two cents / two points

Two interesting aspects of the Egyptian situation.


1) the importance of the population dynamic. The percentage of the population under 30 years old.

2) The US centric response of many in America. How this is about us, how this affects us, what we should / should have done.

EGYPT, I have few thoughts to offer, here are some resources

Live Blog


Al Jarzeera English

Watch my titter feed to the right.

Insult to Injury

A local perspective from Tucson

But it is insulting to the memory of those lost, to the needs of those wounded physically and psychically, to the calm professionalism of those who responded, and to the community that has rallied with symbols of hope and actions of support, to criticize a moment when we came together.

My reactions

I am in agreement with Charles Krauthammer on assessing the Presidents address

Charles Krauthammer, however, cautions against minimizing the importance of the speech, saying it will have a lasting impact,

arguing President Obama was very effective and established himself not just as head of party and head of government but also as head of state.

Why oh Why could this not have been the response.

Not a politician or a political consultant, but try this on for size.

"While I have been falsely accused of having had an impact on these horrendous actions the wounds that I have suffered in no way compare to the loss of the 6 beautiful people and their families in Tucson. While America has great struggles to work through, now is a time for all of us to unite in our sympathy of the true victims of this heinous act."

Need I say more

"Today has been set aside to honor the victims of the Tucson massacre. And Sarah Palin has apparently decided she's one of them," - Josh Marshall.

Randomness continued There is no equivalence

Andrew Sullivan has a few thoughts I wanted to pass along

"If the [North Koreans] start anything, I say nuke ‘em. And not with just a few bombs," - Glenn Reynolds.

"I’m not filling out this [census] form. I dare them to try and come throw me in jail. I dare them to. Pull out my wife’s shotgun and see how that little ACS twerp likes being scared at the door," - CNN's Erick Erickson.

“My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed," - South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer, on people who receive government aid.

“[NPR executives] are, of course, Nazis. They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism," - Roger Ailes.

I have referenced Sullivan before and here again I think is a solid sentiment from a moderate libertarian (if such thing exist)

Random thoughts on the unthinkable.

Still jotting thoughts. We know it is common in times of war to dehumanize our enemy. "Japs", "Gook", "Savages". I am guessing (as I have been very fortunate, not to be in this position) it is somewhat easier to deal with taking out life if that life is less then human.

Is it possible, that while Laughner was not influenced directly by cross hairs or speaking of watering the tree of liberty with blood, that our opponent is not merely wrong but evil, Un-American and tyrannical and the conspiratorial talk of Obama and his Democrats trying to undermine America allowed him a similiar sense of less than human. Is this the atmospherics that are being discussed. Is it possible that a person who is struggling with reality may more easily convince himself that such an action is reasonable. I don't pretend to know the answer.

A couple of other random thoughts.

Does the fact that his target was specifically a politician and a sitting member of the House of Representatives make it "political" by default?

Does the atmosphere of heavy metal, rap etc contribute to the radicalizing of the disturb can you argue that music does and pundits and politicians don't or vice versa.

Last thing for now. Even if you are convinced that absolutely nothing said or done over the past 2 and half years contributed to this attack, isn't appropriate to take a look and see if your actions and speech are acceptable. Does this not call for a time for self-reflection instead of knee-jerk defensiveness.

Consideration

In continuing the dissection of the America's reaction to the shootings in Tucson here is an article that I think makes a very strong and objective argument. It is admittedly from a left leaning site. However, it is a very reasoned perspective. Please take a look it expresses a lot of the various thoughts running through the current diaglogue.

American Prospect

As we debate what kind of rhetoric is and isn't objectionable, it would help if we could make some specific distinctions and keep some important things in mind. To that end:

A terrorist by any other name?

My obsession over the past few days has been the reaction to the Tucson Assassination and Terror attacks. I am reading and listening as much as I can. At this time there is too much emotion and sentiment to put everything into a nice little box. Here is just one of the many thoughts that have crossed my mind. Should this attack be referred to as a terrorist attack. How many times since 9/11 have we been warned about the potential of a terrorist running into a mall with an automatic weapon and opening fire. If the main goal of a terrorist is to cause terror was this suspect successful. Below is a quote that I came across in my reading.



Rasmussen Reports

Tierney, who described the alleged shooter as nonideological, thinks his friend's motive was "mainly to just promote chaos. He wanted the media to freak out about this whole thing."

Enough already

6 innocent people are dead. Several more are injured. Sarah Palin, Glen Beck, and Laura Ingraham are the victims.

Give it a fucking rest. Even if people were directly blaming you (and they are not), and no one is going to take away your freedom of speech, just give it break.

Shut the fuck up for a little bit. Okay. Zip it. You'll have plenty of time to spew what ever it is you want to spew. No, you come back the first the day on the air and spend 30 seconds saying how bad you feel for the families and the next hours of how the left does it (bullshit). Give it a GD break.