most important thing is to understand and not just write these incidents off as freak events because they're going to continue. We need to figure out what's wrong with our societies that leads to such behavior; how can otherwise normal people go down this route.
VintagePunk
Blue Crack Distributor
I know, eh?Everything I ever needed to know, I learned from The X-Files.
I think you've got a book lurking somewhere in that idea.
Actually, when I was a teen, I was pretty ignorant about the truth about US foreign policy and would get upset at The X-Files' liberal politics. I remember watching the finale in May 2002 and scoffing at the idea that a military official would torture Mulder in a secret prison. "Americans are morally superior; they aren't capable of that", I'd think. Fastforward to Abu Graib and Guantanamo, etc.
The X-Files wasn't as political as BSG, but it would bring up things like The School of the Americas ("Apocrypha"), the Mai Lai massacre ("Sleepless"), the cruel treatment of illegal immigrants ("El Mundo Gira") and Haitian Refugees ("Fresh Bones"), the fact that Zionists used terrorism to found Israel ("Kaddish") and a general suspicion of elected officials and the dangers of governmental abuse.
PhilsFan
Blue Crack Addict
If an emotion hasn't been dealt with in a politically insightful television show, that emotion doesn't exist, guys.
Phew. I have to say, I was nervous about typing the initial post on which you commented because of how it might be read.Thanks for the clarification.
Vincent Vega
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
You recall how the episodes are called? 
It was My Lai.
It was My Lai.
Well, doesn't it help when a smart show speaks to these emotions?
Much more than The X-Files, BSG speaks to these darker emotions and actions, those very real ones that too many Hollywood writers avoid.
My family was never big on discussing emotions, so TV kinda helped me a bit.
