Res ipsa loquitur.
I especially like “serial bomber.”
NPR—remember, you pay for this bilge— embraced a similar theme in this tweet:
The list of prominent people who were sent suspicious packages reads like a Trump enemies list: politicians and Trump critics who are often targeted in his rally speeches and tweets.
Like the late night comedy shows and Saturday Night Live, segments of what was once regarded as the legitimate mainstream news media are choosing to pander to the virulently anti-President Trump audience, and defying the sensibilities of anyone who has a shred of fairness or objectivity. This is straight up, indefensible, partisan hostility, not just unethical but willfully unethical.
__________________
Pointers: Twitchy, Stephen Green
Ethics Alarms 
Baiting and preparing to release their misinformed hounds. Egging on their masses with deception to potentially, even likely, horrible ends. At a minimum, assuring those who disagree with them are seen by their mob as criminals. (In some measure this environment belongs to both sides. One side clearly fears losing another election so much it will require terrible action.)
As my former Navy SF son used to say…waiting for the fireworks show, hoping it never begins.
I would be popping popcorn, but fear that the sound will be taken for gunshots, and inadvertently start the hot war already simmering.
So I just load more-than-10-bullet magazines in a dimly lit room instead.
Never mind that the four people pictured have advocated violence and harassment (or used violent rhetoric). That could not be why they were targeted.
-Jut
Do you have any quotes from those people?
DeNiro very publicly said he wanted to punch Trump in the face (head?).
Biden said that if he were in high school, he would take Trump out behind the bleacher and beat him up (or something like that).
Maxine Waters encouraged her supporters to harass the Cabinet members and let them know they are not welcome anywhere.
Holder said last week, “when they go low, kick them.”
-Jut
Hillary ‘just-cannot-be-civil-until-we-get-our-way’ Clinton
“The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” Malcolm X
For the left, it’s all about ginning up the emotion of hate within their base and suck more into their fold with hate-filled propaganda; the actual truth is completely irrelevant.
Remember; if you’re considered a Conservative…
More and more it seems as if these “ideals” have cultishly infected the minds of the political left…
Your speech is murder and shouldn’t be allowed, our speech is protected.
Your speech is violence, our violence is speech!
Your political money is corrupt, our political money is the voice of the people.
Your ancestors were evil slave owners – you are a racist, we evolved.
Your political views are delusional lies, our political views are pure truth.
You are evil, we are virtuous.
Everything that comes out of the “mouths” of the political left point to the “ideal” that if you’re a Conservative you are evil.
I believe that we are on the cusp of violent civil unrest and I’m not sure there is any way to avoid it.
—————————————————————————
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
MARTIN NIEMÖLLER
I’ve run out of hope for the USA, it’s a dark pessimistic morning here in the upper mid-west.
HOW A MODERN INTELLIGENT SOCIETY SHIFTED FROM OPTIMISM TO PESSIMISM
Pessimism: late 18th century: from Latin pessimus ‘worst’, on the pattern of optimism (optimum: Latin the best thing).
Pésimo, pésima: in common use in Spanish: Que es extraordinariamente malo o no puede ser peor, especialmente en lo que se refiere a la calidad o cualidad de una cosa o una persona.
Philosophical pessimism:
I would say that your attitude seems not so much as pessimism but more like realism. Seeing things as they are and noticing where they are going. But realism can be both pessimistic (no good will come from all this!) or optimistic (good will come of all this!).
Some further thoughts. The notion of realism is interesting. There is a problem though: we do not fully know, nor can we know, what is really real. To be realistic one must consider the fogs that cloud perception. If, for example, these so-called bombs are part of an intelligence operation — a less outlandish possibility even for those who could not conceive of such a thing by their own government — a realistic attitude could become paranoid.
But it must be understood — if one wished to be really real and realistic — that our present is being engineered. That could mean controlled but is more likely to mean directed. We know for a fact that ‘the media’ have become operatives — the NYTs (or one journalist) described that in these extraordinary times the proper rules of journalism would have to be stretched or abandoned, ostensibly for a time. But what else could that mean? Well, just about anything. In times of war there is a direct collusion with media outlets to insert propaganda.
If there really is a social and cultural *crisis* going on it seems realistic to assume the involvement of government and intelligence in guiding and manipulating the events of the day. A ‘crisis of democracy’ requires an extra-democratic hand.
I think it can easily be seen that a sober and proper realism is definitely needed — required in fact. But again, the issue of being real depends on interpretation of what being real is. It really depends on how one sees the present and these strange events.
Alizia Tyler wrote, “There is a problem though: we do not fully know, nor can we know, what is really real.”
WOW, talk about “piling on generalities, tangents, cosmic puzzles”!
Holy shit Alizia, what the heck have you been smoking?
Before your mind unhinges further that was a rhetorical question, please don’t try to answer it.
You will come to understand, my dear Zoltar, that the things I talk about have direct and important bearing on the issues that concern us all (though we are concerned in different ways). There is empiricism at work, though to you it makes no sense. But this is changing bit by bit even for you. Give it time!
Alizia Tyler wrote, “the things I talk about have direct and important bearing on the issues that concern us all”, “There is empiricism at work”, “But this is changing bit by bit even for you.”
You are making ridiculous assumptions that are simply not supportable.
No, I am saying things to a person, and at times I think generally to some people, who for different reasons have closed-down minds. I struggle to define how this has come about. I try to *see* it and understand why. As I have been suggesting and saying we are dealing here with epistemological issues: about what is known and what can be known. And also hermeneutical issues: the interpretation of events and images.
I am — indeed I am — a person who through empirical research has come to strongly suspect the influence of intelligence operatives in our nation and in our world. Steve recently spoke directly to this when he referred to Chile and the toppling of a non-desired government. What is done there circles back to here.
This is a tenet of realism. It is a real observation that is based not in fantasy but in empiricism.
I suggest that a great many things set in motion as a result of 9/11 — the millennial event really, and one that cannot be *seen* — continue to ramify in our present. And I also suggest that it is very hard to reply on appearances. That is a very strange reality to deal with.
If I say that it is hard to rely on appearances, and “there is a problem though: we do not fully know, nor can we know, what is really real”, I mean that it is very hard for us to see those actors that mold our present. By their very nature they are non-visible.
And this is also true in so much of the advertising — for example — that molds us. Or, as Edward Bernays put it:
Your resistance to grasping what I am talking about — it is not complex nor even that controversial — indicates that the ‘hard man’ is really a hardened mind, a mind shut down and deliberately attempting to hold to understandings that are rapidly coming undone. This, there is a psychological dimension here. The world fractures and the individual struggles mightily to make sense of it.
Every single news outlet, even the local ones, have repeated the “The bomber seems to be targeting Trump critics or people he has strongly criticized,” virtually uncritically.
While the statement above is objectively true, it is also inherently an attempt to smear Trump, suggesting that the “bomber” is taking his or her cues from Trump’s rhetoric.
But even if that’s true, it has nothing to do with Trump. It would be equally true to say that the “bomber” is taking his cues from the Democrats he’s attacking, being fed up by their assaults on a president he admires. Following this line of reasoning, if Democrats and their sympathizers who have been mailed packages had been more circumspect in their criticism of Trump rather that blowing out some less profane version of “Fuck Trump!” given voice by Robert DeNiro, they wouldn’t be receiving “bombs.”
In this case, the victims are as blameworthy as Trump is — which is to say, not blameworthy at all. It is the perpetrator of this crime who is blameworthy, and the protected speech by all parties is not, even in the least iota.
The media is attacking both the Second Amendment and Donald Trump, creating a justification for speech control. The irony is so thick you could cut it with a knife.
I should’ve added that the media has constantly tut-tutted Trump’s every criticism, either by attacking it as false or provocative.
The Democrats have received a pass for their vicious rhetoric by everyone in the media, who apparently thinks theirs is justified, and we’re seeing this redoubled now.
Nope. No media bias. You can go about your business. Move along.
But it’s not “objectively true” either. There is no “bomber,” until it is established that there are, in fact, bombs. Increasingly it is likely that there are no bombs, just packages meant to look like bombs for effect.
Fair enough. That’s definitely an important detail they should include.
The key implication to CNN’s phrase “serial bomber” is that the person was successful in actually bombing (as in the bombs exploded) and that is simply not fact. What is fact right now is that there is an ends justifies the means serial terrorist that has used packages that may or may not be functional bombs to terrorize which is ginning up emotional hate towards Republicans less than two weeks before the mid-term elections.
I smell a rat.
Dude was a Democrat until 2016, and was a criminal long before that.
Can someone explain to me why these people were targeted just prior to an election with devices, none of which proved functional, whereby the targets were never harmed but are now considered victims of Trumpian rhetoric?
If this is the work of some crazy alt-right person or group exactly what purpose does it serve? Anyone with any cognitive capacity would easily see that such an effort would know that these acts will elevate the targets to victim status and bolster their arguments that conservatives are full of hate – just when early voting begins.
Strategically, it makes absolutely no sense.
Unless it’s a foreign operation, simply designed to sow chaos and distrust…
That is reasonable 77Z. It does strike me odd that the person or persons have eluded law enforcement this long if he or she is so cognitively impaired not to understand how such acts will play out in the American media and politics.
Who will be the first Progressive the ends justifies the means martyr that’s intentionally sacrificed for their cause?
I would posit that Vince Foster may fit the bill, with his (possibly forged) suicide note pointing fingers at the GOP. On the other hand, we can’t exactly say he was intentionally sacrificed, unless we really want to go down the tin-foil-hat route.
Wow. All the Left needed to do was slow roll this “bomb” threat. But no, they’re being so hamfisted covering this that it may as well have been a false flag attack. Because they are making it look like this is all part of a transparent narrative.
Back before the 2016 election a quote started floating around “All the Left needs to do is not be completely insane. But they just can’t do it.”
Breaking:
Man taken into custody regarding the “bomb” threat.
Predictions: No one will treat him as a suspect. He’s guilty already.
We will know in 5 minutes if he’s a MAGA hat wearing guy or if by mere connection said something nice about Trump 6 years ago basically making him a MAGA hat wearing guy.
If we don’t hear anything quickly…well, you know what that means.
If these…’devices’…were not, in fact, functional bombs, were any laws actually broken?
I would assume so. Using the mail to transport devices meant to look like bombs clearly indicate an intent to terrorize the recipient.
But does it look like a bomb? The few pictures I’ve seen do not look like bombs.