'Many dead' after truck crashes into Bastille Day crowd in Nice, France

boing
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One interesting detail is that the perpetrator had (according to German news agencies) several prop guns and grenades in the cabin with him. Which opens the question of whether he knew they were just props, or was planning on using them to intimidate, or some other purpose.

Another interesting detail is that the perpetrator was a resident of Nice himself. Normally, terrorists do not choose their own home town to perform the deed. Could he have panicked during a police control and decided to take as many with him as he could?

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I think you’ll find that that isn’t actually true.

Remember that the majority of Daesh’s victims are in Syria, the majority of the IRA’s victims were in Ireland, the majority of the KKK’s victims were in America, etc.

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I do agree that we need to make a stand and save Western Civilization.

Mainly against the whole bunch of idiots that are so excited at the prospect of dismantling everything that is worthy on Western Civilization and get on the program to be as fucking medieval as ISIS.

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I think there is a difference of scale here. With the IRA, for example, actual attacks were performed in a different city than where the perpetrator of the attack lived, to minimise the risk of running into acquaintances. Same for in Syria, though the suicide bombers are often themselves Syrians, they are attacking neighbouring cities, not their own. The main reason is that seeing an old buddy or even a relative could weaken the resolve. Easier to blow up strangers.

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true dat! it’s reminiscent of the, probably apocryphal, ghandi comment that western civilization “would be a good idea.”

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The families of people killed as “collateral damage” in Western attacks probably ask the same.

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The Western world in general has been experiencing an ever-increasing divide between two distinct cultures. The first is primarily associated with the working class, it values national identity and cautious borders. It resists incorporation into larger identity blocs.

The second group is largely associated with the upper middle class, tied to academia and mainstream politics, and is transnational and encourages a global identity. These two groups are increasingly at odds, and double down on their perspectives when confronted with gains by the other.

The first group distrusts the second group as out-of-touch elites, and no longer trusts that politicians have its interests at heart.

The second group alienates the first group through its assumption - often quite openly and explicitly stated - that they, the second group, are smart, righteous and informed, with the first group viewed as ignorant, stupid, and lacking in ethical fiber.

This offends the first group (understandably), and what’s more overlooks the fact that many of the assumptions that form the second group’s worldview are not in fact objectively correct or more sensible, but are just as questionable as some of the first group’s assumptions.

The first group often does indeed have a core of unreasonable and erroneous assumptions. So does the second.

The attitude that one’s worldview has objective worth and the opposing culture’s doesn’t, that one’s opponents do not have legitimate or valid perspectives but rather can be dismissed as Simply Wrong, ignorant or immoral, fuels resentment and encourages greater protest vote among the working class (regardless of the tired left-right division, which is increasingly meaningless).

Hence Trump. Hence Brexit. And hence, I am sure, Le Pen.

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Or whether he was just nuts, and had toys with him to make him feel big.

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although the labor movement, or what’s left of it after the most recent three republican presidents, has a strong component of global solidarity pushing for better conditions and wages globally and regarding slave and sweatshop laborers as brothers and sisters in the movement who are being oppressed.

although a certain amount of global identification can result from college education and increased wealth it is among the 0.01% which most favors the elimination of borders, the search for the lowest wages, the weakest safety or environmental standards, etc. the legislators and lobbyists working for this group have few compunctions against using the threat of the “other” as a way of stirring up the conservative base, but on the whole this is the base of the whole “neoliberal” program.

while i disagree with some of your assertions above i come closest to agreeing with you here. i am a far left liberal living in the heart of darkest republicanism, texas. interactions with conservatives are inevitable and i have developed a conversational style of trying to find some point of agreement and then moving them slowly but tenaciously towards my position. dismissiveness is a luxury i can’t afford and, more generally, a luxury our society can’t afford.

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Love this quote.

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I wonder how much the recent attacks in France are in response to the dismantling of Libya. Didn’t France have a lot to do with that? And whatever happened to the term “blowback”?

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I don’t know… seems like your making assumptions now, but okay.

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I’m not sure what that has to do with the comment your replying to. I’m aware of class and how divided things are along those lines too. Do you think I’m not aware of that?

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If the stormfront copypasta is to be believed, the only reason that France gets hit is because it has a lot of (the most?) Muslims.

IT CANNOT BE MORE NUANCED THAN THAT. /s

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Thanks! I baked it myself.

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Have you known me to be someone who does that?

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Aren’t you human? We all do that sometimes, right? I think you’re doing it now.

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Either tell me which part you think I’m assuming or just understand that I stated the truth.

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Yes. To the point where I’ve abandoned several discussions with you rather than try to argue with your assumptions.

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Your point was that hip hop is only popular because it sounds good in Arabic and gives them yet another anti-Western, anti-Jewish platform - which can be true, but it’s not the motivation for all hip hop artists, nor does it erase the fact that it’s still a political musical form. I think, as @ActionAbe suggests, that making art, even when it’s aggressive and violent in content (which I can give you a long list of artists who make such music), is not the same as joining an Islamist group, nor does it suggest westernization. In fact the popularity of hip hop is one of the reasons the US government in recent years has turned to American hip hop artists who are Muslims in order to win over young Muslims in the mid east.

I do think that adopting hip hop as a platform is an inherently political act - I think you’re disagreement with me is based on your view that it’s not, and that’s your assumption that I think is wrong. You may not agree, but many of the people who study hip hop culture and make hip hop music would disagree. I’m afraid I give them a bit more weight on this topic, but YMMV.

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