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Something terrible happened in France.


Ms. Spam
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Guest El Chalupacabra

ISIS is claiming credit, whether or not they actually did the deed. Last I heard it was somewhere around 130 dead, and 7 of the 8 terrorists were killed/blew themselves up.

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Last I heard no one is claiming credit. But a Syrian passport was found next to the body of one of the attackers, and The President of France is holding ISIS accountable.

 

Gotta say, the Instagram/social media outpouring of Eiffel Tower-peice-sign logos is ****ing gross. That whole "finger wagging" and "back patting" that middle class liberal people like to do over the internet that Kurgan describes well has been super apparent. I'm sure the 2 seconds it takes to post a token tribute on Instagram is warm comfort to the families of those that are killed. Never mind the lack of social media "care" for the hundreds of people who die every day in Syria at the minute.

 

Must've been ****ing aweful being at that Eagles of Death Metal gig. My girlfriend and I were gonna duck over to Paris this week too... So glad that didn't end up happening

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Gotta say, the Instagram/social media outpouring of Eiffel Tower-peice-sign logos is ****ing gross.

Agreed.

 

Of the people who are talking about the attacks (i.e. doing more than just posting a "support" image), it is 85% people saying they'll unfriend/block you if you say anything negative about Muslims/refugees, using it as an opportunity to blast Bush/Cheney/Tony Blair, bitching about how everybody has their fee-fees hurt over Paris while nobody's status updates are talking about the people who just died in a fire in Baghdad because they aren't white, etc.

 

The rest is a mix of anti-religion screeds, chest-thumping war-whoring, subtle (or unsubtle) racist/cultural attacks, etc.

 

Oh, and then folks of all stripes who are saying "Don't use this tragedy to push your political agenda!" while using this tragedy as an opportunity to push their political agenda.

 

It's ****ing disgusting.

 

But hey, at least I can be thankful for the luxury of disgust over people's posturing on social media, rather than having my neighborhood blown up and worrying about the safety of friends and family. That's something.

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/Pong, sometimes I forget how llberal your feed is until you mention something like this. My feed on facebook and twitter has been pretty tame compared to yours. Just lots of people changing their profile pic to the French flag option. I think the worst thing I saw was someone mentioning they didn't understand supporting France because they denied us airspace during the aftermath of 9/11.

 

I'm watching PBS's version of the news as it is the most balanced option I have.

 

In San Antonio there's been talk about this happening here in the states which makes me think that thanks to the kids bombing the Boston marathon we may have been slightly safer than Paris because people in high value targets are more vigilant. When I flew recently to Atlanta there was a public service message every ten minutes asking people to report suspicious bags left unattended.

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My feed has been a mix of support pictures and anti-religious screed. I'm just as annoyed with the atheist crowd as I am with rednecks who would think all Muslims are suicide bombers, but apparently I've either purged my feed of rednecks or most people know better to keep their mouths shut if they think that nowadays. And my family is full of people who thought Obama was the anti-Christ during the 2008 election. So at least we've gotten somewhat smarter over the last 7 years.

 

Is anyone seriously blaming refugees? I've heard it said that people are, but not actually witnessed it. Once again, I'm glad my feed is not that full of stupid people.

 

I did set up a temporary profile picture because I have many friends who are French natives and I spent 7 years studying French and it was going to be my fallback if I wasn't able to hack that whole rocket science thing. I really enjoyed studying the language when I was younger and I wis I had kept up with it. I agree that too often we only pay attention to terrorism in 1st world countries, but this one admittedly strikes a little closer to my heart.

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/Pong, sometimes I forget how llberal your feed is until you mention something like this.

Eh, my experience is not normal. I live in Portland. Most of my friends have careers in the arts or academia, and process all events through a postcolonial postmodern postrational lens. It's like the cream of the cream of the cream of the crop, ya know? Like Portlandia, only unintentional.

 

Scrolling down for the last two Paris Updates:

  • "Don't you dare use this tragedy and France to push your open-carry agenda as I use this tragedy in France as an opportunity to talk about the need for tighter gun control laws in the United States!"
  • A "**** Yeah" link to an article telling us solidaridy with France is misguided cause:
You see, I also mourn for those killed mere hours before Paris crumbled into chaos, in strikingly similar attacks in Beirut. I mourn the hundreds of thousands displaced or killed in Syria, no matter their pledged allegiance. No matter their professed religion. No matter. I mourn for the millions killed in ongoing and renewed, illegal United States’ aggression in Iraq — and those facing a torturous demise from exposure to depleted uranium employed in violation of international and humanitarian law — for reasons far closer to ‘American’ and corporate hegemony than compassionate principle.

Etc.

 

Of course, it could be worse. Better the bleating of the naval-gazers than a stream of anti-Muslim slurs and calls to turn the entire Middle East into a sheet of glass.

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I've been irrationally angry with most of the FB posts about this. I'm not 100% sure why. It's not any different than anything people post any other time of the year. I know who my Islam haters are. I know who my misguided peace-is-the-only-option pacifists friends are. But they're pretty much ALL pissing me off today.

 

I mean, I get it if offering up a prayer is the only thing you can do right now, but I KNOW WHICH OF YOU ***holes ARE JUST POSTING THE MEME AND NOT ACTUALLY PRAYING BECAUSE YOU NEVER ****ing PRAY!!! And that pisses me off.

 

I do think it will mean a lot to those directly affected to see such an outpouring of support in social media coming from countries all over the world, but it irritates me to no end to see it come from people I know don't really have it in their hearts. Makes me want to just be like, "shut up and go eat your damn freedom fries!"

 

**Pregnancy may play a part in this...

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At least one bomber has been confirmed to have entered France as a refugee, you can bet they will blaming them now.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/15/world/paris-attacks/index.html

 

Not that they were interested in immigrants/refugees before, below is a poll from one month ago. Imagine if it were done today....

 

http://www.gallup.com/poll/186209/europeans-negative-toward-immigration.aspx?g_source=World&g_medium=newsfeed&g_campaign=tiles

 

In a very odd twist, the more educated the individual the less favorably they view immigration. This will get ugly fast.

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In a very odd twist, the more educated the individual the less favorably they view immigration. This will get ugly fast.

Yeah, that is strange. At least in the U.S., anti-immigration sentiment is associated with less educated people of lower economic status; assumed it would always be like that in Europe, too.

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In a very odd twist, the more educated the individual the less favorably they view immigration. This will get ugly fast.

Yeah, that is strange. At least in the U.S., anti-immigration sentiment is associated with less educated people of lower economic status; assumed it would always be like that in Europe, too.

 

It must be weird to be from your part of the world. Down here, it's the opposite.

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In a very odd twist, the more educated the individual the less favorably they view immigration. This will get ugly fast.

Yeah, that is strange. At least in the U.S., anti-immigration sentiment is associated with less educated people of lower economic status; assumed it would always be like that in Europe, too.

 

It must be weird to be from your part of the world. Down here, it's the opposite.

How so? Americans who are highly skilled, work in growing fields, and who are more formally (book/classroom) educated on the issue of immigration tend to be more supportive of immigration.

 

That being said, I just did some research, and there does not appear to be a correlation between income level (regardless of skill level/field) and attitudes toward immigration - in other words, I may have repeated an inaccurate, but oft-repeated talking point (only dumb, poor, white, Republican voters oppose immigration) -- oops!

 

I'm too lazy to look into this more, and not sure if surveyed attitudes toward immigration includes illegal immigration, or if you meant "illegal immigration" in your response to me?

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I think this will impact people who would self identify as refugee immigrants. I think in America this will translate to blocking people from poor South and Central American countries and from Mexico from access to the US under whatever scare tactics guise can be used. I do find it odd that when we should be compassionate we are not. The most dangerous think is actually converting people marginalized to committing acts like this thing that happened in Paris. One of the attckers had a Belgium passport. And the one passport that was connected to a Syrian refugee may have been a stolen or lost passport used by an attacker to draw attention to Europe's current influx of Syrian refugees.

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