Posted on 04/17/2013 6:43:46 PM PDT by Pinkbell
I’m not the kind of person who hopes to ever find conservative Fox News host Bill O’Reilly agreeing with me. But with my Salon piece on the Boston bomber now on the front page of Drudge, I think it is worth pointing out that last night O’Reilly effectively agreed with my piece by confirming the very simple self-evident truth that the Boston bomber’s demographic profile will, indeed, dictate how America responds to the atrocity.
O’Reilly starts out by stating something every American almost certainly agrees with: We should all be first and foremost hoping that the perpetrator — whoever he or she is — is apprehended as quickly as possible. Then he moves into an analysis of the future reaction. As O’Reilly put it, “If this is an international terror attack, the repercussions will be severe,” but, he added, “if it’s home-grown” that will just “be another stain on American history.”
In stating such an obvious truth, O’Reilly has (inadvertently) spotlighted the double standard that drives so much of our public policymaking and our cultural attitudes toward national security.
As he said, if the bomber ends up being a foreigner there will be a “severe” response — and if history is any guide, that means potentially a full-scale mobilization of military assets, passage of draconian civil liberties legislation, police surveillance of entire demographic groups and even perhaps a scuttling of the pending immigration bill. By contrast, if the bomber is one of the many “home-grown” — read: white domestic terrorist — attacks we’ve seen in recent years, it will merely be chalked up as “another stain on American history,” but will not necessarily prompt any kind of societal mobilization against any one particular group.
The reason, then, to hope that the bomber ends up being a white American is because the double standard may prevent an overreaction to the heinous attacks in Boston. Indeed, if the bomber ends up being a white American, there’s a decent chance we will not see a redux of the post-9/11 period when we (among other things) initiated reckless wars, passed privacy-trampling bills like the Patriot Act, overspent on the Pentagon and targeted wide swaths of the population for surveillance/warrantless wiretapping.
The same cannot be said if the bomber ends up being a Muslim — in that case, the double standard will work in the opposite way, encouraging another post-9/11 redux and all the attendant bad policies that came with it.
By the way, you don’t have to be a person of color or a political liberal to hope the bomber ends up being a white American. You just have to be among the groups of Americans who don’t like stuff like preemptive wars, the Patriot Act, warrantless wiretapping, the drone war, an unsustainable Pentagon budget and a broken immigration system. By their own rhetoric, some of those groups must include many self-described conservatives — after all, they purport to care about civil liberties and say they want to reduce government spending.
That gets back to the original point: The reason to hope that the bomber is a white American is because in a country where white privilege and double standards so obviously affect our national security reactions, that outcome will better guarantee that the reaction to Boston is a bit more measured.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3008726/posts
As I said in the comments to the first article, David Sirota is only saying what the rest of the media is thinking but can't say, with the exception of an analyst on CNN and Chrissy Matthews. David Sirota, by the way, is a leftwing tool who once, along with Don Lemon, compared supporters of traditional marriage to 1950s segrationists.
So I am reading his article, and he specifically says a white American. He goes into certain responses he says will occur if this was a foreign attack like possible war, increased defense spending, immigration reform won't pass, restriction of civil liberties (ironically, he likely supports gun control). Ok, then why can't he say he hopes that it is an AMERICAN, not a foreigner? Why does he have to specify the race of said American? I'm sure he'll say that if the person was black or Hispanic or Asian that all black and Hispanic and Asian people would be blamed, which is ridiculous. The vast majority of people are not going to blame a whole American racial/ethnic group for the crime of one person. Even if it was a foreign Muslim, the media would make sure to point out that it was just an extremist perverting the religion, and it certainly doesn't represent all Muslims. If it was a white, Christian conservative, however, the media would be gleefully painting us all out to be terrorists, and Janet Napalitano would claim vindication. That's what Sirota wants. He feels that will advance liberalism. It's sick politicizing this tradgedy.
Personally, I hope it's not an American because it's unfathonably sad that an American could do that to his own.
Moslem countries root for Moslems.
It's only bigotry when Americans do it.
All i want is one nuclear missile fired at Mecca. Yes, i mean it. No, i don’t care. They do this because it’s fun for them, and because we haven’t broken their hearts and destroyed their will to fight.
Germany and Japan are utterly pacifistic to this day. There’s a lesson in there.
Obama and company NEED for this attack to be by a white american. Then they can really clamp down on us.
Hannity guest just reported the Saudi suspect hospitalized in Boston is being deported according to sources from ICE. Uhmm, what’s going on???
I still hope they get the right guy this time and not another Jewell. And all the guys this time instead of ignoring John Doe #2.
Steve Emerson was just on Hannity and said the Saudi guy we heard about 1st is being deported. Supposedly Obama met with the Saudi ambassador a while ago.
What do you bet he was involved?
Sirota apparently feels it necessary to remind us that he’s an asshole.
This may not be politically correct, but I hope that by January 1, 2014 David Sirota is no longer with us.
Yes...I’m sure if you asked him would you like it to be a white leftist terrorist...he’d stammer...above my pay grade
Who is this vapid traitorous doooosh?
Some one give him a lolly to calm him down and put him to bed.
We are being had by the O admin. I bet the info on who done it was stopped until they remove some high profile Saudi’s from the country.
Was his name Ben Ghazi, by any chance?
Well as long as we’re wishing and queuing up for unicorn rides, I hope it’s Bill Ayers Jr.
What vermin these people are.......
Bill Ayers; Bill Ayers is a white American? Yes?
Ted Kazinski: white and hairy, but in jail.
Bill is still out running around. Does he have an alibi? The police should interview him every time one of these happen just to be certain.
They can't arrest him if he's not in the country. Or he's an OBL relative. Or he knows something that they don't want let out. Or he's on an expired student visa. Or all of the above.
Steve Emerson was just on Hannity and said the Saudi guy we heard about 1st is being deported
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