Call It "Terrorism"

[WilliamPitt]

Call It "Terrorism"
The shooting in Colorado was, undeniably, an act of terror. We in the media should not describe it by another name

By David Sirota
Salon

Friday July 20 2012

(snip)

For all the legitimate questions that will be asked in the coming days (Why are there so many mass shootings in America? Why is it so easy to buy weapons-grade tear gas canisters? How much is this related to the availability of guns?); for all the insulting media coverage that will try to ramrod the dead Fargo-style into the woodchipper of the presidential campaign (New York Times headline: “In Wake of Colorado Shooting, a Concern Over the Proriety of Campaigning”); and for all the demagogues who will use this tragedy for their own gain (pro-gun GOP Rep. Loui Gohmert is today blaming the shooting victims for not being armed) – there is only one harrowing conclusion we can come to for certain immediately after such a heinous act: terrorism has no specific nationality, geography, race or creed.

Not surprisingly, police and reporters have been quick to tell us the opposite — that the suspected shooter was likely just a “lone wolf” and that “this act does not appear to be linked to radical terrorism or anything related to Islamic terrorism,” as ABC News put it. This newspeak is supposed to reassure us that this is anything but terrorism — that terrorism is something that happens only in far away places or huge cosmopolitan cities, not in an Anytown, USA in the American heartland; that terrorism never comes at the hands of a “24-year-old white American male” named “James Holmes,” it only comes at the hands of dark-skinned “evildoers” with hard-to-pronounce names; that terrorism only comes from calculating operatives who represent organized political interests, not from “crazy” individuals who calculatedly act on their own ideology or psychopathy. In this, we are expected to be sedated by such reassurances, to ignore the ever-growing list of such “lone wolves”, and to reject a much wider definition of terrorism, no matter how much the reality of shooting after shooting after shooting screams at us to accept it.

But with bodies strewn across an Aurora movie theater and a nation clearly terrorized, we must ask: what is terrorism, if it is not a man in a riot mask and bullet-proof vest, armed with tear gas canisters and weapons, meticulously executing a military-style assault on a crowded movie theater?

Confronting that question, of course, is mind-bending and painful — in the age of “War on Terror” agitprop that purposely defines terrorism in one specific, narrow and politically convenient way, it’s akin to the cognitive difficulty of pondering the size of the universe … or, perhaps, death itself. It takes us out of our comfort zone and forces us to consider the causes of all kinds of extremism and violence — not just the foreign Islamic kind that we so flippantly write off as alien. Indeed, at a time when so many bloodlusting Americans cheer on our government proudly assassinating the imams who allegedly inspire Muslim terrorism, a shooting like this (if, indeed, it had nothing to do with Islamic extremism) begs us to wonder why we don’t feel similarly bellicose or enraged at the inspirations fueling so many other forms of terrorism — whatever those inspirations may be.

The rest: http://www.salon.com/2012/07/20/call_it_terrorism/

[onehandle]

1. Anyone is one gun from being a terrorist. nt

[hlthe2b]

2. I cringed when I heard everyone echo Federal LE saying it was "not an act of terrorism"

Why in the hell have they not taught their own to say "it is not an act of INTERNATIONAL terrorism" (or there is no evidence, or whatever qualifiers they wish to put on it)...

But why have we allowed the word terrorism to be redefined so narrowly so as to eliminate domestic acts. It pisses me as much as Sirota, apparently.

[Indydem]

3. Please explain to me.

"The deliberate commission of an act of violence to create an emotional response through the suffering of the victims in the furtherance of a political or social agenda."

What is this shooters political or social agenda? Did he leave a manifesto?

Terrorism is terrorism. Random acts of violence are random acts of violence.

[Hutzpa]

4. How would you define a random act of violence? nt.

[Lint Head]

5. You are so right. The GOP hijacked the word terrorism just like they have hijacked the word liberal.

Terrorism is an act not a political belief or some foreign army. A rapist can commit terror. Robbers can commit terror. Terror is an emotion that can be used by anyone committing a crime. Bush and Cheney tried to terrify the nation with fear because fear can control people.

[Marrah_G]

6. We don't know enough of what was behind the act to call it terrorism

Not all mass murderers are terrorists.

[4th law of robotics]

7. I don't think he had any political motive

this was a random act of violence. Not a campaign to force people to do X.

If we use terrorism to describe any act of violence it loses its meaning.

[justiceischeap]

8. I don't care how the FBI, Gov or Merriam's Webster defines it

if I'm feeling terror from an act, it's terrorism, full-stop.

If I am now afraid to go to a movie theater because I'm afraid I'm going to be shot, that's terrorism whether there is a political or social objective, the mass of citizens is still terrorized.

[11 Bravo]

9. Nah, it's only terrorism if you're a Muslim, or you put Bachmann's panties in a wad.

[cali]

10. nope, sorry. I'm calling it classic paranoid schizophrenia.

and if Sirota has a clue about that condition, he'd understand that Terrorism doesn't fit in those cases.

[morningfog]

11. NO! Call terrorist attacks crimes. Not the other way.

Terrorism is dealt with through war and deprivation of rights.