What Exactly is Terrorism?

[twk123]

Further to my point above, I am impressed at how they are able to respond so quickly.  They are "Johnny on the Spot" in these types of situations.  Just like they got the Boston Marathon bombers, etc.  I don't think enough people realize just how heroic that is.  Law enforcement has really become effective at responding.  I wish we could do better at preventing.

 

The interesting thing is that during the Paris shooting and the San Bernandino shooting there were active shooter drills being held at the same time as the shooting which definitely helped the response time. I wonder if the terrorists knew this beforehand and used the info to gain a bigger response?

[billybobg]

I'd put it as violence against a civilian population as opposed to war in general.  War can have terrorism, but terrorism does not require a war. 

[Travis In Austin]

I think the terror was just focused on other people, wasn't it? We terrorized Indians, then slaves, then blacks during the KKK days. They were certainly terrorists, right?

Everybody always leaves out the Irish. There were more Irish slaves over here than black ones.

Oh really? You probably might want to check that out before posting that in a public forum under your business name.

I would also look carefully at any source that claims that.

You might want to start by looking at the difference between a slave and an indentured servant. They are not the same thing.

By the way, which president freed the Irish?

 

I'd rather not wreck this thread any further than this response, but...

 

Apparently the problem with history today is that historical documentary producers and historians for the Center for Research and Globalization can just make up whatever crap they want to.  Who are you supposed to believe?  This isn't exactly crazy conspiracy theorists that are saying things like this.  

 

 

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/27/1265498/-The-slaves-that-time-forgothttp://www.globalresearch.ca/the-irish-slave-trade-the-forgotten-white-slaves/31076http://www.amazon.com/White-Cargo-Forgotten-History-Britains/dp/0814742963

 

 

You are not wrecking it, you bring up a very valid point. The reliability of historical information. It is very, very difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff.

It appears that you have tried the approach by your links.

I start from the source, as you pointed out it started from an article by Martin on the Worldresearch website. I tend to always check out the website first by doing Google search or seeing what rationalwiki has to say about them. Worldresearch uses different authors, but many original articles have been debunked and discredited. They are conspiracy theory heavy.

Then you have to look where it goes from there. Typically a commentator, blogger, or even a nut, will take a snippet from an article and come up with an outlandish conclusion. "More Irish slaves than black slaves in America" for example. Then someone cites that and says "there were more Irish slaves in US than black ones." Basic history tell you that is B.S., 20% of the population in the colonies right before we declared independence. Roughly 700,000 slaves. Where did all the Irish go? Then when you dig a little deeper you see that they are talking about during the colonies, in ALL of the Americas, and in North and South and the Caribbean, there was a time when ENGLAND was sending Irish, Scottish and whomever else James, and Cromwell couldn't get along with, to the Cononies as indentured servants in numbers greater than African slaves. Africans were first sent over as indentured servants who obtained freedom but their status was quickly changed, by England to chattel slaves. Meaning they were always a slave, and their children were slaves. That is how we got to over 4 million African slaves by the civil war.

What I always fail to understand is that these bloggers and fringe authors like Martin don't need to resort to a revisionist history or embellish. There is a valid point in what they are saying that gets diminished when the story gets distorted: We were taught in grade and high school that indentured servitude was a romantic notion. That those that couldn't pay for passage to the New World could agree to work it off and then buy land and share in the bounty of the new land, or similar notion. The fact was there was involuntary servitude, it wasn't pretty, and there was just as much suffering to go around while they were under their master's grasp. I think it is very valid to discuss whether that needsnto be more accurately taught and when to children.

To go from the conditions of involuntary servitude and equate it to slavery where the whole thing breaks down.

White Cargo, the book appears to be historically accurate, but their was criticism of the subtitle, as even the authors acknowlede that whites were indentured and that differs from slavery. Here is one review:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3664862/The-forgotten-history-of-Britains-white-slaves.html

Who knows, the subtitle could have been inserted by the publisher to sell more books. Headlines and titles arena whole game unto themselves.

I first try and go to snopes to check stuff out, it saves a lot of time, but I checked in their site and it did not appear they had an article directly addressing the subject. I was surprised because the Irish Slaves catch phrase has been floating around for several years on Facebook and other places.

But all you can do is what you did, find the source of the article and see if other credible sources have reviewed it, that and to see if what someone says it says really says what is says. As in this case, what you will frequently find is that articles keep going back to the same source, Martin. That is a major red flag.

Then information superhighway takes more work sometimes to sort out what is real. This forum has saved me from audio overhype and myth so many times I couldn’t even begin to ciunt.

[Travis In Austin]

That's some major brainwashing

I recently saw a television documentary made by a British filmmaker. His brother became a terrorist and is now in prison. This filmmaker began making the documentary when his brother first joined what he called a radical islamist group in England. He ate dinner with his brother and his friends and said the guys all seemed very nice and fun to be around; but, then he attended one of their (for lack of better word) "meetings" and he was amazed how these nice guys were suddenly talking violent and it was scary.

He interviewed the top dog of that radical group...he mentioned that some accuse him of brainwashing these young men.  The guy responded, "if brains need to be washed..."

There is a great documentry on HBO called the Nuburgh Four about FBI using an informant to "bust up" an "Islamic terrorist" bombing plot. The informant is Muslim and goes to his mosque and recruits 2 or 3 others with undercover video and audio in his house and car. The premise of the film is whether they were terrorists to begin with who were caught, or were they innocent people entrapped by the FBI because the informant was trying to get out of other charges and needed to find some guys to avoid prison. Regardless of which view you take, and I will let people make up their own minds, the motivator the informant used to recruit the 2 or 3 others was money. They were radicalized with the promise of a little cash.

Here is link to HBO site about it

http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/the-newburgh-sting

[Wolfbane]

 

Further to my point above, I am impressed at how they are able to respond so quickly.  They are "Johnny on the Spot" in these types of situations.  Just like they got the Boston Marathon bombers, etc.  I don't think enough people realize just how heroic that is.  Law enforcement has really become effective at responding.  I wish we could do better at preventing.

 

The interesting thing is that during the Paris shooting and the San Bernandino shooting there were active shooter drills being held at the same time as the shooting which definitely helped the response time. I wonder if the terrorists knew this beforehand and used the info to gain a bigger response?

 

 

I suspect that at the end of the day these two had been planning and preparing for some time to attack civilians. Something at the 'Holiday Party' set him off to add a 'personal touch' to the his and hers butchery.

 

Kill two birds with one stone.

[wvu80]

Well, since you are a lawyer, I stuck with the legal definitions.

 

NO NAME CALLING! 

 

+++

 

Back to the topic, which is the definition of terms. 

 

(That last sentence is actually not as silly as it sounds.  Words mean things.)

Edited December 4, 2015 by wvu80

[oldtimer]

Words mean things

 

No shit?  I thought a smilie face was the new communication. 

[Mallette]

No shit? I thought a smilie face was the new communication.

 

Not really.

 

Dave

[MyOwn]

Not sure if this was posted...If so I apoligize in advance

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/terrorism

[garyrc]

 

 

Terrorism is the use of violence, or threat of violence to further a political or religious agenda.

 

I think that's correct, providing by violence, you mean interpersonal violence.  I wouldn't consider damage to property terrorism, as in the instance when the kid was charged with terrorism when he blew up someone's mailbox, or when someone takes a sledge hammer to an unoccupied car.  That's vandalism, even when it is done to further a political or religious agenda.  To be terrorism it has to inspire terror relative to loss or injury of human beings, not material loss.

 

AH!  Now you are hitting at the modus operandi of the weather underground.  Unfortunately eventually someone did get killed but it was not their stated objective to harm people physically.

 

 

I remember that.  Does that make me an "oldtimer?'

[oldtimer]

You have to be a percussionist for that club.

[garyrc]

A tossup would be Zodiac killer, he sent letter to media saying he was going to hijack school bus and kill kids on it. Parents drove their kids to school all over the Bay Area for months.

 

I remember that too.  So there is no question, I'm an "oldtimer."

[garyrc]

Can't they just pray in private?

 

As recommended you-know-where.

[oldtimer]

 

Can't they just pray in private?

 

As recommended you-know-where.

 

Private is where praying is meant to happen here in the USA.  I still wonder though regarding terrorism, wasn't the Weather Underground considered a terrorist organization because they were bombing property?  It was for a political goal.

Edited December 5, 2015 by oldtimer

[oldtimer]

 

A tossup would be Zodiac killer, he sent letter to media saying he was going to hijack school bus and kill kids on it. Parents drove their kids to school all over the Bay Area for months.

 

I remember that too.  So there is no question, I'm an "oldtimer."

 

Ok OK.  some of you out there are old.  You all remember the SLA, SDS, Red Brigade, Bader Meinhof, PLO, Sandanistas, Shining Path...

[garyrc]

I still wonder though regarding terrorism, wasn't the Weather Underground considered a terrorist organization because they were bombing property?

 

The word "terrorism" wasn't bandied around as much back then.  People were worried that the Weather Underground people would kill someone by accident when they were attacking property, and that is what happened.  I'd say they were considered to be a very extreme group, but not as extreme as a very few others. 

Edited December 5, 2015 by garyrc

[oldtimer]

True it wasn't.  Although the concept has been around a long time, only recently because of the advances in communications and availability/ease of information, has terrorism become so effective.  If one wanted to fight the status quo against an overwhelming number and weapons superior foe, terrorism is the way to go at this point in history.

[BigStewMan]

anyone catch that Ali G show where’s he’s interviewing Pat Buchanan?  Ali G keeps asking if Saddam had BLTs, and then he asked if it was stupid to go to war over a sandwich.

[Jim Naseum]

The FBI has declared that it is terrorism by their standard. And they also said that nothing the couple did before the act tripped any wires in the US intelligence apparatus. And that, has profound implications.

As an aside, the woman gave a false Pakistan address on her K1 Visa application. So, whatever the state department is doing is sloppy and probably pointless. As I said earlier, the government has zero incentive or interest in stopping people from traveling to the USA.

Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk

[oldtimer]

And they also said that nothing the couple did before the act tripped any wires in the US intelligence apparatus. And that, has profound implications.

 

As I said, that's why terrorism is the preferred method given the circumstances.  It is a simple strategic reality.  If you have a better way to create revolution against a superpower please fill us in.