Very good points. I don’t know anything about Shining Path; I’ll have to look it up.
I guess my fear is that the comparison with the Troubles (an interesting, understated euphemism) might become more apt over time, in our own situation.
Very good points. I don’t know anything about Shining Path; I’ll have to look it up.
I guess my fear is that the comparison with the Troubles (an interesting, understated euphemism) might become more apt over time, in our own situation.
My other problem with comparing our current situation to Northern Ireland is that I can easily see conservatives identifying with the IRA side - that they have been forced into violence because the mean government is trying to take away their civil rights.
Except Catholics in Northern Ireland in the very beginning were protesting for actual civil rights - for protection from discrimination in housing and jobs.
There used to be a quote thrown around even before there were memes "One person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter."
I can easily see the racist, antisemitic, homophobic fringe adopting that. Because taking away their right to discriminate is the "worst crime ever." (And for a certain political subsection, taking away their right to grift based on racist, antisemitic, homophobic rhetoric is just like death.)
My memory is after a certain point in Northern Ireland, there were no freedom fighters only terrorists. I sort of feel that way about Trumpies at this point. Whatever empathy I had for them before January 6th is gone.
There is another quote that is apropos here (I have seen this in various forms): “when you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression”. Many “Christianists” feel that they are being discriminated against simply because they used to be first among equals, and now they’re not (certainly not to the same degree). For example, it wasn’t all that long ago, that many states had Blue Laws that prohibited non-essential businesses from being open on Sunday. Clearly Sunday wasn’t picked as a random day. If back then, someone would have put the 10 Commandments on the courthouse lawn, no one would have blinked an eye. That stuff doesn’t fly today, and they don’t like it. And they fail to see that all it is is just trying to even the playing field and actually follow what the Constitution says.
But this feeling of oppression leads to feelings of resentment and anger. And the right-wing media is ready, willing, and able to stoke those feelings. That’s where things like “the Great Replacement” theory come from. And that’s why we get these wackos shooting up bars and stores and religious buildings (I think the wackos who shoot up schools are in another category).
It sounds like you had a front-row seat to The Troubles, and I worry that your insights will prove prescient. One thing is for sure – the GOP base and its hierarchy won’t do anything to tamp it down.
You’re forgetting something else that Christianist’s are taught: martyrdom. If they’re in a state of resentment and anger and want those 10 Commandments on that wall, they will not back down until they get their way or are dead because they know they will be ‘martyred’ for their faith. They act exactly like they are a victim, then lash out like a cornered animal daring someone to stop them knowing full well that if someone does they are STILL furthering Christianity as they see it. I know - I’m a recovering Catholic.
I think your comment on martyrdom is true. But my "10 Commandments" comment was intended to point out that back then no one even thought about the fact that they were allowing a religious symbol on a public square in clear violation of the Constitution. And those in charge, a.k.a. WASPS, were fine with that. But it's not that they sat down and really thought about it and had an argument for why it was OK. In their minds, it was OK because it had always been OK. It was the natural order of things. And once society and the courts started pointing out to them that it really wasn't OK, they felt under attack. And the resentment started. It never occurred to them to acknowledge that they had been given a privileged position all those years. For many years, they had been giving the orders. Now they were being forced to take some orders, and they didn't like it one bit. When I was in high school (a long time ago) a group of local churches sponsored an out-of-town Evangelical group to come and speak at the local churches. Then those same Evangelicals came and preached at my high school the next day during an assembly. And no one (including me) thought that was out of line. It was just the way it was.
And, in my opinion, this mindset continues today with the various "religious liberty" arguments. They want their religious beliefs to "trump" the duly passed laws of the various states. So a business can't discriminate against anyone in the general public for any reason - race, sexual orientation, sex, ethnicity, you name it. The one exception is religion (not the customer's religion, but the owner's). Why is that OK?
"Christianist" is an apt term. It's political, not having to do with Christ. All the religious wars are fought over false "causes". The founder and still leader of Christianity had nothing to do with governments, and nothing to do with splashing his name around on billboards or political parties. His work was on individuals who wanted his influence, and still is. The one time one of his disciples lashed out with a sword, the Christ repaired the man's cut ear, and said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, then would my servants fight." People always lord it over each other and then blame the only sinless person to ever live.
I lived however with my grandfather, a man who left after the Irish Civil War. Both of my grandfathers fought for independence and the Treaty as did many of their friends and they all left after the Civil War. (My father used to say their hearts were broken.)
In the 1960s, this was a topic much discussed in my house.
I was not raised by men who had romantic illusions about either side. Especially after the bombings started, there was a real feel of "a pox on the lot of them."
My aunt said after 9/11 that the beauty of Americans is that we have no historical memory. We're not holding grudges against one another from before our grandparents were born. We made alliances with the British and the Germans and the Japanese after our wars were over.
That was a sentiment my grandparents expressed often. There is no greater country because our eyes are on the future.
The rise of a Confederate loving faction in this country would have broken their hearts.
One more comment…. CS has said several times that if you truly believe that the election was stolen, an armed insurrection is a reasonable response. There’s a corollary to that: if you truly believe that you are losing your country (and these people clearly do), then violence is a reasonable response. I think that sums it up pretty nicely.
Making "terrorism" subjective confuses the matter. More clarity comes from defining terrorism as a tactic that is based on horrific violence against civilians. It's the same behavior and the same outcome no matter who does it: Russian missiles over Ukraine, V-2 rockets over Britain, or British bombers over German cities. Then the unfudged question is this: Is terrorism ever justified?
Oddly enough, I think I would distinguish between military objectives and political objectives.
So I don't think of Sherman's March, the German V-2 rockets, the British/American saturation bombing as terrorism.
And the initial Russian bombing of Ukraine is despicable but not necessarily terrorism. (At this point, Russia is bombing so they can tell their own people there's still a shot at victory - that feels more like terrorism.)
All of them are war crimes, possibly, but terrorism?
Are the Viet cong terrorists? Were they terrorists before they won the war?
Part of my reluctance is a belief that in wars after 1800 there are no civilians. It was one thing when nobles are fighting over who will be the monarch, but in modern wars, are civilian factories manufacturing munitions fair game? How about the farms feeding the troops?
If you wanted to take out the US or the UK, as an unfriendly foreign power, is Wall Street or London fair game?
If you're a political actor, that's terrorism. If you're a Nazi general during WWII, it's not.
When the V.C. ambushed American patrols, they were engaged in warfare. When the V.C. slaughtered peasant villagers, they were engaged in terrorism. Terrorism is an act or series of acts. The term terrorIST only makes sense in relation to an individual or group devoted entirely or almost entirely to acts of terrorism. The noun is probably apt for cells that repeatedly send suicide bombers to kill large numbers of civilians in nonmilitary locations.
However moralistic some may be about it, there is a real conceptual difference between terrorism and collateral damage. If civilians die because they're working in a factory that feeds the war machine, that's collateral damage. If civilians die because the aggressor targeted a school or a hospital or an apartment building (as the Russians are doing), that's terrorism. As far as medieval romance is concerned, as far as I know the only time that nobles took the full brunt of aggression was in the lists. On the battlefield they sent mobs of commoners against each other, poorly armed and without armor. They also burned villages and fields. If anything changed after 1800 (or maybe 1918) there were generally agreed upon rules of warfare, however irregularly they might be followed. Wall Street is not a legitimate military target. Most of London is not a legitimate military target. The bridge that brings military supplies from Russia into Crimea IS a legitimate military target even if a civilian truck driver is so unfortunate to be caught on it by a missile. Finally, the whole point of formulating an objective definition of terrorism is to do away with the idea that a Nazi general's definition is as good as anyone else's. If you accept that, then you're ready to accept Trump's claim that the election was rigged, just because he says so.
You make good points. And as I said, I don't know.
It's been a long time since I read up on religious wars in the 16th & 17th centuries so my memory that the commoners were trained men of arms and not serfs and herdsmen is unreliable. If I figure out whether my source is an actual historian or Shakespeare, I'll let you know.
I used a Nazi general because I wanted a military leader from a declared war vs. a Bin Laden type. But for the reasons, you stated, not a great example.
I am going to disagree with you about Wall Street or any other concentration of banking and finance. Both WWI & WWII were won because the US financial system provided the funds to beat Germany - both for us and our allies.
Currently, the system has back ups and distributed files so taking out NYC or London isn't going to cripple us.
But the strength of our financial system has in the past been as much a part of the victory as Lockheed or DuPont.
A country's finances are a legit target.
It's why we've blocked the Russians from using SWIFT.
Good point about finances. But wouldn't destroying Wall Street kill a lot of people who have nothing to with war while leaving others across the country who do? There is a thin line at the border between terrorism and war. Apologists will claim that the bombing of German cities or of Hiroshima took out military targets, but the primary result (and the purpose of the RAF commander, according to a new book) was to terrorize civilian populations and government officials. In any case, particular targets can be discussed rationally if clear basic principles exist. To be clear about the Nazi general, someone like Rommel was fighting a war. Others, however, were directing actions that were terrorism by any reasonable objective definition.
Very nice writing. You know much more about the Troubles than I do. I like your reminder of the quote about freedom fighter > terrorists. My own intuition is that our authoritarian right wing is deliberately claiming words like “freedom” and “patriot” to set up a false paradigm that they are freedom fighters. It’s like setting the stage. But I believe they know the difference and are engineering a false scenario. It’s an interesting filter for reviewing prior conflicts; what proportion of fighters truly believed they were freedom fighters? And how would we know? And would that knowledge be useful?
Very good points. I don’t know anything about Shining Path; I’ll have to look it up.
I guess my fear is that the comparison with the Troubles (an interesting, understated euphemism) might become more apt over time, in our own situation.
That, unfortunately, is probably fair.
My other problem with comparing our current situation to Northern Ireland is that I can easily see conservatives identifying with the IRA side - that they have been forced into violence because the mean government is trying to take away their civil rights.
Except Catholics in Northern Ireland in the very beginning were protesting for actual civil rights - for protection from discrimination in housing and jobs.
There used to be a quote thrown around even before there were memes "One person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter."
I can easily see the racist, antisemitic, homophobic fringe adopting that. Because taking away their right to discriminate is the "worst crime ever." (And for a certain political subsection, taking away their right to grift based on racist, antisemitic, homophobic rhetoric is just like death.)
My memory is after a certain point in Northern Ireland, there were no freedom fighters only terrorists. I sort of feel that way about Trumpies at this point. Whatever empathy I had for them before January 6th is gone.
There is another quote that is apropos here (I have seen this in various forms): “when you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression”. Many “Christianists” feel that they are being discriminated against simply because they used to be first among equals, and now they’re not (certainly not to the same degree). For example, it wasn’t all that long ago, that many states had Blue Laws that prohibited non-essential businesses from being open on Sunday. Clearly Sunday wasn’t picked as a random day. If back then, someone would have put the 10 Commandments on the courthouse lawn, no one would have blinked an eye. That stuff doesn’t fly today, and they don’t like it. And they fail to see that all it is is just trying to even the playing field and actually follow what the Constitution says.
But this feeling of oppression leads to feelings of resentment and anger. And the right-wing media is ready, willing, and able to stoke those feelings. That’s where things like “the Great Replacement” theory come from. And that’s why we get these wackos shooting up bars and stores and religious buildings (I think the wackos who shoot up schools are in another category).
It sounds like you had a front-row seat to The Troubles, and I worry that your insights will prove prescient. One thing is for sure – the GOP base and its hierarchy won’t do anything to tamp it down.
You’re forgetting something else that Christianist’s are taught: martyrdom. If they’re in a state of resentment and anger and want those 10 Commandments on that wall, they will not back down until they get their way or are dead because they know they will be ‘martyred’ for their faith. They act exactly like they are a victim, then lash out like a cornered animal daring someone to stop them knowing full well that if someone does they are STILL furthering Christianity as they see it. I know - I’m a recovering Catholic.
I think your comment on martyrdom is true. But my "10 Commandments" comment was intended to point out that back then no one even thought about the fact that they were allowing a religious symbol on a public square in clear violation of the Constitution. And those in charge, a.k.a. WASPS, were fine with that. But it's not that they sat down and really thought about it and had an argument for why it was OK. In their minds, it was OK because it had always been OK. It was the natural order of things. And once society and the courts started pointing out to them that it really wasn't OK, they felt under attack. And the resentment started. It never occurred to them to acknowledge that they had been given a privileged position all those years. For many years, they had been giving the orders. Now they were being forced to take some orders, and they didn't like it one bit. When I was in high school (a long time ago) a group of local churches sponsored an out-of-town Evangelical group to come and speak at the local churches. Then those same Evangelicals came and preached at my high school the next day during an assembly. And no one (including me) thought that was out of line. It was just the way it was.
And, in my opinion, this mindset continues today with the various "religious liberty" arguments. They want their religious beliefs to "trump" the duly passed laws of the various states. So a business can't discriminate against anyone in the general public for any reason - race, sexual orientation, sex, ethnicity, you name it. The one exception is religion (not the customer's religion, but the owner's). Why is that OK?
"Christianist" is an apt term. It's political, not having to do with Christ. All the religious wars are fought over false "causes". The founder and still leader of Christianity had nothing to do with governments, and nothing to do with splashing his name around on billboards or political parties. His work was on individuals who wanted his influence, and still is. The one time one of his disciples lashed out with a sword, the Christ repaired the man's cut ear, and said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, then would my servants fight." People always lord it over each other and then blame the only sinless person to ever live.
I did not have a front row seat - Thank God.
I lived however with my grandfather, a man who left after the Irish Civil War. Both of my grandfathers fought for independence and the Treaty as did many of their friends and they all left after the Civil War. (My father used to say their hearts were broken.)
In the 1960s, this was a topic much discussed in my house.
I was not raised by men who had romantic illusions about either side. Especially after the bombings started, there was a real feel of "a pox on the lot of them."
My aunt said after 9/11 that the beauty of Americans is that we have no historical memory. We're not holding grudges against one another from before our grandparents were born. We made alliances with the British and the Germans and the Japanese after our wars were over.
That was a sentiment my grandparents expressed often. There is no greater country because our eyes are on the future.
The rise of a Confederate loving faction in this country would have broken their hearts.
A very interesting perspective. Thanks for sharing.
One more comment…. CS has said several times that if you truly believe that the election was stolen, an armed insurrection is a reasonable response. There’s a corollary to that: if you truly believe that you are losing your country (and these people clearly do), then violence is a reasonable response. I think that sums it up pretty nicely.
Making "terrorism" subjective confuses the matter. More clarity comes from defining terrorism as a tactic that is based on horrific violence against civilians. It's the same behavior and the same outcome no matter who does it: Russian missiles over Ukraine, V-2 rockets over Britain, or British bombers over German cities. Then the unfudged question is this: Is terrorism ever justified?
I don't know.
Oddly enough, I think I would distinguish between military objectives and political objectives.
So I don't think of Sherman's March, the German V-2 rockets, the British/American saturation bombing as terrorism.
And the initial Russian bombing of Ukraine is despicable but not necessarily terrorism. (At this point, Russia is bombing so they can tell their own people there's still a shot at victory - that feels more like terrorism.)
All of them are war crimes, possibly, but terrorism?
Are the Viet cong terrorists? Were they terrorists before they won the war?
Part of my reluctance is a belief that in wars after 1800 there are no civilians. It was one thing when nobles are fighting over who will be the monarch, but in modern wars, are civilian factories manufacturing munitions fair game? How about the farms feeding the troops?
If you wanted to take out the US or the UK, as an unfriendly foreign power, is Wall Street or London fair game?
If you're a political actor, that's terrorism. If you're a Nazi general during WWII, it's not.
Great point.
When the V.C. ambushed American patrols, they were engaged in warfare. When the V.C. slaughtered peasant villagers, they were engaged in terrorism. Terrorism is an act or series of acts. The term terrorIST only makes sense in relation to an individual or group devoted entirely or almost entirely to acts of terrorism. The noun is probably apt for cells that repeatedly send suicide bombers to kill large numbers of civilians in nonmilitary locations.
https://www.wearethemighty.com/articles/7-deadliest-weapons-crusades/
Perfect.
Thank you for finding this.
However moralistic some may be about it, there is a real conceptual difference between terrorism and collateral damage. If civilians die because they're working in a factory that feeds the war machine, that's collateral damage. If civilians die because the aggressor targeted a school or a hospital or an apartment building (as the Russians are doing), that's terrorism. As far as medieval romance is concerned, as far as I know the only time that nobles took the full brunt of aggression was in the lists. On the battlefield they sent mobs of commoners against each other, poorly armed and without armor. They also burned villages and fields. If anything changed after 1800 (or maybe 1918) there were generally agreed upon rules of warfare, however irregularly they might be followed. Wall Street is not a legitimate military target. Most of London is not a legitimate military target. The bridge that brings military supplies from Russia into Crimea IS a legitimate military target even if a civilian truck driver is so unfortunate to be caught on it by a missile. Finally, the whole point of formulating an objective definition of terrorism is to do away with the idea that a Nazi general's definition is as good as anyone else's. If you accept that, then you're ready to accept Trump's claim that the election was rigged, just because he says so.
P.S. Nice to have a discussion rather than an exchange of rants.
Same. It's nice to be debating.
You make good points. And as I said, I don't know.
It's been a long time since I read up on religious wars in the 16th & 17th centuries so my memory that the commoners were trained men of arms and not serfs and herdsmen is unreliable. If I figure out whether my source is an actual historian or Shakespeare, I'll let you know.
I used a Nazi general because I wanted a military leader from a declared war vs. a Bin Laden type. But for the reasons, you stated, not a great example.
I am going to disagree with you about Wall Street or any other concentration of banking and finance. Both WWI & WWII were won because the US financial system provided the funds to beat Germany - both for us and our allies.
Currently, the system has back ups and distributed files so taking out NYC or London isn't going to cripple us.
But the strength of our financial system has in the past been as much a part of the victory as Lockheed or DuPont.
A country's finances are a legit target.
It's why we've blocked the Russians from using SWIFT.
Good point about finances. But wouldn't destroying Wall Street kill a lot of people who have nothing to with war while leaving others across the country who do? There is a thin line at the border between terrorism and war. Apologists will claim that the bombing of German cities or of Hiroshima took out military targets, but the primary result (and the purpose of the RAF commander, according to a new book) was to terrorize civilian populations and government officials. In any case, particular targets can be discussed rationally if clear basic principles exist. To be clear about the Nazi general, someone like Rommel was fighting a war. Others, however, were directing actions that were terrorism by any reasonable objective definition.
Very nice writing. You know much more about the Troubles than I do. I like your reminder of the quote about freedom fighter > terrorists. My own intuition is that our authoritarian right wing is deliberately claiming words like “freedom” and “patriot” to set up a false paradigm that they are freedom fighters. It’s like setting the stage. But I believe they know the difference and are engineering a false scenario. It’s an interesting filter for reviewing prior conflicts; what proportion of fighters truly believed they were freedom fighters? And how would we know? And would that knowledge be useful?