Quote of the day
4.17.2013 1 Comment
Glenn Greenwald discussed the automatic other-blaming, other-bashing found in the American media after every ‘terrorist’ attack:
The rush, one might say the eagerness, to conclude that the attackers were Muslim was palpable and unseemly, even without any real evidence. The New York Post quickly claimed that the prime suspect was a Saudi national (while also inaccurately reporting that 12 people had been confirmed dead). The Post’s insinuation of responsibility was also suggested on CNN by Former Bush Homeland Security Adviser Fran Townsend (“We know that there is one Saudi national who was wounded in the leg who is being spoken to”). Former Democratic Rep. Jane Harman went on CNN to grossly speculate that Muslim groups were behind the attack. Anti-Muslim bigots like Pam Geller predictably announced that this was “Jihad in America”. Expressions of hatred for Muslims, and a desire to do violence, were then spewing forth all over Twitter (some particularly unscrupulous partisan Democrat types were identically suggesting with zero evidence that the attackers were right-wing extremists).
Obviously, it’s possible that the perpetrator(s) will turn out to be Muslim, just like it’s possible they will turn out to be extremist right-wing activists, or left-wing agitators, or Muslim-fearing Anders-Breivik types, or lone individuals driven by apolitical mental illness. But the rush to proclaim the guilty party to be Muslim is seen in particular over and over with such events.
Indeed. It is as though some — many! — Americans find solace in their belief that Muslims commit these atrocities. The belief, even when it produces false claims attributing blame to Muslims, orders the world, providing the believer with succinct categories which can be used to cleanse the world of ambiguity and doubt. It is the other who commits these crimes. ‘We’ do not. ‘We’ are innocent. ‘We’ are pure, good and suffer needlessly. Those others are pure, bad and cause us grief.
This ‘thinking’ reflects a Platonic ontology formed in Hell.
Related articles
- We Don’t Know Yet If the Boston Attack Was Terrorism (washingtonmonthly.com)
- Benghazi to Boston: Glenn Greenwald’s hypocrisy in condemning ‘rush to judgement’ over marathon attack (cifwatch.com)
- After Boston explosions, a scapegoat emerges on the right (salon.com)
- The Left Politicizes the Boston Bombing (rushlimbaugh.com)
- Boston Marathon Explosions & Hypothesizing Who Was Behind Attacks in Immediate Aftermath (dissenter.firedoglake.com)
All Tied Up and Nowhere to Go 
Fazaga v. FBI
8.18.2012 1 Comment
Writing for the People’s Blog for the Constitution, Shahid Buttar observed that:
What Buttar depicts above and throughout his article is a dualism intrinsic to a political system which observes the rule of law in some areas but not all areas. This dualism features prominently in Ernst Frankel’s seminal The Dual State. Frankel’s analysis focuses on the post-Weimar German state as used by the National Socialist to govern Germany. The gist of his analytical edifice rests upon a division of the German state into two coexisting but not equal domains. He calls one domain the Normative State. The Normative State is a domain in which the rule of law regulates social life. He calls the second and superior domain the Prerogative State. The Prerogative State is a domain defined and governed by the prerogative powers of the political sovereign, the kind of powers once available only to a Monarch. In the Prerogative State the law becomes a component of force available to the sovereign. Thus it can be said that the rule by law and coercion replaces the rule of law and legitimate authority in domain of the Prerogative State. In Nazi Germany, the object of Frankel’s analysis, Der Führer was the source of the state’s prerogative powers. In the United States today the state’s prerogative power originated in the President construed as Commander in Chief and the source of authority for the massive security-surveillance apparatus which now exists in the United States. It is this apparatus which operates beyond the reaches of the Normative State, a claim supported by Fazaga v. FBI. In his principal Fazaga ruling, a Federal Judge, Cormac J. Carney, ruled in favor of the Federal Bureau of Investigation:
In his ruling Judge Carney recognized the separate and superior domain of the Prerogative State. It is, by definition, a legal space which lacks rule of law safeguards, as the victims of the FBI in Southern California can claim based on their experiences.
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Filed under Commentary Tagged with Coercion, Commander in Chief, Cormac J. Carney, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Force, Free Speech, Freedom of Religion, Lawlessness, Muslim, Normative State, Privacy Rights, Rule by Law, Rule of Law, Security-Surveillance State, State secrets privilege, Survaillance Everywhere, United States, War on Terror