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news and politics » Boston.

phi_'s avatar
10 years ago
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phi_
... and let the Earth be silent after ye.
So some shit went down in Boston today...
asemisldkfj's avatar
10 years ago
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asemisldkfj
the law is no protection
I heard this from my office. there was no bomb at the jfk library. there is no scary muslim in custody. right now, this is just an awful, awful thing that happened that has variably infuriated and saddened me over the course of the day. riding over the finish line of the marathon (they leave it painted on boylston street year-round) is one of my favorite things to do on a bike.

I am eager for developments in the investigation.
nestor's avatar
10 years ago
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nestor
nestor
friend of mine was watching his girlfriend run it. he said he was standing at the finish line ~15 metres away from the explosion (not clear if that is in reference to the site of the bomb or just the affected area).

he said he saw some bad shit.
nny's avatar
10 years ago
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nny
M̮͈̣̙̰̝̃̿̎̍ͬa͉̭̥͓ț̘ͯ̈́t̬̻͖̰̞͎ͤ̇ ̈̚J̹͎̿̾ȏ̞̫͈y̭̺ͭc̦̹̟̦̭̫͊̿ͩeͥ̌̾̓ͨ
i was in nyc for sept 11. i would not wish this sort of thing on anyone.

it's fucking terrible. and anyone who thinks they can justify doing this sort of shit needs to be fucking executed. it's just so horrendously fucking wrong...


I am in portland for openstack summit. was having lunch with some management types from ebay and yahoo and amazon ( now at f5 though ). and the yahoo guy was trying to make a point about the critical nature of yahoo and brought up the main page.

he was obviously intending to make a joke about the banality of their critical news reporting. and that's JUST as the breaking news hit about the bomb. we sort of rolled past it for a solid 2 seconds... then everyone collectively was... wait.... what? Seriously?

Reminded me a lot of the morning of Sept 11. It was just... impossibly fucked.

Really fucking sad.
lucas's avatar
10 years ago
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lucas
i ❤ demo
it's absurd to me that a bunch of people chased and tackled a saudi guy in the vicinity. i'd hate to be a middle eastern guy in the vicinity of an attack.

i also hate how the connotations that the word "terrorism" now has. but this is definitely terrorism--attacking civilians at a public event on a holiday.

with that said, it's too bad this happened. but i think we may as well get used to shit like this.
asemisldkfj's avatar
10 years ago
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asemisldkfj
the law is no protection
what I've taken away is that we need better civics education.

“I was five hours with the police,” Bada said in broken English. “I signed some paper to let them in.”



the mixed messages about this are frustrating though. he is not a person of interest, nor a suspect, nor in custody, but he is not free to go. he's just a witness but multiple federal law enforcement agencies removed what is ostensibly evidence from his apartment. he was running from the blast (who wouldn't be) but some anonymous man tackled him for "acting suspiciously," which is one of the more transparently racist platitudes.

I hate reading breaking news.
phi_'s avatar
10 years ago
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phi_
... and let the Earth be silent after ye.
ugh.
asemisldkfj's avatar
10 years ago
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asemisldkfj
the law is no protection
well, today is interesting.
nestor's avatar
10 years ago
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nestor
nestor
i stayed up until 3 listening to boston police scanners. madness. hope everything ok asemi.
asemisldkfj's avatar
10 years ago
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asemisldkfj
the law is no protection
everything fine here. hearing mumblings that whatever is going on in watertown is unrelated to marathon bombing suspects. some 80-year-old with a bomb vest and a deadman trigger? I have no idea. trying to remain skeptical about everything but still glued to social media for updates.
lucas's avatar
10 years ago
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lucas
i ❤ demo
well that was an insane week for you, i bet.
asemisldkfj's avatar
10 years ago
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asemisldkfj
the law is no protection
quite!
phi_'s avatar
10 years ago
link
phi_
... and let the Earth be silent after ye.
Glenn Greenwald has some good criticism of what's going on.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/ … sandy-hook
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/ … -reactions
nny's avatar
10 years ago
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nny
M̮͈̣̙̰̝̃̿̎̍ͬa͉̭̥͓ț̘ͯ̈́t̬̻͖̰̞͎ͤ̇ ̈̚J̹͎̿̾ȏ̞̫͈y̭̺ͭc̦̹̟̦̭̫͊̿ͩeͥ̌̾̓ͨ
Personal Opinion. Boston couldn't have fucked up the bombing in a worse manner. The ONLY saving grace thus far is that he was federally charged.

Mass. Still hasn't charged him. And if he doesn't get charged with "possession of a malevolent device" like Star Simpson was... gonna totally laugh my ass off about that.

But yeah. Personal opinion, Mass fucked that up in the worst possible fashion.
phi_'s avatar
10 years ago
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phi_
... and let the Earth be silent after ye.
Handled better or worse than the Dorner manhunt in Cali?
nny's avatar
10 years ago
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nny
M̮͈̣̙̰̝̃̿̎̍ͬa͉̭̥͓ț̘ͯ̈́t̬̻͖̰̞͎ͤ̇ ̈̚J̹͎̿̾ȏ̞̫͈y̭̺ͭc̦̹̟̦̭̫͊̿ͩeͥ̌̾̓ͨ
Good question. Worse I'd say. They didn't shut down LA.
phi_'s avatar
10 years ago
r1, link
phi_
... and let the Earth be silent after ye.
But the police did shoot innocent people, whereas with Boston it was passionate attacks from random citizens.

(For the record, I'm not saying the LA incident was worse. But there aren't that many recent instances of this sort of behavior.)
nny's avatar
10 years ago
r1, link
nny
M̮͈̣̙̰̝̃̿̎̍ͬa͉̭̥͓ț̘ͯ̈́t̬̻͖̰̞͎ͤ̇ ̈̚J̹͎̿̾ȏ̞̫͈y̭̺ͭc̦̹̟̦̭̫͊̿ͩeͥ̌̾̓ͨ
Yeah, but that's an isolated incident and an admitted mistake.

What Boston did was a planned and accepted decision to lock down an entire city over one incident. And if anything the LA incident really highlights the folly of that plan. There was no need to shut down Boston. If LA could keep going about its business with an angry ex-military, ex-police trained cop armed to the teeth quite literally having declared war on the LAPD, I feel like Boston has very little excuse for their reaction to two young terrorists.

In fact, because it was terrorism it is so much more important NOT to react in such extremes. It sent a clear message to other would be terrorists and organizations that terrorism works in Boston and in the US in general. And, I can't abide by that.
lucas's avatar
10 years ago
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lucas
i ❤ demo
yeah, i think it's pretty wild that a major u.s. city was shutdown like that.
asemisldkfj's avatar
10 years ago
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asemisldkfj
the law is no protection
the party line that most everyone in Boston is toeing is that the police/governor/fbi/whoever else did what was necessary to apprehend these dudes and we appreciate all of their hard work in doing so. it's very, very difficult to argue against, because say you suggest that they shouldn't have shut the city down or conducted the dragnet, and simply waited for the younger kid to resurface. well, the first time these kids surfaced at all was to bomb the marathon, and the second time was to murder a 26-year-old (iirc) MIT cop. there is really no reason to think the younger brother, in resurfacing for a third time, wouldn't do something equally awful.

I have my own reservations about the law enforcement response, and the quickness with which the media forgets boring stories like the one I mentioned above of the saudi arabian kid's apartment being searched by like six law enforcement agencies. I'm legitimately curious what anyone's response would be to the "party line" of my first paragraph. do you not think that the risk of more death would have been higher were they not to shut everything down? or was the reduction in risk simply not worth the cost (fiscal and reputational)?

I'm wondering what to compare this whole thing to. there's something about a bombing that is somehow incomparable, to an american. mass murders with guns always mean blabbing about gun rights vs. gun control vs. violent video games and we're used to that. bombings apparently vindicate tools like lindsey graham spreading the tired rhetoric of the "war on x" ("the homeland is the battlefield"!!) and incredulousness at the perceived heartlessness of the bombers. the whole growing war on terror thing is kind of new and terrifying (ha).

I guess my point is that we should be asking what the fuck is so horrible about the world that could drive anyone to do such things, be it a terrorist eating up (admittedly readily available) examples of american imperialism, or a "normal" US citizen not blinking an eye at the barbarousness of drone strikes. if we keep up sentiments like, "how could anyone do such a thing???" it worries me for our country a little bit, because it's the wrong question and it was answered a very, very long time ago, probably in the bible or something.
nestor's avatar
10 years ago
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nestor
nestor
justin trudeau (leader of the "centrist" party in canada) took your view and the general response seems to be very negative (particularly in light of the threat against the train a week after). pretty sad.
nny's avatar
10 years ago
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nny
M̮͈̣̙̰̝̃̿̎̍ͬa͉̭̥͓ț̘ͯ̈́t̬̻͖̰̞͎ͤ̇ ̈̚J̹͎̿̾ȏ̞̫͈y̭̺ͭc̦̹̟̦̭̫͊̿ͩeͥ̌̾̓ͨ
I was thinking about the blitz. And how the people of london simply carried on. But, of course they did more than that. They sent children out of the city. They setup shelters in subway stations. And they had advanced warning of incoming attacks. But, still, they stood up in the face of a military bombing campaign launched by one of the greatest military powers ever known and they simply got on with their lives.

The same can be said of the people of Stalingrad. Surrounded. Living in rubble. Utterly destitute. Eating rats and scraps. But still... they lived their lives.

People are capable of adapting. Even the worst possible situations and people will adapt, and get on with their lives.

And that scares me. Terrorism is unpredictable. It's always going to exist. Much like lunatics going on shooting sprees. When someone gets so twisted up in their own head that they lash out at anyone and everyone... you can't stop that. It's going to keep happening. And because of the news. Because of the outlier events like boston and sept 11. We're going to allow people to setup these reactive measures that slowly change the fabric of our society for the worse. And it will be done without reason.

People will adapt to a lot. Even terrible overreactions like we've seen in Boston. They accept the bullshit that is the TSA. They accept illegal searches and the erosion of liberty all for some insane belief that it increases their safety from terrorism. And they will keep doing that. And sooner or later, we'll lose everything our nation was. And for what?

It sickens me. It depresses me. And truthfully, there are times I consider just leaving the US and not looking back. I don't want to watch as this country is destroyed by the unthinking reactions of a bunch of worthless fuckwits. And Boston contributed heavily to that destruction.
lucas's avatar
10 years ago
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lucas
i ❤ demo
while the younger brother was still uncaptured, he did pose a non-trivial threat. i don't know whether or not it was worth shutting down the city.

on principle, i don't like that boston was shut down, simply because it allowed the suspects to fill the city with additional fear and inflict enormous financial costs. with that said, having a terrorist on the loose is the main cause of fear, i don't know if shutting down the city would really contribute additional terror. regardless, the financial cost of a shut down of a major u.s. city is substantial, even for one day.
lucas's avatar
10 years ago
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lucas
i ❤ demo
were people advised to shelter in place, or was it enforced? i think i support the former, but not the latter.
asemisldkfj's avatar
10 years ago
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asemisldkfj
the law is no protection
before reading your second post, I was already going to say that life as usual carried on in most of boston proper (watertown is its own city), despite the shelter advisement from the governor. me and a roommate went out around 4 PM to see if the liquor store was open and there were more people outside than on a normal friday at that time, and everything from the bar to the barber shop was open.

nestor
justin trudeau (leader of the "centrist" party in canada) took your view and the general response seems to be very negative (particularly in light of the threat against the train a week after). pretty sad.



which view? link, perhaps? I'm curious.

nny
And because of the news. Because of the outlier events like boston and sept 11. We're going to allow people to setup these reactive measures that slowly change the fabric of our society for the worse. And it will be done without reason.

People will adapt to a lot. Even terrible overreactions like we've seen in Boston. They accept the bullshit that is the TSA. They accept illegal searches and the erosion of liberty all for some insane belief that it increases their safety from terrorism.



well-put. I worry about this trend as well.
nestor's avatar
10 years ago
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nestor
nestor
your view being "I guess my point is that we should be asking what the fuck is so horrible about the world that could drive anyone to do such things" - source video - question is at 12:50 mark - http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/Politics/ID/2379962512/?page=4

here's an editorial from the canadian "newspaper of record" - http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/edi … e11402107/
asemisldkfj's avatar
10 years ago
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asemisldkfj
the law is no protection

Societies should always try to understand the root causes of the problems they face. But terrorism is not an internal societal ill; it is a political ill, and often external, at that.



from the globe and mail editorial. this is really an endless argument about how much governments and societies can realistically do to combat terrorist threats. I guess I'd fall on the side of "a hell of a lot more (and a lot better) than is done now."

thanks for the links!