Salon Writer: Paris Terror Should End ‘(the) Right’s Violent Language Toward Activists’
As of 11 p.m. ET on Friday, according to CNN, the death toll was "at least 153" (since updated to "at least 128") who have been "killed in gunfire and blasts" in Paris in "coordinated attacks." CNN claims that "It is still not clear who is responsible." (Update: Early Saturday morning Eastern Time, ISIS claimed responsibility.)
Two days ago, leftist Democrat Hillary Clinton laughed at the idea of Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina being strangled. Today, we’ve learned that wealthy “liberal funders” are considering bankrolling the Black Lives Matter movement, whose followers have frequently been seen and heard targeting police with language like, “Pigs in a blanket, fry ‘em like bacon” and “What do we want? Dead cops!” But Salon’s Chauncey DeVega wants everyone to know that, after Paris, it’s the right in the U.S. which needs “to tone down their incessant violent rhetoric.”
DeVega’s headline also seems to betray a desire to stifle attempts to identify and condemn those responsible for the murderous acts in Paris (HT Twitchy; bolds and numbered tags are mine; links are in original):
And so the hate speech begins: Let Paris be the end of the right’s violent language toward activists
Real terror unfolds in Paris. Perhaps this will convince the right to tone down their incessant violent rhetoricTerrorism is serious business that kills people, breaks bodies and alters lives.
It is not a game.
In the United States, the right-wing media and movement conservatives have for decades consistently used eliminationist and other violent rhetoric to describe liberals, progressives and other people with whom they disagree. As was seen in the recent attacks on a Charleston-area black church, and other violence by right-wing anti-government militias, such rhetoric does not float in the ether of the public discourse, harmless and unacknowledged. No, it does in fact lead to action.
In recent months, the right-wing media has used language such as “terrorism” and “violent,” or that the latter is “targeting police for murder” to describe the Black Lives Matter movement. Such bombastic and ugly screeds–which are wholly unfounded, with no basis in empirical reality [1] – have also been used by right-wing opinion leaders to describe the African-American students who are fighting against racism at Yale and the University of Missouri.
… Bill O’Reilly has declared “war” on Black Lives Matter and in doing so described them as a type of contemporary Ku Klux Klan (KKK). At its height of popularity in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the KKK was America’s largest terrorist organization. It was responsible for the murders of thousands of African-Americans. In contrast to the KKK, Black Lives Matter is a group dedicated to protecting the human rights of all people against state-sponsored violence and police thuggery and murder. [2]
Ben Carson, in his designated role as a black conservative whose primary purpose is to disparage black Americans and to excuse-make for white racism, recently told Fox News’ Megyn Kelly that the black and brown students who are advocating for their full rights and respect at Yale University are ushering in “anarchy” and “this is just raw emotion and people just being manipulated, I think in many of these cases, by outside forces who wish to create disturbances.”
Likewise, Fox News has repeatedly described the student protesters at Yale and Missouri using the same language. O’Reilly has even gone so far as to suggest that Black Lives Matter and the students who are protesting racist treatment are part of a cabal that is engaging in “fascist” behavior and “running wild” against white people. Trumping his allusions to “fascism,” on his October 22, 2015 episode of his TV show, Bill O’Reilly even made the absurd claim that Black Lives Matter is akin to the “Nazis.”
These are implicit threats and overtures to violence as racial authoritarian fascists are a clear and present danger to democracy and freedom. [3] Thus, they must be eliminated by any means necessary.
Other critics of the student activists at Yale University and Missouri such as The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf have even made the absurd claim that so-called “safe spaces” are being “weaponized” by student activists in order to deny free speech. [4]
Notes:
[1] — All sorts of violence has happened in areas agitated by and as a result of the activities Black Lives Matter “activists” (thoroughly catalogued through early September here). Some of them include the several episodes of rioting and violence in Ferguson, Missouri; the Baltimore riots and lootings, and the murders of two New York City police officers (the murderer cited the “pigs in a blanket” meme just before he killed them). In sum “the group’s history is a long list of riots, vandalism, looting, arson, random shootings, shootings targeting police, burned out cars, rocks and bottles thrown at cops resulting in over 100 injuries, blocked highways, death chants, and at least one bomb plot.”
[2] — Black Lives Matter is no such thing. If it were, its members and followers wouldn’t go ballistic and attempt to shout down and intimidate anyone daring to argue, correctly, that “all lives matter.”
[3] — The clear and present danger to democracy and freedom is found in the racial authoritarian fascists in the Black Lives Matter movement and the authoritarian fascists dictating affairs, threatening and sometimes ruining the careers of anyone who steps out of line at several U.S. campuses.
[4] — The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf made the claim that “safe spaces” are being “weaponized” by student activists in order to deny free speech because “safe spaces” are indeed being “weaponized” by student activists in order to deny free speech. Too bad for DeVega that Freiersdorf explained himself perfectly:
In the video of Tim Tai trying to carry out his ESPN assignment, I see the most vivid example yet of activists twisting the concept of “safe space” in a most confounding way. They have one lone student surrounded. They’re forcibly preventing him from exercising a civil right. At various points, they intimidate him. Ultimately, they physically push him. But all the while, they are operating on the premise, or carrying on the pretense, that he is making them unsafe.
It is as if they’ve weaponized the concept of “safe spaces.”
“I support people creating ‘safe spaces’ as a shield by exercising their freedom of association to organize themselves into mutually supporting communities,” Ken White wrote prior to this controversy. “But not everyone imagines ‘safe spaces’ like that. Some use the concept of ‘safe spaces’ as a sword, wielded to annex public spaces and demand that people within those spaces conform to their private norms.”
Yesterday, I wrote about Yale students who decided, in the name of creating a “safe space” on compass, to spit on people as they left a talk with which they disagreed. “In their muddled ideology,” I wrote, “the Yale activists had to destroy the safe space to save it.”
DeVega is basically saying that if conservatives and other sensible people who object in any way to the Black Lives Matter and current campus movements’ tactics and contact don’t shut up, they will be to blame for any and all violence committed by these groups, who in his twisted mind have acted as and would otherwise have continued to acted like pacifists.
One Tweeter tonight characterized Salon as “The internet media garbage can.”
That’s unfair to garbage cans.
Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.
Asking our House of Representatives to Declare War of “Daesh”
———————–
Pending confirmation of a few facts, it is our duty to our Allies and to the People of France to declare war on their attackers. The House of Representatives, conscious of our NATO obligations, should commence this debate post haste.
The media provides these news accounts which, once verified as accurate fact details form the content of our Declaration of War on those who have attached our Allies and Friends:
Part I: Our Ally has been attacked
a) The French people have again been attached, yesterday (Friday, 11/13).
b) The French leader has identified the attackers as “Daesh”, therefore the name we should also use for our Declaration of Allegiance with France and War on Jihadist Terror:
“It is an act of war that was committed by a terrorist army, a jihadist army, Daesh, against France,” Mr. Hollande said from the Élysée Palace, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State. “It is an act of war that was prepared, organized and planned from abroad, with complicity from the inside, which the investigation will help establish.”
c) “Mr. Hollande did not specify what intelligence the authorities had gathered to established the Islamic State’s involvement.”
A prompt and timely confirmation of the French assessment of blame should not take more than 24-48 hours, confirmable by our U.S. Government intelligence sources and vetted by our media news reporters and, as appropriate, made public.
d) “The Islamic State on Saturday claimed responsibility for the attacks, calling them “miracles” in a statement released by one of its publications and distributed on Twitter — a claim that could not be independently verified.”
Our declaration of war would target “Daesh” and may also add whoever this paragraph is identifying. The news reporter used the vague “the Islamic State” to thoughtfully not condemn the Twitter author until the Twitter post and author are verified as (I) an intentional (not ironic, sarcastic, or other stupidity) assertion of Declaration of Guilt by the author as well as (II) the author(s) is actually and directly linked to the Daesh attackers as a direct co-conspirator: such as a provider of the weapons knowing their intended use, such as a participant in the planning, such as a funder of the travel again with knowledge of the attackers’ intended purpose. This linkage vetting may take longer than the 24-48 hours of our needed PROMPT and TIMELY Declaration of War on Daesh; so a phrase about applicability also to the ‘Act of War co-conspirators’ could enable adding them later as Listed Enemies consistent with Rules of War and Geneva Convention doctrine.
(continued in following post)
REFERENCES:
1. Europe
By ADAM NOSSITER and AURELIEN BREEDENNOV. 14, 2015
Hollande Blames ISIS for ‘Act of War’ on Paris // Weblink begins/. /endWeblink citation//.
Comment by Cornfed — November 14, 2015 @ 8:01 am
Asking our House of Representatives to Declare War of “Daesh” (continued)
———————–
Pending confirmation of a few facts, it is our duty to our Allies and to the People of France to declare war on their attackers. The House of Representatives, conscious of our NATO obligations, should commence this debate post haste.
The media provides these news accounts which, once verified as accurate fact details form the content of our Declaration of War on those who have attached our Allies and Friends:
Part II: Only our House of Representatives can “declare War”. The Executive Power is limited to conduct war, aka “to make War”. The Executive can Act without waiting for Legislative authorization to defend an attack on our own soil, but these were an attack on French soil. “the President is not only authorized but bound to resist force by force” (SCOTUS, 1863, Prize Cases), to repel an attack; however, here is an attack not on us directly — not on the United States directly nor intentionally to assassinate or murder one of our Citizens — but rather an French locations and people. U.S. citizen deaths, if any, were incidental and not intentionally part of the attack. Therefore, our President is limited to invoking his Authority to Make War as documented in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) or more freely by a direct Declaration of War by our Legislature: initiated by our House of Representatives.
THIS SHOULD HAPPEN. To strongly express our solidarity with France, our loyalty with our Friends — the People of France, our allegiance with a Named and Long-time and Treaty-based Ally: for all these reasons, an assertive Statement by our Congressional Representatives is desirable but also necessary to enable overt military actions against the Daesh and their co-conspirators.
This is a limited declaration — specifically naming Daesh and who may become directly linked to enabling their attack. It would retain the limited nature of this important historical precedent: That we do not go to war without provocation nor without gravely serious debate then with Public Declaration.
There is no such thing, imho, as a vague ‘War on Terror’. We don’t declare wars on ideas, as Freedom of Expression of even controversial ideas is the 1st of our inherent, and yes God-Given, rights as humankind. But we do — we should — declare war when specific Evil Deeds occur and specific Evil Actors are know-able, and the duration of this war shall authorize overt actions to bring Justice for France and its People by bringing the full weight of American Justice on the heads, the bodies, the evil people who have hurt, killed, and attack our Friends: the People of France.
=====
Primary References:
http://www.heritage.org/constitution/#!/articles/1/essays/49/declare-war
other references:
http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2014/12/when-congress-once-used-its-powers-to-declare-war/
http://thepeoplesguidetotheusconstitution.com/blog/articles/congressional-power-to-declare-war/
x
Comment by Cornfed — November 14, 2015 @ 8:20 am
++++++++++++++++
Asking our House of Representatives to Declare War of “Daesh” (closing)
———————–
Pending confirmation of a few facts, it is our duty to our Allies and to the People of France to declare war on their attackers. The House of Representatives, conscious of our NATO obligations, should commence this debate post haste.
The media provides these news accounts which, once verified as accurate fact details form the content of our Declaration of War on those who have attached our Allies and Friends:
Part III: Our elected President has already expressed our unified sentiment, now our full Elected Representation should produce the Legal Basis that our Constitution so clearly provides to back-up our expressed sentiment with Legally Sanctioned actions by our military members.
Our President, as our elected Executive Leader, has clearly expressed our intent to act:
—————-
President Obama came to the White House briefing room to express solidarity and offer aid …,” he said. “This is an attack not just on Paris, it’s an attack not just on the people of France, but this is an attack on all of humanity and the universal values that we share.”
Please read that again: “This is an attack” and an attack we must defend, we must counter, we must Act assertively, with deliberative aggression against the Evil that planned and performed this evil Act of War.
We shall not be timid. We will stand with our Allies, IAW with our Treaty obligations and more important our Moral obligations; we shall name our enemy and call them to account for their actions: We should overtly declare war on “Daesh”, the evil attackers of our French allies and an attack on all of humanity and our universal values to respect life, to respect written law, to battle in the political arena not with physical force and emotional terror, except when that battle is Necessary and Provoked to defend our way of life and the morals and laws deeply indoctrinated in our Constitution and our Souls.
REFERENCES: ———-
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/15/world/europe/paris-terrorist-attacks.html?action=click&contentCollection=Europe&module=MostPopularFB&version=Full®ion=Marginalia&src=me&pgtype=article
with Tags
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 1:06
Obama on the Paris Attacks
with article graphics Tags
President Obama called the attacks “an outrageous attempt to terrorize civilians.”
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS on Publish Date November 13, 2015. Watch in Times Video
embed in News Article
Ibid (By ADAM NOSSITER and AURELIEN BREEDENNOV. 14, 2015 )
with citation to a NYTImes video of a Presidential Press Conference from the White House in Washington, with President Obama speaking personally and directly:
Weblink /begin/. endWeblink./
Comment by Cornfed — November 14, 2015 @ 8:39 am