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marmar
marmar's Journal
marmar's Journal
December 16, 2012
from the Independent UK:
Rupert Cornwell
Sunday 16 December 2012
America: Too many guns, too little will to change
Newtown, Connecticut, joins a rollcall of towns whose names become synonymous with violent death. The President has a fight on his hands
This column, readers should be warned from the outset, is an exercise in futility. Not a single argument in it is new. It, and the myriad similar ones which have appeared these last 24 hours, might have been published a year ago, five years ago, even 20 years ago. In fact, they were – but in the interim, nothing, absolutely nothing, has changed. And that is the real tragedy and disgrace of Friday's mass shooting in Connecticut.
The simple truth is that for all the ink spilt and outrage voiced, such incidents have become more, not less frequent since I first arrived in the US in 1991. That October, I was writing my first rampage story, about an unemployed merchant seaman named George Hennard who drove his pick-up truck into a popular restaurant in the small town of Killeen, Texas, before pulling out a couple of weapons and shooting 23 people dead and wounding a score of others.
It was the worst such incident in American history, to be surpassed, until the events in Newtown, only by the massacre at Virginia Tech university in April 2007, when 32 people died. But there have been countless others: Columbine High School in 1999, Fort Hood, Texas, where a deranged army psychiatrist mowed down 13 soldiers in November 2009, and the Aurora, Colorado, movie theatre shootings last July in which 12 were killed. There have been mass killings at Amish settlements and Sikh temples, in offices and car parks, in public places and private homes. Perhaps because this latest horror is freshest in the mind, a disproportionate number seem to take place at colleges and schools. But somehow they all blur into one ghastly whole.
And the aftermath is invariably the same: a day or two of blanket coverage, of unbearably harrowing accounts of innocent lives lost, varying only in the details. There follows suitable but ritual outrage, along with demands for a tightening of America's gun laws – to be met by the familiar, well-honed arguments of National Rifle Association ("guns don't kill people, people do"
, and invocations of the price to be paid (30,000 people killed each year by guns, half murders, half suicides) if God's own USA is to remain a free country. ................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/america-too-many-guns-too-little-will-to-change-8420310.html
America: Too many guns, too little will to change
from the Independent UK:
Rupert Cornwell
Sunday 16 December 2012
America: Too many guns, too little will to change
Newtown, Connecticut, joins a rollcall of towns whose names become synonymous with violent death. The President has a fight on his hands
This column, readers should be warned from the outset, is an exercise in futility. Not a single argument in it is new. It, and the myriad similar ones which have appeared these last 24 hours, might have been published a year ago, five years ago, even 20 years ago. In fact, they were – but in the interim, nothing, absolutely nothing, has changed. And that is the real tragedy and disgrace of Friday's mass shooting in Connecticut.
The simple truth is that for all the ink spilt and outrage voiced, such incidents have become more, not less frequent since I first arrived in the US in 1991. That October, I was writing my first rampage story, about an unemployed merchant seaman named George Hennard who drove his pick-up truck into a popular restaurant in the small town of Killeen, Texas, before pulling out a couple of weapons and shooting 23 people dead and wounding a score of others.
It was the worst such incident in American history, to be surpassed, until the events in Newtown, only by the massacre at Virginia Tech university in April 2007, when 32 people died. But there have been countless others: Columbine High School in 1999, Fort Hood, Texas, where a deranged army psychiatrist mowed down 13 soldiers in November 2009, and the Aurora, Colorado, movie theatre shootings last July in which 12 were killed. There have been mass killings at Amish settlements and Sikh temples, in offices and car parks, in public places and private homes. Perhaps because this latest horror is freshest in the mind, a disproportionate number seem to take place at colleges and schools. But somehow they all blur into one ghastly whole.
And the aftermath is invariably the same: a day or two of blanket coverage, of unbearably harrowing accounts of innocent lives lost, varying only in the details. There follows suitable but ritual outrage, along with demands for a tightening of America's gun laws – to be met by the familiar, well-honed arguments of National Rifle Association ("guns don't kill people, people do"
, and invocations of the price to be paid (30,000 people killed each year by guns, half murders, half suicides) if God's own USA is to remain a free country. ................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/america-too-many-guns-too-little-will-to-change-8420310.html
December 16, 2012
from the Independent UK:
Rupert Cornwell
Sunday 16 December 2012
America: Too many guns, too little will to change
Newtown, Connecticut, joins a rollcall of towns whose names become synonymous with violent death. The President has a fight on his hands
This column, readers should be warned from the outset, is an exercise in futility. Not a single argument in it is new. It, and the myriad similar ones which have appeared these last 24 hours, might have been published a year ago, five years ago, even 20 years ago. In fact, they were – but in the interim, nothing, absolutely nothing, has changed. And that is the real tragedy and disgrace of Friday's mass shooting in Connecticut.
The simple truth is that for all the ink spilt and outrage voiced, such incidents have become more, not less frequent since I first arrived in the US in 1991. That October, I was writing my first rampage story, about an unemployed merchant seaman named George Hennard who drove his pick-up truck into a popular restaurant in the small town of Killeen, Texas, before pulling out a couple of weapons and shooting 23 people dead and wounding a score of others.
It was the worst such incident in American history, to be surpassed, until the events in Newtown, only by the massacre at Virginia Tech university in April 2007, when 32 people died. But there have been countless others: Columbine High School in 1999, Fort Hood, Texas, where a deranged army psychiatrist mowed down 13 soldiers in November 2009, and the Aurora, Colorado, movie theatre shootings last July in which 12 were killed. There have been mass killings at Amish settlements and Sikh temples, in offices and car parks, in public places and private homes. Perhaps because this latest horror is freshest in the mind, a disproportionate number seem to take place at colleges and schools. But somehow they all blur into one ghastly whole.
And the aftermath is invariably the same: a day or two of blanket coverage, of unbearably harrowing accounts of innocent lives lost, varying only in the details. There follows suitable but ritual outrage, along with demands for a tightening of America's gun laws – to be met by the familiar, well-honed arguments of National Rifle Association ("guns don't kill people, people do" , and invocations of the price to be paid (30,000 people killed each year by guns, half murders, half suicides) if God's own USA is to remain a free country. ................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/america-too-many-guns-too-little-will-to-change-8420310.html
America: Too many guns, too little will to change
from the Independent UK:
Rupert Cornwell
Sunday 16 December 2012
America: Too many guns, too little will to change
Newtown, Connecticut, joins a rollcall of towns whose names become synonymous with violent death. The President has a fight on his hands
This column, readers should be warned from the outset, is an exercise in futility. Not a single argument in it is new. It, and the myriad similar ones which have appeared these last 24 hours, might have been published a year ago, five years ago, even 20 years ago. In fact, they were – but in the interim, nothing, absolutely nothing, has changed. And that is the real tragedy and disgrace of Friday's mass shooting in Connecticut.
The simple truth is that for all the ink spilt and outrage voiced, such incidents have become more, not less frequent since I first arrived in the US in 1991. That October, I was writing my first rampage story, about an unemployed merchant seaman named George Hennard who drove his pick-up truck into a popular restaurant in the small town of Killeen, Texas, before pulling out a couple of weapons and shooting 23 people dead and wounding a score of others.
It was the worst such incident in American history, to be surpassed, until the events in Newtown, only by the massacre at Virginia Tech university in April 2007, when 32 people died. But there have been countless others: Columbine High School in 1999, Fort Hood, Texas, where a deranged army psychiatrist mowed down 13 soldiers in November 2009, and the Aurora, Colorado, movie theatre shootings last July in which 12 were killed. There have been mass killings at Amish settlements and Sikh temples, in offices and car parks, in public places and private homes. Perhaps because this latest horror is freshest in the mind, a disproportionate number seem to take place at colleges and schools. But somehow they all blur into one ghastly whole.
And the aftermath is invariably the same: a day or two of blanket coverage, of unbearably harrowing accounts of innocent lives lost, varying only in the details. There follows suitable but ritual outrage, along with demands for a tightening of America's gun laws – to be met by the familiar, well-honed arguments of National Rifle Association ("guns don't kill people, people do"
, and invocations of the price to be paid (30,000 people killed each year by guns, half murders, half suicides) if God's own USA is to remain a free country. ................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/america-too-many-guns-too-little-will-to-change-8420310.html
December 16, 2012
Two bodies dumped on rural Alberta roads, a head tossed in an Edmonton alleyway, and a mother of four gunned down when she answered the door to her family home — all the alleged work of an expansive and reckless neo-Nazi gang whose drug operation stretches across the prairies and northern territories.
The four men charged with first-degree murder in the homicides are described by police as members of the White Boy Posse, a gang of white supremacists with known drug ties.
The three homicides took place in September and October.
Kyle Darren Halbauer, 22, and Randy James Wayne O’Hagan, 22, were both charged with first-degree murder for the deaths of Bryan Gower, whose body was found on a rural road near Kitscoty, Alta, and Lorry Santos, who was shot and killed when she opened her door in what police believe is a case of mistaken identity. Joshua Petrin, 29, is also charged with murder for Santos’s death. ...................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1302900--edmonton-neo-nazi-gang-s-operations-spreading
Edmonton neo-Nazi gang’s operations spreading
Two bodies dumped on rural Alberta roads, a head tossed in an Edmonton alleyway, and a mother of four gunned down when she answered the door to her family home — all the alleged work of an expansive and reckless neo-Nazi gang whose drug operation stretches across the prairies and northern territories.
The four men charged with first-degree murder in the homicides are described by police as members of the White Boy Posse, a gang of white supremacists with known drug ties.
The three homicides took place in September and October.
Kyle Darren Halbauer, 22, and Randy James Wayne O’Hagan, 22, were both charged with first-degree murder for the deaths of Bryan Gower, whose body was found on a rural road near Kitscoty, Alta, and Lorry Santos, who was shot and killed when she opened her door in what police believe is a case of mistaken identity. Joshua Petrin, 29, is also charged with murder for Santos’s death. ...................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1302900--edmonton-neo-nazi-gang-s-operations-spreading
December 16, 2012
from Der Spiegel:
Massive UN climate summits have been held for years, but accomplished little. Believing there is almost no chance of securing a global deal on reducing emissions, experts now want to ditch the current system and try something new.
The feeling of déjà vu was difficult to ignore. Immediately following the recently ended climate conference in Doha, German Environment Minister Peter Altmaier insisted that the gathering had "opened the door to the future of international climate protection."
It was a comment reminiscent of so many attempts by top politicians in recent years to sell yet another failed climate summit as a success. This year, the summit barely avoided collapse by forging a last-minute agreement that the 2015 meeting would be the one at which a global emissions reduction deal would be decided. That such a deal was supposed to be produced at the 2009 summit in Copenhagen seems to have been largely forgotten.
Even the definition of success has been dramatically diminished. The conference, said Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber, the long-serving climate advisor to the government in Berlin, can be "counted as a success because a collapse of the arduous United Nations process was avoided."
........(snip)........
'Dream of a Deal Is Over'
The period characterized by "the UN's clever management of expectations" is coming to an end, says Oliver Geden, a climate expert with the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin. "The expectation that the worsening problem would put pressure on the international community to find a solution has not been borne out -- and isn't likely to be." ....................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/top-researchers-call-for-an-end-to-united-nations-climate-summits-a-872992.html
Experts Call for End to Climate Mega Summits
from Der Spiegel:
Massive UN climate summits have been held for years, but accomplished little. Believing there is almost no chance of securing a global deal on reducing emissions, experts now want to ditch the current system and try something new.
The feeling of déjà vu was difficult to ignore. Immediately following the recently ended climate conference in Doha, German Environment Minister Peter Altmaier insisted that the gathering had "opened the door to the future of international climate protection."
It was a comment reminiscent of so many attempts by top politicians in recent years to sell yet another failed climate summit as a success. This year, the summit barely avoided collapse by forging a last-minute agreement that the 2015 meeting would be the one at which a global emissions reduction deal would be decided. That such a deal was supposed to be produced at the 2009 summit in Copenhagen seems to have been largely forgotten.
Even the definition of success has been dramatically diminished. The conference, said Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber, the long-serving climate advisor to the government in Berlin, can be "counted as a success because a collapse of the arduous United Nations process was avoided."
........(snip)........
'Dream of a Deal Is Over'
The period characterized by "the UN's clever management of expectations" is coming to an end, says Oliver Geden, a climate expert with the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin. "The expectation that the worsening problem would put pressure on the international community to find a solution has not been borne out -- and isn't likely to be." ....................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/top-researchers-call-for-an-end-to-united-nations-climate-summits-a-872992.html
December 16, 2012
from Der Spiegel:
Massive UN climate summits have been held for years, but accomplished little. Believing there is almost no chance of securing a global deal on reducing emissions, experts now want to ditch the current system and try something new.
The feeling of déjà vu was difficult to ignore. Immediately following the recently ended climate conference in Doha, German Environment Minister Peter Altmaier insisted that the gathering had "opened the door to the future of international climate protection."
It was a comment reminiscent of so many attempts by top politicians in recent years to sell yet another failed climate summit as a success. This year, the summit barely avoided collapse by forging a last-minute agreement that the 2015 meeting would be the one at which a global emissions reduction deal would be decided. That such a deal was supposed to be produced at the 2009 summit in Copenhagen seems to have been largely forgotten.
Even the definition of success has been dramatically diminished. The conference, said Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber, the long-serving climate advisor to the government in Berlin, can be "counted as a success because a collapse of the arduous United Nations process was avoided."
........(snip)........
'Dream of a Deal Is Over'
The period characterized by "the UN's clever management of expectations" is coming to an end, says Oliver Geden, a climate expert with the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin. "The expectation that the worsening problem would put pressure on the international community to find a solution has not been borne out -- and isn't likely to be." ....................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/top-researchers-call-for-an-end-to-united-nations-climate-summits-a-872992.html
Throwing in the towel on climate change
from Der Spiegel:
Massive UN climate summits have been held for years, but accomplished little. Believing there is almost no chance of securing a global deal on reducing emissions, experts now want to ditch the current system and try something new.
The feeling of déjà vu was difficult to ignore. Immediately following the recently ended climate conference in Doha, German Environment Minister Peter Altmaier insisted that the gathering had "opened the door to the future of international climate protection."
It was a comment reminiscent of so many attempts by top politicians in recent years to sell yet another failed climate summit as a success. This year, the summit barely avoided collapse by forging a last-minute agreement that the 2015 meeting would be the one at which a global emissions reduction deal would be decided. That such a deal was supposed to be produced at the 2009 summit in Copenhagen seems to have been largely forgotten.
Even the definition of success has been dramatically diminished. The conference, said Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber, the long-serving climate advisor to the government in Berlin, can be "counted as a success because a collapse of the arduous United Nations process was avoided."
........(snip)........
'Dream of a Deal Is Over'
The period characterized by "the UN's clever management of expectations" is coming to an end, says Oliver Geden, a climate expert with the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin. "The expectation that the worsening problem would put pressure on the international community to find a solution has not been borne out -- and isn't likely to be." ....................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/top-researchers-call-for-an-end-to-united-nations-climate-summits-a-872992.html
December 16, 2012
Newtown shooting: when it comes to guns and violence, America is like a failed state
The Newtown shooting has inspired a rare moment of national self-reflection about the second amendment
The Observer, Saturday 15 December 2012
In Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness the character of Kurtz, at his life's end, has a moment of profound lucidity, which prompts his last words: "The horror."
This weekend in the wake of the latest terrible mass shooting in the US, at a primary school in Connecticut, which claimed the lives of 27 innocent people including 20 children, a similar public mood appears to have taken hold, given its most powerful expression in the moving speech by a President Barack Obama on the edge of tears.
It is early days yet but the first indications are that the Newtown massacre has inspired a rare moment of national self-reflection over what is obvious to outside observers: that gun control in the US has failed with horrific consequences.
In a single year – as Obama articulated – the US has also seen mass killings at a Sikh temple, a shopping mall and a cinema.
In America in the past 40 years, a right-driven agenda has argued for the privatisation of the individual's right to own the means of the use of lethal force and driven an extraordinary proliferation of small arms. ................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/16/newtown-shooting-america-gun-laws-failed-again
Newtown shooting: when it comes to guns and violence, America is like a failed state
Newtown shooting: when it comes to guns and violence, America is like a failed state
The Newtown shooting has inspired a rare moment of national self-reflection about the second amendment
The Observer, Saturday 15 December 2012
In Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness the character of Kurtz, at his life's end, has a moment of profound lucidity, which prompts his last words: "The horror."
This weekend in the wake of the latest terrible mass shooting in the US, at a primary school in Connecticut, which claimed the lives of 27 innocent people including 20 children, a similar public mood appears to have taken hold, given its most powerful expression in the moving speech by a President Barack Obama on the edge of tears.
It is early days yet but the first indications are that the Newtown massacre has inspired a rare moment of national self-reflection over what is obvious to outside observers: that gun control in the US has failed with horrific consequences.
In a single year – as Obama articulated – the US has also seen mass killings at a Sikh temple, a shopping mall and a cinema.
In America in the past 40 years, a right-driven agenda has argued for the privatisation of the individual's right to own the means of the use of lethal force and driven an extraordinary proliferation of small arms. ................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/16/newtown-shooting-america-gun-laws-failed-again
December 16, 2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/14/victoria-jackson-connecticut-school-shooting_n_2303518.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false#sb=4157027,b=facebook
Yes, she really is that stupid.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/14/victoria-jackson-connecticut-school-shooting_n_2303518.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false#sb=4157027,b=facebook
December 16, 2012
from Salon.com:
Don’t be afraid, Mr. President
Barack Obama and his party have been too terrified of angering gun owners to realize they can win without them
By Steve Kornacki
There’s no disputing that the Democratic Party has regressed dramatically on the issue of gun violence over the past two decades. When a shooting rampage on the Long Island Railroad killed six people and injured 19 others in December 1993, Bill Clinton responded immediately by calling for specific legislative action to prevent future tragedies. Contrast that with the response of White House Press Secretary Jay Carney on Friday to a question about whether the carnage in Connecticut might prompt President Obama to pursue gun control measures. “I’m sure there will be another day for discussion of the usual Washington policy debates,” Carney said, “but I don’t think today is that day.”
It can be hard to remember now, but well into the 1990s, national Democrats proudly associated themselves with gun control, championing laws that restricted access to deadly weapons. Under Clinton, the Brady Bill, which mandated a five-day waiting period for the purchase of handgun, was passed, and so was a ban on assault weapons. The 1996 Democratic Convention that nominated Clinton for a second term featured Jim and Sarah Brady as primetime speakers.
The years since then, however, have been marked by a steady and thus far enduring Democratic retreat on the issue, with the Second Amendment crowd now largely dictating the terms of public discussion and Democrats mainly trying to avoid their wrath. Consider Obama’s record on guns, which includes one achievement: a law making it easier to carry concealed weapons in national parks.
While the violent crime rate that fed the gun control zeal of the ’90s is much lower today, horrifying mass shootings seem to be on the rise. Six of the 12 deadliest sprees in American history have taken place just since 2007. In his own remarks Friday, delivered a few hours after Carney’s, Obama seemed to hint that the latest deadly outburst might actually shake him and his party from their defensive crouch on guns. “[W]e’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of politics,” the president said. ...............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.salon.com/2012/12/15/dont_be_afraid_mr_president/
Don’t be afraid, Mr. President (of the gun lobby)
from Salon.com:
Don’t be afraid, Mr. President
Barack Obama and his party have been too terrified of angering gun owners to realize they can win without them
By Steve Kornacki
There’s no disputing that the Democratic Party has regressed dramatically on the issue of gun violence over the past two decades. When a shooting rampage on the Long Island Railroad killed six people and injured 19 others in December 1993, Bill Clinton responded immediately by calling for specific legislative action to prevent future tragedies. Contrast that with the response of White House Press Secretary Jay Carney on Friday to a question about whether the carnage in Connecticut might prompt President Obama to pursue gun control measures. “I’m sure there will be another day for discussion of the usual Washington policy debates,” Carney said, “but I don’t think today is that day.”
It can be hard to remember now, but well into the 1990s, national Democrats proudly associated themselves with gun control, championing laws that restricted access to deadly weapons. Under Clinton, the Brady Bill, which mandated a five-day waiting period for the purchase of handgun, was passed, and so was a ban on assault weapons. The 1996 Democratic Convention that nominated Clinton for a second term featured Jim and Sarah Brady as primetime speakers.
The years since then, however, have been marked by a steady and thus far enduring Democratic retreat on the issue, with the Second Amendment crowd now largely dictating the terms of public discussion and Democrats mainly trying to avoid their wrath. Consider Obama’s record on guns, which includes one achievement: a law making it easier to carry concealed weapons in national parks.
While the violent crime rate that fed the gun control zeal of the ’90s is much lower today, horrifying mass shootings seem to be on the rise. Six of the 12 deadliest sprees in American history have taken place just since 2007. In his own remarks Friday, delivered a few hours after Carney’s, Obama seemed to hint that the latest deadly outburst might actually shake him and his party from their defensive crouch on guns. “[W]e’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of politics,” the president said. ...............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.salon.com/2012/12/15/dont_be_afraid_mr_president/
December 16, 2012
from Salon.com:
TV’s most Islamophobic show
With its portraits of Brody and Roya Hammad, "Homeland" warns that Muslims are a hidden danger to fellow Americans
By Laila Al-Arian
I started watching “Homeland” because I was bored. All of my favorite shows were coming to a (season’s) end, and I needed something new to watch. I’m drawn to smart scripted dramas, but I was immediately suspicious of the show when I learned that its creators were also the ones behind “24,” the Fox drama that somehow became the chief piece of evidence for the effectiveness of torture and was a favorite of Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh. But I kept an open mind and was riveted by the first episode, which laid out the intriguing mystery: Is Marine Sgt. Nicholas Brody the POW who’s been turned against his country by al-Qaida and its leader, the nefarious Abu Nazir? Soon CIA agent Carrie Mathison is seen spying on Brody and family in scenes reminiscent of the Stasi’s voyeurism in the Academy Award-winning film “The Lives of Others.” But as we learn more about Brody’s back story, the plot becomes increasingly absurd and insidiously Islamophobic. All the standard stereotypes about Islam and Muslims are reinforced, and it is demonstrated ad nauseam that anyone marked as “Muslim” by race or creed can never be trusted, all via the deceptively unsophisticated bureau-jargon of the government’s top spies. Here are four major, problematic areas (among many others. I couldn’t even get to the oversexed Saudi prince and his international harem):
1. What are Brody’s motivations?
The central conceit of the show is that a white, telegenic American hero in the heart of the nation’s capital can really be a Muslim terrorist. Presumably, Brody’s motivations are a key element of this story. But his character is such an awful pastiche of American fears and pseudo-psychology that only an audience conditioned by the Islamophobic, anti-Arab tropes in our media could find him consistent. Why is Brody so committed (sometimes) to carrying out his terrorist mission for deranged mass-killer Abu Nazir? Abu Nazir certainly played good cop to Brody’s Iraqi/Afghan (well they’re all Muslim) torturers, giving him a Ben Hur-like drink of cool water after a ruthless beating. Brody explains that his affections for Abu Nazir emerged because he alone had provided him with kindness during his ordeal, served, of course, with a solid number of mind games when Abu Nazir has Brody beat his American comrade to death (or so he thinks). Stockholm syndrome? Check.
Or is he out for justice, committed to avenging the death of young Issa? Entrusted to Brody for his English-language training, Issa apparently won a place in the stoic Marine’s heart. When a U.S. drone strike kills Issa and dozens of other children and, still worse, when the U.S. vice-president denies the incident on TV, Brody realizes that he and Abu Nazir share the same mission: revenge. Are we really supposed to believe that a Marine sniper inured to the brutalities of war would be pushed over the edge by the killing of civilians or a politician’s lie? The whole war in Iraq was based on political deceptions and defended with denials. Moreover, anywhere between 150,000 to 1 million Iraqis were killed in the war. But I guess Issa was one Muslim boy too far. ...............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.salon.com/2012/12/15/tvs_most_islamophobic_show/
TV’s most Islamophobic show
from Salon.com:
TV’s most Islamophobic show
With its portraits of Brody and Roya Hammad, "Homeland" warns that Muslims are a hidden danger to fellow Americans
By Laila Al-Arian
I started watching “Homeland” because I was bored. All of my favorite shows were coming to a (season’s) end, and I needed something new to watch. I’m drawn to smart scripted dramas, but I was immediately suspicious of the show when I learned that its creators were also the ones behind “24,” the Fox drama that somehow became the chief piece of evidence for the effectiveness of torture and was a favorite of Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh. But I kept an open mind and was riveted by the first episode, which laid out the intriguing mystery: Is Marine Sgt. Nicholas Brody the POW who’s been turned against his country by al-Qaida and its leader, the nefarious Abu Nazir? Soon CIA agent Carrie Mathison is seen spying on Brody and family in scenes reminiscent of the Stasi’s voyeurism in the Academy Award-winning film “The Lives of Others.” But as we learn more about Brody’s back story, the plot becomes increasingly absurd and insidiously Islamophobic. All the standard stereotypes about Islam and Muslims are reinforced, and it is demonstrated ad nauseam that anyone marked as “Muslim” by race or creed can never be trusted, all via the deceptively unsophisticated bureau-jargon of the government’s top spies. Here are four major, problematic areas (among many others. I couldn’t even get to the oversexed Saudi prince and his international harem):
1. What are Brody’s motivations?
The central conceit of the show is that a white, telegenic American hero in the heart of the nation’s capital can really be a Muslim terrorist. Presumably, Brody’s motivations are a key element of this story. But his character is such an awful pastiche of American fears and pseudo-psychology that only an audience conditioned by the Islamophobic, anti-Arab tropes in our media could find him consistent. Why is Brody so committed (sometimes) to carrying out his terrorist mission for deranged mass-killer Abu Nazir? Abu Nazir certainly played good cop to Brody’s Iraqi/Afghan (well they’re all Muslim) torturers, giving him a Ben Hur-like drink of cool water after a ruthless beating. Brody explains that his affections for Abu Nazir emerged because he alone had provided him with kindness during his ordeal, served, of course, with a solid number of mind games when Abu Nazir has Brody beat his American comrade to death (or so he thinks). Stockholm syndrome? Check.
Or is he out for justice, committed to avenging the death of young Issa? Entrusted to Brody for his English-language training, Issa apparently won a place in the stoic Marine’s heart. When a U.S. drone strike kills Issa and dozens of other children and, still worse, when the U.S. vice-president denies the incident on TV, Brody realizes that he and Abu Nazir share the same mission: revenge. Are we really supposed to believe that a Marine sniper inured to the brutalities of war would be pushed over the edge by the killing of civilians or a politician’s lie? The whole war in Iraq was based on political deceptions and defended with denials. Moreover, anywhere between 150,000 to 1 million Iraqis were killed in the war. But I guess Issa was one Muslim boy too far. ...............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.salon.com/2012/12/15/tvs_most_islamophobic_show/
December 16, 2012
from Der Spiegel:
A soldier sets out to graduate at the top of his class. He succeeds, and he becomes a drone pilot working with a special unit of the United States Air Force in New Mexico. He kills dozens of people. But then, one day, he realizes that he can't do it anymore.
For more than five years, Brandon Bryant worked in an oblong, windowless container about the size of a trailer, where the air-conditioning was kept at 17 degrees Celsius (63 degrees Fahrenheit) and, for security reasons, the door couldn't be opened. Bryant and his coworkers sat in front of 14 computer monitors and four keyboards. When Bryant pressed a button in New Mexico, someone died on the other side of the world.
The container is filled with the humming of computers. It's the brain of a drone, known as a cockpit in Air Force parlance. But the pilots in the container aren't flying through the air. They're just sitting at the controls.
Bryant was one of them, and he remembers one incident very clearly when a Predator drone was circling in a figure-eight pattern in the sky above Afghanistan, more than 10,000 kilometers (6,250 miles) away. There was a flat-roofed house made of mud, with a shed used to hold goats in the crosshairs, as Bryant recalls. When he received the order to fire, he pressed a button with his left hand and marked the roof with a laser. The pilot sitting next to him pressed the trigger on a joystick, causing the drone to launch a Hellfire missile. There were 16 seconds left until impact. ......................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/pain-continues-after-war-for-american-drone-pilot-a-872726.html
The Woes of an American Drone Operator
from Der Spiegel:
A soldier sets out to graduate at the top of his class. He succeeds, and he becomes a drone pilot working with a special unit of the United States Air Force in New Mexico. He kills dozens of people. But then, one day, he realizes that he can't do it anymore.
For more than five years, Brandon Bryant worked in an oblong, windowless container about the size of a trailer, where the air-conditioning was kept at 17 degrees Celsius (63 degrees Fahrenheit) and, for security reasons, the door couldn't be opened. Bryant and his coworkers sat in front of 14 computer monitors and four keyboards. When Bryant pressed a button in New Mexico, someone died on the other side of the world.
The container is filled with the humming of computers. It's the brain of a drone, known as a cockpit in Air Force parlance. But the pilots in the container aren't flying through the air. They're just sitting at the controls.
Bryant was one of them, and he remembers one incident very clearly when a Predator drone was circling in a figure-eight pattern in the sky above Afghanistan, more than 10,000 kilometers (6,250 miles) away. There was a flat-roofed house made of mud, with a shed used to hold goats in the crosshairs, as Bryant recalls. When he received the order to fire, he pressed a button with his left hand and marked the roof with a laser. The pilot sitting next to him pressed the trigger on a joystick, causing the drone to launch a Hellfire missile. There were 16 seconds left until impact. ......................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/pain-continues-after-war-for-american-drone-pilot-a-872726.html
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