What. The. Fuck?

[fleetfootmike]

smallship1 and hobbitblue both draw my attention to this.

WTF?

Comments

[katyhh.livejournal.com]

That's just outrageous ...

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

But hardly surprising.

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've heard that before.

Pile'o'crap...

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Do you mean that the quotes are not accurate or are incorrectly sourced? That this is a hoax?

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

The New York Times article checks out. I would say on the evidence available that the Guardian article is genuine. America, as embodied in its newspapers, now regards us as a potential, if not an actual, enemy.

Sidebar: I'm having to retype and repost every comment at least three times before it works, for some reason. This may be adding to my, um, emotional investment in the subject. Apologies for that.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

Useful tip: If that's addressed to sbisson, and you want sbisson to know you've replied, you need to remember to use "reply" rather than starting a fresh comment thread.

Lots of us don't go back and re-read posts once we've moved on, unless we get a reply coming in by email.

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

With other stuff I've seen from the US Media, I'm coming to the view that all they care about is reinforcing an insularm isolationist, point of view, with the added twist of making Islamic terrorists seem to be incompetents who would never succeed in the good ole US of A.

The same stories are getting picked up be American bloggers, who maybe dress it up with ill-informed analysis.

But there's some pretty lousy reporting from the British press too.

[rdmaughan.livejournal.com]

The conclusions drawn are typical right wing american drivel with a dash of hysteria.

However given the goings on at the Finsbury park mosque, I find it difficult to contradict the core facts of the article. The UK does let people, who the US would lock up, wander around and say what they like. Until they actually break the law we seem to think they are entitled to do what they want, sometimes this means they say things we don't like or advocate courses of action the US government would object to.

[occams_pyramid]

But how are we going to defend FREE SPEECH if we let them do things like that?

[fleetfootmike.livejournal.com]

Ah. Yes.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Which country is it again has that in its Constitution?

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

They haven't passed a law forbidding them to do that in London.

Yet.

[occams_pyramid]

So what do they suggest we should do about it?

Hmm - how about starting out by seriously pissing off every law abiding Muslim in the UK? Yes, that sounds like the George W method.

[stevieannie.livejournal.com]

Couldn't we lock up Bush for inciting racial hatred? Because he's certainly making me angry at Americans. No mean feat as I do, in fact, think that the US and the majority of people who live there are really quite lovely.

Couldn't they send Bush on a slow drive through downtown Dallas? Nice open-topped car?

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't do any good. They LIKE Bush in Dallas.

[delennara.livejournal.com]

If they only would have kept him there...

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Try New York, then. Let's make it a BIG parade, and include Cheney, Condi, and Bill Frist. Plus every single person who makes decisions or appears on the air at Faux soi-disant News. (Remembering an anthrax threat at News Corp's building five years ago. Wish it had happened during DAYLIGHT, rather than overnight, so that I could have rooted for it to have gotten someone useful.)

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Not to defend it too strenuosly, but (as I pointed out in smallship1's LJ) the NY Times piece is, at least, not news; it's a guest writer on the Opinions page.

This does not automatically equate with support by the paper.

[bardiclug.livejournal.com]

"We're giving up our rights, and you should too!" This kind of thing, whether an opinion piece or not, just make me sick. This is JUST what we need, to start enciting suspicion and hatred of our friends. This is what happens to paranoid schitzophrenics before they come and take them away to a nice padded cell.

It's the words of people who are in an absolute panic.

This isn't about Muslims, as much as Washington, the Press, and a lot of, IMO, small minded 'Mericans would make it so.

We saw an interesting episode of 30 Days this week where a middle American Christian went to live with a Muslim family for a month. One of best things said was by the wife of the host family, when they were talking about the connection between Terrorism and Muslim's. Her husband said "These are fringe Muslims." And she countered, "No, these are fringe PEOPLE".

We might as well lock up Christians citing Jim Jones as your typical Christian example.

Bah. I'm Canadian now. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. I've been reading (and sometimes replying to) uk.current-events.terrorism, and there are a lot of Americans on there taking the same sort of line (and a lot of quotes from US papers in that vein). A lot of them stating as fact that the bombers were well-organised members of Al Quaida...

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

Well-organised?

I don't think they were as incompetent as some US reports suggest, but anyone who has read Babel-17 could have made things a lot worse. But you maybe don't want to use all your nasty tricks at once.

Anyway, it looks as if the Police have fingered the likely bombers, and it begins to look as though they were suicide bombers. So what's the next link? There's an arrest, but...

[qb-fox.livejournal.com]

I think it's important to protect everyones liberty. so we must remove everyone's liberty.

No, hold on. That doesn't work.

Startling and upsetting those this action was, it looks as if about 100 people will have lost their lives, and about twice that number injured in any significant way. In other words only about 300 people will have been physically hurt by this episode.

This is not to dismiss the thousands effected indirectly or only mildly by the events, but most Britains, and Londoners in particular, will turn their faces to the terrorists and say:
Is that it? Do you think we are so easily cowed? Do you think we would give ourselves up to you so easily? We still govern ourselves, and try to judge people fairly, on what they have done and not done.

Extremists of any kind, Muslim, Christian or American, should not, and I hope will not, be allowed to effect the British sense of fair play.

[bedlamhouse]

Does everyone here realize what they themselves are doing?

An opinion article by someone taking an extreme opinion is picked up due to its sensationalist view by other newspapers. A newspaper in another country summarizes it in the way most likely to sensationalize it for their own readers.

The result is that the opinions that started in one column are now attributed to the mainstream media of that country and the leadership of that country.

Now, whether or not we like the opinions or that leadership, jumping to some of the conclusions that have been jumped to by the Guardian and many in this set of responses is irresponsible. It is exactly what is being done by the people we don't like.

So, why is it OK when "we" do it, and not ok when "they" do it?

[bardiclug.livejournal.com]

Because we love us, and we don't love THEM.

;)

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

"Everyone here" is responding to, and expressing a wide range of differing views on, a newspaper article.

I am the paranoid here. Me. Nobody else, okay?

[bedlamhouse]

I was positive I had licensed the North American rights some time ago, but the dog ate the paperwork. (*g*)

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Well, there's no way I could cover that kind of ground, so by all means carry on. :)