Time for a New Patriotism?

[Sxotty]

A "new patriotism" should be a feeling of solidarity not only within a country, but also across country borders, as humans.

This will never happen until a common threat unites us. Not a threat that is abstract but one that everyone (well at least a majority in all locations) feels the pressure of and is worried about.

 

[Blade]

Well, you know how it is with libbies.. anything goes. In the country, and in their political battles. They don't hold back the scathing comments because they'll do anything to win back the presidency so that they can continue to turn this damned place Socialist! Picking up, right where Billy C. left off! Okay, maybe that comment was a little extreme.. sorry.. :? I went a little bit off-topic there.

 

[diarrhea_splatter]

It doesn't really matter who the president is, he's still a puppet. Look what happened to JFK when he tried to go against the shadow government when he found out the truth.

 

[Fred]

Lol Natoma, did you ever put any thought that maybe the Dems didn't stand up to Bush b/c maybe they themselves believed that he was more or less right? I didn't think so. Hell even Clinton supported war, and the hunt for WMD.

3 of those 4 frontrunners you mentioned had access to the same security docs as the President. Many Democratic senators have outright come out and said he in NO way lied, he just used the information he had available at the time.

Thats why they are parroting the job, cost of war and deficit issues so much, and hardly talking at all about whether it was right or wrong being there in the first place.

The rest of those issues in the article are either bogus, or lacking relevant info from the opposite stance.

 

[Natoma]

Lol Natoma, did you ever put any thought that maybe the Dems didn't stand up to Bush b/c maybe they themselves believed that he was more or less right? I didn't think so. Hell even Clinton supported war, and the hunt for WMD.

3 of those 4 frontrunners you mentioned had access to the same security docs as the President. Many Democratic senators have outright come out and said he in NO way lied, he just used the information he had available at the time.

Thats why they are parroting the job, cost of war and deficit issues so much, and hardly talking at all about whether it was right or wrong being there in the first place.

I might believe that to be the case if those same democrats aren't now coming out saying "Oh the war was a bad idea. We didn't have evidence. We didn't have proof." blah blah blah. For example, Kerry. Well, why give a blank check to the president if you had doubts about the accuracy of the evidence you had?

Given the evidence at hand, it seems to support the idea that the dems were too scared to be the loyal opposition and voice the concerns of many in the party.

The rest of those issues in the article are either bogus, or lacking relevant info from the opposite stance.

Care to state which ones?

 

[Humus]

A "new patriotism" should be a feeling of solidarity not only within a country, but also across country borders, as humans.

This will never happen until a common threat unites us. Not a threat that is abstract but one that everyone (well at least a majority in all locations) feels the pressure of and is worried about.

I'm a little more optimistic than that. It won't happend today, nor tomorrow or particularly soon. But it will grow forth with the increasing globalisation.

 

[Natoma]

I'm a little more optimistic than that. It won't happend today, nor tomorrow or particularly soon. But it will grow forth with the increasing globalisation.

I would agree that globalization will be one of the engines to promoting human unity. People generally are able to find commonality with one another when they are themselves not struggling to survive.

However, if globalization continues along the current path of tremendous disparities between the haves and the have nots, I think we will see an even greater incidence of terrorism in the future, spawned by jealousy and hatred of the "haves" by the "have nots".

It's a double edged sword.

 

[zurich]

This will never happen until a common threat unites us. Not a threat that is abstract but one that everyone (well at least a majority in all locations) feels the pressure of and is worried about.

Heh a common threat like TERRORISM? Ofcourse, nothing beat the 'ol COMMUNISTS as a uniting threat

 

[Bigus Dickus]

Of course, some see socialism as the uniting theme... reducing the disparity between the have's and the have-not's.

 

[DemoCoder]

Most of the people who proclaim they want to reduce the disparity between the haves and have-nots promote policies that simply perpuate or increase the disparity. Protectionism for western farmers at the expense of third world farmers under the guise of "protecting" them from exploitation. Attempts to raise the barriers to companies moving to use overseas labor by extolling the virtues of protecting their right to Western levels of wages and benefits. (e.g. if the costs were identical or close, no one would bother with foreign investment) The antiglobalist cause is primarily a coalition of burned out marxist whack jobs and their protege who haven't woken up yet from the 60s, and blue collar manufacturing classes who want to protect their wages from some guy who used to make 10 cents a day, and would just love to make $4/day.


If the socialist theory of international terrorism were true, why don't terrorists come from the world's poorest countries? Why do they inevitably come from nation states that have national wealth, but repressive political systems? Why don't we see poor buddhists taking down airliners? Is John Walker Lindh poor? Timothy McVeigh? Those abortion doctor killers?

Could it be that the real have/have-not situation is people who have Democracy and those who do not?


Isn't it possible that international terrorism is simply not an emergent property of global income disparity, but a result of billions of dollars spent by Arab states stoking the flames of hate, and the US's acceptance of this during the Cold War because fundamentalism, they thought, was a weapon against the Soviet Union? For example, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan funneled money into the Taliban with US approval. Did the Taliban arrise because of grassroots dissatisfaction with Western wealth, or was it a creation?


Almost all the terrorism we have on record is home grown directed at home governments, typically for separatist causes. The emergent of a global distributed army of militants willing to blow themselves up for some abstract goal like income disparity is too hard to swallow.

Let's see what happens if the Saudi's can't activity fund and indoctrinate people from teenage years into this nutcase idealogy, which then allows them to be readily recruited for suicide missions in mosques.

Yes, international terrorism is driven by money. Not the lack of money, but by the funding of money.


BTW, Read this story of a guy who went undercover in muslim hate groups
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/mai...l&secureRefresh=true&_requestid=33232

 

[Sage]

international terrorism started with money ut is fueled and perpetuated by peoples actions and reactions. The whole situation just perpetuates itself and will continue to do so until either all but one side gets wiped out or someone decides to step up and admit that they were wrong without requiring the other side(s) to do the same first. Actions are based on example and someone has to set the right example, something which westerners are not doing either. If you had lived the lives of the suicide bombers then you would most liekl end up with a similar fate. It's noones fault, noone here is being a bad person (excet those that started it) and you have to first admit that before you can make progress. And, yes, you will have to take a few hits which is VERY hard to justify not fighting back because you can see the real people being huhrt or killed now but not the countless future people that you will save by doing so. So, what are you todo as individuals? Well, first try to put yourselves in other peoples shoes and get your head out of your ass and don't say "well, I would do it different because blablabla," because, while possible, it's very unlikely. Now, go make friends with someone that you might consider the "other side" or just someone from that culture. Be nice to them and show them that you aren't going to judge. Let them undestand that you know their culture has felt pain as well as your own. Most importantly, be receptive and consider their feelings and where they came from before doing something stupid. Get your heads out of your asses and keep them out.

 

[DemoCoder]

How do you propose taking "hits" from Al Qaeda is going solve anything? Unlike separatist or other "freedom fighter" movements, like Chechens, Palestinians, Tamil Tigers, IRA, they are not fighting for their own country (indeed, they are from many countries) nor have they presented any real demands. The closest they came to having any poltical ideology at all was Bin Laden's personal fight with his own family and government, and the idea that the US troops on Saudi soil are "soiling" it. Of course, Bin Laden also talked about the loss of Andalusia too. Does that mean we should give Spain back?

I think the attempt to draw analogies between AQ and other terrorist groups is flawed. This is not Israel vs Hamas, where if Israel could restrain itself from killing Hamas members after a bomb attack, the blood feud might end (possibly, I wouldn't hold my hopes out). AQ has been hitting us for atleast a decade without a "war on terror" retaliation. Remember the first WTC bombing in 1993? USS Cole? Kenya?

AQ is not a geographically local repressed group carrying out attacks based on some principle, say, Islamic republic, or separate state. It is much more dangerous: it appears to be an irrational religious hatred driven group, fighting for what, exactly? Westerners out of Arab lands? Islamic fundamentalist states installed in place of dictatorial regimes they have now?


And why do you think Mohammed Atta's life was so horrible he had no choice but to command the attacks? The guy had a degree in architecture, grew up middle class, traveled to Germany and lived there, among other things. In many ways, he had a far more adventurous and educated life than many midwestern Americans.

His downfall was going back to Saudi Arabia and getting brainwashed by Wahabism. I really don't see any connection between his upbringing and his terrorism.

What I do see, is hate-filled Arabic media, hate filled Mosques, and terrorist training manuals that not only teach people to kill for God, but to regard non-believers as ANIMALS FOR SLAUGHTER.


And that's the big problem with attempts to draw moral relevancy between trangressions by the West, and transgressions by terrorist groups. Western governments are actually capable of "turning off" activities. I'm not so sure that once another terrorist-nutcase comes off the assembly line, his brain can be deprogrammed so easily and he can live a normal productive life as part of society.

 

[Silent_One]

DC wrote:

And why do you think Mohammed Atta's life was so horrible he had no choice but to command the attacks? The guy had a degree in architecture, grew up middle class, traveled to Germany and lived there, among other things. In many ways, he had a far more adventurous and educated life than many midwestern Americans.

His downfall was going back to Saudi Arabia and getting brainwashed by Wahabism. I really don't see any connection between his upbringing and his terrorism.

IIRC Thomas Friedman wrote about Mohammed Atta's life and upbringing in Egypt. Friedman argued that while Atta was in Germany he could not be employed in any meaningful way-his education as an engineer went unused, and he went from job to job. He became disillusioned and resentful that he, a well educated and pride full man, was looked down upon by western society. It was a loss of dignity. Back in Egypt there was nothing- no job, no future. So he visited the Mosques in Germany, and there began the "brainwashing"....

 

[DemoCoder]

So, how does this differ from many Westerners who get useless degrees and can't find work? How does it differ from an educated African American who is discriminated against?

How does it differ from all the educated Nigerians who can't find any jobs in their native country? They turn to mail fraud, not terrorism, and they're muslims (50% anyway)

 

[Sticky]

I really feel patriotism and world peace (unity etc arms around the world type deal) are two seperate ideas. Merging the two maybe the only way to make it work in theory. But getting the entire world on board IMO will cause more disaster then its worth. Lets face it, it wont happen in the near or even the medium future... maybe the long long future.... But of course that doesnt mean we shouldnt stop working at it...But somethings take precedent.. like the survivability of your country

Patriotism should be about respecting your country, respecting the culture within the country, repsecting the leaders within the country etc. Be moral in your everyday activities. At least thats what patriotism means to me being a canadian, and living in america.

As a member of a privledged country we should be working hard to create unity... but not at the sacrifice of our country or our interests. Frankly I want my countrie's survival to be above the wants and needs of other countries. And frankly I would not count on Democrats doing that... Not at this moment in history.... If there were no other threats in this world.. I would vote democrat if I could vote down here... But in this time... Its not about globalism.. its aboout making sure every loud mouthn critic survives as well as the rest ...

 

[Humus]

Frankly, why should I feel more solidarity with the stranger within my country's border than the stranger outside?

 

[Silent_One]

DemoCoder asked:

So, how does this differ from many Westerners who get useless degrees and can't find work? How does it differ from an educated African American who is discriminated against?

How does it differ from all the educated Nigerians who can't find any jobs in their native country? They turn to mail fraud, not terrorism, and they're muslims (50% anyway)

In his book Thomas Friedman "Longitudes and Attitudes" wrote the following:

I decided to go to Belgium after reading an article, one of the most original written about 9/11, that appeared in the November 5, 2001, issue of National Review, the conservative journal. It was written by Adrian Karatnycky, the president of Freedom House. The article was titled "Under Our Very Noses," and basically tried to answer the ques­tion that was bothering me: Who were these guys?
Karatnycky made the following argument: "The key hijackers were well-educated children of privilege. None of them suffered firsthand economic privation or political oppression." Indeed, the top 9/11 op­eratives and pilots, like Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, who shared an apartment in Hamburg, where Atta was attending the Tech­nical University of Hamburg-Harburg, all seem to have been first rad­icalized while studying in Europe (home now to 15 million Muslims), where they formed their Islamist terrorist cell. The same is true of the top Al Qaeda operatives who surrounded this 9/11 story. These in­clude Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, whose paternal grandfather was a Jamaican immigrant to England. Reid grew up in London and, like his father, converted to radical Islam while doing time in a British prison.

Zacarias Moussaoui, the Frenchman whose single mother was a Moroccan immigrant to France, first embraced a conservative brand of Islam at age nineteen in southern France. Moussaoui was reportedly radicalized a few years later in a London mosque while attending business school in England. He was eventually arrested in Minnesota, shortly before 9/11-after drawing the attention of the FBI for insist­ing at his flight school that he be taught how to fly a Boeing 747 before he could even handle a little propeller plane.
The same pattern of conversion to radical Islam was true of Ahmed
Omar Saeed Sheikh, the London-born Pakistani terrorist who over­
saw the abduction and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Danny Pearl. Ditto for Tunisian-born Abedessatar Daham, who was radical­ized by an Islamist cell after immigrating to Belgium. As Time maga­zine also reported (December 17, 2001), Dahman and his friends were not "particularly religious at first. [But] they soon were influ­enced by fellow Tunisians espousing Islamic extremism," and they eventually joined a radical Islamist group in Belgium that played a major role in ferrying new recruits to Al Qaeda camps in Mfghanistan. And it was there that Dahman, and a still unidentified accomplice who also carried a Belgian passport, were persuaded to blow them­ selves up while standing next to Ahmed Shah Massoud, the leader of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan

None of these plotters were recruited in the Middle East and
planted within Europe years in advance by bin Laden, notes Karat­
nycky. To the contrary, virtually all of them were living in Europe on
their own, grew alienated from the European society around them gravitated to a local prayer group or mosque to find warmth and soli­darity, got radicalized there by Islamist elements, went off for training in Afghanistan, and presto, a terrorist was born. These "Europeans" were born-again Muslims; they are young men who rediscovered their faith, or had it rekindled in them, by their encounter with Europe. And like born-again Christians or Jews, they brought to their religion a special intensity and fervor and, in their case, fanaticism. "To understand the September 11 terrorists, we should have in mind the classic revolutionary: deracinated, middle-class, shaped in part by exile. In other words, the image of Lenin in Zurich; or of Pol Pot or Ho Chi Minh in Paris," wrote Karatnycky. "Like the leaders of America's Weather Underground, Germany's Baader-Meinhof Gang, Italy's Red Brigades, and Japan's Red Army Faction, the Islamic terror­ists were university-educated converts to an all-encompassing neo­ totalitarian ideology. . . For them Islamism is the new universal revolutionary creed, and bin Laden is Sheikh Guevara

Europe is not a melting pot for Muslims. In America, Muslims can enjoy a reasonably rapid transtion to citizenship, but in Europe the melting pot often doesn't get warm enough to melt, and Muslim immigrants are often left perma­nently out in the cold. North African and Turkish Muslims are to Eu­rope what Mexicans are to America, the source of cheap labor who come in as guest workers but never leave, but also never get fully absorbed (5 million in France, 3.2 million in Germany, 2 million in Britain). This breeds young, angry Muslim men (and women) who feel permanently frozen out, if not in employment terms, then in psychological ones. Richard Reid's father, Robin, told Time magazine (February 25, 2002) about his son: "He was born here in Britain, like I was. It was distressing to be told things like 'Go home, nigger.' "
All this produces poverty of dignity, not poverty of money. It is the
poverty of dignity that can really drive people to do extreme things­
much more than the poverty of money. There are pools of such
dignity-deprived people all over the Muslim diaspora in Europe. They are young men who are full of pride as Muslims, who are taught from youth in the mosque that theirs is the most complete and advanced form of the three monotheistic faiths-superior to both Christianity and Judaism-yet who become aware that the Islamic world has fallen behind both the Christian West and the Jewish state in education, science, democracy, and development. This produces a cognitive dissonance in these young men-a cognitive dissonance that is the original spark for all their rage.

 

[pax]

Hatred is the seed, and poverty the rich soil in which it can thrive. Poverty isnt the only source but it is a major one. You dont see serious organized terrorism in prosperous and democratic countries. To insist on saying poverty has nothing to do here is to bury one's head in the sand.

Nepal a poor mainly Buddhist country has seen some pretty bad terrorism from the maoist guerillas. Little girl killed in front of a police station just last week... India has a serious terrorism problem not only with muslims but also with the tamul tigers...

If we alleviate poverty we reduce the chances of someone wanting to join up with some hate group. Of course this isnt about signing massive checks its about resolving problems like lack of democracy which prevents prosperity from taking root. This means caring to be invloved before probelms arise and establishing international orgs with teeth. Not like the weak UN which has no taxing ability or any real authority. Tho the UN can easily be upgraded so it doesnt have to beg member nations for every little thing it would need to do on the world stage each and everytime a prob arises.

The terrorists were not afghanies but ask the saudis and egyptians and others what motivated them and you get pretty good answers which have as their root poverty of many muslims in Palestine and under those regimes seen as friendly to the US.

Sticky terrorism may be a prob but its not a serious threat to any western countries survival. Yet. Terrorism has been with us for decades and tho we see some pretty terrible acts once in a while theres no sustained campaign here...

 

[DemoCoder]

Exactly my point Silent_One, good quotes. International terrorists, like communist terrorists before them, are bourgeoisie intellectuals, born and bred in an academic environment and perceived marginized by society. They internalize victimhood and attach themselves to whatever movements or causes they feel can fix it.


For Arabs, it's Islam. For whites, it ranges from stampeding StarBucks, McDondalds, or any other symbols of their perception of capitalism, to traveling to South America and assisting leftist rebels.


These people cluster into self reinforcing groups, becoming more extreme over time, and feeling increasingly marginalized, until they reach the point where they feel their protests or complaints are useless, or that so much change needs to happen to fit their worldview that they won't accept evolutionary change.

Why is ELF burning down developments? Why don't these people join the Sierra Club instead and try a legal, nondestructive means, for example.

I think extremism in any ideology leads to cult-like behavior, and eventually, individual morals get subsumed by the group.

 

[Bigus Dickus]

That suicide bombers are typically educated and of means (i.e., not poor and desparate) is rather well documented now. The average education and economic situation of terrorists is well above that of their fellow countrymen.

Terrorists and suicide bombers don't do what they do because they live miserable lives and have nothing left to live for, but rather because they are just smart enough to be manipulated by cell leaders into believing that only they (as a consequence of them being educated and possessing means) have what is required to change the world and save their bretheren.