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Raisindot - Let's Pray this is not starting already

pennpenn Posts: 193 ✭✭✭
http://abc11.com/news/morganton-teen-accused-of-plotting-to-kill-americans/799026/

We need to nip this in the bud!!!!!  This is my scariest nightmare with ISIS.  

Comments

  • jd50aejd50ae Posts: 7,900 ✭✭✭✭✭
    The bad thing is its not the first, and it won't be the last. If you really relate to these cockroaches, please by all means, buy a plane ticket and join them over there.
  • pennpenn Posts: 193 ✭✭✭
    My heart breaks to see our youth with this type is hate and contempt.  I agree - get gone but at some level this is a reflection of our (at least my generations) leadership.  We allowed this to happen and have to find ways to fix it.   
  • raisindotraisindot Posts: 1,294 ✭✭✭
    edited June 2015
    Penn, I agree with you that this is disturbing. But, to me, not nearly as horrific as the actual terrorist act committed by an angry, alienated young white supremacist against innocent churchgoers in South Carolina--and the abhorrent attempts by certain politicians and people in the media to rationalize this as an "accident" or a "simple criminal act" or one "influenced by drugs"--anything except for what it was--a clear act of racially motivated terrorism.  I'm even more disturbed by the number of death threats that have been made against African Americans in the wake of this tragedy. To me, this endless cycle of American-bred racial hated  and violence is a far greater danger to America as a whole than ISIS sympathizers are or ever will be. Remember that until 9/11, the most deadly act of terrorism in America was committed not by Al Queda or Muslims but by two white supremacists. 

    And, frankly, I'm not quite sure what you mean by this being a reflection of "our nation's leadership" and that "we allowed this to happen." Mass shootings, lynchings, racial violence,  bombings and other politically, religiously and ethnically motivated terrorist acts have been going on since the first Europeans stepped ashore on this continent. Heck, the very town that I live in was, in colonial times,  home to peaceful "praying Indians" who had been covered by the first generation of Pilgrims. Their piousness didn't keep nearly all of them from being slaughtered by whites when a very distant and unrelated tribe had an uprising against Europeans. Likewise, ISIS didn't happen because of America. ISIS happened because extremist Sunni Muslims, with financial and logistical assistance from Sunni countries, including some of our so-called allies, were able to start from a base in civil war Syrian and work their way eastward through Iraq, with the full support of the Sunnis in those regions.  

    But the attraction of ISIS for certain Americans isn't due to a "failure of leadership' unless we're talking about the failure of American parents in instilling values of respect and tolerance for other people's views in their children. To me, the problem is that there are far too many alienated, angry men in this country. While most do come from broken homes or dysfunctional families, some do come from normal middle-class homes and stable family environments. If they don't learn their hatred and violent natures from their parents, they become alienated and vengeful through other means--whether isolated and mocked at school (like the Columbine mass murderers) , or jilted by spouses, or laid off from their jobs,  or any of a hundred other "slights" that leads to anger.  And there are far too many extremist groups on the left and right who are all too willing to exploit their alienation to recruit them as soldiers for their abhorrent causes, whether it's ISIS, the KKK, the Black Panthers, environmental extremists, anarchists, or anything else. ISIS doesn't turn "normal" people into terrorists. It just provides one of hundreds of available outlets for those who are looking to "rationalize" their hatred.

    And as far as am I concerned, the only we can "nip this in the bud" is to engage in frank and open discussions of the contributors of racial, ethnic and religious discord in this country, and try, as a nation, regardless of political views, to find ways to identify and hopefully treat the conditions that lead to alienation and hatred.  


  • pennpenn Posts: 193 ✭✭✭
    edited June 2015

    I here you and to me they are two separate conversations.  I guess the racial violence doesn't startle me as much because I have dealt with racists and racism since my house was fire bombed as a kid.  I abhor it but am not surprised by it.  Especially with the amount of rhetoric coming from both extreme political perspectives.  It was simply inevitable...hopefully we learn from it and tone down the unnecessary blaming and rhetoric dividing this country.


    We have created a mentally weak generation!  We did that collectively through parenting, policies like everyone wins and everyone gets a trophy, and you can no longer punch the bully in the mouth. 


    You are correct and I agree with your point of view.  I think underestimating ISIS' ability to attract and reward NONMEMBERS is a mistake. 

  • peter4jcpeter4jc Posts: 16,582 ✭✭✭✭✭
    The contrast I see between the racism in the US and the threat of ISIS and their ilk is that I'm confident that racism will be diminished and overcome, albeit slowly.  (my favorite thought regarding race differences is "we're all pink on the inside" - peel away the exterior, and we're all just humans).  But radical Islam OTOH, is a cancerous ideology not so "easily" dealt with.
    "I could've had a Mi Querida!"   Nick Bardis
  • raisindotraisindot Posts: 1,294 ✭✭✭
    penn said:

    I here you and to me they are two separate conversations.  I guess the racial violence doesn't startle me as much because I have dealt with racists and racism since my house was fire bombed as a kid.  I abhor it but am not surprised by it.  Especially with the amount of rhetoric coming from both extreme political perspectives.  It was simply inevitable...hopefully we learn from it and tone down the unnecessary blaming and rhetoric dividing this country.


    We have created a mentally weak generation!  We did that collectively through parenting, policies like everyone wins and everyone gets a trophy, and you can no longer punch the bully in the mouth. 


    You are correct and I agree with your point of view.  I think underestimating ISIS' ability to attract and reward NONMEMBERS is a mistake. 

    I agree with (almost ) everything you say here. And you obviously have credibility since you bravely dealt first-hand with the dangers of racially motivated terrorism (I have, too, but not in nearly anything that comes close to the life-threatening situation you described). I commend you for not turning the racism you've experienced into what easily could become a violent vendetta against whites. I don't know all the much about you so forgive me in assuming that your resistance to giving in to hate is a result of your upbringing and your own strong moral center...the same admirable qualities possessed by the members of the Charleston AME Church who were willing to forgive Dylann Roof. 

    I also agree with you that we collectively do need to stifle ISIS' ability to attract and reward "non-members." But I go beyond that to say we also need to stifle the ability of 
    of the KKK and other home-grown hate groups to do the same. Because if one of the "mentally weak" generation of people don't get recruited by ISIS, they'll get recruiter by someone else. People with violent impulses don't need much in terms of motivation to get them to act on their impulses. 

    I also think that we collectively need to do a much better job in identifying and arresting these disturbed individuals, particularly by monitoring their social media postings. Dylann Root's racist "manifesto" was there for everyone to see. Other mass murderers posted their violent and hateful intentions on Facebook and other sites before they acted. Instead of tapping people's phone calls, maybe the NSA should be instead be spending more time monitoring Facebook and Twitter feeds. After all, there's no guarantee of privacy at all for anything said on social media and even Internet forums (Hello, Mr. FBI man! How are you today? )

    However, I don't agree with your assertion that kids joining ISIS or gunning down churches is the direct results of an "everyone wins" policy. Yes, I do think such a policy has contributed to a sense of entitlement and overvalued self-worth among many young people, but I don't see how this at all would turn them into ractist, ISIS-loving terrorists. One could make the opposite arguments: That meritocracy based rewards (i.e., trophies only for the winners and best players) is far more likely to create the feeling of alienation and self-loathing that make such "losers" more likely to blame others for their misfortune (such as Dylann Roof blaming black people for his own problems) and embrace terrorism as a way of getting back at the "winners." But I don't believe this either. Mainly because millions of kids have grown up in both "everyone wins" and "merit-based' scenarios and we see no evidence that either philosophy has produced a stampede of vengeful terrorists.

    Indeed, even though the incidence of these mass random shootings has increased dramatically over the past decade,  the actual violent crime rate in America has declined over the past few decades and now is around the lowest level since the late 1970s. 

    So we're not seeing a gigantic epidemic of violent acts committed by young people not brought up right. But what we are seeing is an increase in the number of a very small group extremely disturbed people turning their alienation into murderous acts. And, unfortunately, many of these disturbed people turn to the Internet to both express their hatred and alienation (as Roof did) and to find groups (whether ISIS, white supremacists, communists, whoever) that provide them with moral grounds for their actions.  


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