It’s not rational in that innocent people are innocent people. At the market, or in a church, or a synagogue, on a subway, or in the twin towers. Really that shouldn’t matter. Innocent people, just trying to live their lives. All are alike unto God. He is no respecter of persons. I believe that, but it takes less cognition for me to immediately empathize with families sitting in church, being killed for sharing the same faith as me.
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Ding! And seldom any careful outpouring of logic and reason will not trump good, ol’ fashion outrage. I am looking forward to the day when outrage is less fashionable than it is today.
I cannot imagine it continuing en masse as it does now. I guess it’s hard to resist blurting something out in 280 characters or less without giving it much thought. At least here we have a long format and can develop ideas and have discussions. But that won’t stop expressing outrage in real time without thinking about it for at least a second.
Yeah, I am slamming social media.
I remember Cecil the Lion and unfortunately had way more conversation about it than I ever would have cared to. It get’s old having to preface yourself with a long diatribe about how you don’t hate animals and do not support the outright killing of endangered ones and blah, blah, blah, but I don’t really give a rat’s ass that Cecil was shot and ‘Zimbabwe has waaaaaay worse things to worry about than a lion being shot…’ Nobody knew that Zimbabwe was a particular kind of hell, rare even for Africa in it’s breadth because prior to Cecil, few people heard of the damn place outside of grade school geography class.
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Talk about Cecile reminded me of this. Please pardon the threadjack, Pat.
@ animals and human caring.
We’ve co-evolved with dogs. There are quite a few studies now about how humans experience a spike in the bonding hormone oxytocin when we interact with our dogs. This is the hormone that acts as a neutotransmitter, and is related to attachment, bonding, love, trust. Anyway, dogs and especially puppies cause us to release oxytocin, much the way we do when we interact with our spouse and children. They have hijacked our biology! Ha. First responders still pull humans out of the burning building first. We value human life more, from a cognitive perspective, but emotionally, dogs are powerful.
An insightful comment on that - “This is part of the reason why people who love dogs find those who don’t to be untrustworthy, and why harming dogs is different than other animals, because it signals that the person may be willing to also harm babies and the helpless. It’s a fascinating aspect of species coevolution.”
The oxytocin release, bonding response, is reciprocal. Dogs also release it, when they look at their owners.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/348/6232/333
No, no, that wasn’t a dumbass or two but part of a deliberate strategy - radical islamists were attacking police and security personnel in Myanmar (and in northern Thailand) knowing full well they’ll fail spectacularly and that their actions will unleash a retaliatory pogrom against the Rohingya.
This in turn creates the “martyr” myth and an effective propaganda piece “look, the evil infidels are attacking Muslims everywhere just because they’re Muslims” that can be used to radicalize and recruit new followers, or simply as a way for dictators to establish their religious credentials.
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I don’t know if it’s quite that I “don’t care about people outside of my community” so much as it is a bit of Powerpuff wrote here as well as a bit of “I’ve only got space for so many thoughts and actions in the day, and I’m concentrating those on what I can control or am willing to intervene upon.”
I want to leave some space in my life for watching football, lifting weights, spending time with my wife and family, etc. None of us has enough brainpower to read about and process every single thing that happens in the world without compromising our ability to function in our own daily life. I suppose that is, in the literal sense, a “selfish” perspective, but I don’t think it’s a bad thing.
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So what do we do? The Shia ruling in Iran hate our guts and want to kill us too. There’s a lot of American blood on their hands too anyway. If we could side with them, I’d say let’s do it, but I don’t see that ever happening when they want to destroy Great Satan.
First and foremost, it’s the Iranian regime, not the Shiites. How many Persian-Americans or Persian-French lone wolves or whatever blew themselves anywhere? For Persians, the enemy number one for the last 1300 years has been desert Arabs, and their current incarnation the inKingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Iran’s Press Supervisory Board quickly issued a warning that the headline “Ansarollah Missile struck Riyadh, Next Target: Dubai” ran counter to Iranian national security and the country’s interests.
Secondly, the Iranian mullahs are despicable, but as I’ve said countless times before, have no illusions that they “hurt” or “kill” the US. Their biggest fear - with some justification, mind you - is that the Saudis will lobby/pressure/bribe an US administration into attacking Iran on Saudi behalf.
As soon as the threat of ISIS somewhat receded in Syria and Iraq (thanks to Kurds and Shiites), the Saudi “hey, you know what, let’s bomb Iran” is back on the table. Now Israel is jumping on the bandwagon and even entering a de facto alliance with Saudi Arabia who teaches kids in school textbooks to exterminate Jews.
Iran is primarily concerned with keeping and expanding the hard-won landbridge to the Mediterranean, cutting a deal with the Russians and the Turks in Sochi last weekend.
Putin is delighted because he gets to poke another finger in the US eye and the US foreign policy is lost as usual because they’re thinking in terms of “countries” that are just lines on a map and not religious denominations.
Edit: Nothing new here.
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But, but, the hostage crisis.
I know, revenge for the 1953 coup that overthrew the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and put the Shah into power because he was pro-Western.
The same vengeful Iranian elite have no qualms about buying weapons and getting assistance from Russia. Nevermind the fact that Russia occupied a good part of Iran during World War II because the Allies feared them joining the Axis powers. They don’t seem to mind that too much now, do they?
I understand the differences between the Sunni and Shia blocks and know that both sides use and have used terror to push their agenda. (see Lebanon, Hezbollah, etc)
I’m asking how we can just switch sides and begin backing Iran against Saudi inspired terrorism when the Iranians hate us as well. What should we do? Stay out of it? Let them fight it out?
I think what I’m talking about (that people are unknowingly discriminatory and care less about others than they may claim) and what Powerpuff is talking about (from what I understand- the limit of empathy due to simple limits within us) are two different things.
I am talking about people who-
-Show unintentional racism/don’t actually think things through. IE- making jokes about shitty Asian lady drivers while also saying that any jokes that involve a Black person is racist.
-Do not seem to understand the kind of logical error they’re making when they criticize behavior in people they don’t consider part of their community while either not “seeing” the same issues in people in their community- (John Conyers)
Etc.
In other words- logical fallacies of various types.
The worst part is when people so greatly enjoy pointing them out in others while failing to see themselves fall in the same crap.
I fully agree with what Powerpuff says. That’s why I deliberately avoid the news whenever I can. I don’t have the energy or mental wherewithal to comprehend all the horrible things that occur. Just the knowledge that a thousand DUI arrests were made over a span of four days in the area I live scares me enough. I don’t need to know what happened two-three counties over.
I will generally comment on events/issues only if I feel that I have something worthwhile to say in the greater context/the underlying issue at hand.
THAT BEING SAID- if you’re going to claim that something is horrible and people should do something about it… DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
I cannot stand all the folks who make useless noise about horrible current events but exert absolutely no effort on their part to deal with it.
“Spreading awareness” doesn’t do jack shit. Trump is all the evidence I need.
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Honestly, I think it has to do with Trump. I mean I know that’s a popular line of conversation, bringing everything back to him and how much people hate him and all, but I really do. I think we ARE numb, because I think under any other POTUS in recent memory this takes headlines, and the POTUS issues a widely read statement or speech of support, and we send in international aid, and all the rest…and all of this is captured in the media.
But with Trump, we are reeling every day from some terrible behavior or other, and it just gets to us. Pretty soon it’s just run of the mill, and it shouldn’t be. H Factor has talked about being inundated to the point where we just mentally shut off, and I think that is at least partially accurate.
EDITED TO SAY–I very much think that what Powerpuff and AG said is a major factor as well. I was thinking in terms of media coverage more than personal care when I wrote the post
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The Shah wasn’t pro-Western, he was simply more malleable. There are several reasons why Iranians pathologically obsess over the Mosaddegh coup - for the regime and the rightwingers, it’s another “proof” of a “US-Zionist conspiracy”, while for the nationalistic part of the population it’s a moment when everything went wrong, when Iran could have become a secular democracy and the US thwarted it.
Instead, they got a spectacularly corrupt and inept Shah after whose reign the real nightmare started.
Although the Iranians intensely dislike the Russians and Russian historical meddling in Persia’s affairs (Iran is full of Russians - construction and technical/military staff) they see the alliance with them as a way of avoiding being bombed by the US, and that trumps everything else.
Yes, but there’s an important difference - Shia terror is centralized and top-down, aided, abetted and organized by the Iranian regime with the explicit purpose of furthering their geopolitical interests, whether it’s attacking US troops in Sadr City or in Lebanon or launching missiles against Israel.
Sunni terrorism is on the other hand religiously mandated, diversified and bottom-up, a product of a literal interpretation of religious texts without a specific purpose except “kill everyone else because our book says so”.
It means that the Iranian mullahs aren’t calling for millions of Iranians living in the West to blow themselves up, because that’s not how Shia Islam works. Saudi preachers on the other hand have no qualms about calling the faithful to fight the “infidel” everywhere.
The rank-and-file Iranians have a very (even extremely) positive attitude towards the US. California hosts the largest number of Iranians outside the country, and Iran is one of the main recruiting grounds for PhD and postdoc students for US universities.
Oh, and remember how all those pro-Arab activists like Linda Sarsour try to push their sharia agenda in the totalitarian left circles claiming that they have to wear the hijab and observe this-and-that as it’s a crucial part of their identity?
This is what happens when you put Iranians in the US
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I did not mean to convey that it wasn’t a pre-planned coordinated effort, but do you really think they expected the reaction they got? I say this because its unprecedented. It’s not been done. I would have expected that their expectation would be some retaliation falling sort of expelling or killing every muslim in the country. I.E. they didn’t believe the military government would go full force on the entire population of muslims.
It may have that effect, but in this case, the suffering is real and Myanmar ain’t playing around.
I agree with the psycho analysis here. That if we were to shed a tear for everything that deserves one, we’d never stop crying. My point, is that this was major in scope and particularly brutal in execution. Hence it deserves attention. The drums of war keep pounding ever louder in the ME. I don’t know what event could tip the scales to major escalations, but I don’t see anything stopping it right now. The region is skewing toward war, and not like the Iraq war, but much larger.
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And that’s largely the goal. This is one of Bannon’s (and Putin’s) favorite strategies: keep everyone on their heels so they can’t get their bearings and, hopefully, just “check out”. If there’s any truth to Trump playing “4D chess”, this is it. His Pocahontas quip yesterday, another NFL tweet this morning, insulting Schumer & Pelosi before their meeting with him today so they cancel…some of it is just Trump being Trump, but a lot of it is just a distraction to keep focus off of Russia, the tax bill, etc.
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Yes, this second article is zero surprise and despite the title being a bit deceptive is something like the ‘worst kept secret in the world’. While ISIS was a JV team and Hillary was lobbying hard to arm Syrian rebels the rest of us were screaming, ‘Nooooo!’ acutely aware of how Al qaeda got it’s start, there was few who supported arming anything resembling Islamist ‘moderates’.
I think everybody secretly knows the answer here and nobody wants to say it and now it would be dubious to do. But looking at the situation in 2012, the only real solution, that would have actually ‘solved’ the problem required a full scale invasion of Syria. This is while Asad is on the ropes, Russia and Iran are not yet there, and ISIS is just starting operations. Nobody has the stomach for that. So we get all this deep state shit playing the players off each other in hope they end up killing each other.
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Yeah, 40 years later, I don’t believe the mullahs have the ear of the vast public anymore. Peaks in to the lives of the ‘Rich and Famous’ in Iran show them heavily skewed towards western values. It’s not like you can do a pew poll in Iran and everybody there is aware of the fact they have no such thing as a ‘First Amendment’ but I would be willing to bet most of the country is not willing to die for shit, much less take up arms and commit suicide by western military forces.
I think it’s working.
EDIT: We still have to keep in mind the important stuff though and make sure we keep our eyes open while not suffering everybody’s over-outrage about everything disease.
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It is, but not like he hoped. He’s gone too far…no way the majority that oppose him are going to completely throw in the towel at this point. And agreed about the over outrage. Certain things (like the NFL protests) fall much lower on the scale.
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I don’t see any switching of sides. Not anytime soon. Hell the ink is barely dry on that multi-billion arms contract we did sign with the House of Saud.
I do wonder and am curious and do want input about the arrests of the Saudi Princes… Was that a show? What is the implied desired effect?
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